Current events in Afghanistan

[brad465]

A number of front pages tomorrow are reporting that Blair has attacked Biden's botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, as if Blair can take the moral high ground on this issue (I certainly don't think he can as he and Bush should have had an exit strategy before going in).

 

[Gostav]

That makes a lot of sense, and was my suspicion. If true, it makes it even more stupid to have pulled the troops out, since it means that all that was required to keep the Taliban at bay and keep the pro-Western, anti-terrorist, democratic, Government, was to keep enough troops there to give the Government a modest upper hand.

But how many troops is enough?

 

[eMeS]

I'm now seeing suggestions that with the influx of Afghan refugees, we need to build larger homes here in the UK for them. Does this mean that Afghan families are typically much larger than what we've become used to in the UK?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

But how many troops is enough?

I'm not sure, but for most of the years between 2013 and 2020, Afghanistan seems to have been in a stable-ish situation with the Government controlling the cities and enough of the countryside to keep the Taliban away from any real power. As far as I can make out from some Googling, that seems to have been with about 13K - 15K US troops (varies a bit from year to year) and 750 UK troops (other NATO countries probably adding up to some thousands, without any individual other country contributing very many), so maybe a reasonable guess is that 15-20K would be roughly how many are needed to keep the situation roughly as it's been the last few years?

According to this article:

The US had some 2,500 troops in the country as part of a 9,600-strong Nato mission.

So those numbers had clearly declined somewhat over the last year or two.

 

[The Ham]

I'm now seeing suggestions that with the influx of Afghan refugees, we need to build larger homes here in the UK for them. Does this mean that Afghan families are typically much larger than what we've become used to in the UK?

I don't know the exact answer, however it could be that families are more generational (i.e. grandparents, parents, children) which would require larger homes (although in reality they may well have been living in a smaller home than they end up with here).

The other potential factor is how good are children survival rates, as of they are lower (or lower in the last 20 years) that may have an impact on the number of children that people have.

Of course it could be other factors, but those are two potential factors.

 

[edwin_m]

That makes a lot of sense, and was my suspicion. If true, it makes it even more stupid to have pulled the troops out, since it means that all that was required to keep the Taliban at bay and keep the pro-Western, anti-terrorist, democratic, Government, was to keep enough troops there to give the Government a modest upper hand.

There's some logic to that, but I'm not sure that being seen as an occupying power imposing a government is good in the long term, as it probably going to incite attacks on that power's interests and citizens both in country and elsewhere.

I think the simple answer is that there's no simple answer. After 9/11 it was probably necessary to do something about Al-Quaida, and Iraq shows what happens if you go in with no exit plan. So I think what happened this week was probably going to happen sooner or later anyway. To my mind the government had enough warning of the intent to withdraw to do what it could to shore up its position, though the detailed withdrawal arrangements seem to have been badly botched when elements of the local forces were suddenly left without support and much of the US hardware has fallen into Taliban hands.

 

[daodao]

A number of front pages tomorrow are reporting that Blair has attacked Biden's botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Not unexpected. The Blair creature (as the eminent commentator Peter Hitchens describes him) continues to support the policies that destroyed him – the babyish, grandiose warmongering and demands to impose ‘democracy’ on all corners of the world.

 

[BananaRepublic]

I'm not sure, but for most of the years between 2013 and 2020, Afghanistan seems to have been in a stable-ish situation with the Government controlling the cities and enough of the countryside to keep the Taliban away from any real power. As far as I can make out from some Googling, that seems to have been with about 13K - 15K US troops (varies a bit from year to year) and 750 UK troops (other NATO countries probably adding up to some thousands, without any individual other country contributing very many), so maybe a reasonable guess is that 15-20K would be roughly how many are needed to keep the situation roughly as it's been the last few years?

According to this article:



So those numbers had clearly declined somewhat over the last year or two.

Anyone would think it was just the US and the UK.
Other NATO and international partners have had a larger involvement than the UK for many years.

The residual foreign military forces in Afghanistan just a few months ago (April) consisted (troop numbers inc. instructors and advisors)……

USA 2,500
Germany 1,300
Italy 895
Georgia 860
UK 750
Romania 619
Turkey 600
Poland 290

plus between 100 and 230 each from…..
Portugal
Denmark
Netherlands
Norway
Bulgaria
Armenia
Mongolia
Azerbaijan


z

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 Aug 2021 ==

Do you think it’s just the UK government who are getting criticism for this debacle?

