Afghans Scramble To Delete Digital History, Evade Biometrics (reuters.com) 203
Thousands of Afghans struggling to ensure the physical safety of their families after the Taliban took control of the country have an additional worry: that biometric databases and their own digital history can be used to track and target them. From a report: U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned of "chilling" curbs on human rights and violations against women and girls, and Amnesty International on Monday said thousands of Afghans - including academics, journalists and activists - were "at serious risk of Taliban reprisals." After years of a push to digitise databases in the country, and introduce digital identity cards and biometrics for voting, activists warn these technologies can be used to target and attack vulnerable groups. "We understand that the Taliban is now likely to have access to various biometric databases and equipment in Afghanistan," the Human Rights First group wrote on Twitter on Monday.
"This technology is likely to include access to a database with fingerprints and iris scans, and include facial recognition technology," the group added. The U.S.-based advocacy group quickly published a Farsi-language version of its guide on how to delete digital history - that it had produced last year for activists in Hong Kong - and also put together a manual on how to evade biometrics. Tips to bypass facial recognition include looking down, wearing things to obscure facial features, or applying many layers of makeup, the guide said, although fingerprint and iris scans were difficult to bypass.
"This technology is likely to include access to a database with fingerprints and iris scans, and include facial recognition technology," the group added. The U.S.-based advocacy group quickly published a Farsi-language version of its guide on how to delete digital history - that it had produced last year for activists in Hong Kong - and also put together a manual on how to evade biometrics. Tips to bypass facial recognition include looking down, wearing things to obscure facial features, or applying many layers of makeup, the guide said, although fingerprint and iris scans were difficult to bypass.
Human rights violations? (Score:2, Insightful)
Tech is the least of their problems now (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd say the risk of getting tracked down based on files at work is low relative to the risk of getting beaten or shot for showing your hair or having an insufficiently scruffy beard on your face at this point.
Perspective is important.
I'll also note that the Taliban were going around confiscating weapons in the places they conquered.
Easier to shoot the populace for having insufficiently scruffy beards when you're confident they won't shoot back.
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Perspective is important.
Indeed it is. And the perspective has shown that the Taliban are not going around killing people for not having a beard or showing your hair. They didn't walk into Kabul and mass murder the population (a population largely showing hair and many without beards)
Get some perspective.
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And cameras are a lot more available.
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having an insufficiently scruffy beard
Monty Python already brought you the solution to that problem [youtube.com] some decades ago
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It's like the game where if you say 'yes' or 'no' you must get stoned.
Re:Tech is the least of their problems now (Score:5, Insightful)
When the Netherlands were invaded by Nazi Germany in 1940, they already had a very thorough registry of their population, including biometrics (fingerprints) and religious affiliation. This lead to a much bigger proportion of Dutch jews being murdered than jews in other occupied countries. So no, tech is not the least of the Afghani people's problems. The Taliban may be mostly illiterate brutes, but people in power always find morally corrupt people to do their bidding.
If they were confiscating guns (Score:2)
Re: If they were confiscating guns (Score:4, Insightful)
Mass gun ownership is a conspicuous backstop against tyranny. It is not the foundation of democracy.
Believing it is is a misapprehension and asserting that all us supposed armchair rambos believe it is synonymous with democracy is either a misapprehension or a deliberate smear.
Let's just recognize that concentrations of power (and ownership of weapons is power) are generally more dangerous to freedom than diffuse power...and move on.
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No, I think most believe voting is a right of a living US Citizen, and showing ID to verify you are one is not asking for the world.
Hell, you have to show more ID to get on a freaking airplane these days.
So Mr. Homonym.... we meet again, I see. (Score:2)
The headline and summary reads very differently if you are starting out with the assuming that it was for some reason or another talking about rugs.
It obviously doesn't take terribly long to figure out what is actually meant here, but holy shit, I think my brain did a quadruple-take.
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I have an Afghan friend whose Afghan likes to lay on his afghan.
So just like any ruling party? (Score:2)
The problem with data collection (Score:5, Insightful)
"Why are you so concerned about privacy? If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide.
May anyone who's ever sincerely uttered a phrase like this please hang their head in shame.
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"Why are you so concerned about privacy? If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide.
May anyone who's ever sincerely uttered a phrase like this please hang their head in shame.
This. I'd ask you not to post as AC since it leaves your post hidden, but then maybe you shouldn't have to identify yourself?
This is why one should not vomit one's life online (Score:5, Insightful)
This is exactly why one shouldn't vomit their whole life online. Do we need to see your pictures of you and your buds drinking away before class / work / flight? NO.
Do we need to see your pictures showing off your latest material acquisition? no. More intel for crooks or the enemy.
The less one brags, the less ostentatious one is, the more invisible one is to enemies, criminals, and unfriendly tyrannical governments. And these days invisible is good.
If you wouldn't say it to a cop, robber or helpful Government Official, or your boss or spouse / SO, then don't put it online.
Re:This is why one should not vomit one's life onl (Score:5, Insightful)
If you wouldn't say it to a cop, robber or helpful Government Official, or your boss or spouse / SO, then don't put it online.
No, sorry, this is highly misleading (true, but misleading). These are not Facebook posts they are talking about!
Quote from TFA:
After years of a push to digitise databases in the country, and introduce digital identity cards and biometrics for voting, activists warn these technologies can be used to target and attack vulnerable groups.
