Dr. Jonathan Schroden
@JJSchroden
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20 years as a military operations analyst. Lots on AFG, IW, CT, SOF & the like. All views my own, RT not endorsement. Be droll, not a troll.
Washington, DC
Joined January 2014
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I’ve seen lots of discussion lately about
#Taliban
-captured weapons in
#Afghanistan
, much of which is ill-informed. So, I’m going to discuss five myths about this topic in this THREAD. 1/n
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A dynamic that didn’t exist in the 90s & with which the
#Taliban
will now have to deal: protestors with cell phones
Welcome to governance in the 2020s
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After today, I'm just going to say it: I am legitimately shocked at how quickly the cities of
#Afghanistan
have fallen. I knew the
#ANDSF
weren't as strong as advertised in rural areas, but I genuinely believed they'd stand & fight to defend the cities. I was wrong.
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What makes the
#Afghanistan
situation so frustrating is that there are influential people like
@RichardHaass
who still believe this is true.
I'll say it again: The situation in AFG pre-withdrawal announcement WAS👏NOT👏A👏STABLE👏STALEMATE👏that could just continue forever. 1/2
What makes the Afghanistan situation so frustrating is that the US & its allies had reached something of an equilibrium at a low sustainable cost. It wasn’t peace or military victory, but it was infinitely preferable to the strategic & human catastrophe that is unfolding.
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So there are your 5 myths. The net total of which are this:
- The
#Taliban
have a sizable new arsenal, but…
- It’s not worth $88B
- It’s not as large as people are saying
- They can’t use all of it
- They can use a lot of it
- They can maintain the bulk of it
21/n
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Pakistan to the US: “Can you help us with our terrorism problem?”
US: “Yeah we’ll get right on that” 🙄
Pakistan's plea for U.S. support against the growing threat of TTP militants has faced silence as Pakistani Army Chief Asim Munir's recent visit to the United States has yields no commitment from Washington. Despite cross-border threat posed by Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and its…
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First time I’ve seen a USG official confirm that we’re doing this👇
“The CIA shares
#counterterrorism
information with the
#Taliban
, the senior administration official said, but not targeting data or ‘actionable intelligence.’”
#Afghanistan
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@RichardHaass
#Taliban
steadily eroded govt control since 2015 & by 2021 had surrounded >12 prov capitals. How do you think they seized 200 districts in a month?
2500 troops to do CT wasn't a viable option. The options were withdraw or surge--not "stay the course." 2/2
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Today, the
#Dutch
Ministry of Foreign Affairs published an evaluation report of its contribution to the Resolute Support mission in
#Afghanistan
that *pulls no punches.*
I'll string together its primary findings in this THREAD. 1/n
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Myth 3: The
#Taliban
know how to use all the stuff they’ve captured.
They don’t. They do not, for ex, know how to fly a Blackhawk. Or a C-130. & it’s unlikely they’ll figure it out. They might be able to coerce or co-opt a trained
#ANDSF
pilot to do so, but organically? No. 13/n
The Taliban are reportedly trying to use the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter left behind by the US Army
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Some of that $ was used for weapons & military equip, but a major cost driver for the
#ANDSF
was salaries. Which means a good chunk of that $88B dissipated as paychecks into
#Afghanistan
’s economy (or was skimmed into offshore accounts by AFG’s corrupt security leaders). 4/n
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There have also been reports of
#ANDSF
pilots having flown aircraft to neighboring countries. The most credible of these is this report by
@AlanCullison
of the
@WSJ
who wrote that 46 aircraft were flown to
#Tajikistan
&
#Uzbekistan
. 10/n
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As an example, according to
@SIGARHQ
, here’s how many aircraft were actually in
#Afghanistan
as of the end of June. Note, for example, only 3 C-130s. One of them was out of AFG for maintenance. 9/n
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Those placing the blame for what’s happening in
#Afghanistan
solely on
#Pakistan
are missing a few key facts:
1. The
#Taliban
are largely financially self-reliant (as I described here: ) 1/2
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The best attempts at identifying how many aircraft the
#Taliban
have captured that I’ve seen are this by
@oryxspioenkop
: 11/n
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Again, it’s sad to see people like
@RichardEngel
parachuting in with inaccurate narratives as
#Afghanistan
falls. There was only an illusion of “status quo” to people who didn’t follow AFG closely enough since 2015
The US topples the Taliban and drives out al-qaeda weeks after 9/11. Then the US gets distracted by Iraq. The Taliban return from Pakistan. The US fights hard. A status quo is finally reached. Trump wants out. Biden pulls the plug. Taliban return stronger than ever.
