[Telegraph] Shortly after Soviet troops went into Afghanistan in 1979, M16 dispatched one of their best young agents on a special recruitment mission. With Moscow trying to prop up Kabul’s flagging communist regime, the West saw a chance to make it the Kremlin’s very own Vietnam. The agent’s task was to find Afghanistan’s "Napoleon": a commander who could unite its tribes in guerrilla warfare, and lead them in government afterwards.
It was a tall order, but from GCHQ’s eavesdroppings on Soviet battle chatter, M16 had already identified someone who was giving the Russians hell: Ahmad Shah Massoud, the so-called Lion of the Panjshir Valley. He was only 28, but his band of mujahideen fighters were fast turning the Panjshir into a giant graveyard for Soviet troops.
Nor, it seemed, was Massoud just another thuggish warlord. An alumni of Kabul’s Lycée Esteqlal — the Afghan Eton — he spoke fluent French, loved poetry, and wanted Afghanistan to become a moderate, multi-ethnic democracy. As a former M16 chief tells the veteran ITN correspondent Sandy Gall in his new biography of Massoud, "this chap up in the Panjshir" seemed just the man.
Alas, as so often happens in Afghanistan, a foreign power’s best-laid plans only got so far. Massoud did eventually prevail against the Russians, whose humiliating departure in 1989 spurred the Soviet Union’s ultimate collapse. But after capturing Kabul in 1992, he could not stop Afghanistan lurching into lawlessness, fuelling the rise of the Taliban regime. Two days before 9/11, Massoud was killed by two al-Qaeda agents, who posed as TV journalists and exploded a booby-trapped camera during an interview.
With the West’s own military venture in Afghanistan now unravelling, Gall’s book serves two timely purposes. One is to retell Massoud’s legendary campaign against the Soviets, which saw him dubbed "the Afghan who won the Cold War". The other, though, is to ask whether more Western support for him in the 1990s could have led to a better Afghanistan.
That, of course, is a hypothetical question — but one that Gall, now 93, is well-qualified to ask. During the Soviet occupation, he reported extensively from Afghanistan, interviewing Massoud on numerous occasions and watching him in battle. This was no small reporting feat, given that simply getting to the Panjshir could involve a 12-day trek across mountains the height of Mont Blanc. Indeed, some of Gall’s accounts recall Eric Newby’s 1958 classic, A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, only with Russian bombing raids thrown in too.
Yet the risks were clearly worth it, because Massoud made compelling TV. His aquiline looks and trademark Pakol cap gave him the glamour of an Afghan Che Guevara. Interviewing him over tea and naan bread, Gall could see a man capable of defeating the world’s second superpower. "I was aware of an aura, a mystique that set him apart," he writes. "He had an air of authority and maturity remarkable in a man of only 28.
Massoud did indeed prove a good choice for M16. Helped by secret Western training for his lieutenants — some of it done in the grounds of British country estates — his forces withstood years of intensive Soviet assaults, killing thousands of Russians in the process. Thanks largely to their appalling casualty rate in the Panjshir, the Russians began contemplating withdrawal from Afghanistan as early as 1982.
True, Massoud’s men were accused of human rights abuses, but nothing on the scale of the looting and pillaging committed by other mujahideen leaders. Gall contends that he could have been a good leader: a Tito, perhaps, if not quite a Tony Blair.
He makes this case through access to Massoud’s private diaries, which reveal him to be a politician as well as a warrior. Massoud writes about fighting illiteracy and corruption, and frets when his troops lack decent bread to eat. He is also an astute tribal diplomat. When appointing a man of humble birth as a commander, he deftly avoids upsetting the social hierarchy by making sure to pay tribute to the man’s tribal chief.
The diaries, however, are also this book’s weak point, as they are quoted far too extensively. Much as it may have been a publishing coup to get them, only avid Massoud scholars will be interested in his day-to-day jottings about ammo supplies and local elders’ committees. I would have preferred to read more about Gall’s journalistic fieldcraft, which harks back to a lost age of foreign correspondents, long before the advent of risk assessments. Going with the mujahideen into Soviet-era Afghanistan meant spending months incommunicado, with little help if things went wrong. Gall is perhaps too old-school to put himself centre stage, but I’d like to have read more about just how bloody tough it felt.
