The Taliban in Afghanistan

As US troops withdrawal from Afghanistan its perhaps well to ask who are the Taliban and where did they come from? This episode explores the tumultuous history of Afghanistan, a country that has been tainted and destroyed from outside powers trying to impose their way of life on the rural Afghan subsistence farmers. This episode explores the Soviet-Afghan war, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, and the US invasion and attempts at nation building.

For an extended version of the show go subscribe to my Patreon. The extended episode includes an extra 30 minutes on Afghan culture, Wahhabism, the Karzai government and the revealing truth of the Afghan Papers.

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Afghanistan

US and NATO forces have begun withdrawing from Afghanistan.

--- Insert Clip of Chaos

American Intelligence agencies have been shocked by the rapid conquest made by the recently “Quote-endquote” subdued Taliban. Some reports state that 75% of Afghanistan has already been taken back by the Taliban, as of July 15th 2021.

Before this less than 1/5 of Afghanistan was held by the Taliban exclusively in the rural mountains.

In an Ironic twist the final date of departure for the American troops was chosen as September 11th 2021, marking the 20 year anniversary of the attack that drew them into the United States’ longest war. The Irony was lost on President Biden.

----Instert announce fall of Saigon----

Perhaps a more suitable date would have been March 29th 2021, the 48th anniversary of the last US combat troops to leave south Vietnam. Less than 2 years later Saigon the capital of South Vietnam Fell to the communists and the war in Vietnam was over.

American intelligence agencies have placed the survival of the Afghan government at about 2 years After US and NATO forces withdraw. that number has since been changed due to the Talibans lighting speed retaking of Afghanistan, to a shockingly potential 6 months.

The Taliban is making rapid gains all over the country due to Afghan lack of support in themselves. The Afghan government is notoriously corrupt and plagued with injustice. 40% of the over 2 trillion dollars invested has allegedly gone into the pockets of corrupt Afghan officials

When the US negotiated a withdrawal under president trump there was an agreement made between the USA and Taliban that US And NATO forces would be completely out by May 2021,

The Agreement signed between the Taliban and USA (the Afghan government was not present for the negotiations) stipulated that

"all military forces of the United States, its allies, and Coalition partners, including all non-diplomatic civilian personnel, private security contractors, trainers, advisors, and supporting services personnel." Would leave the country by May 2021, and in return the Taliban would not attack American or NATO forces, a promise they have largely kept

The Ceasefire did not include protection for the Afghan government forces

While the Americans and NATO withdrew, Afghan security forces frequently surrendered without a fight, leaving their Humvees and other American-supplied equipment to the Taliban.

Local politicians and tribal elders negotiated a series of surrender agreements with government forces. Often unpaid for months, these troops left convoys of armored vehicles and stockpiles of weaponry, including artillery pieces, mortars and heavy machine guns, in exchange for Taliban guarantees of safe passage.

The Taliban promised that Afghan troops who surrender would be sent home, and those who renounce the Kabul government “should continue to live their lives in liberated areas with confidence.”

The Afghan government forces felt betrayed by their former benefactor, the United States. Due to Afghanistan’s complete need of US financial support many consider Afghanistan a client state of the US.

During the negotiations between the US and Taliban, The Afghan Government forces were not present. Part of the deal included 5,000 Taliban prisoners to be released. Infuriating the Afghan government forces. Who have stated “we have made no commitment to free the 5,000 Taliban prisoners”

On 2 July 2021, Germany and Italy withdrew their troops from Afghanistan.[82] On the same day, American forces vacated Bagram Airfield.

Afghan officials complained that the Americans had left without notifying the new Afghan commander until more than two hours after abandoning the base. As a result, the base was ransacked by looters before they could take control of the airfield. Meanwhile, fighting raged between the Taliban and government forces, with analysts from Al Jazeera saying that the Taliban is "at the door of Kabul.

Tens of thousands of Afghans who helped the US could now be In a very bad situation. The Biden administration considered slowing down the withdraw after the alarming progress made by the Taliban. In order to give the Afghani civilians who helped the US, a Visa or time to escape. The Biden administration has not slowed down its withdrawal as of yet.

President Joe Biden has reiterated that the U.S. will remain engaged in Afghanistan with humanitarian assistance. The U.S. also is committed to spending $4.4 billion annually to fund Afghanistan's security forces until 2024.

To Understand what led to this situation we must examine the culture of Afghanistan

Afghanistan is an ancient culture that has been around for over 3 millenia, It is a mostly Tribal society with many different regions of the country having their own subculture.

It has 14 distinct ethnic groups scattered all throughout the mountains regions of Afghanistan with the Pashtuns making up the largest group at 42% percent of the population

The term "Afghan" is synonymous with the ethnonym "Pashtun" but in modern times the term became the national identity of the people, who live in Afghanistan.

Just because they are an ethnic group does not mean there are only 14 potential factions vying for power, the Pashtuns for example consist of about 60 different tribes all with tribal leaders with varying degrees of power.

The Pashtuns comprise the southern portions of the country, and spill into Pakistan where they make up the 2nd largest ethnic group of the gigantic over 220 million people that makeup Pakistan

This Pashtun Majority in Afghanistan and minority in Pakistan are vital to the story. Pakistan since its independence has been at war with India, and it has been adamant about keeping Afghanistan on their side and not on the Indians, a situation that if happened would leave Pakistan almost entirely encircled.

The Pashtuns are also important because in addition to making up a large portion of Pakistan they also makeup the majority of the Taliban

Opium

Afghanistan is also the world's leading producer of opium.[257] Afghanistan's opium poppy harvest produces more than 90% of illicit heroin globally

The Taliban has used this illicit drug trade to fund itself in the completely underdeveloped war torn afghanistan.

16% or more of the countries economy is derived from the cultivation and sale of opium, this is also considering opium is illegal in Afghanistan

Due to the extremely rural nature of Afghanistan Opium remains a main source of medicine for many isolated villages

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimates that Afghan opium kills more people worldwide—up to 100,000 per year—than any other drug.

While the Afghan government forces destroy, or often times take bribes from Opium farmers, The Taliban support poppy growth and enforce a tax on opium. Their cut, up to $400 million a year, funds the insurgency.

Eight percent of Afghans are addicted to drugs, often opium or heroin

is that its economy relies on two dueling revenue streams. One flows from Western aid, in the hopes that the country will renounce the Taliban. The other flows from opium trafficking supported by the Taliban, which use the proceeds to fund attacks on Western troops.