After establishing MANDATORY databases, people are surprised that the data can and will be misused. And being mandatory for some important purpose (e.g., voting, government employment), people HAVE to be in this database.
Re:This is why one should not vomit one's life onl (Score:4, Insightful)
After establishing MANDATORY databases, people are surprised that the data can and will be misused. And being mandatory for some important purpose (e.g., voting, government employment), people HAVE to be in this database.
Some of us have looked askance as such things here in the US. But, a lot of naive wide-eyed people still think MANDATORY is a good thing. Usually it isn't.
Maybe this will wake up people to consider not giving in to the Gov'ts desires. They work for US. Or used to, or are supposed to, anyway.
In Afghanistan it's different. Taliban took it by force, so everyone works for them. They will force their will on those unable / unwilling to fight.. and will use that nice comprehensive govt'd database to do it.
Remember Red Dawn, the OG one from the 80's? In that imagined scenario, one first things the invading army did was go find the sporting good stores, pull their FFL books, and start collecting guns from all those law-abiding citizens who had troubled themselves to legally obtain their iron.
Except in Afghanistan, they're just collecting the guns now. No need to look in the dealer's books, I'm relatively certain there is no such thing over there.
I get your point. Question is, will all the wide-eyed idealists here get it too?
If Taliban is capable of utilizing biometrics (Score:3)
Then we have not been told the whole story. Not about them being enlightened human rights lovers, but "a bunch of guys on camels with AK-47s" doesn't add up either. We might be stuck with them being the only government of Afghanistan capable of basic self preservation, even with foreign support. People we installed didn't manage to even form an organized government in exile like occupied countries during WWII, let alone put up some resistance.
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People you installed ran an organised government for 2 election cycles. The problem was corruption. Corruption led to the government's breakdown in the form of distrust. Corruption led to the army not giving a shit about a government not paying them (why right for those who don't support you).
America is in no real position to criticise the breakdown in Afghanistan right now.
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Northern Alliance (Score:5, Informative)
The northern alliance is regrouping in the Panjshir valley. The least we could do is offer them some support and publicity. Currently being ignored by media and politicians who could assist them.
https://twitter.com/hajinoorul... [twitter.com]
https://twitter.com/bbcyaldaha... [twitter.com]
Ex Afghan national army are being invited to get to the Panjshir valley if they can. Unfortunately the Panjshir valley is landlocked and surrounded so it is challenging to get there.
https://www.hindustantimes.com... [hindustantimes.com]
https://www.theweek.in/news/wo... [theweek.in]
Re: Northern Alliance (Score:2)
Why support them? Out of guilt? If India wants to fight a proxy war they can have at it, the US has no strategic interest. Supporting them will only cause blowback and bloodshed.
individual rights vs the collective (Score:5, Insightful)
there are many on this forum (and elsewhere) that advocate strong gov't intervention on things like covid-based mandates, social issues, personal health, etc... all with some accompanying "it's for the greater good" rationalization to justify the removal of self-determination and free-will of individuals
but I would proffer that maintaining the primacy of individual rights also serves a greater good that supercedes all others; it's not perfect, there will always be some that make what would appear to be bad decisions, but that's going to be true regardless
don't get me wrong, gov't is definitely the best place to handle certain things, but to over-empower it because we don't embrace personal responsibility or need some sort of authoritarian oversight is anathema to the American ideal; for the last few generations we've come to believe that life's problems are in the gov't purview and it does nothing but create corruption, dependency and weakness
we can see countless examples of authoritarian gov't atrocities and abuse of power but there are still folks that think a large, overreaching, opaque gov't with no accountability is the way to go; I just don't get it... the idea that some distant, disinterested 3rd party would know what's best for me -- even better than I would -- does nothing but reduce me to a child/ward whose main reason for living is to be yoked by others
Afghanistan is lost, but we can at least learn from their misfortune of living in a regime in which individual rights mean nothing; only power concentrated in the hands of a few, flown under the flag of "God's will", matters there
only in those places where the concept of individual rights and freedoms have a reasonable foothold do the common folk have a chance to prosper and thrive; no guarantees nor promises of it being a perfect system and there is certainly room for improvement, but we've yet to make a better paradigm
generally speaking, most folks don't have a problem with one group controlling others, they just want to be sure that they're in the group with the power; I say let's move that power back to individuals and minimize the power of the collective/groups where possible; it does have its uses but let's use it sparingly
But what about the elephant in the room? (Score:2)
The elephant in the room is either the Taliban acquired credentials to the biometric database, or worse: it wasn't encrypted and password protected in the first place.
Bean-counters (Score:2)
They wanted to eradicate the usual way people operate in these countries, where officers often 'hire' non-existing soldiers, policemen, guards and cash their pay themselves.
Well, it backfired big time.
Wrong plan from day 1 (Score:2)
Democracy needs to grow from institutions from within. Trying to shove a bunch of people from an undemocratic culture just ends up creating a bunch of really corrupt, fragile, and unpopular institutions.
Instead, the US and allies should have committed to 5-10 years of more or less direct rule. Show the Afghans what a stable functional state looks like. At the same time start with elections for town councils, then mayoral elections, then provincial, and finally federal. At each time the local Afghan politici
Also available in English (Useful in US too?) (Score:3)
[Human Rights First] quickly published a Farsi-language version of its guide on how to delete digital history - that it had produced last year for activists in Hong Kong - and also put together a manual on how to evade biometrics.