Some may also accuse Gall of falling too much for the Massoud myth, which, in death, has turned him into a god-like figure. His portrait hangs in many Afghan homes, and there is even a national holiday in his honour. As a salvation figure, though, he is questionable. Massoud was an ethnic Tajik, so any government led by him would have struggled for acceptance by Afghanistan’s larger Pashtun group, which makes up the bedrock of Taliban support.
Few, though, could argue with the warning Massoud made in a letter to the British Government in 1997, in which he said that Afghanistan would become "a base for training terrorists" if left unassisted. Massoud’s old M16 handler, whom Gall tracks down, says he asked HMG to give more robust backing to "Napoleon" during those later years, but to no avail. "Had help been at hand," he tells Gall, "the recent history of Afghanistan would be very different."
Today, the Panjshir Valley is currently the only province of Afghanistan still holding out against the Taliban takeover; resistance there is led by Massoud’s Sandhurst-trained son, Ahmad. The Lion of the Panjshir, it seems, has not lost its roar.
#3
YouTube has a two part series on Afghanistan called “The Great Game”
Pretty interesting about history repeating itself time and time again
As for trusting the Taliband to help get our citizens out, remember that the Afghans massacred the British leaving Kabul after promising safe passage
I hope I am completely wrong on this but brace yourselves for some grim reality as our citizens try to leave Afghanistan
#7
Yup. That was a strategic victory. Had he not been killed, the Taliban would'be strutting around like peacocks. Hell there they wouldn't exist today
[PopulistPress] Osama bin Laden once warned al Qaeda not to target Joe Biden because he believed that his inheriting the presidency if something were to happen to Barack Obama would “lead the US into a crisis,” a resurfaced letter shows.
In the letter dated May 2010, the al Qaeda 9/11 mastermind wrote he had no assassination plots against Biden because he deemed him “totally unprepared” to lead the United States.
[PJMedia] As the Taliban ...Arabic for students... begins to form a government in Kabul, elsewhere in Afghanistan, tribal resistance to the Taliban is rising. Word out of Panjshir Valley is that anti-Taliban fighters have scored their first victories and are organizing their own resistance to Taliban rule.
Panjshir has always been a hotbed of anti-Taliban resistance going back to before the U.S. invasion. When the U.S. arrived, it was fighters from Panjshir who smoothed the way for our special forces.
Even today, Panjshir is one of the few remaining pockets of opposition to the Taliban, and according to local leaders, the resistance fighters captured 20 Taliban soldiers and killed 30 in Baghlan province. The resistance overran three districts.
Washington Post:
Friday’s assault to retake the three districts of Puli Hisar, Dih Salah and Bano — which was confirmed by a former defense minister — came after Taliban fighters conducted house-to-house searches in the Andarab valley of the province, local commanders said.
As in most parts of Afghanistan, the Taliban had taken over the districts with little resistance in recent weeks. Shuja said that the local residents had told the Taliban fighters they can govern as long as they don’t enter their villages and homes.
So when the Taliban came to conduct searches, former Afghan military servicemen, along with civilians, decided to rise up. They drove out the Taliban in less than a day.
According to Fox News, one of the resistance leaders is Ahmad Massoud, son of Afghan mujahideen hero Ahmad Shah Massoud, who was assassinated by al-Qaeda days before the 9/11 terror attacks.
Massoud heads up an organization known as the National Resistance® Front of Afghanistan, or the Second Resistance®. In an op-ed for the Washington Post, Massoud pleaded for help from the West.
"I write from the Panjshir Valley today, ready to follow in my father’s footsteps, with mujahideen fighters who are prepared to once again take on the Taliban. We have stores of ammunition and arms that we have patiently collected since my father’s time, because we knew this day might come...The Taliban is not a problem for the Afghan people alone. Under Taliban control, Afghanistan will without doubt become ground zero of radical Islamist terrorism; plots against democracies will be hatched here once again."
Where Pakistain was the epicenter of anti-Taliban sentiment prior to 9/11, today it appears that Tajikistan will fill that role. Ethnic Tajiks, bitter tribal foes of the Pashtun Taliban, are trickling into Afghanistan to join the resistance.