Women and homosexuality human rights

According to Global Rights, almost 90% of women in Afghanistan have experienced physical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological abuse or forced marriage.

.[264] In 2012, Afghanistan recorded 240 cases of honor killing, but the total number is believed to be much higher. Of the reported honor killings, 21% were committed by the victims' husbands, 7% by their brothers, 4% by their fathers, and the rest by other relatives.

Afghanistan fares even worse than other countries in the Islamic world which are not known for their decency towards women (from a western prespective). This is in large part due to the Psychological trauma inflicted upon the men of the country from years and years of constant warfare.

After the Soviets invaded and the Muhajadeen ran into the moutnains to defend their country, millions of women fled the country, The men found themselves for years without women. It created many psychholgoical issues.

Even today, Homosexuality can get you killed in Afghanistan, often punished by Sharia Law. This however excludes the ancient tradition known as Bacha Bazi, where traditionally older men, wealthy or elite people have sexual acts with younger men sometimes children.

These rules can be broken down by the many different tribes who view things differentely and often act autonomously of the central Kabul government.

many issues regarding human rights exist contrary to the law, often committed by local tribes, lawmakers and hardline clerics.

Unilaterally Nearly all Afghans follow Islamic traditions, celebrate the same holidays, dress the same, consume the same food, listen to the same music and are multi-lingual to a certain extent.

Who are the Taliban?

History of Taliban –

Before 1978 Afghanistan was a poor, peaceful out of the way country in a geopolitically hot area, sandwiched between, the major powers, India, China, Iran and the Soviet Union.

Soviet Afghan WAR

The United States and Soviet Union both vied for influence in Afghanistan during the cold war by building Afghanistan’s main highways, airports and other vital infrastructure points, which were essential to development in the ruggedly mountainous, landlocked country of Afghanistan.

Afghanistan received more soviet aid than any other country.

However Afghanistan maintained good relations with both the United States and Soviet Union in the cold war.

In 1978 Iran fell to an Islamic revolution, The Soviets were wary that their central asian Muslim Turkic countries could follow Iran leading to a domino effect of Islamic revolutions

Afghanistan in the 1970s was also dealing with unrest and the soviets seeking to prevent what happened in Iran supported a communist faction and in 1978 this faction seized the country in a bloodless coup.

The communist party initiated various social and symbolic land distribution reforms that provoked strong opposition. Mistreatment by the politically oppressive new communist party led to the civil war of 1979

The communist leader installed by the soviets was a man named Taraki, he was assassination in an internal coup. This led to the soviet army invading the country in December 1979

#### insert jimmy carter

Leading the soviets into the quagmire of proxy wars that so many powerful countries have fallen into.

They entered Afghanistan with relative ease, Took the major cities and destroyed the insurgents that stayed in those cities.

The insurgents simply retreated into the mountains that encompassed Afghanistan and waged a guerrilla campaign. They formed a decentralized organization called Mujahideen

The name Mujahideen means “one who wages Jihad” in Arabic

The basic units of mujahideen organization and action continued to reflect the highly decentralized nature of Afghan society and strong loci of competing mujahideen and Pashtun tribal groups, particularly in isolated areas among the mountains.[16] Eventually, the seven main mujahideen parties allied as the political bloc called Islamic Unity of Afghanistan Mujahideen. However the parties were not under a single command and had ideological differences mirroring the tribal makeup of Afghanistan even to this day

The Mujahideen were ghostlike warriors who would fire on soviet positions and then retreat into the many complex cave systems of Afghanistan.

This frustrated the soviets who were unable to use their superior technology

They had no way of engaging the Mujahedeen. Until they unleashed the MILL 24 Gunship (an attack helicopter that was able to find and eliminate Mujahedeen fighters making them vulnerable even in their mountainous terrain.

The war finally turned in favor of the soviets who were making quick work of the Mujahideen. The insurgents virtually had no way to defend or combat the heavily armored gunships with RPGs and AKs

The USA was quietly watching the events that unfolded in Afghanistan, still with a chip on their shoulder for the embarrassment they suffered in the Vietnam war.

Then they Initiated, Code named operation cyclone

· Operation Cyclone was one of the longest and most expensive covert CIA operations ever undertaken. More than $20 billion in U.S. funds was funneled into the country to train and arm Afghan resistance groups.

· The U.S.-built Stinger antiaircraft missile, supplied to the mujahideen in very large numbers beginning in 1986, struck a decisive blow to the Soviets.

· The Stingers were so renowned and deadly that in the 1990s, the United States conducted a “buy-back” program to keep unused missiles from falling into the hands of anti-American terrorists, an effort which was covertly renewed in the early 2000s.

Once the mujahedeen got their stingers, the gunships stood no chance.

As the Soviet Union was entering its death throes, they decided they must put an end to the war in Afghanistan. Nobel Peace Prize Winner Mikhail Gorbachev authorized the Soviet military to win by any means necessary. And in 1986 the war entered a new stage.

The soviets devised a plan to break the will of the country and to force the rural societies into the major cities like, Kabul, Kandahar and Jalalabad … Which they controlled

The Soviets have been accused of genocide in Afghanistan. Up to 2 million Afghans were killed by the Soviet union and their proxy allies.

The Mujahedeen were simply farmers so it became difficult for the Soviets to distinguish Farmer from fighter.

In order to separate the mujahideen from the local populations and eliminate their support, the Soviet army killed and drove off civilians, and used scorched earth tactics to prevent their return. They used booby traps, mines, and chemical substances throughout the country.[170] The Soviet army indiscriminately killed combatants and noncombatants to ensure submission by the local populations.

Many rural provinces faced depopulation programs.

Half of Afghanistan's 24,000 villages were destroyed by the end of the war.

Rape and murder became common from soviet troops all over the country, even the soviet troops in the chaos suffered greatly, many became addicted to opium which grew all over the country, today Russia is the highest consumer of opium and heroine in the world.

Rape became a weapon in the war, often times soviet and Afghan government forces would take women and rape them

Women who were taken and raped by Russian soldiers were considered 'dishonoured' by their families if they returned home and could be discarded or killed in honor killings

Deserters from the Soviet Army in 1984 also confirmed the atrocities by the Soviet troops on Afghan women and children, stating that Afghan women were being raped.[179] The rape of Afghan women by Soviet troops was common and 11.8 percent of the Soviet war criminals in Afghanistan were convicted for the offence of rape.[180] There was an outcry against the press in the Soviet Union for depicting the Russian "war heroes" as "murderers", "aggressors", "rapists" and "junkies”.