Their websiite also has a (US) English version. Here's the index page [humanrightsfirst.org] with links to versions of both papers in all three languages.
Given several political situations in the US I expect this to come in useful here, as well.
Re: Ah, that wacky Joe. (Score:5, Insightful)
While I agree with Joe in the overall sentiment that we've been there for far too long, and that the Afghan people need to be willing to fight for their own freedom (which they obviously weren't) I am curious how we're supposed to prevent Afghanistan from becoming another terrorist hotbed after it's controlled by a regime that actively encourages islamofacism.
Re: Ah, that wacky Joe. (Score:5, Interesting)
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You withdraw and leave the enemy a bunch of high tech weaponry
Umm... yes? That's how it went in Vietnam and Iran (ok, granted, there our puppet dictator fled instead of US troops, but hey, same shit), why change what we know works so well?
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You withdraw and leave the enemy a bunch of high tech weaponry
Umm... yes? That's how it went in Vietnam and Iran (ok, granted, there our puppet dictator fled instead of US troops, but hey, same shit), why change what we know works so well?
Yup, and one would have thought the US would have learned the first time not to do that but NOO... Then there's that famous axiom about land wars in Asia. What amuses me the most is how quickly the US right wing has forgotten who started the Afghan debacle in the first place.
Re: Ah, that wacky Joe. (Score:5, Insightful)
The nation we were supposed to be building was built poorly. We never gave them the economic resources to establish themselves. People are saying the Afghanis didn't defend their own country, which is BS. They are still there fighting in small pockets. The Vice President is surrounded with other fighters and government personnel. The Army had no fuel, no bullets, no salaries paid in 6 months, and the bosses (the US trainers and instructors) just literally drove off to fly home. No economy was ever established there. No businesses started in 20 years.
No factories, no food production, no proper education system with western educators... in 20 years, you could educated a whole generation of young adults who'd never have known islamo-fanatacism. All for what? 2500 soldiers on the ground without a combat death since Feb of 2020? More terrorism will come from Afghanistan in the next 10 years and kill more innocent civilians in the west, cost more in destruction, and lead us into an even more costly war (again) than it would have cost us in the next 10 years to sustain our current presence, both in dollars and lives. Exiting Afghanistan is great sound bite, but doesn't make sense when looked at from a technically analytical point of view. It sounds good to say "bring the troops home". It sounds great to say "End the war". That is not what we did. We declared a retreat to an enemy we had all but defeated. All for political expediency (which itself failed, just look at Biden's latest polls). He botched this up, really badly.
All this is to say nothing of the morality of having abandoned our citizens, Afghani supporters, millions of innocent civilians, and allies to gruesome pain and suffering. We should not have left. It will prove to have been an all around bad decision.
Re: Ah, that wacky Joe. (Score:5, Insightful)
...no proper education system with western educators... in 20 years, you could educated a whole generation of young adults who'd never have known islamo-fanatacism.
Oh bullshit. US troops built tons of schools. The locals pulled them down or burned them. They didn't just refuse to use them, they destroyed them. Repeatedly. Why? Western educators. Western educators insisted on educating Afghan women. That one policy doomed US efforts in Afghanistan. The US tried to force a fundamental change in Afghan culture that they were not ready for. It was stupid. It was foolish. It was hubris of the highest order (along with the entire nation-building fantasy). And it hardly mattered anyway, because I call bullshit twice on the same sentence.
"Islamo-facism" as you ridiculously call it is learned at home. Humans always learn their religion at home, and Afghans would damn well teach their children Islam, even if Western educators had catered to their prejudices and only accepted boys into their shiny new schools. Learning some Enlightenment ideals alongside it as children would have tempered the teachings of Islam (it does in America), but they were still going to learn Islam, practice Islam, believe Islam. Maybe after three generations things would actually shift, but no one outside of China has a 60 year plan for a country.
More terrorism will come from Afghanistan in the next 10 years and kill more innocent civilians in the west, cost more in destruction, and lead us into an even more costly war (again) than it would have cost us in the next 10 years to sustain our current presence, both in dollars and lives.
Only if the US is saddled with yet another Boomer administration still trying to redeem the loss in Vietnam, and now doubly trying to redeem the perceived loss in Afghanistan, and once again suffering from ridiculous political hubris. You can't fix everything. Stop trying. Get better human intelligence sources, fight a dirty little war in the dark using the CIA, the kind the CIA likes, and if something slips, take reprisals and walk away. Don't start a war. Just bomb some shit. You're good at that. Treat it like Libya and you'll be fine.
It sounds great to say "End the war". That is not what we did. We declared a retreat to an enemy we had all but defeated.
Bullshit a third time. Special bullshit bonus round. An enemy that can take over an entire country in 10 days is not "all but defeated". This is your big lie, buried in what may be merely erroneous opinion and poor understanding, but this... this is rhetorical framing to push a narrative and it's impossible that you don't realize it's not true, so you're lying. The Taliban was not even remotely "defeated" and US intelligence knew it, US service members knew it, and US news businesses knew it. They just refused to talk about it, because admitting it meant admitting failure that had already happened, before US troops ever started packing to leave. Hubris and pride and a big lie. You need to walk away from the lie just as much as you needed to walk away from Afghanistan.
