Well ! The first lesson to be learnt is that if the country is an
Islamic country, don't try to help them, let them kill themselves in
the inevitable internal war.
Tough on the women, but that is Islam.
Democracy and Islam are incompatible.
Allah is the ultimate excuse for a dictator cleric.
No need for politicians, parliaments etc etc, just go ahead and steal the countries wealth.

After the Taliban was hammed down, go home.
If they restart, hammer them down again and go home.
Do it all remotely as possible.

That is the lesson to be learnt.

The only error we need to learn from is the one that took us into Afghanistan in the first place. Just like the belief that getting China into the WHO would democratise the CCP, the idea that Afghanistan could be mended and civilised was made by people far, far too ignorant to have the power that they did have.

Another stupid suggestion and whopping great mistake is this author's suggestion that: " ... now that the Taliban will govern Afghanistan ... it's time to heal the wounds and extend to them a helping hand ..."

What a Wally.

Just learned that the Taliban has already started going house to house, rooting out people who worked with the allies. Not the sort of people you can "work with", Alon. It's over. It didn't work. It's back to the 7th. Century for Afghanistan.

The US, allies and the Pakistani intelligence service knew the taliban were in safe haven in Pakistan, able to use the border entries coming and going without being hindered with their weapon supplies, etc. Also, the US with its satellite surveillance could see every move the taliban were making, even using advanced facial recognition. Just wondering why the US and its allies wanted this outcome for the people of Afghanistan.

I agree with the bulk of the Author's analysis. We took our eye off the ball and intended result. and moved too many of our resources to a war in the M.E. Why? Because the M.E. has oil!
As for the Taliban, their verbal assurances and agreements are not worth the paper they're written on.

For mine, if any of those disagreements are dishonoured then we need to send in drones with missiles or cruise missiles to take out the Taliban leadership. And repeat as often as needed to get full compliance.

And means they take the blacklist down and allow our mates, cobbers and their families to leave! And stop with the persecution/subjugation/sexual slavery of females! And if that strategy fails, then nuke their strongholds, and wear the collateral damage, until they agree!
Alan B.

I disagree with Alan on one point, ME oil was not a factor.
The ME needs to sell its oil more than we need to buy it.
The exports of oil from the ME can be controlled at the Strait of Hormuz
by a navy as easily as Iran can control it.
With the decline in oil search and the withdrawl of oil companies
from that industry over the next 20 years ME oil is a declining factor.

I've just read some comments by a US bloger, Don Surber, who laughs at the pigheaded suggestion that the 20-year war in Afghanistan "wasn’t entirely ill-advised".

The Taliban are back, better armed, better equipped, and more feared than they were when they were removed in 2001.

They were out of power for 20 years? Big deal! So was Mao. Mandela was locked up for 20 years. 20 years is nothing. It is "four U.S. presidencies". The Taliban knew that if they waited long enough, Americans would "elect an idiot as president who (would) give the store away."

The withdrawal from Afghanistan was inevitable, and it should have been part of the invasion plan. A careful person figures out how to exit a place before he enters. Instead, America "spent trillions of dollars — an estimated $2.3 trillion or roughly $100 billion a year — on staying there forever".

Trump was for evacuating Americans and Afghans who helped them first. Then equipment. Only then would he withdraw troops, making sure to destroy on the way out all the military bases and equipment.

Biden’s plan was to withdraw our troops and play it by ear from there.

The best way to answer Alon Meirs question about "how could Biden make such a mess of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan", is by answering his question, with the question, "how could almost 50% of US voters be stupid enough to elect a man with advanced Alzheimer's disease into the Presidency of the USA?"

His claim that democracy can not be imposed by force is only partially correct. It worked just fine in Japan, Germany, and Italy. But as a racist I would opine that the populations of those three countries have a much higher collective IQ than those from populations of certain third world populations, who would never have risen above the stone age without the help of an advanced culture, or who have been breeding with their cousins for far too long.

Anyone who says that Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires does not know their history. One empire which won in Afghanistan and stayed is the Arab Islamic empire. They did it the Muslim way. Keeeel all the men and old people, give the women and girls to your warriors as the spoils of war, and make the kids Muslims. As an excellent blueprint for imperial expansion, Islam has much to recommend it.

Now if you are wondering why the Taliban is not gleefully taking the 15,000 Americans still in Afghanistan hostage, that is simple. They are sheet scared of what the Americans can and would do to them is they did. If there is one thing the Talibs have learned in twenty years, it is that the yanks make a very bad enemy. Upsetting the yanks is never good for your health.