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CODA: One point I forgot to make—we’re likely to see this gear on the ground in
#Afghanistan
for years to come. But given the region’s notorious smuggling networks +
#Taliban
relations w/other groups, we’re also likely to see it popping up in Kashmir, the ME, Africa, SE Asia…
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(Note: The format for this was inspired by this excellent “five myths about the
#Taliban
” article by
@a_a_jackson
that you should also read) 2/n
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Myth 4: The
#Taliban
don’t know how to use any of the stuff they’ve captured.
Untrue. They’ve already shown the ability to use M-16s, M-4s & other small arms. Also night vision devices. & mortars & D-30 howitzers (in direct fire mode). 14/n
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So, while I don’t have a solid $$ estimate of the total value of the
#Taliban
’s new arsenal, I can say w/confidence that it’s *definitely not* worth $88B—and it’s likely worth a small fraction of that. 7/n
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As for vehicles, they’ve been using captured up-armored HMMWVs for years & are now using MRAPs & MSFVs for their security forces in Kabul. Given that I once drove an MRAP in
#Iraq
, anyone can do it. 15/n
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They’ll struggle w/US-made aircraft. But even w/o those, they’re still now a *much much* better equipped & very effective ground force facing internal adversaries w/no air power. This stuff helps them a lot. What they can use, they will. What they can’t, they’ll prob sell. 22/22
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To wit, this is the exact point
@JoeBiden
makes at the end of his statement today: his choices were leave or surge, not “stay the course”
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Just finished
@andrewquilty
’s “August in Kabul.” IMO it’s the best Afghan story-driven narrative of events in
#Afghanistan
since Anand Gopal’s “No Good Men Among the Living.”
Highly recommend!👇
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Myth 5: The
#Taliban
can’t maintain any of the stuff they’ve captured.
Sure they can. If they don’t already know how to maintain US small arms, there’s Google & YouTube. The US trained quite a few HMMWV, MRAP, & MSFV maintainers via the Ground Nat’l Maintenance Contract. 18/n
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Going through some old ISAF briefs and came across this slide from 2009...
"Ultimately, we win by doing COIN better"
#sigh
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To think the
#Taliban
couldn’t entice any of them to come back to work is ridiculous. What about spare parts? Sure they’re unlikely to get any from the US, but they have tens of thousands of small arms & vehicles. Cannibalization alone will last them for years. 19/n
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In addition, a lot was spent on maintenance & sustainment of the weapons & equipment purchased (typically done via contractors). For a sample breakout of expenditures, see
#DOD
’s justification budgets (eg ) 5/n
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IRT aircraft, the Mi-17s seem maintainable to me—we trained a bunch of Afghan maintainers + they could contract for help on these. UH-60s & C-130s much harder. But there’s always capitalist mercenaries like Erik Prince… 20/n
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#Taliban
: “We control 250 of the 398 districts [in
#Afghanistan
] — that is, 85 per cent of the Afghan soil under our control”
Ummmm…250/398 = 63% 🤨
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I think we all knew this was going to happen. Going to be up to social media to keep up awareness of what’s happening in
#Afghanistan
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& a lot of $ was spent on consumables like fuel. Last, a bunch of the weapons & equipment purchased by the US was destroyed in the course of fighting & some was previously pilfered & sold on the black market by corrupt members of the
#ANDSF
. 6/n
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IRT aircraft, the A/C-208s are simple (like Cessnas) & it’s likely the
#Taliban
could find someone w/basic pilot skills to fly them. A-29s a bit harder (turbo-props) but perhaps with some practice… 16/n
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One of the most galling things about these interviews with
@ashrafghani
&
@hmohib
is their portrayal of themselves as bystanders & victims deserving of sympathy
No. Nope. None.
