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2021-10-25 Afghanistan
US Was Losing War So It Negotiated: Khalilzad
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Posted by trailing wife 2021-10-25 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11135 views ]  Top
 File under: Taliban/IEA 

#1 The definition of "winning" changed from day to day...
Posted by magpie 2021-10-25 03:55||   2021-10-25 03:55|| Front Page Top

#2 Doubt the K-man was on the American side. Nice gig, if you can get it, to be paid large sums by your enemy to stab him in the back.
Posted by Blinky Angineng2040 2021-10-25 04:02||   2021-10-25 04:02|| Front Page Top

#3 Excellent in-line comments.

"Peace negotiations as an alternative"

Translation:

Formerly referred to as "terms of surrender."
Posted by Besoeker 2021-10-25 05:20||   2021-10-25 05:20|| Front Page Top

#4 There was nobody mutual, since the Taliban would accept no one not their own. They were in it for the reconquest.

TW,

Absolutely true, ma'am. But on the other hand, one can make an argument that the Talib might have outsmarted themselves: since the economy there was utterly and completely dependent on US dollars to function, they are looking at a level of financial crash so apocalyptic that even the Talib are stunned, with no guarantee that the rest of the world will make up for that in anything like the numbers needed. But - they had the military advantage, and they used it.

You have to wonder though if there isn't some turban in Kabul right now who's wondering what would have happened if they had stopped outside of Kabul and the major cities, and then launched a peace offensive - "Hey, we're the new, improved Taliban; we're nice guys and we've seen the light, We don't want to tear the place up, come on and talk to us, and bring your media. Let's talk about a peaceful transfer of power, say in ninety days or so."

If they had done something even close to that, would the Biden Administration have sent the troops back in? Maybe, but there would have been a lot of screaming about it, and all it would have taken to derail it would have been a couple of suicide bombers. And once it was all over, with speeches and handshakes at the airport, and the Talib reverted to their true stripes, would we have done anything? Damned unlikely.

Mike

Posted by Mike Kozlowski 2021-10-25 06:13||   2021-10-25 06:13|| Front Page Top

#5 As long as you allow your enemy a base of operations free from interdiction or destruction there is no way to 'win'.
Posted by Procopius2k 2021-10-25 07:54||   2021-10-25 07:54|| Front Page Top

#6 you would have thought that in Vietnam P2k.
Posted by Chris 2021-10-25 08:09||   2021-10-25 08:09|| Front Page Top

#7 “War means fighting, and fighting means killing.”
― Nathan Bedford Forrest
Posted by irish rage boy  2021-10-25 09:16||   2021-10-25 09:16|| Front Page Top

#8 There was always the alternative of bombing Afghanistan further back into the Stone Age.
Posted by JohnQC 2021-10-25 09:28||   2021-10-25 09:28|| Front Page Top

#9 Instead of admitting there is no way to square the circle in a primitive Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad is whining, "it's not my fault."
Posted by Bertie Crains2651 2021-10-25 10:17||   2021-10-25 10:17|| Front Page Top

#10 re #6 excuse me, you would have thought they would have learnt that in Vietnam P2k
Posted by Chris 2021-10-25 10:37||   2021-10-25 10:37|| Front Page Top

#11 "cutting ties with terrorist groups"
Well, they did. They cut out the middle men.
Posted by ed in texas 2021-10-25 11:08||   2021-10-25 11:08|| Front Page Top

#12 #10 consider it a Lesson Unlearned

[got to remember these are the same elites that now think you can print an unlimited amount of money and there will be no destructive inflation]
Posted by Procopius2k 2021-10-25 11:28||   2021-10-25 11:28|| Front Page Top

#13 There never was a definition for "winning" in Afghanistan. I guess you could call that lack "losing" but it's a stretch.
Posted by Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843 2021-10-25 11:51||   2021-10-25 11:51|| Front Page Top

#14 We've been trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear for twenty years trying to find Pashtuns who aren't on Pakistan's side.
Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2021-10-25 12:55||   2021-10-25 12:55|| Front Page Top

#15 The deal-points here are (1) the Talibs as Mike K points out are now desperate for US cash and (2) the Biden regime needs the Talibs to be nice guys after all, because that makes the Kabul Katastrophe look somewhat better in advance of the mid-terms. So, a couple of months of no-beheadings and the cash flow resumes. (And Khalilzad will generously offer to administer the cash distributions.) The memorandum of understanding has probably already been drafted.
Posted by Matt 2021-10-25 13:29||   2021-10-25 13:29|| Front Page Top

#16 Of course, in the interest of not breaking any domestic rice bowls, the cash distribution would be accomplished by the LockheedRaytheonGD Hypersonic Cash Dispenser, which can deliver a bundle of $20's to Abdul's Flower Shop with unerring accuracy. Yours for only $2.2 trillion.
Posted by Matt 2021-10-25 14:08||   2021-10-25 14:08|| Front Page Top

#17 I think the GOPe, CIA and Pentagon owe the American people about $3 trillion in reparations. Start by pauparizing the Boosh and Cheney famblies into the second decade of the 25th century.
Posted by M. Murcek 2021-10-25 18:35||   2021-10-25 18:35|| Front Page Top

#18 /\ Forget the money. How about everyone in the grade of GG-14 and above just fok'n resign on Friday.
Posted by Besoeker 2021-10-25 20:34||   2021-10-25 20:34|| Front Page Top

#19 
No, the Afghans failed to build democracy despite two decades of aid and support. Horses and water, donchaknow.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can't lead the other end of a horse anywhere at all.
Posted by Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843 2021-10-25 23:07||   2021-10-25 23:07|| Front Page Top

23:07 Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843
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