seems plausible that Taliban took over waaaay faster than they thought and they sent in some troops to keep Kabul long enough to get some people/things out
the Taliban have moved WAY faster than anybody expected, but it's always been known the army and police are absolutely shit and were going to lose to the much better Taliban forces
oh yeah it's been wild. I doubt even the Taliban commanders expected this. the army has just melted away entirely, barely even fought at all, with city after city falling within the same day some times. it makes the fall of south vietnam look like ww1 trench warfare
Yeah, there was actual fighting to defend South Vietnam, this is just the Taliban taking over provinces for some bribery or promise of future political clout....
there has been some small scale fighting, but yeah most of it has been bribes and the Afghan forces just running the fuck away. you think they would fight harder considering what is obviously coming to the collaborators, at least maybe get some motivation to save their skin. but eh, can't say I'd be a hero and stand and fight in that situation myself with those odds
Also from what I've heard America's strategy in Afghanistan was to train a small collection of highly skilled psychopathic "operators". The Hell of a Way to Die guy said this had been the case for a while, that they were using mostly these operator dudes, and it made building any sort of local relationships impossible as they are essentially terror squads. I imagine that these sort of compact units are great if you want to assassinate a few people, but awful at stopping an advancing army.
like you say, you lose the heart and minds war with this kind of shit, and then the civilian population all go over to the opposition who are fighting the invaders backing these mass murdering death squads. what's hilarious and pathetic is ofc.... this same shit happened in Vietnam 50 years ago. they lost the same war the same way, twice
seems plausible that Taliban took over waaaay faster than they thought and they sent in some troops to keep Kabul long enough to get some people/things out
the Taliban have moved WAY faster than anybody expected, but it's always been known the army and police are absolutely shit and were going to lose to the much better Taliban forces
sure, just saying things moved faster than their worst estimates
oh yeah it's been wild. I doubt even the Taliban commanders expected this. the army has just melted away entirely, barely even fought at all, with city after city falling within the same day some times. it makes the fall of south vietnam look like ww1 trench warfare
Yeah, there was actual fighting to defend South Vietnam, this is just the Taliban taking over provinces for some bribery or promise of future political clout....
there has been some small scale fighting, but yeah most of it has been bribes and the Afghan forces just running the fuck away. you think they would fight harder considering what is obviously coming to the collaborators, at least maybe get some motivation to save their skin. but eh, can't say I'd be a hero and stand and fight in that situation myself with those odds
Also from what I've heard America's strategy in Afghanistan was to train a small collection of highly skilled psychopathic "operators". The Hell of a Way to Die guy said this had been the case for a while, that they were using mostly these operator dudes, and it made building any sort of local relationships impossible as they are essentially terror squads. I imagine that these sort of compact units are great if you want to assassinate a few people, but awful at stopping an advancing army.
like you say, you lose the heart and minds war with this kind of shit, and then the civilian population all go over to the opposition who are fighting the invaders backing these mass murdering death squads. what's hilarious and pathetic is ofc.... this same shit happened in Vietnam 50 years ago. they lost the same war the same way, twice
HOAWTD is a really good podcast too