If the Panjshir resistance want any hope for external support, they may receive it from anti-Taliban sympathizers in neighboring Tajikistan. The Afghan ambassador to Tajikistan, Zahir Aghbar, rejects Taliban rule and said Panjshir Valley will serve as a resistance stronghold led by Amrullah Saleh, Afghanistan’s First Vice President who declared himself the legitimate caretaker president of Afghanistan in Panjshir after former President Ghani fled the country.
[DW] The Panjshir Valley is Afghanistan's last remaining holdout where anti-Taliban ...Arabic for students... forces seem to be working on forming a guerrilla movement to take on the Islamic fundamentalist group.
The only access point to the region is through a narrow passage created by the Panjshir River, which can be easily defended militarily.
After the Taliban's swift seizure of power in Afghanistan, the Panjshir Valley in the north is the last place that might offer any real resistance to the Islamist Death Eater group.
The region, located 150 kilometers (93 miles) northeast of the capital, Kabul, now hosts some senior members of the ousted government, like the deposed Vice President Amrullah Saleh and ex-Defense Minister Bismillah Mohammadi.
Saleh has declared himself the caretaker president after ousted President Ashraf Ghani ...former chancellor of Kabul University, ex-president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. When Biden abandoned the country left with a helicopter, four cars, and part of the national treasury... fled the country.
"I will never, ever and under no circumstances bow to the Taliban terrorists. I will never betray the soul and legacy of my hero Ahmad Shah Mas[s]oud, the commander, the legend and the guide," Saleh wrote on Twitter.
A DECISIVE ROLE IN AFGHAN MILITARY HISTORY
The Panjshir Valley has repeatedly played a decisive role in Afghanistan's military history, as its geographical position almost completely closes it off from the rest of the country. The only access point to the region is through a narrow passage created by the Panjshir River, which can be easily defended militarily.
Famed for its natural defenses, the region tucked into the Hindu Kush mountains never fell to the Taliban during the civil war of the 1990s, nor was it conquered by the Soviets a decade earlier.
Most of the valley's up to 150,000 inhabitants belong to the Tajik ethnic group, while the majority of the Taliban are Pashtuns.
The valley is also known for its emeralds, which were used in the past to finance the resistance movements against those in power.
Before the Taliban seized power, the Panjshir province had repeatedly demanded more autonomy from the central government.
LONG HISTORY OF RESISTANCE
Panjshir Valley was among the safest regions in the country during the time of the NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... -backed government from 2001 to 2021.
This history of the valley's independence has been closely linked to Ahmad Shah Massoud, Afghanistan's most famed anti-Taliban fighter, who led the strongest resistance against the Islamic fundamentalist group from his stronghold in the valley until his liquidation in 2001.
Born in the valley in 1953, Ahmad Shah gave himself the nom de guerre "Massoud" ("the lucky one," or "the beneficiary") in 1979. He went on to resist the communist government in Kabul and the Soviet Union at the time, eventually becoming one of the country's most influential mujahedeen commanders.
After the withdrawal of the Soviet Union in 1989, civil war broke out in Afghanistan, which the Taliban ultimately won. However, a hangover is the wrath of grapes... Massoud and his United Front (also known as the Northern Alliance) succeeded in controlling not only the Panjshir Valley but almost all of northeastern Afghanistan up to the border with China and Tajikistan, thus protecting the region from the Taliban.
Massoud also espoused conservative Islam but sought to build democratic institutions and personally believed that women should be given an equal place in society. His goal was a unified Afghanistan in which ethnic and religious boundaries would be less clear. However, a hangover is the wrath of grapes... the Human Rights Watch organization accused Massoud's troops of committing massive human rights When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much... violations in the battle for Kabul during the civil war.
In 2001, Massoud was assassinated by suspected al-Qaeda holy warriors.
SON FOLLOWING IN 'FATHER'S FOOTSTEPS'
Now, the son of Ahmad Shah Massoud, Ahmad Massoud, says he is hoping to follow in his "father's footsteps."
Massoud, who closely resembles his father in appearance and habits, commands a militia in the valley.
He said he has been joined by former members of the country's special forces and soldiers from the Afghan army "disgusted by the surrender of their commanders."
It is, however, not clear how strong this new anti-Taliban resistance movement is and how the new rulers in Kabul will react to it.
[OneIndia] With the Taliban ...Arabic for students... taking over Afghanistan, questions loom as to how the outfit's relations with the Islamic State
Currently, according to estimates there are around 2,000 ISIS turbans remaining in Afghanistan.