“Germany has failed in Afghanistan​

The German government is facing the shambles of its Afghanistan policy. But even after the Taliban's triumph, it is being slow to assume any sort of responsibility. That's shameful……”

Germany's Afghanistan debacle

The German government is facing the shambles of its Afghanistan policy. But even after the Taliban's triumph, it is being slow to assume any sort of responsibility. That's shameful, writes Marcel Fürstenau.

www.dw.com

”Merkel has some explaining to do…”. etc, etc.


.

 

[Sm5]

Looking at Flightradar, there is a lot of activity tonight, more than previous nights… currently a 10 flight USAF convoy inbound to Kabul, 7xC17, 1x737, 1kc-135 and a c130 and southbound 6 (RAF/RAAF/Italian/Turkish) + USAF kc-135 and RAF Kc-135w all in the air at the same time (This excludes anything hidden enroute in Afghan airspace which have transponders turned off When inside).

Wouldnt be surprised if tomorrow mornings news is reporting record evacuations tonight, looking at that volume.

the RAF KC-135W sounds interesting..

https://www.raf.mod.uk/aircraft/airseeker-rc-135w-rivet-joint/

RC-135W Rivet Joint employs multidiscipline Weapons System Officer (WSO) and Weapons System Operator (WSOp) specialists whose mission is to survey elements of the electromagnetic spectrum in order to derive intelligence for commanders.

 

[najaB]

Wouldnt be surprised if tomorrow mornings news is reporting record evacuations tonight, looking at that volume.

The US has activated the Civil Reserve Air Fleet - they're going to be using civilian airliners to complement the military transports.

 

[Sm5]

The US has activated the Civil Reserve Air Fleet - they're going to be using civilian airliners to complement the military transports.

Yes but I doubt you’ll be seeing United and Delta 777’s in Kabul.

I think much of this airlift is using air to air refueling as theres a lot of KC-135T activity, I doubt there is spare fuel at Kabul by this time, and civilian flight cant do mid-airfueling.

More likely the civil fleet will be using the evacuation points and taking onwards, DL8822 for instance tomorrow is a 767 from Washington to Rammstein.

Watching Flight Radar is quite interesting tonight, transponders random on / off on Kabul approach, I see an RAF A400M just appeared on descent. Looking at some recent aircraft histories it looks like Aircraft have 15 mins to descend, 30 mins to load and 15 mins later are back up at cruising altitude.
(USAF is mostly using MOOSExx or RCHxxx as identifiers)

proper Berlin airlift tonight.

 

[Gloster]

Berlin was getting goods in, including some unusual bulk goods, such as coal. Afghanistan is moving self-loading cargo out.

 

[najaB]

Yes but I doubt you’ll be seeing United and Delta 777’s in Kabul.

I think much of this airlift is using air to air refueling as theres a lot of KC-135T activity, I doubt there is spare fuel at Kabul by this time, and civilian flight cant do mid-airfueling.

According to the BBC it will be 18 commercial aircraft including some from United, American and others. They will be doing the second leg of flights from safer airports in the region.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Not unexpected. The Blair creature (as the eminent commentator Peter Hitchens describes him) continues to support the policies that destroyed him – the babyish, grandiose warmongering and demands to impose ‘democracy’ on all corners of the world.

That's a very loaded wording. The world is full of pretty vile dictatorships who have imposed themselves on people who, in many cases, do not support them and would love to be rid of them. In countries as varied as Myanmar, Venezuela, Belarus, Iran, Syria, etc. etc., people are forced to put up with lack of free speech, denial of basic human dignities, persecution, because of regimes that clearly care only about their own power, and not about the welfare of the people they are supposed to be governing. In Afghanistan the scenes from the last few weeks show that a very large number of Afghan citizens desperately do not want to be ruled by the Taliban, to the extent of doing all they can to flee the country. But those people have no choice because the Taliban have guns and are clearly determined to impose their will on everyone, whether people want it or not. That is what imposing things on people looks like.