Landmines were scattered all over Afghanistan, which to this day has caused the harsh mostly inarable land of Afghanistan to be even less productive

One of the particularly evil tactics employed by the Soviets was their use of “Teddybear mines”

these were mines they scattered throughout villages disguised as childrens toys. It would attract children to them and upon being picked up would explode. They didn’t contain enough firepower to kill the children and would only maim Them.

A mass exodus of refugees arose and exited any way possible the majority of them ended up in Pakistan who shares not only Afghanistan’s largest ethnic group the Pashtuns but also the largest border.

The numbers amounted to about 6 million women and children.

The lucky children who didn’t end up in the atrocious refugee camps would end up in Pakistani religious schools, there they would be mentored by Clerics, leading to a highly islamist dogmatic religious community to form.

As the war turned against the soviets, eventually in 1988 They pulled out, mirroring what the Americans had done in Vietnam and are doing today in Afghanistan, leaving the Afghan government weapons to defend themselves

These weapons would end up in the hands of the Mujahadeen and tribal warlords which would add fuel to the fire.

The Afghan government fell in 1992. The Mujahedeen took Kabul but due to their disorganized nature and lack of leadership they started coming to blows with the other ethnic groups and tribal warlords.

Afghanistan turned into a decentralized state of warring tribal warlords.

In the 90s many of the Pakistani children would return to Afghanistan, now as adults. They formed the Islamic militia known as The Taliban translated into English the name Taliban means “Students”

They were welcomed in Afghanistan because as opposed to some of the brutal warlords who would rape, steal, and kill. The Taliban followed Sharia law.

Sharia Law is viewed by many westernrers as savage and barbaric,

It is Islamic law that prohoibits, usury, gambling, bribery, fraud, stealing, things considered “Haram” in the Isalmic religion. Many times victims could be stoned to death or have a hand cut off depending on the crime

It was welcomed however as the gangster warlords had little to no justice.

The ISI, Inter-Services Intelligence, the secret service of Pakistan. The USA used the ISI to funnel weapons to the Mujahideen during the Soviet-Afghan war. Many low ranking officers would become some of the children that escaped Afghanistan, many of them were tied by kinship both being Pashtun

The ISI began funding the Taliban.

The Taliban had taken over roughly ¾ of Afghanistan by the late 1990s and stabilized the region with their strict interpretation of Sharia law

However the Taliban was never legitimized and only got recognition from three nations, Saudi Arabia, The United Arab Emirates and of course Pakistan

The Taliban never completely subdued Afghanistan, in a small fringe region of the North an alliance formed of the remaining tribal warlords called the Northern Alliance. The leader of this group was a man named Ahmad Shah Massoud. Masoud would be assassinated on September 9th 2001, and the alliance was seen as surely doomed….

EXPAND ON AL-QUEDa

One of the militias formed during the Soviet Afghan war was the Arab-afghani Al-Queda founded in 1988[40] by Osama bin Laden a rich Saudi arabian who follows the Wahhabi sect of Islam.

Al-Queda is a Wahabi group (also called Salafism), Wahhabism is named after an eighteenth century Islamic scholar, Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab. Al-Wahhab believed that Islam had gone astray due to idol worship and the veneration of saints, he created a strict Islamic doctrine that viewed virtually all forms of Islam excluding his; as the enemies of Islam

He preached in central Arabia and eventually formed a pact with Muhammad bin Saud

Muhammad bin Saud is the founder of the Saudia Arabian dynsasty, his descendants rule Saudi Arabia today

The pact he formed with the Saud family has been called -

A politico-religious pact based on purification of Islamic practices from popular religion and an emphasis on strict monotheism.The saud family has maintained its role of political and military leadership in the modern-day kingdom of Saudi arabia with the descendants of Wahhab contuning to serve as religious advisers

In the 1970s Wahhabism with the help of the booming oil economy of Saudi petroleum exports underwent explosive growth and now has worldwide influence.

It views non-Wahhabi faiths as not true followers of Islamic doctrine.

In 1998 the fringe Al- Queda declares war on the United States, over the Untied states capturing and torture of 4 alleged terrorists with an associate organization.

Al Queda begins by bombing 2 US embassy buildings in Africa killing 200 people.

The attacks brought Al-Queda and their leader Osama bin Lden to the attention of the US public for the first time, The FBI placed bin Laden on its ten most wanted fugitives list.

Al Queda seeks to remove all foreign influence from muslim countries. They at this time were centrally organized with Osama bin Laden giving the orders. They operated mostly with suicide bombings.

Al-Qaeda members believe a Christian–Jewish alliance is conspiring to destroy Islam.[45] As Salafist jihadists, members of al-Qaeda believe that killing non-combatants is religiously sanctioned. Al-Qaeda also opposes what it regards as man-made laws, and wants to replace them with a strict form of sharia law.

Al-Qaeda regards liberal Muslims, Shias, Sufis and other sects as heretical and its members and sympathizers have attacked their mosques and gatherings.

On September 11th 2001 2 days after the assassination of Massoud 19 Al-Queda terrorists (15 of which were from Saudi Arabia) hijacked 4 commercial airliners in the united states, one plane attacked the Pentagon building, one crashed in Philadelphia and 2 struck the world trade center, It brought the skyscrapers down, killing many. it remains the deadliest terrorist attack in human history, almost 3,000 people lost their lives.

President Bush gave an ultimatum to the Taliban in Afghanistan, expel Al-Queda, Turn over Bin Laden or we will crush you

(6 Oct 2001) ---INSERT BUSH WARNING TO TALIBAN

The Taliban were sheltering Osama bin Laden during this time, Osama had supported the Mujahedeen during the Soviet invasion and was familiar with Afghanistan. Bush demanded the Taliban turn him over and they refused. Many political experts believe it was bin Ladens goal to lure the USA into Afghanistan, known as the graveyard of empires.

The USA turned to their old ally Pakistan, who had been supporting the Taliban for years.

an Ultimatum was sent to ISI the Pakistani intelligence agency who had become famous in the 1980s as the organization the USA sent weapons to, to ship into Afghanistan and fund the mujahedeen and later Taliban

the ultimatum stipulated that they must stop supporting the Taliban,

The leader of the ISI (Mahmoud ahmed) told the US they need to consider the complex history of the situation.

Richard Armitage The US secretary of the state bluntly replied, “No, the history begins today”

Pakistan couldn’t say no and formally renounced its support for the Taliban. 4 days after 9/11

Now remember the Taliban controlled about 3/4ths of Afghanistan but never completely subdued it.