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... would be in the country. The ISIS which established the ISKP in the Nangarhar Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
08/22/2021 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[17 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
All sorts of useful graphs and tables at the link, for those who prefer looking to reading.
[Garowe] SUMMARY
The year 2020 started with AS on the defensive and ended with the group’s operations starting to pick up, especially in urban areas. Attacks on its main gateways into the capital disrupted its operations in Mogadishu in the first and second quarters. This saw a significant reduction in the group’s operations in the capital until the third quarter. During the final quarter of the year, it increased its attacks, after adapting to the situation, and positioned itself in a better situation by the end of the year. Meanwhile, ...back at the revival hall, the pastor had finally been wrestled from the pulpit. Y'got the wrong guy! he yelled just before Sergeant Malone's billy club landed... the SNA was the most active anti-AS force, while AMISOM was the least active attacker although it was the most attacked by AS.
The below map shows the incidents that occurred in 2020, the areas of control by all actors, contested areas, and the status of Main Supply Routes:
INTRODUCTION. Google map of incidents in the Al Shabaab area of operations. Click on each icon for details.
The year 2020 saw mixed results across Somalia. Compared to 2019, Improvised Explosive Device (IED) attacks decreased by 35% while liquidations increased by 15% and hand grenade attacks more than doubled. Likewise, direct military attacks on allied positions remained almost at the same levels as 2019 while ambushes reduced by a third and mortar attacks increased by two-thirds. An increase was seen in Suicide Vehicle-Borne IED (SVBIED) attacks, rising by 42% while non-suicide VBIED attacks were reduced by 70%. A significant increase was registered in the use of Personal IEDs — bombs strapped on to individual attackers — which rose by 550%, up from two in 2019 to 11 in 2020.
These mixed results can be explained by looking at the situation from two angles: first, from al-Shabaab ...... the personification of Somali state failure... ’s warfighting departments and how they adapted to the battlefield changes; and second, from how the allies have responded to AS’s attacks. This report will therefore divide the attacks between those conducted by the Amniyaat and those conducted by the Jabahaat to better understand the trends of each.
The Amn department is responsible for intelligence, liquidations by pistol, IED attacks in urban areas, hand grenade attacks, and VBIED attacks. The Jabahaat are responsible for all conventional military operations: raids on allied bases, ambushes, and mortar attacks. Suicide attacks are part of the Istish-haadi — "martyrdom" — sub-department, which is run in collaboration between the two departments. This sub-department is responsible for SVBIED and PBIED attacks. When the jacket wallahs work in urban areas, they are controlled by the Amn; in the rural areas, they come under the Jabahaat.
TREND IN ATTACKS
In 2020, AS was under intense pressure from the air by US Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s, and from the land by SNA’s Danab and Gorgor battalions. From the number of attacks it still managed to conduct in that harsh environment, the group’s explosives makers seem safe and its explosives supplies are abundant; however, the new reality has made it difficult to risk sending S/VBIEDs into urban areas controlled by the allies. This is apparent from the below, showing how PBIEDs are used to complement and replace S/VBIED attacks. A reduction in S/VBIEDs for a quarter is followed by a PBIED attack.
While S/VBIED and PBIED attacks garner much media attention, these are a tiny part of AS’s overall campaign. While 2019 saw Amn and Jabahaat operations almost mirror each other, 2020 saw Amn operations take center stage in the group’s overall strategy. By the end of the year, almost all attacks were by the Amn department.
AS FOCUS
Most AS attacks targeted AMISOM and the SNA. It also targets civil servants to continue eroding the government’s ability to govern. Similarly, it continues to target elders that have rejected its amnesty or refused to work with it.
Urban targets — the police, elders, civil servants— are targeted with sticky IEDs, PBIEDs, S/VBIEDs, and liquidation by pistols. The SNA and AMISOM are subjected to raids, IEDs, SVBIEDs, and ambushes.
RESPONDING TO AS
Most attacks against AS were conducted by the regular SNA and special SNA units, sometimes assisted by airstrikes. Some of the airstrikes were independent and seemed to target AS forward bases, especially in the Mudug region where AS was attempting to spread towards Bacaadweyne and Hobyo.
