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Kosh's Shadow
8/22/2021 9:49:23 AM
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3
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Some interesting questions about the disaster in Afghanistan So what is really going on? How did the Taliban transition from fighting against NATO forces to coordinating with them? How did the Taliban go from fighting against the US to coordinating to keep people out of the airport and keep the peace so that the US can process the thousands trying to get on flights out of the country?
IT IS KNOWN that the US had a deal with the Taliban brokered in Qatar’s capital, Doha. It is also known that NATO member Turkey, which has been hosting extremists, has been keen to work with the Taliban. What is unclear is whether some governments were quietly backing the militant Islamist group as it prepared to take over the country in the last year. How deep was the betrayal of the Afghans? Is it true that the US pulling contractors from Afghanistan led to this collapse?
“The United States provided all the air support for the Afghans,” he said. “They didn’t just take their own planes away. They took away 16,000 civilian contractors who were maintaining the Afghan helicopters.”
But one might ask why Afghanistan hadn’t trained any of its own contractors to repair helicopters for over two decades. Interviews with one former US soldier painted a picture of an Afghanistan that was primarily a place for the US to dump American taxpayer money and move that money into the hands of contractors, consultants and other firms, often run by former officials who turned to the private market. |
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Occasional Reader
8/22/2021 12:20:20 PM
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4
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Reply to Kosh's Shadow in 3:
The article raises legitimate questions, but is thin and speculative in answering them. Lots of “could it be that…” type stuff.
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Kosh's Shadow
8/22/2021 12:21:05 PM
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5
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In #4 Occasional Reader said: The article raises legitimate questions, but is thin and speculative in answering them. Lots of “could it be that…” type stuff. Yes. I posted it for the questions it raises.
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Kosh's Shadow
8/22/2021 2:25:53 PM
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9
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In #8 buzzsawmonkey said: At Insty: Did America lose Afghanistan because of WhatsApp?
I'd be interested to hear what the computer-savvy among us think of this. Wouldn't have made a difference had the US not let the Taliban take over.
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Kosh's Shadow
8/22/2021 2:35:18 PM
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10
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JCM, Monday's breakfast does not show up
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Kosh's Shadow
8/22/2021 2:45:00 PM
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11
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To the US government, Afghanistan is ichkannichtverstan
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buzzsawmonkey
8/22/2021 2:59:02 PM
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12
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In #9 Kosh's Shadow said: Wouldn't have made a difference had the US not let the Taliban take over.
The point of the article, as I understood it, was that WhatsApp helped the Taliban take over, as it allowed them a) to communicate with each other more readily, and b) more importantly, allowed them to blowfish---to puff themselves up in a manner convincing to the Afghans---in such a way that the Afghans regarded them as having taken over, which in turn made their takeover possible. The corollary was that there appeared to be no effort to block the Taliban from using an app that they could have been locked out of. Am I getting this wrong?
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JCM
8/22/2021 3:31:01 PM
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13
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Reply to Kosh's Shadow in 10: Check now.
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Kosh's Shadow
8/22/2021 4:15:23 PM
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14
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Reply to JCM in 13: Fixed. Thanks.
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Kosh's Shadow
8/22/2021 4:52:21 PM
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15
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In #12 buzzsawmonkey said: The corollary was that there appeared to be no effort to block the Taliban from using an app that they could have been locked out of. Somebody should have told the Taliban that WhatsApp, while it is iirc owned by Farcebook, was developed in Israel. Blocking it might have slowed things a bit, but Farcebook would never do that. Block Trump supporters, yes.
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