The Northern alliance still controlled the remote panjshir valley, located in the northernmost mountainous regions of Afghanistan,

The northern alliance was essentially a group of tribal warlords who put aside there differences to fight against the Taliban.

The USA went to the Panjshir valley to form an alliance with the Northern Alliance.

Offering them money and training and the future governance of Afghanistan when the fighting was finished, who would say no to this?

The USA formed a coalition with the Anglosphere countries, The US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, sparking the war on terror.

The USA invades, the invasion is like a mirror of the Soviet invasion 20 years before.

These Taliban fighters were the Mujahedeen who had experience fighting the soviets.

The USA quickly and swiftly conquers the major cities of Afghanistan but many top Al-Queda (including Osama bin Ladin and Taliban commanders were nowhere to be seen.

In Kunduz in the north of the country something called the Airlift of Evil occurred, where hundreds of top commanders and members of the Taliban and their Pakistani advisors (many ISI agents and army personnel) were airlifted out of the city to Pakistan just before it fell, The USA and Pakistan both denied that the airlift took place.

Donald Rumsfeld, US defense secretary, said on December 2 that "neither Pakistan nor any other country flew any planes into Afghanistan to evacuate anybody”

The Taliban fighters had experience from fighting the soviets, they didn’t make the same mistake that Saddam Hussein had made 10 years prior when he tried to take on the might of the USA head on. They retreated from the mountains to form Guerilla style warfare.

In a couple of months the Taliban were out of power and a new Interim government is formed under a man named Hamid Karzai,

Karzai comes from an aristocratic Afghan family, his uncle for example Habibullah Karzai met with President John F Kennedy in the 1960s for a special meeting.

During the soviet Afghan war he moved to Pakistan to work as a fundraiser for the anti-communist mujahideen

When the Taliban emerged in the mid-1990s, Karzai initially recognized them as a legitimate government because he thought that they would stop the brutal civil war that was occurring in his country

He was requested by the Taliban to serve as their ambassador but he refused, telling friends that he felt Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was wrongly using them.[1] Karzai then wanted to represent the Taliban government for the UN, but the Taliban leader did not trust Karzai due to him having many links with westerners.

He also visited the western embassies including the U.S. embassy in Islamabad several times, talking with Norbert Holl, and attempted to gain American support for "modern, educated Afghans" to weaken the Taliban's views.

Karzai's father was reportedly annoyed with him for not having clear-cut choices, wanting to be friends with everyone. Something which would plague his presidency

In July 1999, Karzai's father, Abdul Ahad Karzai, was shot dead early in the morning while coming home from a mosque in Quetta. Reports suggest that the Taliban carried out the assassination.[1] Following this incident, Karzai decided to work closely with the Northern Alliance, which was led by Massoud.

In 2000 and 2001, he travelled to Europe and the United States to help gather support for the anti-Taliban movement. "Massoud and Karzai warned the United States that the Taliban were connected with al Qaeda and that there was a plot for an imminent attack on the United States, but the united states didn’t listen

As the U.S. Armed Forces were preparing for a confrontation with the Taliban in September 2001, Karzai began urging NATO states to purge his country of al-Qaeda. He said in a BBC interview, "These Arabs, together with their foreign supporters and the Taliban, destroyed miles and miles of homes and orchards and vineyards... They have killed Afghans. They have trained their guns on Afghan lives... We want them out."[

When the US invaded Afghanistan Karzai and his group were in Pakistan,

They decided to return to Affhanistan to fight the Taliban alongside the American and NATO forces, he told his forces

We might be captured the moment we enter Afghanistan and be killed. We have 60 percent chance of death and 40 percent chance to live and survive. Winning was no consideration. We could not even think of that. We got on two motorbikes. We drove into Afghanistan.[18]

— Hamid Karzai, October 2001

In late 2001 Afghans top political leaders met to form an Interim administration and named Karzai chairman of a 29 member governing committee

The loya jirga or Afghan Grand Assembly in June 2002 appointed Karzai as Interim President of the new position as President of the Afghan Transitional Administration.[21] Former members of the Northern Alliance remained extremely influential, most notably Vice President Mohammed Fahim, who at one point had Karzai arrested.

Karzai attempted to unify Afghanistan’s ethnicities, he favored a dress that combined traditional designs of the various ethnicities- Pashtun style long shirt and loose trousers, an outer robe popular among the Tajiks and Uzbeks, and most distinctively a karakul hat worn by highlanders from the valley of Panjshir. In 2002 designer Tom Ford, who worked at the time for Gucci, was quoted calling Karzai "the most chic man in the world".

Karzai during the interim government chose to work with the many warlords and tribal leaders all around the rural country of afghanistan, to varying degrees of success, attempting to negotiate and form amicable alliances with them for the benefit of Afghanistan as a whole, instead of aggressively fighting them and risking another civil war

As his father said, he was attempting to befriend everyone instead of choosing a side.

His actual power was very limited, he was often described while as president as the “Mayor of Kabul”

The US implemented a strategy, one that would come out years later to be completely inept. They planned to dump massive amounts of money into Afghanistan in an attempt to modernize it

One of the plans devised was one they stole from the Soviets, in order to modernize Afghanistan they needed to link the major cities of it. Highway 1 also known as The Ring Road, was a highway the soviets attempted to build in the 1960s, during the invasion 20 years later it was completely destroyed. In 2002 only 50 kilometers of paved road remained in all of Afghanistan

The US and other countries pledged 1.5 billion dollars to rebuilding of the Ring road, it would run in a circle of 3,200 kilometers connecting Afghanistans 4 largest cities, Kabul in the east, Kandaahar in the south, Herat in the west, Mazar-i-Sharif in the north.

In the beginning everything was going well, the road was being successfully built, Karzai was working on uniting the many tribes of Afghanistan, his administration was working on a constitution

Until 2003 when the United States invaded Iraq

With the US invasion most skilled generals, soldiers, contractors and diplomats were diverted to Iraq and Afghanistan became 2nd priority

Taliban forces meanwhile began regrouping inside Pakistan, while more coalition troops entered Afghanistan to help the rebuilding process.[152][153] The Taliban began an insurgency to regain control of Afghanistan. The more troops the west sent the more the Taliban seemed to grow

Work on this highway stalled,

The United States among others began dumping billions of dollars into Nation building, building Afghanistan.

In 2004 A constitution was formed and free and fair elections were held in Afghanistan. Karzai would be the winner becoming the first democratically elected leader in the history of Afghanistan.