Unchanged from 2019, AMISOM was the least active against AS in 2020. Its guns were quiet against AS throughout most of the year, conducting 3 attacks against the group while AS attacked it 197 times. The result of this timid posture has resulted in AMISOM maintaining bases that are only supplied by air, with most Main Supply Routes cut off by AS.
On the other hand, the SNA was the most active against AS, conducting 78 attacks against AS while AS attacked it 205 times. The SNA managed to recover towns along the Shabelle River from AS and forced the group’s finance department to move further away from Mogadishu, further disrupting AS’s operations.
CONCLUSION
The year 2020 saw all sides make mixed gains, with AS increasing its reliance on urban operations to adapt to its waning fortunes in the rural areas. Under pressure from relentless SNA attacks sometimes assisted by airstrikes and urban checkpoints that made it harder to attack government strongholds, the Amniyaat was forced to rely more on PBIEDs and liquidations by pistols. This also meant that the Jabahaat could make use of more SVBIEDs to assist its attacks on military bases. As the SVBIEDs find it harder to enter urban areas, their use in rural operations has increased and is expected to continue increasing.
In the urban areas, PBIEDs and liquidations increased to cover for the reduction in SVBIED and IED attacks. Assassination by pistols occurs in a place where it is possible to escape, while sticky IEDs and PBIEDs are used in areas where security presence does not permit an escape.
I have never supported the use of US Troops being used to play UN Peace Keeper in Africa. All so some DC type beat his chest claiming to be stabilizing / feeding and protecting some African nation every 10 or 20 years.
Look I lost friends and people I worked around, back on Oct 3rd & 4th 1993, due this Political stupidity.
Let African settle its own F#$%ing problems. We have enough REAL THREATS to deal with here the USA. Like JUNTA's open borders, giving Taliban Visas and transportation the USA and constantly changing Covid-19 data and retractions.
BTW: Rumor has it, Aidid's skull somehow found it way to a has nice new showcase here in the US. In the hallway near the mess-hall.
But IF true.... well done, well done.
Note: I would have put it in a Urinal used by S&T or TEOR like was alternatively suggested.
I had the privilege of watching the film on a Russian language video site about a week before its release.
By Maxim Voronov
21 August 2021 , 09:49 - REGNUM
More than seven years later, events in Donbass are no longer in the first positions in news feeds. The war that the Ukrainian authorities are waging with a part of their own population, which began in 2014, continues, despite negotiations in various formats and signed agreements that "have no alternative." In this war, people continue to die, including civilians, whose whole fault is that they do not want to live according to Bandera's orders, abandon the Russian language and allow their children to learn history from crazy textbooks.
Children also die, end up in hospitals with injuries from explosions, wake up from terrible dreams at night. Many of those who were children at the beginning of the punitive operation, mockingly called "ATO," and survived those years, have already grown up, but they never saw the real world and continue to live under the threat of a new Bandera leap. Smoldering wars tend to suddenly flare up again.
Film by Maxim Brius and Mikhail Wasserbaum- this is an attempt to refresh the memory of the events of seven years ago, to reflect on what a civil war is in reality, and not in the propaganda texts of one side or another, to see how it passes with iron wheels over human destinies, crushing bodies and souls.
"Sunshine" is a very tough film, sometimes extremely ruthless to the nerves of the viewer. You can protest against the "excessive" bloodiness and naturalism, close attention to suffering and death. But this is not a "dark" admiration for horrors, but an attempt to reach out to the fat-swollen soul of a modern "average" viewer, who is difficult to touch with something. The main thing in the film is not at all cinematic delights, although it was filmed quite hard and not flat, therefore it is unlikely to collect a collection of festival awards and will receive the attention of venerable film critics.
The heroes of "Sunshine" are very different people, and among them there is no clear division into major and minor. All the main ones, because each person is the whole Universe, and all the minor ones, because in a war at any moment this Universe can be extinguished as easily and casually as the wind blows out a match.
The film lasts more than two hours, and during this time we get to know a variety of people - former "Afghans" who found themselves on opposite sides of the barricades, former and current criminals, ordinary civilians who are simply trying to survive, children who have not yet finished their educational year, and their old teacher, newcomers in military affairs - militias and "Dobrobatovtsy" - and professional military, also from different sides of the elusive and mobile front line. Few will survive by the finale. The overarching theme in the film was how characters managed to ignore the ruthless march of events, until they became fed up, and chose sides.
