tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6399730406480392183.post1744626100546278075..comments2024-03-27T11:18:34.222-03:00Comments on Viable Opposition: Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan - The Devolution of a NationA Political Junkiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03342345936277964422noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6399730406480392183.post-85673861619976361232021-08-16T14:36:02.799-03:002021-08-16T14:36:02.799-03:00No, the lesson is not that "Afghanistan is un...No, the lesson is not that "Afghanistan is unconquerable," but how easily and quickly Afghanistan can be conquered. It collapsed more suddenly than France in WW2 which withstood for 26 weeks the world's mightiest tank army. <br /><br />The Taliban are not Afghanistan. They did not exists 27 years ago. They are a party of Islamists out of a fraction of ethnic Pashtuns. Their 100,000 fighters had, until a few months ago had for years been denied control of even one province, even one large city by the Afghan national army.<br /> <br /> That large, force of 300,000 had included enough efficient battalions to do the job. Those commandos did the fighting, the Americans did their logistics and held their coats. With that US backing they \had done the job for years and could have done it for the foreseeable future. Which is what the country needs, the habit of being western, outliving the Taliban. <br /><br /> Afghanistan had for 20 years known modernity with an elected govt, western medicine, an electric grid, highways with cars, public schools for both boys and girls, movie theaters, television, internet, a free press, a per capita income six times higher than before 2001. <br /><br />Still, its 38 million people have very little national consciousness and little understanding of the world. When America with its vehicles and weapons appeared they bowed before it. Even the patina of a small residual force and the sense that much more is over the horizon, the way a single cop with a radio can intimidate a neighborhood, was enough. But when all of that suddenly slunk away, the immense Bagram airfield folding its tents and gone in one night, and with no national leadership, no Najibullah prepared to stand and fight, then there was nothing to hold them together in the face of the fanatic Taliban brandishing Islam. naclhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09063230534756835907noreply@blogger.com