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I’ve been asked a number of times the past couple of days what I think of
@joebiden
’s announcement to withdraw all US troops from
#Afghanistan
by September. I haven’t had the time to write a proper op ed, so instead I’ll give you my thoughts in this THREAD. 1/n
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Geez, if only *someone* had been saying this for years 😡
“Milley: Afghan forces ‘not designed appropriately’ to secure nation in ‘lessons learned’ following withdrawal”
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It’s always rich to hear
@KarzaiH
blame the US for all of
#Afghanistan
’s ills, like he had zero agency as the country’s president for all those years 🙄
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I present for your amusement the most ridiculous
#COVID19
metaphor to date
“Military experts: Fight coronavirus like fighting an insurgency”
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Given recent events in
#Afghanistan
& my focus on that country since 2008, I’ve been engaging in a lot of professional reflection of late. I'm going to share some results of that in this (long) THREAD. 1/n
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SPECIAL FORCES ARE ONLY ONE KIND OF THE UNITED STATES’ SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES WHICH ALSO INCLUDE SEALS, RANGERS, RAIDERS, SPECIAL TACTICS AIRMEN, PSYOP & CIVIL AFFAIRS BUT DON’T INCLUDE COMMANDOS SO YOU REALLY NEED TO STOP SAYING THAT
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I’m seeing a lot fewer Afghan voices in my feed these days. I miss them
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The CENTCOM Chief of Staff once tasked several officers + me to “find a way to assess the war in Iraq in one, maybe two, metrics” 🙄
What's the most memorable phrase you ever heard in uniform? Let's get this going.
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It's done! Finished my syllabus for the next course on "Military Power & Effectiveness"
@ElliottSchoolGW
We'll be reading
@ProfTalmadge
@RisaBrooks12
@CastilloJasen
@RyanGrauer
@michaelh992
@WarProf
@zeitzoff
@DonRassler
@SpencerGuard
@Tmgneff
@MujMash
@and_huh_what
& MANY more
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"It's a feeling of shock & sadness compounded by brutal uncertainty," says Timor Sharan. "Shopping in the city today, I felt people were gripped by a sense of being stuck; stuck in an uncertain future & never able to dream, aspire, think & believe anymore"
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If this is true, then I don’t want to hear any more “it was all the generals fault” or “if it weren’t for those damned civilians…”
Anyone who lied about the capabilities of their Afghan partner units bears culpability for the
#ANDSF
failures we’re seeing in
#Afghanistan
today
Remember when we kept saying that we were on "Afghan-led" missions? We were lying every time.
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This article in
@WarOnTheRocks
contains my thoughts on the
@washingtonpost
#Afghanistan
Papers. Some of you won’t like this, so before the trolls come out, a few comments on the article in this thread. 1/n
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And ruthlessly stealing assistance dollars, rigging elections & extorting bribes from average Afghans is how the govt delegitimized itself. The finger of blame points in a lot of directions when it comes to
#Afghanistan
VP Saleh in interview with CBS: The United States legitimized the Taliban. The Doha office is a creation of US. Getting Mulla Baradar out of the jail is an invention of US. Allowing them to travel here and there is with the help of US.
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Absolutely fascinating
@NewYorker
mini-documentary, well worth 15 minutes of your time to watch👇
“Swift Justice: A
#Taliban
Courtroom in Session”
Wish we had vastly more of this kind of reporting from
#Afghanistan
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My first trip to
#Afghanistan
was 2008. I was instantly smitten. A good chunk of my professional & personal life has been spent on it since then. One of my first papers on it while at CENTCOM was titled “Not Winning in AFG.” It got a lot of pushback. 1/n
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Man who led the creation of a US strategy for
#Afghanistan
criticizes US strategies for Afghanistan.
Seriously, I’m quite tired of former USG officials’ critiques of things a non-inclusive “we” did wrong in AFG 😑
"We were inept across those twenty years. It was a one year war fought 20 times over. There was a series of inconsistent and fundamentally flawed strategies. Why did Kabul fall? It fell because we defeated ourselves" Fmr US National Security Advisor
@LTGHRMcMaster
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One might think that if the US military should’ve learned *anything* from its experience in
#Afghanistan
, it would be to resource foreign militaries to fight the *way they can* and not *the way we’d like them to* 😑
I argue with
@HoansSolo
that attrition has worked for Ukraine in the past. The West is best served by backing Ukraine’s way of war and resourcing that fight rather than expecting Ukraine to fight the way we would on short timelines and w/out air power.