Even though the Taliban insurgency was spiking all over the country the election took place safely,

Karzai was sworn in as President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan on 7 December 2004, at a formal ceremony in Kabul. Many interpreted the ceremony as a symbolically important "new start" for the war-torn nation. Notable guests at the inauguration included the country's former King, Zahir Shah, three former U.S. presidents, and U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney.

1st election

Many thought Karzai would pursue an aggressive reformist path after winning the election, however the ever cautious and diplomatic Karzai was more cautious than expected. For the first time in 2004 the economy of Afghanistan began growing rapidly.

Due to the USA’s dumping of money into Afghanistan Corruption became rampant thorough the newly formed country. There was so much money sent there seemingly without an objective.

Many programs were illogical, such as investing 28 million on forest camouflage uniforms, only 2.1% of the country is covered in forest or 34 million dollars into a soybean project, soybeans don’t grow in Afghanistan and people don’t eat them

Remember the Muhajideen and Taliban were essentially uneducated peasant farmers. NATO didn’t know who to fight. The growing civilian casualty tolls caused unrest and

The Public grew discontent and an Anti-Karzai riot took place in Kabul which led in may 2006 to at least 7 people dead.

In September 2006, Karzai told the United Nations General Assembly that Afghanistan has become the "worst victim" of terrorism.[33] Karzai said terrorism is rebounding in his country, with militants infiltrating the borders to wage attacks on civilians. He stated, "This does not have its seeds alone in Afghanistan. Military action in the country will, therefore, not deliver the shared goal of eliminating terrorism." He demanded assistance from the international community to destroy terrorist sanctuaries inside and outside Afghanistan. "You have to look beyond Afghanistan to the sources of terrorism," he told the UN General Assembly, and "destroy terrorist sanctuaries beyond" the country, dismantle the elaborate networks in the region that recruit, indoctrinate, train, finance, arm, and deploy terrorists. These activities are also robbing thousands of Afghan children of their right to education, and prevent health workers from doing their jobs in Afghanistan. In addition, he promised to eliminate opium-poppy cultivation in his country, which is possibly helping fuel the ongoing Taliban insurgency. He has repeatedly demanded that NATO forces take more care to avoid civilian casualties when conducting military operations in residential areas.

In a September 2006 video broadcast, Karzai stated that if the money wasted on the Iraq War had been actually spent on rebuilding Afghanistan, his country would "be in heaven in less than one year”

In May 2007, after as many as 51 Afghan civilians were killed in a bombing, Karzai asserted that his government "can no longer accept" casualties caused by U.S. and NATO operations.

Relations started to get tense between the benefactor and the beneficiary.

The Taliban upped its attacks all over Afghanistan making the situation seem impossible, every year the Taliban was getting more active and taking more land, and all the while the NATO Forces were causing more civilians causualties creating a toxic situation

Not only was NATO responsible for civilian casualties starting in 2006 the Taliban increased their willingness to commit atrocities. US website of The Weekly Standard stated in 2010, referring to a UN Report, that 76% of civilian deaths in Afghanistan over the past year had been "caused by the Taliban"

The Soviets compared to the Americans were willing to use far more draconian measures to win the war and they still lost The Americans were learning what the soviets had 20 years before them that for every terrorist killed another 5 would take its place.

Things had darkened in the once hopeful nation of Afghanistan. In America Politicians kept lying and saying that the war was contained, we were making progress, but in reality these were lies, the situation was deteriorating with the Taliban taking more and more ground.

The 2nd election of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Karzai had become deeply unpopular but it was assumed he would win the election. Many blamed him for the failures that plagued Afghanistan including the reconstruction efforts, widespread corruption, and the resurgence of the neo-Taliban.

His unpopularity and the likelihood of his victory formed an atmosphere with a kind of national demoralization, which would discourage many Afghans from voting and dash hopes for substantial progress after the election

The election had accusations of voter and electoral fraud, widespread ballot stuffing, low voter turnout and intimidation. It was by all accounts anything but free and fair

Karzai’s second government was seen as corrupt and inept, after winning the election he presented his list of 24 cabinet nominees and 17 of them were rejected, According to the parliament, most of the nominees were rejected due to having been picked for reasons other than their competency. A member of parliament said that they had been picked largely based on "ethnicity or bribery or money."

Again a few weeks later the Afghan parliament rejected 10 out of the 17 of Karzai’s replacement candidates.

Karzai was weak, he chose those who had connections with Afghan warlords instead of competent people. Karzai did this as a way to form a coalition, ruling more like a decentralized tribal state.

Karzai in 2009 and 2010 attempted to set a framework for peace talks with the Taliban, The Taliban rejected these calls for peace, they were winning the war. In April 2010, Karzai urged Taliban insurgents to lay down their arms and air their grievances while visiting a violent northern province, adding that foreign forces would not leave the country as long as fighting continued

In 2010 Wikileaks let out a series of cables on Karzai where he was regularly described by frustrated diplomats and foreign statesmen as erratic, emotional and prone to believing paranoid conspiracy theories.

On some occasions Karzai's own ministers accuse him of complicity in criminal activity, including ordering the physical intimidation of the top official in charge of leading negotiations with the Taliban.

In memos back to Washington, released by WikiLeaks, the former US ambassador, Karl Eikenberry, adopted a particularly weary tone when describing often bizarre meetings with the mercurial president.

In one in 2009, Karzai argued that the US intended to "divide Pakistan and weaken Afghanistan in order to pursue its fight against terrorist groups"; and suggested the US and Iran were working together to support his main political rival in the presidential elections. Eikenberry "pushed back hard" against Karzai's claim in what appears to have been a heated exchange.

Eikenberry identified two competing personalities in Karzai. "The first is a paranoid and weak individual unfamiliar with the basics of nation-building and overly self-conscious that his time in the spotlight of glowing reviews from the international community has passed. The other is that of an ever-shrewd politician who sees himself as a nationalist hero who can save the country from being divided by the decentralisation-focused agenda of Abdullah [Karzai's main rival in the 2009 election]."

Omar Zakhilwal, the much respected finance minister, told the Americans Karzai was "an extremely weak man who did not listen to facts but was instead easily swayed by anyone who came to report even the most bizarre stories or plots against him". He said an "inner circle" of top ministers had developed a system to work together to influence Karzai when he started "going astray on such matters".