The film is already accused of "propaganda", but there is just a little of it. We can say that there is much less ideology than it could be, the authors seem to be afraid to touch it or simply do not know how to approach it. Almost nothing is said about the attraction of the insurgent residents of Donbass to Russia, the St. George ribbon turns out to be just a symbol of the fact that "the grandfathers fought against the Nazis."...
There is no mention of the events in Odessa on May 2, although they have already occurred. We also hardly hear about Bandera's essence of the Maidan. There are anti-fascist slogans and crossed out swastikas, but the fascism of the Dobrobatists appears only in cruelty to prisoners, that is, from a very specific ideology, it is simply turned into a symbol of this very cruelty and hatred of foreigners and dissidents. It is not very clear in the end what kind of faith or set of principles drove the rebels. There was a reference to Odessa in news presented on film, but no blatant reference.
However, unprincipled toasts "to all the good" and the hope that "we are one country," and therefore "they won’t bomb," turn out to be an illusion, which in an instant is dispelled by a fiery wind with a hail of lead. Romantic boyish impulses and attempts of veterans to hide from everyday problems in the war or to escape from the war, having "gorged" on it in their youth, also cannot withstand the collision with reality.
Someone dies without having accomplished the feat, someone is killed by acute remorse, and someone still changes the steering wheel of an ambulance to a machine gun, having lost everything at once. "Sunshine", fortunately, is equally far from both pacifist preaching and saber-rattling, and this is its honesty.
Alas, the authors should have stopped right after the hero of Maxim Dakhnenko draws a line under his moral throwing, and the hero of Alexander Bukharovcomes to ask for the front line. Unfortunately, the authors suddenly remembered that in addition to the shrill and terrible human component of war, there is also big politics. Precisely suddenly, because the ending turned out to be not just crumpled, but as if stuck from a completely different, much more primitive film, from those of which there is no point in talking about.
Here is an imposing American general, and foreign mercenaries (among them, of course, the great-grandson of an SS man) who intend to eat corpses on whiskey, and a bold allusion to the "Wagner group", designed so vulgarly and crudely that it causes an attack of nausea. These most conventional "Wagnerians" are so disproportionately long and meaningfully removed into the sunset that it resembles a cross between the ending of a bad western with a specific commercial. The film ended with a squad of Wagner operatives ambushing a rocket artillery launcher unit, saving the day. If that is his beef, at least there was no reference to the "Green Men" AKA Russian special forces, who carried out the more difficult tasks in the Donbass.
Of course.
The film bears both pluses and minuses of modern domestic "war" cinema. On the one hand is sincere humanity, solicitude for the heroes, the desire to make them as alive as possible, moral tension. On the other hand, there is a fear of ideology as such, the replacement of ideology by “patriotism of the place”, a not very intelligible image of the enemy and only a slightly more intelligible image of our own people. Plus - sudden and very inappropriate attempts to speak in the language of political shows and jump on the armor of officialdom or memes popular in the “couch troops” (while still avoiding any ideology). Couch troops is a common slam against commenters on Russian social media who display less than knowledgeable data on the Donbas region.
Nevertheless, despite the obvious "flaws", the film took place. Having watched it, it is very difficult to forget what you saw, this is a rather strong, if not spiritual, then emotional experience. There is a hope that "Sunshine" will be shown not only in films, but also on television, will revive a keen interest in what is happening in the Donbass and will help establish a cordial connection with people who find it very, very difficult to live and defend their right to be themselves.
The only pity is that the film will be shown late at night - perhaps because of the 18+ rating, and maybe because of the "inconvenience" of the topic. One way or another, it's worth sacrificing a couple of hours under the covers for his sake.
#1
This sounds like something that would be too much for me, but probably would be very interesting for those with stronger stomachs and understanding. But I’ve learnt much just reading the review, which hearkens back to badanov’s reportage as the events of the film were occurring.
For the first time in decades, Greenlanders have elected the pro-independence, Inuit Ataqatigiit party (IA), which ran on a platform of scrapping a controversial mining project and rethinking Greenland’s relations with Denmark.
