Those who left and those who could not flee speak of a country in ruins and decry the world’s apathy towards the humanitarian crisis and the lack of rights, mainly for women, which a UN report describes as ‘gender apartheid’
I saw videos at the time where some random Taliban guy would drive into a town on a moped with an AK. They would surrender millions of dollars of military equipment to him without even an argument. Sometimes there were two guys sharing the moped and the gun was on one guy’s back not even out.
Well, that sounds like propaganda videos where they had already surrendered and the taliban wanted to make it seem like all it would take was one person to make people volunteer…
But, you’re also talking about all the equipment that was expensive but neither side had the knowledge or equipment to maintain, right?
Might have been propaganda, most things are these days.
Do you have more info about what happened then? There definitely wasn’t much fighting so I was assuming the majority must have surrendered without a fight.
I never saw videos of fighting just people surrendering or fleeing. Army friends who were in Afghanistan recently said they just gave up. Would love to know if they did put any defense up.
Yeah, Afghanistan isn’t a normal country. It’s a loose collection of tribes that have been pitted against each other for centuries. There’s no unity, they’ve never really had a federal government just other countries that used militaries to try and force compliance from all the tribal leaders.
So when America left with like 2 weeks notice, everyone just went back to their tribes. The “Afghan Army” had better equipment, but it was equipment they just couldn’t maintain. After a couple weeks of fighting it would have all broken down and they’d have ran out of ammo. Meanwhile the Taliban had supply lines and decades of experience fighting with their equipment.
The Taliban is just a coalition of the most extreme tribes. One that was trained in gurellia warfare by America and is actually united in their religious extremism.
Biden extended the date to by August 31st but it fell to the Taliban ~ August 6th-15th.
Biden blames it on the Afghan Army not fighting and President fleeing the country. He is probably deflecting but I am not seeing anything about the Taliban having any major military victories or strategy besides showing up and announcing themselves.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they had eventually won with their experience like you said but it doesn’t appear that they needed to fight.
Yup. One of the first things we did in the invasion of Afghanistan was ally with the northern tribes. The Taliban mainly represent one ethnic group and constantly engaged in ethnic cleansing of Shia, other tribes, and various minorities.
They have had millennia of engaging in guerilla warfare, you could probably go back to the days of Alexander the Great.
I saw videos at the time where some random Taliban guy would drive into a town on a moped with an AK. They would surrender millions of dollars of military equipment to him without even an argument. Sometimes there were two guys sharing the moped and the gun was on one guy’s back not even out.
Well, that sounds like propaganda videos where they had already surrendered and the taliban wanted to make it seem like all it would take was one person to make people volunteer…
But, you’re also talking about all the equipment that was expensive but neither side had the knowledge or equipment to maintain, right?
Might have been propaganda, most things are these days.
Do you have more info about what happened then? There definitely wasn’t much fighting so I was assuming the majority must have surrendered without a fight.
I never saw videos of fighting just people surrendering or fleeing. Army friends who were in Afghanistan recently said they just gave up. Would love to know if they did put any defense up.
About why the Taliban took over so quickly?
Yeah, Afghanistan isn’t a normal country. It’s a loose collection of tribes that have been pitted against each other for centuries. There’s no unity, they’ve never really had a federal government just other countries that used militaries to try and force compliance from all the tribal leaders.
So when America left with like 2 weeks notice, everyone just went back to their tribes. The “Afghan Army” had better equipment, but it was equipment they just couldn’t maintain. After a couple weeks of fighting it would have all broken down and they’d have ran out of ammo. Meanwhile the Taliban had supply lines and decades of experience fighting with their equipment.
The Taliban is just a coalition of the most extreme tribes. One that was trained in gurellia warfare by America and is actually united in their religious extremism.
Trump signed an agreement with the Taliban on February 29th, 2020 to withdraw by May 1st 2021. Most troops were withdrawn.
https://www.factcheck.org/2021/08/timeline-of-u-s-withdrawal-from-afghanistan/
Biden extended the date to by August 31st but it fell to the Taliban ~ August 6th-15th.
Biden blames it on the Afghan Army not fighting and President fleeing the country. He is probably deflecting but I am not seeing anything about the Taliban having any major military victories or strategy besides showing up and announcing themselves.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they had eventually won with their experience like you said but it doesn’t appear that they needed to fight.
Edit:
On second thought, there’s no point in replying anymore.
Yup. One of the first things we did in the invasion of Afghanistan was ally with the northern tribes. The Taliban mainly represent one ethnic group and constantly engaged in ethnic cleansing of Shia, other tribes, and various minorities.
They have had millennia of engaging in guerilla warfare, you could probably go back to the days of Alexander the Great.