To summarise, the Talibs are Pashtu and so far as I can see, they now have control of the Pashtu areas of Afghanistan. The Northern alliance of Kazaks, Uzbeks and sundry other tribes is still in place and they are armed to the teeth with US weapons. And they can call on US air support from Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, where the US now has air bases. So the fun is not over yet.

LEGO wrote :"And they can call on US air support from Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, where the US now has air bases."

Actually they don't. The US was pushed out in 2014 and don't maintain any presence to speak off in those places. (Who was president in 2014?)

Apparently, in the recent meeting between them, Biden asked Putin for permission to re-establish some US presence in the central Asian nations. Putin said "no".

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9909719/Putin-REJECTED-Bidens-request-bases-countries-surrounding-Afghanistan.html

Can you imagine Trump asking for permission?

Whatever the Russians have on Joe/Hunter is a doozy.

Allowing a draft-dodging poser to decide how to conduct a war and to follow that with one showing signs of early dementia to call the shots.

After this what ally is going to trust US assurances again?

WE need to develop complete self-reliance and if the fools on the hill don't realise that has to mean the introduction of home-grown nuclear weapons and nuclear power, powering new industries.

Then forget about freedom forever. It being just a question of time before our erstwhile leaders go cap in hand to China to see what they can sell or give away to enhance their personal wealth and social position in a nation that would fold in minutes! If it were asked to defend itself from the might of China, on its own!

But only after the cream of our nation's young people paid the ultimate price (in vain) for the rank ineptitude of "big talk" warrior pollies who never did a day's military duty nor sacrificed anything for the nation. All they know is the false assurances of appeasement! And we all know how that went last time, hey?
Alan B.

The Taliban practice a most extreme form of Islam not seen anywhere else in the Islamic world! Allies like the Kurd are also Muslim and it was mostly the fierce freedom fighting kurd who fought elchida to a standstill and out of the middle east! At huge human cost!

Had we had the balls to nuke the Taliban's northern stronghold in Pakistan when they wintered there. the situation in Afghanistan would have been very different today! Likewise, the rest of the Muslim world!

To say the various blundering, dithering "commanders in chief" were too timid, too weak, too stupid, or too inept would have to be massively understating what went wrong! The Muslim world respects strength! And what we've shown them almost always, was a clean pair of cowardly heels when it got a little lukewarm, for the big-noting Yanks!
Alan B.

Dear Alan.B,

Trump agreeing last year to the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners as a price of starting negotiations was hardly going to inspire confidence with locals.

If I were and ordinary Afghan soldier who had fought to capture these fighters only to see Trump hand them back I would have had a pretty good sense of where this was going to end up.

Where did we go so wrong in Afghanistan?

Well we tried for over 20 years. So many died.
And possibly we did briefly give futures and hopes to
people. Unfortunately we've now seen this wiped away in
a matter of weeks. For so many that's so hard to come to
terms with today. What happens next is the question
many are asking.

Is the Taliban capable of change - or will it
continue the same as before - being closely linked to
Al Qaeda and continue to function as a terrorist group?
Only time will tell how they'll play their cards.

What we need to do is provide safe homes to refugees.
And Australia and other countries are doing that.

Nobody knows what's going to happen next. It looks like
there is not going to be a happy ending.

Afghanistan is a boon for the worrying classes.

*... “We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“If this rain doesn’t stop.”

And stop it did, in God’s good time;
And spring came in to fold...*

There’s a great benefit for Australia as the loose cannon Biden, wipes out the tidy US deck.

On one front, Australia has its doors wide open for wealthy Taiwanese ( the good and worthy Chinese), to escape the inevitable coming slaughter, with the equally inevitable Chinese take over of Taiwan.

And on the other front, at home, the weeping of our own version of Democrats, so concerned with the welfare of Afghanistan refugees, (read terrorists), who already show those signs before us, of further impoverishing our own poor with such heartfelt sympathy and gifts of free accomodation in the almost non existent social housing, as penance for failure.

Any excuse to prop up a housing market that long ago would fail under market forces.

Australians all let us rejoice!

Dan

We are one, but we are many
And from all the lands on earth we come
We'll share a dream and sing with one voice
I am, you are, we are Australian
I am, you are, we are Australian

"Where did we go so wrong in Afghanistan?"

We' as in Australia, didn't go wrong. We did and achieved everything we set out to achieve. That is we set out to prove we were a useful and co-operative member of the great western alliance which sought to protect western values world-wide.