KEY INSIGHTS
– China and the US are both looking to increase their supply of rare earths, which Greenland has in abundance and which are of critical importance to signatories of the Paris Climate Accords
– China and the US are both eager to expand their influence in Greenland as the effects of climate change affect shipping lanes and access to resources
– The IA is keen to push for more independence from Denmark, raising the risk of interference from China and the US and a dramatic realignment of Greenland’s budget
[NYPost] To the surprise of only the Biden administration and its top brass, the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan last week after 20 years of frivolous American adventurism. It was a spectacular failure of American diplomacy, statecraft, intelligence and, most of all, military capability. In short, mission very much not accomplished.
But that’s pretty much standard operating procedure for the nearly useless behemoth called the Pentagon, which hasn’t won a war since the kinder, gentler American government changed its name from the War Department to the Defense Department shortly after World War II. If you’re always on defense, you’re losing.
Largely thanks to the CIA and special forces, the punitive expedition against the launching pad of 9/11 was swiftly completed, the primitive Taliban scattered, and an example made. But then that soft-headed American notion of mission creep and “nation building” took hold, abetted by a succession of weak presidents and a careerist military utterly unfamiliar with the sweet smell of victory.
The result? Thousands of dead Americans and trillions of borrowed dollars down the drain. The demise of a sham “nation” that never existed in the first place. And another military humiliation as the world’s major superpower piteously is reduced to begging Islamic fundamentalists not to abuse our nationals trapped in the country and please, pretty please, don’t be beastly to the Afghan women and, by the way, please put one or two in your cabinet.
It’s easy to blame the craven civilian leadership that pushed us into this morass, starting with the naïve and weak-willed George W. Bush; the feckless Barack Obama, and now the senile Joe Biden; only Donald Trump, who rightly criticized the “forever wars” and had put into place a carrot-and-stick approach to resolve the situation, had any grasp of the problem.
But the real villains here are the throne-sniffing Pentagon brass who failed in the one mission every commanding general has: to win the damn war. The argument is made that — in Vietnam, Iraq, and now Afghanistan — the politicians wouldn’t let them win. But, throughout history, generals who understood the larger strategic situation even when their nominal superiors didn’t — or couldn’t admit it for political reasons — went ahead and won anyway.
During the Civil War, Lincoln cycled through general after general until he found Ulysses S. Grant, who frequently rejected his commander in chief’s tactical suggestions, for which Lincoln was ultimately grateful.
In World War I, the American Commander “Black Jack” Pershing ignored British and French insistence that his men serve in a supporting role. Under Pershing, the US First Army smashed through the German defenses at Saint-Mihiel in September 1918; two months later, the war was over.
With America reeling from the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Army and Navy came up with an audacious plan to attack Tokyo, and in April of 1942, Jimmy Doolittle’s B-25s were raining bombs on the Japanese homeland.
By contrast, the Failure Generals in Iraq and Afghanistan such as David Petraeus, Jim Mattis, Stanley McChrystal, and Mark Milley (currently the embarrassing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), have consistently failed upward despite divulging classified information to their mistresses, sabotaging President Trump’s military policy, and fretting about “white rage” in the ranks.
Just last month, Milley was airily dismissing reports of an imminent Taliban victory in Afghanistan, where he once served: “I don’t think the end game is yet written,” the clueless commandant said. He would have been sacked or tendered his resignation by now if a concept like honor still existed among our military brass.
But the “defense” industry’s addiction to taxpayer dollars has ensured there will be no end to low-level “unwinnable” conflicts as long as victory is always secondary. Amazingly, losing has become our official war-fighting strategy.
What’s needed now is a wholesale rethinking of the uses of the military that returns us to first principles. As William T. Sherman famously said, “War is cruelty. There’s no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.”
It was another American fighting man, the great George S. Patton Jr. — who won his stars on the battlefield and not in the halls of Congress — who best exemplified how winners think.
Ordered in March 1945 to bypass the historic city of Trier in the Third Army’s lightning thrust into Germany because it was likely to take at least four divisions, Patton seized the town anyway: “Have taken Trier with two divisions. Do you want me to give it back?”
Until we return to prizing our Shermans and Pattons over Milleys, expect more Afghanistans.
#2
Largely thanks to the CIA and special forces, the punitive expedition against the launching pad of 9/11 was swiftly completed, the primitive Taliban scattered, and an example made.
Oh thank you Klingons and Klingon funded SOF handmaidens.