Overall, "Karzai is at the centre of the governance challenge", says a briefing paper written by the embassy for Robert Gates, the US secretary of defence, in late 2008. "He has failed to overcome his fundamental leadership deficiencies in decisiveness and in confidence to delegate authority to competent subordinates. The result: a cycle of overwork/fatigue/indecision on the part of Karzai, and gridlock and a sense of drift among senior officials on nearly all critical policy decisions."

International statesmen who meet Karzai occasionally have also expressed concerns.Nursultan Nazarbayev, the president of Kazakhstan, said in a meeting with General David Petraeus last year: "Karzai is weak, but it's better to keep him on." In a conversation with John McCain in 2008, David Cameron said that "each year he had the sense Karzai's sphere of influence was shrinking".

For Karzai the solution was to "bring the tribes to our side" by appointing a corrupt but powerful tribal bigwig as governor. The UK, on the other hand, believed clean and effective local government was the answer.

On several occasions the British thwarted Karzai's plan to replace Gulab Mangal – the technocratic governor of Helmand praised to the skies by the US and UK – with Sher Mohammad Akhundzada, a leader of the Alizai tribe who served as governor of the province from 2001 to 2005.

Once Gordon Brown had to tell Karzai that "Akhundzada was not an acceptable alternative, given his history of corruption and involvement in drug trafficking" and that Karzai was being deceived about the state of Helmand by scheming palace advisers.

The cables reveal that Karzai first tried to reinstate Akhundzada, – described as a "known warlord and criminal" – three months after the appointment of Mangal in March 2008. There was another effort in 2009 when Karzai argued that gaining the support of Akhundzada's Alizai tribe was key to gaining stability in Helmand's most troubled districts, including Sangin and Musa Qala. Karzai argued with the US that it was better to have "a bad guy on your side" rather than him "working for the Taliban". But in its analysis the US embassy said a "key underlying calculation" of Karzai's was that Akhundzada could turn out his Alizai tribe to vote for the president in the 2009 election.

But perhaps the most damning accounts of Karzai's style of governing are from the president's close colleagues. In 2009 Umar Daudzai, Karzai's chief of staff, told the Americans he was "ashamed" of an incident in which Karzai pardoned five border policemen who had been caught transporting 124kg of heroin in an official vehicle.

The episode sent relations between Karzai and Washington into one of its periodic lows, with many assuming that Karzai had freed the men because their extended family had contributed to his re-election campaign.

Daud described their release as a "big psychological blow" to him and the country's counter-narcotics police force.

Masoon Stanekzai, a senior government official charged with disarming militias and "reintegrating" Taliban insurgents, is reported to have feared for his own life after defying Karzai's many demands to remove two provincial election candidates from Helmand from a blacklist so they could stand.

Both were known drug traffickers and members of illegal militias.

Even Karzai’s younger brother Ahmed Wali Karzai, was rumored to be involved in narcotic deals, Karzai said that he has sought in writing a number of times, but failed to obtain, proof of allegations that Ahmed Wali was involved in illegal drugs

Karzai said of the Taliban in an interview with Al Jazeera;

Hamid Karzai called Talibans his 'brothers'. He claimed that the Afghan government and Afghan people did not want to eliminate Talibans, but rather reintegrate Talibans into society.[97][98] It was not the first time he called The Taliban his brothers. Previously he called them brothers during his victory speech in 2009, a day after he was declared president.

As Karzai’s father said, he is unable to choose a side, always trying to be friends with everyone.

In 2008 Obama took a new look at the situation in Afghanistan with 30,000 sitting US troops, he starting something referred to as the Surge, sending an additional 90,000 troops. The Taliban only got stronger and upped their attacks

PART 2 RING ROAD

Taking advantage of the mountainous and rural terrain of Afghanistan they focused on the ring highway, which obstructed the US’ ability to manage the countryside and bring medical services around the country. The US was stuck mostly in the Major cities. And without the ability to defend the countryside the Taliban only grew in strength

Highway construction became extremely dangerous and the construction companies had to begin hiring mercenary groups to keep them safe. All the Taliban had to do was attack the highway, isolate a region and then retreat back into the mountains.

In 2011 Obama reneged and began bringing troops home. Saying our troops will assume support roles instead of combat.

Another 1.5 billion was raised to build the ring road at this time, amounting to 3 billion dollars to build it and it was never completed.

Capitalism failed to take place in Afghanistan, private foreign investment remains extremely low. Due to the instability in the region private companies don’t want to infest in Afghanistan leading to only governmental entities. Government aid lacks an incentive to create a profit.

The massive amounts sent by the USA and other countries only seemed to end up in the pockets of corrupt officials leading to more corruption and resentment among the Afghani populace.

The Taliban became rich off of mineral exportation due to the lack of government control of many regions and the drug trade. The Karzai government made poppy growing Illegal but the Taliban used it for funding, they also were receiving money from abroad, including Pakistan and Iran

On May 2nd 2011 Obama announced INSERT DEATH OF OSAMA

Osama was found at a compound in Abbottabad Pakistan

The United sates has always had a mixed relationship with Pakistan, a cold war ally whose relationship has often been described as a roller coaster.

PAKISTAN WAR ON TERROR

The United states is one of the largest sources of direct foreign investment into Pakistan and is Pakistans largest export market, however the war on terror has led both sides to criticize each other for an inability to find common goals.

American politicians had repeatedly accused Pakistan of harboring Bin Laden and many Taliban leaders. while the lawmakers in the Pakistani Parliament leveled serious accusations at the Americans doing very little to control the porous eastern border of Afghanistan, where Pakistan's most-wanted terrorist, Mullah Fazlullah and his organization were believed to be hiding. Furthermore, drone strikes by both nations, a friendly fire incident at Salala, and an incident involving the arrest of a spy in Lahore further complicated relations. These issues sharply soured the public opinion in both nations, with public opinion of each nation ranking the other as one of the least favored countries in 2013

As of 2014, 59% of Pakistanis consider the United States to be an enemy, reduced from 74% in 2012

Foreign Relations of The Karzai government

In the beginning Karzai and the united states were extremely close, working together to combat the Taliban, however in his second term as things turned sour all over Afghanistan he had a falling out with the US. Mainly over the high rate of civilian casualties inflicted by the US and NATO operations. "If you want to fight terrorism and bad people, I won’t stop you, but please leave the Afghan people alone". In a retrospective interview, Karzai claimed he felt that he was being used as a tool by the United States.