By contrast, democracy gives people a choice. Whatever the faults of the Iraq war, it's clear the the people of Iraq on the whole do now have a choice who governs them - and have indeed used that choice at several elections since 2003 to elect people that most of us in the West would probably not have wanted. They didn't have any choice before 2003. They had Saddam, and if they objected, they got gassed or tortured or killed. It was Saddam, not the West, who was imposing his regime on the unwilling Iraqi people. And now of course, it is the Taliban who are doing the same in Afghanistan.

Personally I think it's rather a good thing when people are free to express their own opinions, determine how their countries should be run, live their lives how they wish without fear of persecution, and choose to remove unpopular Governments at the ballot box. While I realise that by saying 'imposing democracy' you're talking about the act of removing the dictatorship by force, not the democracy itself, talking about 'imposing' is pretty loaded and - to my mind - not really right when you're referring to the one system of Government that, by its very nature, LEAST involves imposing itself on people.

 

[DarloRich]

Not unexpected. The Blair creature (as the eminent commentator Peter Hitchens describes him) continues to support the policies that destroyed him – the babyish, grandiose warmongering and demands to impose ‘democracy’ on all corners of the world.

Dear me. Your childish hatred for Blair means you are unable to look at anything objectively. What should the response to mass murder have been? Tea at Westminster?

 

[AlterEgo]

Whatever the morality of the invasion and subsequent occupation of Afghanistan, and notwithstanding the chaotic exit, pulling out was the correct thing to do, and was a policy popular with both Trump and Biden supporters.

Biden is a gerontocrat, and a staid manager of the United States' decline. The USA will need to think more carefully on how it projects itself in the world.

The withdrawal from Afghanistan is a serious knock to the West but also to Afghanistan. Despite vast sums of money thrown at the problem, the Afghan National Army (ANA) was hopelessly delinquent, without prospect of improvement. Our tax money should not have been spent propping up a house of cards, as the American-sponsored government in Afghanistan proved to be.

It is depressing to see the people left in the vacuum between Islamofascist Taliban and the illiterate, feckless ANA, but sentimentalism is a disease. Our main policy now should be the resettlement of people who were warm to the West but who must feel their lives over the last 20 years have been a total lie. A lie told mostly by the managerial class in the USA and Washington elites behoven to the military-industrial complex. I very much hope for the downfall of this class of entitled, credentialed people, who have waylaid domestic progress in the West for decades.

China will have a big part to play in the proper rebuild of Afghanistan; an infinitely wiser great power, at least strategically.

It was never our place to fix Afghanistan's black hole of corruption and militarism with American and British lives.

 

[malc-c]

Not wanting to get into the politics of whether we should be taking in refugees etc, or our if its our responsibility to do so etc, what are the actual logistics. Prior to the brown stuff hitting the fan last week ITV had been running a news item on the poor state of council tenants who have been moved form wet mould infested accommodation tens of times whilst waiting to get a council house for the past 21 years. It was shaming councils on two fronts, the quality of the accommodation which presented a real health hazard, and also that there are people who have legitimately been on the waiting list for more than two decade. The councils issued statements which basically said with all the austerity cuts form central government they don't have the money for new housing stock, or repairs etc....

So now we're taking in thousands of refugee's.. where and how are the councils going to house them. Now I don't really have the answer, and I'm on the fence here, but there are those (as per a phone in on BBC three counties this morning) who feel charity begins at home, and it would be grossly unfair to have these refugees' leapfrog over people born and bred in the UK, and to a degree I can see the point... How could you face that woman featured in the ITN news bulletin, who was facing a night on the streets with her children as the council had no rooms (let alone flats or houses) available, and tell her that a family form Afghanistan has been give priority for a place to live.

Don't get me wrong, I found the news reports on the scenes at the airport upsetting... It's not a topic I really like to dwell on, and I have no idea what other countries are taking in refugees, but some seem to be erecting walls and fences.... Prior to recent events the news bulletins featured the sad loss of life on immigrants crossing the channel on small rafts... having travelled through countless other countries to reach the UK. It does seem that the UK is a magnet for those trying to escape the persecution form the worlds trouble spots. But at some point it will need to stop and the UK will need to take a tougher line as our infrastructure and economy won't be able to cope.

 

[najaB]

How could you face that woman featured in the ITN news bulletin, who was facing a night on the streets with her children as the council had no rooms (let alone flats or houses) available, and tell her that a family form Afghanistan has been give priority for a place to live.

That failure of social housing provision has been a generation or more in the making. It's not, unfortunately, going to be solved overnight.

