Afghanistan: Street fighting rages as Taliban attack key city

[Vendetta]

* The elected government was corrupt but come on. Nothing new elections couldn't fix.

That seems naive.

Remember that government isn't just what you elect, it's all the civil servants at multiple layers. Getting corruption out of the Afghan government would be a massive process which would require a far reaching and effective court system that was willing to reach everyone.

[loomer]

Yeah, you'd need to build a system that wasn't designed from the ground up to hand near limitless impunity to occupation forces and their corporate partners, so it was never going to happen while the Coalition remained in Afghanistan.

[wautd]

* The elected government was corrupt but come on. Nothing new elections couldn't fix.

That seems naive.

Remember that government isn't just what you elect, it's all the civil servants at multiple layers. Getting corruption out of the Afghan government would be a massive process which would require a far reaching and effective court system that was willing to reach everyone.

Yes I might be a bit naïve on that. I'm nothing saying that the change would happen soon or overnight. The thing with democratic elections* is that politicians can be rewarded or punished/held responsible for their past terms, which could have changed their society for the better in the long run. Elas, we'll probably never know since a young and brittle democracy has been taken over by a ruthless theocratic dictatorship** again.

*as much as those were possible what with the Taliban doing bombing campaigns against them
** as well as a narco-state I guess, as Taliban's income/economy is heavily dependent on drugs trade

[wautd]

Yeah, you'd need to build a system that wasn't designed from the ground up to hand near limitless impunity to occupation forces and their corporate partners, so it was never going to happen while the Coalition remained in Afghanistan.

Probably. Fat chance of that ever going to happen under Taliban rule either though

[loomer]

More accounts of the search for journalists are coming out, and allegations of killings of family members in the process.

[Vendetta]

* The elected government was corrupt but come on. Nothing new elections couldn't fix.

That seems naive.

Remember that government isn't just what you elect, it's all the civil servants at multiple layers. Getting corruption out of the Afghan government would be a massive process which would require a far reaching and effective court system that was willing to reach everyone.

Yes I might be a bit naïve on that. I'm nothing saying that the change would happen soon or overnight. The thing with democratic elections* is that politicians can be rewarded or punished/held responsible for their past terms, which could have changed their society for the better in the long run. Elas, we'll probably never know since a young and brittle democracy has been taken over by a ruthless theocratic dictatorship** again.

*as much as those were possible what with the Taliban doing bombing campaigns against them
** as well as a narco-state I guess, as Taliban's income/economy is heavily dependent on drugs trade

Yeah, but the politicians in any government are this really thin layer on top of the civil service. For every elected person there are a hundred that aren't, and who don't change when the elected ones do.

So if the civil service is corrupt, then it doesn't matter who you elect the people still just see money disappearing into the pockets of those who run everything.

Also, for most people merely being voted out of office doesn't really count as "punishment" for a corrupt politician. Like when bozo the clown and his entourage finally shuffle out of Westminster £37 billion will still have been disappeared on a covid test and trace system that completely failed to deliver any testing or contact tracing and was replaced with an app which cost a tenth of a percent of that to develop and operate. (among all the other billions in public funds that were diverted to the chumocracy on bum contracts for equipment that never appeared or was useless when it did). And they won't be punished, they won't be going to prison, they won't be made to recover the funds, they'll be living large on it for the rest of their filthy greasy lives.

And y'know, I bet if you traced all the money the US had spent on Afghanistan to deliver on civil and military contracts you'd find a very very large proportion of it never actually did the things it was paid for.

Nobody was interested in making a non-corrupt government in Afghanistan, they were too busy with their own grifts.

[Solauren]

Vendetta hit the nail perfectly on the head.

I work as a Civil Servant in Canada. I've worked at the Provincal level, and I work at the Federal level.

During that, I've seen two system wide tech upgrades happen. The first one in the province was software replacement (old mainframe programs running on Cobol to modern software systems). It was done partially by an outside company, but with alot of in-house testing by provincal staff during development, with lots of refinements, and for several months before roll out, province wide mandatory training on the program. A few people that tried to skip training were told straight out that the old systems were going to be gone on the Friday, and if they didn't get the training, they wouldn't have jobs come the Monday.

Gorgeous system, no software problems at full roll-out.


The second one was Federal, and is the infamous Phoenix pay system. Outside development, and then the Federal department that handled payroll (etc) was relocated from Ottawa to PEI, and everyone that knew the old system was either given early retirement, or transferred back to their original home positions. Oh, and the old staff was told to train the new staff on the new system as they were leaving their jobs.

And the new system couldn't handle stuff it was supposed to be able to handle.

i.e
Solauren is currently based as a level 9 in support, with full in time, meaning he makes this salary, with this leave.
However, Solauren currently working as a level 15, IT worker, with full in time, meaning he makes this salary, with this leave, and a monthly issued parking pass.

That's actually pretty standard in government jobs in Canada. You 'Act' in a different position for 6 - 12 months to cover Maternity leave, or for a temporary program, etc.

The system couldn't handle it. It's why thousands of people didn't get paid.

No testing
No real training
No accountability.

And it cost way more then the provincial system.