All this is to say nothing of the morality of having abandoned our citizens, Afghani supporters, millions of innocent civilians, and allies to gruesome pain and suffering.
US citizens were not abandoned. They were and are being evacuated. Flights continue today. Innocent civilians? They'll be fine. They like the Taliban. They produce the Taliban. They're father, brothers, uncles, cousins, mothers, sisters, aunts, and wives of Taliban. Afghanistan will revert to the ground state of every other Islamic theocracy, and the US staying another 10 years was not going to change that. The way the US was pursuing their occupation, another century was not going to change that. Islam is really persistent.
And in the end, it's not your problem. They w
Re: Ah, that wacky Joe. (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately for everyone on this thread, what happens in Afghanistan will come back to haunt Europe and the US down the road. It will. It just will. The Taliban will host and foster terrorists. They have way more experience now with our weapons and our techniques, and they have a bunch of it sitting around. There was one truck shown driving off with 4x $2m drones in cases.
Quite likely.
All for what? 2500 soldiers on the ground without a combat death since Feb of 2020?
Because they had a peace deal contingent on the withdraw. That can hardly be used as a model for what would have happened with a continued presence.
More terrorism will come from Afghanistan in the next 10 years and kill more innocent civilians in the west, cost more in destruction, and lead us into an even more costly war (again) than it would have cost us in the next 10 years to sustain our current presence, both in dollars and lives. Exiting Afghanistan is great sound bite, but doesn't make sense when looked at from a technically analytical point of view. It sounds good to say "bring the troops home". It sounds great to say "End the war". That is not what we did. We declared a retreat to an enemy we had all but defeated. All for political expediency (which itself failed, just look at Biden's latest polls). He botched this up, really badly.
All this is to say nothing of the morality of having abandoned our citizens, Afghani supporters, millions of innocent civilians, and allies to gruesome pain and suffering. We should not have left. It will prove to have been an all around bad decision.
More terrorism may have come from leaving 10 years later. The Taliban was nowhere near defeated, the speed of the fall should really emphasize how badly the US failed in nation-building.
I really only have two big criticisms of the withdraw.
The first one is on Trump, the Afghan government was essentially left out of the peace negotiations. That delegitimized the Afghan government and signalled that the US was handing the country over to the Taliban. That's a big factor that made their takeover so easy.
The second is on Biden, not doing enough to get the locals who helped the US out of the country and to safety.
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People are saying the Afghanis didn't defend their own country, which is BS. ... The Army had no fuel, no bullets, no salaries paid in 6 months, and the bosses (the US trainers and instructors) just literally drove off to fly home.
Which is it? Either it's not BS that they didn't defend their country, or they had the resources. It can't be both.
The reality is one led to the other. It wasn't bullshit at all. Lack of pay, lack of resources, corruption at high levels, all this combined caused the army (over 10x the size of the "invading" force) to not give a single fuck. Over the last few weeks major cities were taken with very little bloodshed.
That simply is not possible if an army 10x the size of the Taliban were actually putting any e
Re: Ah, that wacky Joe. (Score:4, Insightful)
No, Trump wanted to withdraw by an agreed upon date. You know what's cool about having an agreed upon date months in advance? You can remove or destroy in place any sensitive weaponry and equipment in the months beforehand and get any people in danger out well before the date in question.
We remember Carter; you have forgotten (Score:5, Informative)
> how quickly the US right wing has forgotten who started the Afghan debacle in the first place.
I think most of us probably remember Jimmy Carter. You may be the one who has forgotten. The US has had their people in Afghanistan, trying to support or overthrow a government, since Carter ordered Agnew to do so.
Operation Cyclone was the largest, most expensive, and longest-running CIA operation in history.
Before the US got involved, the British and Russians created Afghanistan. That's really what started the problem because the different peoples who live in the different regions don't like each other and don't WANT to be a country together.
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Err....Agnew was VP with Nixon and he was ousted before Nixon was....?
Or was there another one?
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That should not say Agnew. I should proofread.
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Err....Agnew was VP with Nixon and he was ousted before Nixon was....?
Or was there another one?
That pesky Carter/Agnew administration!
Agnew went on tour with a couple astronauts, that's about it.
Carter and the CIA provided arms to the Afghanis when they were fighting the Soviet Union. Our buddy is mixing up administrations, and Carter was involved in the usual proxy wars we've been involved in over the years.
Here's a pretty concise history of relations between the two countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]–United_States_relations.
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the different peoples who live in the different regions don't like each other and don't WANT to be a country together.
They've had a bunch of years with no foreign occupation and didn't split into two countries, so there's something that keeps them together. Oh yes, they hate westerners even more, I think that was it.
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They've had no years without foreign interference, without foreign super powers propping up the regime in power.
Since 1973 they've had four for five coups.
Re:We remember Carter; you have forgotten (Score:5, Informative)
There is also Ronald Reagan, e.g. his meeting with the "Islamic Union of Mujahideen" [youtube.com]. Whether it is
It was all framed into fighting communism and opposing the USSR anywhere and everywhere. So the Mujahideen were labeled "resistance" and "freedom fighters".
After the USSR withdrew (~ 1990), everyone in the West lost interest in Afghanistan, and that lead to a civil war where those Mujahideen were fighting each other. That led to the rise of the Taliban among people in refugee camps who were fed up with the infighting. Pakistan provided arms and money.