 

[malc-c]

That failure of social housing provision has been a generation or more in the making. It's not, unfortunately, going to be solved overnight.

agreed, and nor is compounding to the problem taking in tens of thousands of refugees... ( that comes over as me being a somewhat racist, NIMBY, which I'm not, juts trying to see things form both sides of the fence)

 

[najaB]

agreed, and nor is compounding to the problem taking in tens of thousands of refugees... ( that comes over as me being a somewhat racist, NIMBY, which I'm not, juts trying to see things form both sides of the fence)

But taking them in is the right thing to do. Does not taking them in solve the housing crisis?

 

[birchesgreen]

The problem is you have the people (a big chunk of politicians and voters) who want to "look after our own first", but they don't want to look after our own either.

 

[AlterEgo]

But taking them in is the right thing to do. Does not taking them in solve the housing crisis?

Taking them in makes the housing crisis (a little) worse.

People and politicians need to be honest about this.

 

[DarloRich]

Don't get me wrong, I found the news reports on the scenes at the airport upsetting... It's not a topic I really like to dwell on, and I have no idea what other countries are taking in refugees, but some seem to be erecting walls and fences.... Prior to recent events the news bulletins featured the sad loss of life on immigrants crossing the channel on small rafts... having travelled through countless other countries to reach the UK. It does seem that the UK is a magnet for those trying to escape the persecution form the worlds trouble spots. But at some point it will need to stop and the UK will need to take a tougher line as our infrastructure and economy won't be able to cope.

The information is in the public domain. Go and search it out and don't rely on what the media or your favoured commentators tell you. The picture is much more complicated than they would have you believe.

 

[najaB]

Taking them in makes the housing crisis (a little) worse.

Key words bolded. While migrants and refugees are a convenient scapegoat, the issues in the UK housing market are 100% home grown.

 

[malc-c]

But taking them in is the right thing to do. Does not taking them in solve the housing crisis?

Nope... but adding to "the problem" doesn't help it either

 

[najaB]

Nope... but adding to "the problem" doesn't help it either

Let's say that there are a million people in need of affordable housing in the UK today. If we take 20,000 Afghani refugees in then there will be 1,020,000 people in need of affordable housing. If we don't take them in, there will still be 1,000,000 people in need of affordable housing, and potentially 20,000 people dead because they trusted us.

What's going to happen the next time we need people to trust us?

 

[malc-c]

One thing my late mother would always go on about every time refugees came up on the news (she passed away two year ago aged 95) was why they had passed through half a dozen other countries, including France in order to get to the UK, when surely they would be just grateful to get out of their country with the problem and across the first border.... I know she was of "that generation" and had the charity begins at home mindset.... but maybe she had a point (obviously not in this case as the UK are flying people out direct).

 

[ainsworth74]

One thing my late mother would always go on about every time refugees came up on the news (she passed away two year ago aged 95) was why they had passed through half a dozen other countries, including France in order to get to the UK, when surely they would be just grateful to get out of their country with the problem and across the first border

My uncle John already lives in the UK so I'd rather be somewhere there are other members of my family. I speak twenty words of English and no French so I'd rather be somewhere that I can speak a few words rather than somewhere I cannot speak anything at all. Etc etc.

 

[malc-c]

Let's say that there are a million people in need of affordable housing in the UK today. If we take 20,000 Afghani refugees in then there will be 1,020,000 people in need of affordable housing. If we don't take them in, there will still be 1,000,000 people in need of affordable housing, and potentially 20,000 people dead because they trusted us.

What's going to happen the next time we need people to trust us?

That's a good point... and in the scheme of things, the numbers might seem irrelevant. I'm not saying we shouldn't help. We are supposed to be a rich nation and open our doors in such circumstances, but there are equally a lot of wealth countries that don't show up on the list of those accepting afghans... Australia isn't listed for example...

 

[simonw]

One thing my late mother would always go on about every time refugees came up on the news (she passed away two year ago aged 95) was why they had passed through half a dozen other countries, including France in order to get to the UK, when surely they would be just grateful to get out of their country with the problem and across the first border.... I know she was of "that generation" and had the charity begins at home mindset.... but maybe she had a point (obviously not in this case as the UK are flying people out direct).

Refugees do stay in other countries, those that make it to our shores are a small percentage of those that flee.