Absolute, total bullshi* scapegoat article, likely penned in McLean, VA. The military can ONLY do what the feckless bureaucrats in the White House, Foggy Bottom, and McLean permit them to do. US generals a cadre of WOKE 'yes men?' Well of course they are, that's what Washington has cultivated and promoted for decades.
#3
Some say China’s Xi Jinping is about to take Taiwan while we have such weak President and military leaders. I say China’s Xi Jinping is about to take Taiwan AND a couple of US Territories in the Pacific to put a stretegic buffer between the US and China.
#6
My last comment was to support Besoeker's comment. Commenter above saying China has no amphibious capabilities see China's ZBD-05 and ZTD-05 beach assault ships. Only low IQ cockroaches like you use name calling (nutbaggery???) because you are clearly too stupid to do your home work and has to spew rude insults to other commenters.
#8
CF that picture shows the progression from ribbons with meaning to ribbons as a display of one's personnel file, where the wearer has been, how many tours, and events they were around for. In the old days, General Officers(GO) could choose their own uniforms and select which earned ribbons they displayed.
Eisenhower was a Lieutenant Colonel in 1936. He was promoted in the then peacetime system. When the Army expanded just before WW2 the peacetime promotion system was set aside and people were 'temporarily' promoted. They carried a Regular Army rank and a Army of the United States rank, a dual system which reverts back when demobilization happens. Those 'temporary' promotions did revert to many in the demobilization.
That get us back to the 'cultural' problem in the service. Our group today is the protect of a peacetime promotion system, block checking careerism. It is suppose to be the next best thing to try to identify leaders for time of war. However, when you are in a war, that should determine promotions and rank. However, they never switched back to wartime over 20 years ago. They kept the same old bureaucratic system with the most frequent excuse being what today we refer to as 'equity'. War is not fair. War is not equitable. The actual leaders we needed were the ones who delivered on the battlefield. Well, everyone doesn't get a chance at command. War doesn't care.
It's compounded by the size of the service and the GO corps. They didn't have to kick people up the ranks quickly because they had enough sitting around. Check the ratio of GOs to troops in WW2 and the ratio today. Talk about mission creep, we have had rank creep for decades.
One of the more influential work in the Vietnam lessons learned examination was On Strategy by Colonel Harry Summers. He makes the point that during the entire war not a single GO resigned/retired in protest on the conduct of the war. We're back to square one.
As late as the 80s, the Chief of Staff of the Army was selected by the White House which had a habit of picking officers who came from OCS or ROTC and not West Point. 'Ring Tappers' were usually favored over others for most of the high level GO billets, but the ultimate one was often not open.
#15
I have mentioned this before:
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/sukhomlinov-effect.htm
The Sukhomlinov syndrome speaks of the need for increasing display of successes/prowess/experience as a symptom of those who need display to assuage professional self doubt.
#16
My favorite story about Colonel Harry Summers was that he reportedly was at the negotiating table during the negotiations with Giap and the North Vietnamese. During a break he was reported to have said to Giap directly, something to the effect of "You know, you never once defeated us in any major battle or campaign", to which Giap reportedly replied "That is true, it is also irrelevant..."
[AlAhram] Pakistain, a Cold War ally of the United States, worked with Washington in the 1980s to back Islamic guerrillas who fought out Soviet troops
After the September 11 attacks, the United States gave Pakistain a harsh ultimatum to break with the Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... . Pakistain offered help but insisted -- it will not be abandoned again, as in the 1990s after Washington lost interest in Afghanistan.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
08/22/2021 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[10 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#1
"Pakistain is too important to be permanently ignored by the US but this time Americans will take longer to determine the depth of their relationship with Pakistain," said Husain Haqqani, Pakistain's former ambassador to Washington.
"sure, we're duplicitous terror-loving bastards. It's genetic. Give us boodle"
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/22/2021 9:18 Comments ||
Top||
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Telegraph] Shortly after Soviet troops went into Afghanistan in 1979, M16 dispatched one of their best young agents on a special recruitment mission. With Moscow trying to prop up Kabul’s flagging communist regime, the West saw a chance to make it the Kremlin’s very own Vietnam. The agent’s task was to find Afghanistan’s "Napoleon": a commander who could unite its tribes in guerrilla warfare, and lead them in government afterwards.
...Arabic for 
...