Meanwhile, one of the US allies, Osama Bin Laden leader of Al-Qaeda, were objecting to the use of foreign troops by Saudi Arabia after Saddam Hussein (another past US ally, from the war against Iran/Khomeini) invaded Kuwait in 1991. Bin Laden's citizenship was dropped by the Saudis and he fled first to Sudan then to Afghanistan.
By 2000 or so, the Taliban took over Afghanistan. Had it not been for Bin Laden being there when 9/11 hit, they would have been in power. They were deposed (though not eliminated) for 20 years.
Now we are back to where things were in 2000 or so.
And in a similar thread, with the US foreign policy myopia, and the general theme of rushing into invading a country without an actual plan of what to do next, what the end points would be and so on. Then leaving a mess behind that comes around to bite you badly. The Iraq invasion was totally unnecessary and opposed by most US allies. It created a power vacuum where Al-Qaeda metastasized and morphed into ISIS.
All this looks like similar things will happen again over the next decade or two.
What unfolds over the next several years will be surprising: it won't only be women's education and work, or harbouring terror groups. Expect neighbouring countries to pick factions and fight by proxy. That includes Iran, Tajikistan, Pakistan, as well as Turkey, and even China.
By the way, the guy next to Reagan in the above video is Zalmay Khalilzad, who went on to sign the US agreement with the Taliban in Feb 2020 [bbc.com], which is what led to where we are now.
Bonus reading: Federation of American Scientists brief on the above agreement [fas.org].
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The Afghanis ?
Heaven forbid "the left" lay the blame where it belongs.
It was Bush and his Republicans who went in and then decided they liked the place so much they wanted to stay. Show me any Republican who in recent years began to rage against the war in Afghanistan because Obama was president and the Republican base started to hate all of America's foreign crusades in general and I'll show you somebody who cheered the Afghan invasion on when it was launched ... Never ... fight ... a ... land ... war ... in ... Asia.
Re: Ah, that wacky Joe. (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazing how people get blind by their political or nationalistic ideas. As a external person lets tell you a story:
- USA "created" the talibans with Pakistan support, to fight against the local communist and the URRS.
They trained them for guerrilla war, gave then weapons and intel. CIA also got the money for the war by training taliban farmers to produce heroin.
- Talibans made the Soviet live hard and URSS decided it was not worth the trouble nor the money and lives and left... talibans controlled the country soon after. USA left them and they keep using what they learned to control everything in the region
- Years after, Al Qaeda join the taliban safe heaven (a failed islamic narcotraffic state) and attacked the USA
USA fight back, invaded and started a conventional war that won quickly...
- but then the taliban and Al Qaeda fallback to the guerilla war, with "pseudo-support" from Pakistan (not directly from the central government, but from the tribal leaders, very close or even the same as taliban), supported that war again by the heroin trade and made the USA army live hard.
- USA decided it was not worth the trouble nor the money and lives and left... talibans controlled the country soon after.
While Al Qaeda was mostly international people that stop going to Afghanistan and started to build local AlQaeda cell (or forked as even more radical ISIS years later), local taliban keep getting new blood either from local controlled regions, or unhappy common people, or Islamic people feelling that Islan was being attacked by unholy soldiers. So with money, with people and with a cause, USA could not win a guerilla war.
You can only win a guerilla war by making everyone life better and solving the base problems for the guerilla, so guerilla warriors have little reason to keep fighting. Winning a guerilla war by guns can only work if you really manage to kill everyone, as sooner or later people will grow up and keep fighting back. If all you have to lose is your life, you are a perfect target for a guerilla warrior. If your life is good, you have little reasons for getting yourself killed
USA also fail to understand that western democracy will not work in tribal and isolated areas (at least not without a long mind change) and even worse, putting corrupted leaders and narco traffic leaders in power will not work well, the country will not get better, only the leader lives will. The common men were still poor, unhappy and with a feeling of being invaded (some see them may see USA as saviors, but most don't or don't care), as USA mostly did not respect their traditions, did not help the country to rise from poverty (except kabul, as all soldiers and external people have money to spend) and every drone attack that killed civils, or torture news from USA prisons just help rise more warriors for talibans. Notice that when the USA had people in towns, there were less talibans, when it started to retreat (and focus in Iraq instead, rich in oil) and use drones (making the war "human-less") the taliban support rise (even if it was as simple as: there was taliban "marketing" and no USA presence advantages)
So now, lets see if the tribal union can be kept united or if it will fallback again to a several tribal/narco traffic wars and how affects surrounding countries.
So anyway, the fault for all this is really from the USA (specially the republicans, as they always think that guns will solve everything, but then don't understand why it is not working)
ps: By the way, in USA there is only right, even the democrats are right wing or worst case, central wing. Just compare with the rest of the world, what you see as "left" is FAR away from what is really left... and not even even including communism. But being blind by it is easy, as USA democratic system is broken for really only allowing 2 political forces
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I agree with that general sentiment as well. This withdraw was just like a really, really bad B-movie. You withdraw and leave the enemy a bunch of high tech weaponry?
We can't keep it from becoming another terrorist hotbed. That ship sailed a few days ago. So now the Taliban have taken over.
That ship sailed a year ago. The NATO troops and Afghani army had captured much of the Taliban leadership and many footsoldiers. The media are claiming that 5000 Taliban were released [businessinsider.com] but that was only the initial list. In fact far more, probably over 10,000 experienced Taliban were released back into the fight at that point. That's also the point when the Afghan army, which already had a terrible desertion rate [yahoo.com] really began to collapse.