The Karzai government focused heavily on maintaining positive relations with neighboring countries and countries all around the world. much to the annoyance of their main benefactor the USA they have maintained close ties with Iran stating

"We have resisted the negative propaganda launched by foreign states against the Islamic Republic, and we stress that aliens' propaganda should not leave a negative impact on the consolidated ties between the two great nations of Iran and Afghanistan."[70] Karzai added, "The two Iranian and Afghan nations are close to each other due to their bonds and commonalities, they belong to the same house, and they will live alongside each other for good.”

With Pakistan and India;

Karzai being Pashtun spent a lot of time in Pakistan, and earlier in his life studied in India he has referred to the two countries as “inseparable brothers” however relations have often been strained between the competing siblings

After the assassination of Osama Bin Ladin in Pakistan Karzai went on a mission to increase relations with India stating "The signing of the strategic partnership with India is not directed against any country. It is not directed against any other entity. This is for Afghanistan to benefit from the strength of India."

Pakistan and India are mortal enemies and constantly fear and fight each other. Many political experts fear the two countries as they have both developed nuclear weapons and have had relations equitable to the USA and North Korea.

Pakistan fears a strong Afghani-Indian Alliacne as it could cause them to be entrapped.

Afghanistan also has strained relationships with Pakistan due to their support of the Taliban, something which Pakistan has a difficult time controlling. As stated by the ISI leader, it’s a long complex history between the two factions, Pakistan and the Taliban and can sometimes equate to a kinship.

Relations with Pakistan have often been tense for various reasons such as the Durand Line border issue. A border drawn by the British when they held colonial dominion over Pakistan (which was at the time apart of India) the Border cuts the Pashtun ethnic group in half.

Afghanistan was one of the few countries to recognize the Russian annexation of Crimea, Karzai once again was playing the game of politics. Much to the annoyance of the USA.

As the years continued in Afghanistan, with Osama bin Laden dead, president after president came and went and the war never ended. From Bush, to Obama, to Trump All presidents talked about leaving Afghanistan but it never happened. It became a silent war, falling off the radar.

Until December 9th 2019 when the Washington post released – The AFGHAN PAPERS

The Afghan papers are a series of documents They include more than 2,000 pages of previously unpublished notes of interviews with people who played a direct role in the war, from generals and diplomats to aid workers and Afghan officials.

The documents reveal that high-ranking officials were generally of the opinion that the war was unwinnable but kept this hidden from the public. The documents were released after the Washington Post won a three year legal battle, citing the Freedom of Information Act.

The Interviews are from an array of different voices under 3 administrations the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations

Douglas Lute, a three-star Army general who served as the White House’s Afghan war czar during the Bush and Obama administrations, told government interviewers in 2015. “We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan — we didn’t know what we were doing,”

He added: “What are we trying to do here? We didn’t have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking.”

With most speaking on the assumption that their remarks would not become public, U.S. officials acknowledged that their warfighting strategies were fatally flawed and that Washington wasted enormous sums of money trying to remake Afghanistan into a modern nation.

“What did we get for this $1 trillion effort? Was it worth $1 trillion?” Jeffrey Eggers, a retired Navy SEAL and White House staffer for Bush and Obama, told government interviewers. He added, “After the killing of Osama bin Laden, I said that Osama was probably laughing in his watery grave considering how much we have spent on Afghanistan.”

At the outset, for instance, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan had a clear, stated objective — to retaliate against al-Qaeda and prevent a repeat of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Yet the interviews show that as the war dragged on, the goals and mission kept changing and a lack of faith in the U.S. strategy took root inside the Pentagon, the White House and the State Department.

Fundamental disagreements went unresolved. Some U.S. officials wanted to use the war to turn Afghanistan into a democracy. Others wanted to transform Afghan culture and elevate women’s rights. Still others wanted to reshape the regional balance of power among Pakistan, India, Iran and Russia.

A section called, The Lessons Learned interviews, also reveal how U.S. military commanders struggled to articulate who they were fighting, let alone why.

Was al-Qaeda the enemy, or the Taliban? Was Pakistan a friend or an adversary? What about the Islamic State and the bewildering array of foreign jihadists, let alone the warlords on the CIA’s payroll? According to the documents, the U.S. government never settled on an answer.

As a result, in the field, U.S. troops often couldn’t tell friend from foe.

“They thought I was going to come to them with a map to show them where the good guys and bad guys live,” an unnamed former adviser to an Army Special Forces team told government interviewers in 2017. “It took several conversations for them to understand that I did not have that information in my hands. At first, they just kept asking: ‘But who are the bad guys, where are they?’ ”

The view wasn’t any clearer from the Pentagon.

“I have no visibility into who the bad guys are,” Rumsfeld complained on Sept. 8, 2003, “We are woefully deficient in human intelligence.”

U.S. officials tried to create — from scratch — a democratic government in Kabul modeled after their own in Washington. It was a foreign concept to the Afghans, who were accustomed to tribalism, monarchism, communism and Islamic law.

“Our policy was to create a strong central government which was idiotic because Afghanistan does not have a history of a strong central government,” an unidentified former State Department official told government interviewers in 2015. “The timeframe for creating a strong central government is 100 years, which we didn’t have.”

Meanwhile, the United States flooded the fragile country with far more aid than it could possibly absorb.

During the peak of the fighting, from 2009 to 2012, U.S. lawmakers and military commanders believed the more they spent on schools, bridges, canals and other civil-works projects, the faster security would improve. Aid workers told government interviewers it was a colossal misjudgment, akin to pumping kerosene on a dying campfire just to keep the flame alive.

One unnamed executive with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) guessed that 90 percent of what they spent was overkill: “We lost objectivity. We were given money, told to spend it and we did, without reason.”

Many aid workers blamed Congress for what they saw as a mindless rush to spend.

The gusher of aid that Washington spent on Afghanistan also gave rise to historic levels of corruption.

Christopher Kolenda, an Army colonel who deployed to Afghanistan several times and advised three U.S. generals in charge of the war, said that the Afghan government led by President Hamid Karzai had “self-organized into a kleptocracy” by 2006 — and that U.S. officials failed to recognize the lethal threat it posed to their strategy.

“I like to use a cancer analogy,” Kolenda told government interviewers. “Petty corruption is like skin cancer; there are ways to deal with it and you’ll probably be just fine. Corruption within the ministries, higher level, is like colon cancer; it’s worse, but if you catch it in time, you’re probably ok. Kleptocracy, however, is like brain cancer; it’s fatal.”

By allowing corruption to fester, U.S. officials told interviewers, they helped destroy the popular legitimacy of the wobbly Afghan government they were fighting to prop up. With judges and police chiefs and bureaucrats extorting bribes, many Afghans soured on democracy and turned to the Taliban to enforce order.