But in terms of the west, we made two major problems - one proximate, one systemic.

Proximate - the US elected a moron with no understanding of international affairs surrounded by people who were more interested in woke politics that winning or even gracefully losing wars. "As Robert Gates, former defense secretary in the Obama administration, once put it, Biden has “been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” OR as Obama warned "Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f$$k things up.”

Systemic cause - we never believed in what we were fighting for.
We said one achievement was to free Afghan women from the tyranny of the burqa. But here, we were told that it was islamophobic to critque the burqa.
We said we were trying to move them from an oppressive Islamic state to the wonders of modern liberal democracy. But back home, we were told that it was islamophobic and racist to pretend that our system was better than their's.

We didn't believe in what we said we were fighting for and therefore they didn't either.

As simple and as complex as that.

There were no plans to assist people in Afghanistan in terms of improving lives through a no violence strategy, only a strategy involving violence.

So, where did we (a range of Governments that is) go so wrong as a result in Afghanistan?, by going there in the first place.

Oh deary me.

So pray tell mhaze how would your president have done it differently? He certainly would have done it sooner. Biden is committed to getting all Americans who want to leave out and it looks like he is doing just that.

Biden had very little room to move on the hand your president dealt him. Your condemnation of him and his team is just simpering nonsense.

Well SR, its difficult to argue when you bring forth so many facts </sarc>

A fact free few sentences of assertions.

The problem here is that Biden was completely bamboozled (no wonder you like him ) by the speed of the collapse. That's not entirely his fault since he relied on US intelligence and military reports - much as he relies on others to tell him what to say.

But he did ignore at least some of those reports because ultimately he and his team had their sights set on the propaganda rather than the strategic situation. They wanted to say all troops were out by 11/9 and didn't much care who was left behind because they thought the Taliban would take up to a year to take over.

Trump/Pompeo on the other hand knew that there might be troubles and had established a a rapid response group just for this purpose. Sleepy Joe and his team defunded that group but I bet they wish they were around now.

SR writes :"Biden had very little room to move on the hand your president dealt him. "

Well I know that that is what those who you rely on to tell you what to think are telling you to think. But its rubbish. Virtually every Trump policy imaginable has been overturned by Biden. Yet somehow this one couldn't be changed according to those now looking to find a way for avoid blaming Biden. A mere month ago the departure from Afghanistan was being hailed by the normal Biden sycophants as a brilliant success. IF it was based on the Trump plan (hint:it wasn't) how come it was fine then and rubbish now.

One reason and one reason only - Biden and his puppeteers.

Trump's now trying to side-step his own involvement in this fiasco.

He's the one who would have "had them out by March and not waited until September".
He's the one who set up direct negotiations with the Taliban while excluding the official Afghan government and the one who released 5,000 prisoners from Pakistan prisons, including the now co-leader of the Taliban and various former terrorists. The only solid agreement was that the Americans could depart in safety.

The reason things fell apart so quickly is because the Americans withdrew air support from the Afghan army and the thousands of contractors who kept the helicopters flying snuck away in the dead of night without warning leaving the Afghan army relatively helpless because they were trained as if they had access to air cover and not totally ground-based like the Taliban.
Poor intelligence didn't help either.

rache,

It's certainly true that part of the problem Biden caused was removing the US support for the Afghan airforce. Again, he did that against the advice of those who knew the consequences.

"Trump's now trying to side-step his own involvement in this fiasco."

Trump had no involvement in the fiasco. He certainly was involved in getting most US forces out of the region but he played no part in the utterly messy way that Biden et al implemented that withdrawal. The Trump plan to get out was very different to the Biden mess. Remember that Trump was the one who took the advice to leave some troops there at least until the civilians were out.

"He's the one who would have "had them out by March and not waited until September".

That was for strategic reasons. Winter in Afghanistan is a time when little in the way of military activity can take place. So getting out over the winter period was must easier to handle and would have given the government a few months to try to bed things down before the war season started. Biden et al on the other hand wanted to do it in September for purely domestic propaganda purposes. Everything they do is always aimed at how it'll play on CNN rather than what's good for the nation.

Dear mhaze,

Rubbish.

Trump wanted the bulk of the US troops out before the election for purely political reasons. He went and did a deal with the devil to enable it without telling the Afghan government thereby shattering any moral within the ANA.

To be condemning Biden without acknowledging that is so extraordinarily partisan.