Not, to be honest, that previous US administration would have had an
Re: Ah, that wacky Joe. (Score:2)
The US can use the fact that their intelligence and weapons technology and economy are infinitely more advanced.
The Taliban don't swallow the chicom bullshit of the US's fading power, they know how far they can push things and what the cost will be now. The US can reach out and touch people in the taliban at will and Trump taking out Soleimani shows them that trying to gain immunity through diplomacy doesn't work any more.
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So now the Taliban have taken over. China is licking its chops at the possibility of getting their hands on a huge treasure trove of natural resources and having direct land access to Iran in the process.
So the Greeks, the British, the Soviets and the USA all tried and failed to turn Afghanistan into their puppets...yeah...let's see how it will work for the Chinese.
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"You withdraw and leave the enemy a bunch of high tech weaponry?"
No "weaponry" was left behind. Your fever dreams are hilarious.
Are you honestly trying to claim that black hawk helicopters are not weapons? The Afghan army had a tonne of stuff. At the request of the Afghan president, the US soldiers turned over a bunch of equipment to the Afghan army as they were leaving. Not, maybe, the good stuff, but including things like armed drones.
Re: Ah, that wacky Joe. (Score:4, Insightful)
Turned over? I read that the Aghan commander of Baghram base woke up one morning and the americans were gone. There wasn't much of cleaning up or orderly transfer. It was also to be expected that the exit was going to be messy and the longer the delay the messier. A journalist(i think) reported in 2018 that they had to use helicopters between the Kabul airfield and the embassy because the 2 miles of straight road between them was too dangerous.
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Re: Ah, that wacky Joe. (Score:2)
Re: Ah, that wacky Joe. (Score:5, Insightful)
No "weaponry" was left behind. Your fever dreams are hilarious.
Congratulations! You win the internet for dumbest post of the day. Even though this is already modded -1, I wish I had mod points just so I could send another -1 your way. It's terrifying that people like you are allowed to vote.
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I am curious how we're supposed to prevent Afghanistan from becoming another terrorist hotbed after it's controlled by a regime that actively encourages islamofacism.
Back to square one, I guess. Do the best we can to monitor radical groups/individuals who intend to operate outside of Afghan borders and take them out with surgical strikes.
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the Afghan people need to be willing to fight for their own freedom (which they obviously weren't)
The Afghan military fought and died in much higher numbers than US military [apnews.com] while they had their backing. It's not fair to say they weren't willing to fight.
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Noting further that US based contractors where providing all the logistics and when the US withdrew they withdrew and the Afghan army lost all it's logistical support. Show me an army that can put up a fight with no logistical support.
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Re: Ah, that wacky Joe. (Score:5, Insightful)
Over the entire war you are correct. Over the past 4 months you couldn't be more wrong. There's a reason why the 30000 strong Taliban simply walked over the Afghan army over 10x it's size with very minimal blood shed. Over the past 2 years mass corruption within the army has lead to a complete lack of faith in the government.
Unpaid army members happily surrendered and handed over supplies to the Taliban. There's a reason why a tiny insignificant force essentially captured all the major cities in the country in just 3 days. The Afghan army refused to fight.
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Afghan people need to be willing to fight for their own freedom (which they obviously weren't)
Based on what I've been reading the problem is that people haven't fought because of internal corruption. Hard to convince a guy to fight for his country if his country is 10 paychecks behind.
At that point a change in government may not be seen as "bad" by the people being fucked by the current government.
This is not too different from the people who voted for Hitler and annexing their country to Germany.
Re: Ah, that wacky Joe. (Score:5, Interesting)
There is no Afghan people per se...
It is a highly tribal society. Imagine in the US, proclaiming "I'm a proud Nevadan" , maybe even down to the county level. Proud of the place where they live, not so much having a sense of higher national identity.
Tadjiks, Pashtuns, Hazaras...
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Err....people in the US proclaiming from what state they are a citizen from (or at least born in) is quite common.
I know lots of Texans, Cajuns (LA), Georgians, etc....
And generally damned proud of it.
In the US, they way it is set up, you ARE supposed to be a citizen of your state first and then a citizen of the United States.
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In Afghanistan, they've been shipping Afghan Army guys across the country to defend areas that are not their tribe, and that they don't care about.
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Imagine in the US, proclaiming "I'm a proud ...
Afghan, Iraqi, Chadian, Iranian, Libyan, Syrian, Yemeni, Somali, Ethiopian, Mexican, Colombian, Guatemalan, Honduran, Cuban, Haitian, Jamaican, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Filipino, Laotian, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Pakistani, Russian, Ukrainian, Georgian, Uzbeki, Pole, German, Austrian, Hugarian, Serbian, Bosnian, Greek, Italian, Spaniard, Brittan, Irishman, Scot, Swede, Sioux, Cherokee, Apache, Navajo, etc., etc., etc.
Re: Ah, that wacky Joe. (Score:5, Informative)
Everyone was too optimistic. I think the best plan could have only slowed the collapse, and prevented US resources from falling into Taliban control. The end result was inevitable. The entire US is now experiencing buyer's remorse.