The Afghan army

year after year, U.S. generals have said in public they are making steady progress on the central plank of their strategy: to train a robust Afghan army and national police force that can defend the country without foreign help.

In the Lessons Learned interviews, however, U.S. military trainers described the Afghan security forces as incompetent, unmotivated and rife with deserters. They also accused Afghan commanders of pocketing salaries — paid by U.S. taxpayers — for tens of thousands of “ghost soldiers.”

None expressed confidence that the Afghan army and police could ever fend off, much less defeat, the Taliban on their own. More than 60,000 members of Afghan security forces have been killed, a casualty rate that U.S. commanders have called unsustainable.

One unidentified U.S. soldier said Special Forces teams “hated” the Afghan police whom they trained and worked with, calling them “awful — the bottom of the barrel in the country that is already at the bottom of the barrel.”

A U.S. military officer estimated that one-third of police recruits were “drug addicts or Taliban.” Yet another called them “stealing fools” who looted so much fuel from U.S. bases that they perpetually smelled of gasoline.

“Thinking we could build the military that fast and that well was insane,” an unnamed senior USAID official told government interviewers.

Meanwhile, as U.S. hopes for the Afghan security forces failed to materialize, Afghanistan became the world’s leading source of a growing scourge: opium.

At first, Afghan poppy farmers were paid by the British to destroy their crops — which only encouraged them to grow more the next season. Later, the U.S. government eradicated poppy fields without compensation — which only infuriated farmers and encouraged them to side with the Taliban.

The Specter of Vietnam always hungover Afghanistan. No matter how the war was going the government always gave the same talking points as Vietnam, we are making progress.

In October 2006, Rumsfeld’s speechwriters delivered a paper titled “Afghanistan: Five Years Later.” Brimming with optimism, it highlighted more than 50 promising facts and figures, from the number of Afghan women trained in “improved poultry management” (more than 19,000) to the “average speed on most roads” (up 300 percent).

“Five years on, there is a multitude of good news,” it read. “While it has become fashionable in some circles to call Afghanistan a forgotten war, or to say the United States has lost its focus, the facts belie the myths.”

Rumsfeld thought it was brilliant.

“This paper,” he wrote in a memo, “is an excellent piece. How do we use it? Should it be an article? An Op-ed piece? A handout? A press briefing? All of the above? I think it ought to get it to a lot of people.”

His staffers made sure it did. They circulated a version to reporters and posted it on Pentagon websites.

Since then, U.S. generals have almost always preached that the war is progressing well, no matter the reality on the battlefield.

“We’re making some steady progress,” Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, told reporters in September 2008, even as he and other U.S. commanders in Kabul were urgently requesting reinforcements to cope with a rising tide of Taliban fighters.

Two years later, as the casualty rate among U.S. and NATO troops climbed to another high, Army Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez held a news conference in Kabul.

“First, we are steadily making deliberate progress,” he said.

A person identified only as a senior National Security Council official said there was constant pressure from the Obama White House and Pentagon to produce figures to show the troop surge of 2009 to 2011 was working, despite hard evidence to the contrary.

“It was impossible to create good metrics. We tried using troop numbers trained, violence levels, control of territory and none of it painted an accurate picture,” the senior NSC official told government interviewers in 2016. “The metrics were always manipulated for the duration of the war.”

Even when casualty counts and other figures looked bad, the senior NSC official said, the White House and Pentagon would spin them to the point of absurdity. Suicide bombings in Kabul were portrayed as a sign of the Taliban’s desperation, that the insurgents were too weak to engage in direct combat. Meanwhile, a rise in U.S. troop deaths was cited as proof that American forces were taking the fight to the enemy.

“It was their explanations,” the senior NSC official said. “For example, attacks are getting worse? ‘That’s because there are more targets for them to fire at, so more attacks are a false indicator of instability.’ Then, three months later, attacks are still getting worse? ‘It’s because the Taliban are getting desperate, so it’s actually an indicator that we’re winning.’ ”

“And this went on and on for two reasons,” the senior NSC official said, “to make everyone involved look good, and to make it look like the troops and resources were having the kind of effect where removing them would cause the country to deteriorate.”

In other field reports sent up the chain of command, military officers and diplomats took the same line. Regardless of conditions on the ground, they claimed they were making progress.

“From the ambassadors down to the low level, [they all say] we are doing a great job,” Michael Flynn, a retired three-star Army general, told government interviewers in 2015. “Really? So if we are doing such a great job, why does it feel like we are losing?”

“I do think the key benchmark is the one I’ve suggested, which is how many Afghans are getting killed,” James Dobbins, the former U.S. diplomat, told a Senate panel in 2009. “If the number’s going up, you’re losing. If the number’s going down, you’re winning. It’s as simple as that.”

In 2018, 3,804 Afghan civilians were killed in the war, according to the United Nations.

That is the most in one year since the United Nations began tracking casualties a decade ago.

The Afghan papers revealed the complete ineptness present in the USA. They had no idea what they were doing, they had no idea who the enemy was, they failed completely in Afghanistan.

The US and Afghan government would ally with some disgusting criminals in order to keep the peace. Many felt even the Taliban were preferable to these scum.

Example of warlord –FAHIM KHAN - 13:21--- insert audio from WASHINGTON POST AFGHAN PAPERS REVEAALED

He was one of our closes allies during the war.

Some Warlords would have child sex slaves.

Drug Trafficking was common throughout the impoverished country

We entered Afghanistan to create an American style of life there. This would be equitable to Saudi Arabia trying to come to the US and enforce their culture on us.

Most damning was the fact that every administration tried to pass the buck. We kept dumping more and more money into the country and all we got for it was more corruption and the Taliban coming off as more just.

In 2019 the ASIA FOUNDATION said that 85% of people have no sympathy for the Taliban

However one redditor put it differently

On a post related to the Talibans rapid conquest of the country.

“I am an Afghani and can speak for the region, the Taliban isn’t good but we want the USA out”

When Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese, they renamed the city Ho Chi Minh after the former president of North Vietnam. Order slowly returned.

Saigon had become swollen with an influx of people from the war, many citizens were sent to re-education classes in order to regain full standing in society. Between 200,000-300,000 south Vietnamese went to these re-education camps where many endured torture, starvation and disease while they were forced to do hard labor

According to the Vietnamese government, within two years of the capture of the city one million people had left Saigon, to return to a life of rural subsistence farming.

This is perhaps preferable to what happened when the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan; when law and order completely eroded and warlords took over the country.