Want to know part of the difference?
The Provincal system was overseen by tech experts, was built to specifications from scratch, and had a flexible timeline.
The federal system was farmed out to the company of a 'buddy' of several elected officials with no tech experience or knowledge. It took them '3 years to develop'

[Rogue 9]

So they're not even waiting for the last plane to leave before reprisals begin? Why am I not surprised?

More detailed info on that flight.

That was on Sunday, and far from the last flight. Did you get the wrong link?

[Juubi Karakuchi]

I have a sneaking suspicion as to why the Taliban are behaving so badly. By that, I specifically mean overtly breaking their promises within easy sight of foreign troops and journalists, plus others able to get the word out. And it isn't just the mask slipping.

I have a funny feeling, that the Taliban wants a fight with foreign forces, especially the Americans.

I should explain. The Taliban want to rule, but have few ways to make this work. If they work with the warlords and allow localism, they lose the ability to force their will on the localities while angering Pashtun nationalists who want a unitary, Pashtun-dominated state. If they want to bypass local leaders and overcome ethnic tensions, they have to find some way to build support at the grassroots level.

Their ideology will not do this; at least not by itself. Their religion was always too extreme for most Afghans; and at times actively annoyed them. They stomped around telling people what to do; what men could do with their facial hair, what clothes women could wear, what could be taught in the schools. They even banned much-loved and long-standing customs like kite-flying, and outright banned most if not all music; in a culture that treasures music. The rural conservatives who backed the Mujahideen in order to preserve all that culture could only watch while the Taliban trashed it in the name of God. Little wonder that when the Americans blasted the Taliban from the air and the Northern Alliance came charging south, they stood aside and left the Taliban to their fate. And I doubt the Taliban has forgiven, or forgotten.

The other obvious option would be Pashtun nationalism. Quite a few Pashtuns supported the Taliban, despite objecting to their methods, because they wanted a united, Pashtun-dominated Afghanistan. But this is problematic for two reasons. For one, it would infuriate the other peoples; not merely the Turkic minorities like the Uzbeks and Tajiks, but even the Hazara, who are ethno-linguistically Iranian like the Pashtuns (as well as Iranians, and Kurds, among others). The other is that even the Pashtun nationalists are following them on sufferance. They trusted the Taliban once, and the price was tyranny and poverty, then twenty years of foreign occupation. If they smell treachery or failure, they'll take their custom elsewhere.

So here's my theory. They actually wanted to fight the Americans; and not just to prove themselves as macho men and great warriors. They wanted a glorious jihad against the invading infidel, one that would unite Afghanistan behind them; a glorious cause cutting across ethnic and tribal boundaries, in which the Taliban would be the heroes both of Islam and Afghanistan.

Except that hasn't happened. The infidels didn't turn up, and all the Taliban had to kill were fellow Afghans; and worse, fellow Muslims. And they can't just attack the Americans either. The Americans are peacefully keeping up their end of the deal; sticking to the airports and evacuating people. To attack them would not only risk a severe clobbering, it would also make them look like cowardly, oath-breaking fools in the eyes of the Afghans. Worse still, it would be the perfect excuse for Biden to declare the deal off and send in the bombers. He won't put boots back on the ground, but a bombing campaign could still weaken the Taliban, wreck their credibility, and give the resistance breathing room to rise and establish themselves.

So, their only option left is to act like utter barbarians until the Americans (or maybe one of the others) finally lose their temper and lash out.

[Broomstick]

Or maybe the Taliban don't have full control over their troops. Some people might be settling personal scores. And some people are just dickheads and asshats.

[Juubi Karakuchi]

Or maybe the Taliban don't have full control over their troops. Some people might be settling personal scores. And some people are just dickheads and asshats.

It might just be, for all that.

[ray245]

Or maybe the Taliban don't have full control over their troops. Some people might be settling personal scores. And some people are just dickheads and asshats.

Yeah. I don't think we should assume the Taliban have as much control over their troops as people would like to think. Not to mention even well-disciplined armies of NATO can have troops and various units performing complete atrocities as well. Take the Australian Spec Ops in the region for example.

[Solauren]

It's also possible there are people pretending to be Taliban, and using them as cover to be assholes.

(Like that has never happened...)

[loomer]

The more likely explanation is a combination of bad faith, lack of local control (it's not a bug - it's a feature. We built a military model designed to eliminate their leadership as often and as freely as possible. They reacted by taking their already significant decentralization and making it central to their operations) making consistent policy difficult, and genuine belief that they're reinstituting civilization against barbarism. Almost everything they've done so far is coherent with their world view.

If they were looking to incite a fight, they'd probably be doing the atrocities in Kabul, for a start, and not out in the regions where the media presence is much lighter. Remember - this is an organization that's had the chance to spend twenty years learning how the news cycle works, watching other insurgencies and terrorist groups master PR and learning how they did it. They're on twitter and instagram like everyone else.

It is always a dangerous mistake to assume one's enemies think they are the barbarians. In the same way you encounter very few people who will admit they're the asshole rather than everyone else, very few people think their chosen way of life is wrong. If they did, it'd be much easier to deal with them.