Re: Ah, that wacky Joe. (Score:5, Interesting)
Part of the problem is the term "Afghan People". Sure, for a certain sense of that term the "Afghan People" exists, but it doesn't mean many of the things Americans would expect, like feelings of loyalty to a common system which allows different segments of that people to coexist in a peaceful, orderly, and relatively egalitarian way. Only by believing in such a system would fighting to preserve it be seen as "fighting for their own freedom". Without that belief, you're asking people to fight for a *regime*.
The question is, do Afghans view the government Americans set up for them as something that deserves their loyalty over and above their tribal loyalties? And should they?
The Taliban is resilient in a way the government was not because it as a radial religious group it enjoys loyalty from its members that supersedes their clan affiliations. Even if it is deeply unpopular with everyone else, it is still the single largest unified group, and enjoys support everywhere, even if that is *minority* support. It is a medium sized fish in a pond full of tiny fish that have little trust in each other.
In time the Taliban may succeed in building an Afghan national identity which is stronger than clan loyalty, and then the *Afghans* may well unite to oust them. But for an outsider, that is work that would take many generations.
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Afghanistan? It's about opium, not "terrorism". Just plain old colonialism at work. We can leave because we have all those nice synthetics now
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What the convenient graph shows is that there was a one year dip in the production. Which is to prove what exactly? Opium did not drive US policy. Opium does play in afghan policies. Also it is plain hard to stop it. A lot of locals benefit and get power from it. If you drive it further underground people decide only the Taliban can help them shift it which both makes more internal enemies and helps the Taliban more. Helped.
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While I agree with Joe in the overall sentiment that we've been there for far too long, and that the Afghan people need to be willing to fight for their own freedom (which they obviously weren't)
Yeah, 70,000 dead police and military personnel just isn't trying.
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While I agree with Joe in the overall sentiment that we've been there for far too long, and that the Afghan people need to be willing to fight for their own freedom (which they obviously weren't) I am curious how we're supposed to prevent Afghanistan from becoming another terrorist hotbed after it's controlled by a regime that actively encourages islamofacism.
Presumably the Taliban has claimed it has matured. Maybe
Given that we've been there for 20 years, and like you note, the instant collapse has just shown that the people we were supporting were not willing to fight - it is obvious that their expectations were that the US was going to be a police force that was going to be there forever. Propping up a group of people that had no fight in them
And one hellish expensive police force at that.
So the Trotskyist neocon's dream of perennial war In service to th
Economic incentives (Score:2)
Now it's debata
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While I agree with Joe in the overall sentiment that we've been there for far too long, and that the Afghan people need to be willing to fight for their own freedom (which they obviously weren't) I am curious how we're supposed to prevent Afghanistan from becoming another terrorist hotbed after it's controlled by a regime that actively encourages islamofacism.
Let me answer that one, you don't. The idea is to stop meddling and dumping billions in a country that is hostile to you. The reason Afghanistan didn't defend itself is simple, (most) of the population wanted this.
The reality is no all that black though. I was very surprised (and skeptical of course) to hear the Taliban claiming they have changed after they seized power. The Taliban claiming that women can continue their education and could work in the government? This is huge coming from their leader.
Of co
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It's hard to tweet or dial with missing hands....or while dead.
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the Afghan people need to be willing to fight for their own freedom (which they obviously weren't)
You're kidding, right?
The Taliban are Afghan people - and they have a lot of fans within the population. Similar to the USA, the cities and the countryside are very different places. We see the panic in the cities - where the left-leaning, liberal, more secular, more educated people live. The Taliban recruit their numbers largely in the countryside.
prevent Afghanistan from becoming another terrorist hotbed
Yeah, that ship has kind of sailed, you know?
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I dont personally agree, women need to go to work and contribute, but even (few) women from Syria I talk to find it ridiculous that when they arrived in the UK they were expected to get a job when there were perfectly good men to provide for them and their kids.
Once upon a time Feminists said that what women wanted were choices. Stay at home women who raise the children is a choice either made by the woman, or part of their culture.
In the world of diversity, are not we supposed to cherish the different cultures? It seems that dictating to women that they must conform to the present culture of GB, that is not a celebration of diversity. It's almost an enforced culture change.
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Add to this the announcement this morning that Dementia Joe isn't going to evacuate Americans that aren't located in Kabul and this makes Jimmy Carter look like a genius. Those damned Americans can just "shelter in place" for when the Taliban come to flay them alive. https://www.foxnews.com/politi... [foxnews.com]
Thank you for sacrificing your karma. Had you made a jab at Trump and linked to a Guardian article, this would be +5 insightful. I'll give you an underrated mod (not that it will make any difference) because your opinion and choice of news source is shared by the other half of the population that isn't progressive/socialist/communist.
Also, immediately after it happened, there would have been a front-page article lambasting the whole fiasco.
Re: We left them to die (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes and no.
There is truth to the statement that their army refused to fight and there is some support among the population for the Taliban. That is to say, it's not totally lacking in legitimacy given that few people seemed to have felt strongly enough to put up a fight.
There is also truth to the story that it's on us that we slapped uniforms on a bunch of illiterates and called it an army without having actually raised an army that could fight or established a government with more legitimacy than the alternative.
What strikes me most is that George W decided to drop sandwiches instead of bombs back in the early days. And he was quick to pick Karzai as a local figurehead instead of doing the messy work of occupying the place.
I thought it was cowardice at the time. As I became an adult and my appreciation for human life matured, I softened my view and thought maybe being an occupier was something to avoid.