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If the US parks a carrier off
#Pakistan
indefinitely to do CT in
#Afghanistan
, we’ll have gained *nothing* strategically from having left & will be wasting a national-level asset. 1/2
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Yesterday
@SIGARHQ
posted an interim version of its report titled "Collapse of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces: An Assessment of the Factors That Led to Its Demise"
In this thread, I'll summarize the report's main findings & offer some thoughts. 1/n
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No, it won’t. It wasn’t in 2016, definitely was not in 2020, and it won’t be in 2024 either. Americans (generally speaking) stopped caring about
#Afghanistan
somewhere around 2010
Afghanistan will be a key topic in the US presidential elections. Much will be said as political strategies not an actual US policy, those will stir debates among diaspora Afghans - all sorts of conclusions will be drawn.
Biden’s damage control does more damage.
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Support them to what end? Another civil war in
#Afghanistan
would be *terrible* for Afghans & for US counterterrorism interests
Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan last year the
@NRFafg
has been the one credible group willing to take up arms against them.
Learn more about the NRF and what the US can do to support them here:
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Thread. The biggest challenges facing the
#Taliban
right now are how to feed Afghans & how to keep their own fighters from igniting yet another insurgency through a toxic combo of boredom, vengeance, and entitlement
Taliban's Defense Minister, Mullah Yaqub, has admitted in an audio statement that the militants have committed revenge killings in
#Afghanistan
.
That’s despite the group having declared an amnesty for its adversaries after it returned to power. (1/3)
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In which the
#Taliban
(a) endorse
@realDonaldTrump
for POTUS; (b) worry aloud for his health; & (c) give this quote: “Trump might be ridiculous for the rest of the world, but he is sane and wise man for the Taliban.”
#Afghanistan
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Last time I checked, “sacrificing yourself” ≠ “fleeing the country with a helicopter full of cash”
“I had to sacrifice myself in order to save Kabul," Ghani told BBC. But many Afghans think the opposite: He sacrificed Kabul to save himself.
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Tonight begins my new course
@ElliottSchoolGW
: “Understanding U.S. Special Operations”
In it, we’ll learn what special ops/
#SOF
are & how these differ from conventional ops/forces; how US SOF came to be; how they’ve been used over time; & what major issues they face today. 1/n
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Every time I think the
#Uvalde
fiasco can't get any worse, it does
There is no ethical or even remotely psychologically healthy context in which this or any LE personnel would have been laughing or smiling in Uvalde — he's in a building where children and their teachers are being murdered in real time.
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This is the most detailed accounting yet of the fall of Kabul—including an exchange between Mullah Baradar & Gen McKenzie in which the former gave the US the choice of securing Kabul or just the airport & the latter—acting on POTUS intent—chose the airport
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It’s apropos that AFRICOM isn’t even in the meme
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To those talking trash about CSM Naumann as USASOC’s new senior enlisted leader, let me just say you’d take her name out your mouth if you ever met her
US Army Special Operations Command has its first female senior enlisted leader
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Today begins my course on "Military Power & Effectiveness"
@ElliottSchoolGW
. In this THREAD, I'll be posting each week what we're reading for those who want to follow along at home.
1/n
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Professional news: I have been selected as an Adjunct Scholar with
@WarInstitute
for 2021-2022! Very honored & excited about this opportunity to work with the great thinkers there on the future of warfare
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Really? A group of 1000s couldn’t carry out 4-5 attacks in a day by itself?? Seriously,
#Taliban
fanboys would do better to pressure them to provide real security for Afghan minorities than to deflect their responsibility as de facto govt via conspiracy theories
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“One message from McChrystal’s book ‘Risk’ is that a general personally risked nothing by losing a war. Instead, he emerged as a lavishly paid consultant to corporations, coaching them on managing risk”
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From a
#counterterrorism
perspective, this is perhaps the worst option that Biden could pursue: it'll enrage the
#Taliban
& lead them to question US commitment to the Doha Agreement. & it'll fully collapse
#Afghanistan
's banking system & possibly the state
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This appears to be a video of the aircraft boneyard at KAIA (ie all the derelict non-functioning airframes that have been rotting there for years)
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You mean “rebuild.” You know, since the
#Taliban
destroyed much of this stuff in this first place
Time to Roll up sleeves and Build Afghanistan.
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Thread. Nothing says “tacticool” like sunglasses at night
TB sources say that after "Badri 313" units, TB has formed and deployed new "Victory Force" units in Kabul. Al-Hijrat Media released some of their images.