[Straha]

* The elected government was corrupt but come on. Nothing new elections couldn't fix.

That seems naive.

Remember that government isn't just what you elect, it's all the civil servants at multiple layers. Getting corruption out of the Afghan government would be a massive process which would require a far reaching and effective court system that was willing to reach everyone.

Yes I might be a bit naïve on that. I'm nothing saying that the change would happen soon or overnight. The thing with democratic elections* is that politicians can be rewarded or punished/held responsible for their past terms, which could have changed their society for the better in the long run. Elas, we'll probably never know since a young and brittle democracy has been taken over by a ruthless theocratic dictatorship** again.

*as much as those were possible what with the Taliban doing bombing campaigns against them
** as well as a narco-state I guess, as Taliban's income/economy is heavily dependent on drugs trade

So, there's a more basic fundamental question here which is: what is government's purpose?

In Afghanistan, and in other similar societies, government works through informal non-institutional agreements that are based on personal bonds. This means money gets handed from governmental collectors to people with little to no oversight on an understanding that it will be used for whatever productive purposes people wanted. In the United States (and most western countries), we call that graft and corruption and try to expunge it wherever possible. (Well, whenever building contracts and the military aren't involved. This was a Hallmark of American politics until very very recently.)

An example of this working "as it should", from another Middle Eastern country many years back: money was put aside for the support of the elderly and disabled in a small rural town, with an NGO footing part of the bill. The goal was to build a center where they could stay under supervision. Some years later a rep from the NGO goes to the town to see this building and finds nothing. They freak out and start asking around thinking they've uncovered mass theft. Instead, the local leaders of the village had basically taken the money given to construct the center and distributed it around the town, in return the families who had disabled or elderly didn't just have a nice little sum of money but found that they didn't have to pay for all the food they needed for their families, and when one of their houses was damaged the entire village would show up to fix it free of charge.

This leads to a problem when the US and allies tried to install a democratic government and then tried to track where money went. If you can't track it, that's theft and now you have congressional investigations demanding "accountability". But in Afghanistan if you're not using these "informal" methods of distribution not only are you pissing off the powers that be in localities but you're also trying to create a system out of whole cloth that has no support or expertise to back it up. And the locals who see this happening recognize that as wasted money when it could just, y'know, be given to the local leaders to take care of the problems instead of favored interests of the occupying powers (something that they would flag as corruption.)

And so, you have two opposing forces without a good chance at compromise because any compromise would need to be organic, and that simply isn't happening, and each side views fundamental portions of the compromise (e.g. giving up accountability of social spending, delegitimizing local leaders, etc.) as non-starters. This means that a democratic solution through the Afghani parliament simply cannot happen, especially when it only exists on the whim of foreign power.

Now, ironically, the Taliban also believes that these informal systems of connection are corrupt and is opposed to them. Unlike the US and allies its solutions are much more organic to the country, which means that at least some people in the country will go along with it, giving it a constituency necessary to maintain "reforms". Also, crucially, it's willing to kill people who oppose it, giving it a very credible stick to enforce compliance for the compromises (and they will, absolutely, be compromises) that it ends up accepting. The US and allies would, understandably and rightly, never engage in that level of brutality.

[Straha]

- double post-

[Broomstick]

Reports of people killed in a crowd crush outside the Kabul airport (I see death numbers between 4-7 depending on what site you're reading). Also reports of tear gas being released, but fewer of those.

[Straha]

Two congressmen are planning on going to Afghanistan in the middle of this crisis, while the badly xeroxed pirate Dan Crenshaw says the US should unilaterally extend its stay in Afghanistan and threaten immediate escalation if the Taliban objects.

[Broomstick]

Re congressmen: they're chosen for their popularity, not their intelligence.

[Solauren]

Serious question - if those two congressmen actually go to Afghanistan, and are captured by the Taliban, what would happen?

[loomer]

Well, I believe that would usually result in a war, which would probably be precisely what they're hoping will happen. The Forever War folks have really been ramping up their spin campaign as Straha noted. Meanwhile the CIA Director has been meeting with the Taliban.

[Solauren]

So no chance of Biden telling them 'You go, you've resigned from Congress until you get back, and if they keep you, it's your own damn fault'?

[Gandalf]

So no chance of Biden telling them 'You go, you've resigned from Congress until you get back, and if they keep you, it's your own damn fault'?

To my knowledge, the president can't determine who is and isn't in Congress. Also, the usual angry war people would accuse him of abandoning Americans, in some sort of more absurd Benghazi.

[loomer]

I think it's traditionally frowned on for the executive head to arbitrarily strip elected officials of their position in a democracy, so no, I shouldn't think so.

[Broomstick]

So no chance of Biden telling them 'You go, you've resigned from Congress until you get back, and if they keep you, it's your own damn fault'?

To my knowledge, the president can't determine who is and isn't in Congress.

^ This. There would be zero legal basis for Biden to do this.

Congress as a whole might be able to discipline them (to the extent that what they could be called that) but the only way to remove someone from Congress would be 1) election recall (that has to come from the people the congressperson represents, not from anyone in DC), 2) impeachment and conviction, or 3) death.