But I've come back to my earlier view: democracy and civil society must take root in fertile soil. Wiping away the surface without tilling the soil (that is, jailing or killing the senior warlords and occupying the country, the way we did in Germany) won't work.
If we couldn't stomach the necessary violence, we shouldn't have gone in.
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For once, most of your post is neither 100% right wing biased nor completely nuts.
Wiping away the surface without tilling the soil (that is, jailing or killing the senior warlords and occupying the country, the way we did in Germany)
In Germany this was done with a full judicial process, mostly run by Germans. One of the big problems in Afghanistan is that the warlords who opposed the Taliban were effectively disarmed and replaced by an Afghan army which was just not structured to match the society it was supposed to defend. Without those anti-Taliban power bases there was nobody to oppose the takeover.
I am beginning to wonder, what if we had insisted th
Re: We left them to die (Score:4, Insightful)
In Germany there was a judicial process with evidence and publicity, but while that happened the Allied Powers exercised total administrative control of German and Austrian territory and the process of handing off control to the new German government took a decade.
West Germany was also structured as a decentralized federal state in the American image. Largely for historical reasons of German unification having been a recent occurence at the time, but the point is that power was deliberately diffused and transferred slowly.
In Afghanistan (and Iraq) the Bush administration washed their hands of running the territory as fast as they could and that meant putting all the eggs into a centralized basket.
This was a failure of planning and a lack of courage. And if we're being honest with ourselves it looked like that at the time, but the bloody shirt being waved to justify it was still wet enough to make people hold their tongue.
It's actually looking like there was no army (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: It's actually looking like there was no army (Score:2)
Par for the course in government contracting in the US. Check the boxes and say it's handled.
This is why smaller government is better. Fewer opportunities for that sort of bullshit. Unfortunately the military needs to be big enough to do its job and there is just going to be a certain amount of legal graft that is just going to happen.
You can't have smaller government (Score:2)
In order to keep a large military maintained and (more importantly) keep it's generals from installing a dictator you need a large civilian government and a ton of social programs for veterans. Ever wonder why vets get preferential treatment in hiring and college loans and extra training and free healthcare? It's because if you don't take care of your vets they'll find somebody who will, and that somebody w
Re: It's actually looking like there was no army (Score:2)
There's a huge drop in support because there is a great many media manipulators which came and are coming together to spin a narrative.
Before the retreat the sheer incompetence, corruption and readiness to flee at the first sign of trouble for the Afghan leadership was underplayed by the media. Now the chickenhawks are having their final revenge for their toy being taken away, the russians and chinese and their five yuan/ruble army love spinning it as failure and collapse of power, liberal guilters are guil
The media doesn't exist in a bubble (Score:2)
I knew it was BS because, well, I read the fark politics tab and there were tons of stories over the years discussing how the contractors were doing all the work and the work they were doing was half assed at best and just plain not being done at worst. So when the Afghan gov't fell I was like "well, that was quick, but not unexpected".
But if all I ever watched was Fox News or CNN I'd have been taken by surprise. Which is
Re: The media doesn't exist in a bubble (Score:3)
Funny how people can accept that government contracting in war zones is rife with corruption and profiteering and poor administration but assume it's all okay domestically and that more or bigger government programs (invariably administered by connected contractors) will be okay because whatever.
I just hope the fallout from this mass realization that the federal government is bad at most things it does doesn't hit too many people too hard.
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Yes, so? C'mon, after Vietnam, Iran, Nicaragua, Colombia, Somalia, Iraq... shouldn't you be used to it by now?
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Is it? We gave them 20 years of protection. In all that time they never managed to evolve a stable executive or a credible military capable of dealing with their atavists. The minute we took our boot off the Taliban neck they rolled in with no resistance at all.
Some problems are intractable.
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Well don't forget essentially funding the Taliban before that to fight the Soviets. America's involvement goes back a lot longer than 20 years.
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"Some problems are intractable."
The problem is one can't expect magic. Invading a country and installing what was in effect a puppet government in fortress cities financed by the US doesn't lead to a democracy by the people and for the people.
What works, is quietly financing without expecting financial returns progressive groups that represent the will of the people.
One of the main problems with US is the expectation that profit will be extracted somehow. In that case groups that work to represent the wil
Re: We left them to die (Score:2)
The green zone was chuckful of NGOs for 20 years too.
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We are still in Germany and Japan. I wonder, how long did we spend rebuilding Japan after WW2? How much (adjusted) money did we pump into Japan to rebuild it after we bombed it so hard in the war?
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We also funded the "Nazis" in this scenario - basically created the Taliban with US funding in the late 80s / early 90s because we believed it was better than Soviet control.
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just because religious group took over power, doesn't mean it's wrong
Yes it does. Religious people should never be allowed power. They are irrational.
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Says someone who knows nothing of history. [wikipedia.org]
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History isn't a counter example as history generally hasn't known a time without organised religion in power. You point to the golden age of Islam but there's no real comparison to what could have been achieved without a Bible thumper in power.
The Koran doesn't forbid mathematics. That isn't the reason religious people are irrational.
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just because religious group took over power, doesn't mean it's wrong
Yes it does. Religious people should never be allowed power. They are irrational.
There is a lot of case history that supports you. But we can't really do much about that.
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Religion is absolute. It allows no room for compromise.