#Afghanistan
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It’s hard to look at this list of the
#Taliban
’s interim government & its restoration of the Islamic Emirate of
#Afghanistan
as anything other than a big 🖕to the international community & roughly 80% of Afghans
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Disagree. The single biggest source of internal dysfunction within the
#ANDSF
was the senior officers who stole pay, food, fuel, ammo & anything else they could get away with from the men they were supposed to be leading. 1/2
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A number of people have been asking my thoughts on recent developments in
#Afghanistan
. Now that I’m back from a week of sandcastle building, a THREAD to that effect. 1/n
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NEW RELEASE!
I had the distinct honor of coauthoring this one w/the great
@ColinPClarke
👇
“Brutally Ineffective: How the
#Taliban
Are Failing in Their New Role as Counter-Insurgents”
@WarOnTheRocks
#Afghanistan
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“Don’t believe what you’re told by the generals or the ambassadors or the people in the administration saying ‘We’re never going to do this again,’” Sopko said. “That’s exactly what we said after Vietnam: We’re never going to do this again..." 1/2
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I think what he means is: “The US lost my support when it did this and then I did a whole bunch of additionally counterproductive stuff”
US lost the war in Afghanistan when it bombed Afghan homes in the name of fighting terror - ex-president Hamid Karzai to RT
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There are a number of
@FulbrightPrgrm
candidates in
#Afghanistan
stuck in limbo as a result of the situation there. I'm calling on
@StateDept
@State_SCA
to find a way to give these candidates the shot they deserve!
RT if you concur!
#SupportAfgFulbrightSemifinalists2022
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Seeing lots of accounts claiming expertise on
#ISIS
-Khorasan (& typically drawing ridiculous conclusions about false flag or US sponsored activities).
If you want real expertise on
#ISKP
, look to
@AmiraJadoon
@mines_andrew
@abdsayedd
@azelin
@LucasADWebber
@Valle_Riccardo_
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An open-ended presence that was costing over 10k Afghan lives per year. Unacceptable.
The alternative to withdrawal from Afghanistan was not “endless occupation” but open-ended presence. Occupation is imposed, presence invited. Unless you think we are occupying Japan, Germany, & South Korea. And yes, withdrawal was the problem.
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Just finished this…interesting first-hand account by a squadron commander in one of
#Afghanistan
’s so-called “Zero Units”👇
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“Man Under House Arrest by Murderous New Government Praises Its Members”
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17 capitals in 8 days. People will be studying this campaign for decades to come
Timeline of Taliban's capture of provincial capitals in
#Afghanistan
:
Aug. 6 - ZARANJ, Nimroz Province
Aug. 7 - SHEBERGHAN, Jawzjan Province.
Aug. 8 - SAR-E-PUL, Sar-e-Pul Province.
Aug. 8 - KUNDUZ CITY, Kunduz Province.
Aug. 8 - TALOQAN, Takhar Province.
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I’ve been asked several times over the past couple of days (given the Pentagon shake-ups) whether it would be logistically feasible to get all US troops out of
#Afghanistan
by Christmas as Trump supposedly wants. So, here goes a THREAD. 1/n
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As much as it pains me to say it, I agree with
@LaurelMillerICG
’s argument here. 1/2
“The United States should swallow the bitter pill of working with the
#Taliban
-led government in order to prevent a failed state in
#Afghanistan
”
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I have detected *zero* interest among senior members of DOD for introspection and learning from the war in
#Afghanistan
Telling that the Army’s study on the Iraq War (which I strongly recommend) was eventually published despite significant opposition…and yet I’m unaware of any attempt to do the same for Afghanistan. No squad could complete an operation or exercise without an after-action review,…
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Or without resupply or reinforcements? Or with commanders who stole their soldiers’ pay, sold their ammo & fuel?
It's very easy to blame the Afghan army for not wanting to fight, but would we ever see the US military fight without air power?
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Somaliland Offers U.S. Military Access to Port, Airfield as It Pushes for Nationhood - WSJ
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Was anyone expecting that they would?
Pakistan will not take military action against the Taliban if they carry out full military takeover of Afghanistan, Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan said in an interview with Arabnews.
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They appear to have discovered that it’s a very loud, expensive & dusty car
The Taliban are reportedly trying to use the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter left behind by the US Army
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