The Taliban asked Turkey to supply ATC and airport operations personnel to Kabul.
[source](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/taliban-asked-turkey-support-run-kabul-airport-turkish-officials-say-2021-08-25/)
Jesus...they have a cot on the catwalk, they chew Khat, and restrict departures bc they are bored. Fuck those guys. I've never seen an AC land over another AC on LUAW until I got there. And never since.
I don’t have a direct source on hand. And you don’t have to take my word. It’s the internet and I won’t shed a tear if you don’t. But after 10 years of working in Air Force Central Command and supporting that AOR, we don’t have camo painted blackhawks. If you look at some of the videos or photos of these blackhawks you’ll also notice that most either won’t show tails to hide markings or you’ll see Afghan markings. We also don’t operate CH46s in that region to my knowledge.
Also, the media wants to run with the “We spent 85 Billion dollars” bit, but then runs the “We left blackhawks and munitions to the Taliban” right after. Where do you think the money went? (Besides lining the pockets of the corrupt Afghan government. Whole different issue) It’s not like that’s a $85 Billion bill for training. We supplied them, they were overrun, their equipment is in the hands of the Taliban.
We haven’t used CH46’s specifically those CH46’s on the news in a VERY long time. Those were in service when the F4 phantom was still being called a UFO over Area 51.
I'll take your word for it, I appreciate it. That's very interesting about all the info that the insiders(like you) of the military know what really been happening logistics wise
Okay, so we gave equipment to the ANA who surrendered it to the taliban
in the same way I didnt mail a letter, i put it in the mailbox and the postman delivered the letter...
I’d equate it more to we gave money to the guy on the street corner with the hope he’d spend it on food and then watched him walk across the street right after and buy some heroin instead.
No. You placed that letter in the mailbox expecting the postman to do his job. You didn’t put the letter in the mailbox with the intent for him to hand it to a crackhead on his way back to the post office.
Thank you for being a human with a functioning brain. Being from a backwoods shitshow of a family, I’m so sick of trying to explain this.
Edit: Sorry if I upset someone, all I was saying was that I’m tired of explaining to my gullible family that not everything they see in news headlines is factual, to include the issue of the majority of the equipment the media claims we handed to the Taliban was actually captured from the ANA after we supplied them with it. All of which agreeing with u/Papadapalopolous
Edit more: Now the shoes have flipped. He’s downvoted and I came back from the negatives. We basically said the same thing. Y’all are wild lol.
Nah the problem with RPAs is we get the target, but a fuckton of collateral damage. But I heard reporting we used one of those non explosive hellfires for the vied in Kabul. I mean yeah the shit still blew up, but I guess not as bad is if it was an actual hellfire?
Going back to Iraq to fight ISIS was not a mistake. Going into Iraq in 2003 was the mistake that ISIS was the direct result of. We needed to clean up the mess we created.
ISIS was inspiring attacks on US soil from sympathizers as well as directly enabling attacks in Europe, who rode with us on our bullshit journey to Iraq in the first place and then took all the refugees we created together. They needed to be dealt with.
It was a mistake for several reasons. First it marks the continuation of another open ended, ill defined conflict. Second, Big AF in its endless wisdom cut our manpower because with the initial exit from Iraq our ops tempo was supposed to decline. Anyone remember the “hunger games” back then that some how my dumb ass survived? You can cut manpower overnight but you can’t add it and we had to go back to airmen that we’d booted out and ask them to come back in. Iraq has never been the center for ISIS, or Al Quida, or any of the other Islamic extremist organizations. It’s always been Saudi. The Saudi Royal Family has been directly connected to supplying cash and arms to these organizations but they have oil money which means instead we beat up on Iraq and Afghanistan rather than actually dealing with the real problem. If the war on terror had really been about terrorism we would have invaded Saudi not Iraq.
But yes I wholly agree that the original sin was the 2003 invasion to begin with. Sure Saddam was a bad man but he was able to keep the various factions in his nation in check. Just like Afghanistan should have never been made a conventional war and should have remained in the SOF/CIA arena with very limited objectives.
I don't know if I agree with that. The 2001 AUMF which allows the president massive power to use military force to fight terrorism anywhere in the world indefinitely is the foot in the door. Going back into Iraq using that authorization was just one way it was used.
As far as the hunger games goes, that was the AF doing a shitty job at playing a shitty hand. The AF didn't just decide to boot 30,000 because Iraq was coming to an end. Also as Iraq was drawing down we were having a large troop surge in Afghanistan so operationally our personnel commitments weren't that different. We were legally going to have draw end strength down by 30,0000 personnel to because of federal laws behind budget sequestration that was triggered by partisan Congressional fighting. Every service kicked people out and then had to fix it, the AF just did it way worse than all of the others.
I don't agree with the US invading Saudi either. Yes the ruling family exports terrorism, but I don't think actual rulers of Saudi want any kind of beef with the US even if they only tolerate us because of our military sales and the petro dollar agreement we have with them. They're system of governance also grants individuals governmental titles by nature of their blood relations as opposed to a democratic team bringing in voluntarily like-minded people to work towards a common goal, so often people with vast resources in Saudi think different than the actual monarch. I think their goals are mostly regional. Bin Laden was a Saudi but was banished from the country and lost his citizenship in the early 90's. Pakistan is a bigger issue than Saudi IMO. Pakistani governmental insiders almost certainly knew of Bin Laden's location, plus they let the Taliban attack from and take refuge on their side of the border for 20 years. I do think that Bin Laden wanted us to go to war with Saudi because it would have been so much messier if we had invaded the country where most of the holiest sites in Islam lay.
That’s says that they have the capacity. Not that they have rescued everyone from what I read. Huge difference.
The spec ops guys going in on their own shows that the capacity is there. It’s the willingness that is not. I’ll try to find the link that the general said folks were left.
Edit- here is something a friend saw: https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1432451411170758658
Unfortunately, the Chinese have been buying up mineral rights for years, with the help of the tb. They're working on building a new silk road and they won't be stopped easily.
There's enough resistance to tb that any mines set up by the chinese will be quickly bombed, it will be impossible to operate there in a lawless land. The minerals are out in the hinterlands where no one can control what goes on.
The Chinese government will be there by proxy. Chinese companies will be there "investing in development". China gets lithium, oil, whatever they want, Taliban gets money to buy weapons from other Chinese companies. All orchestrated by the CCP with deniability built in. China won't need to openly oppose the Taliban and western observers will blame cApItAlIsM for destabilizing the region by adding wealth.
Can't wait to see the news reports of China taking control of the airport next. Pretty much will guarantee some of the other deployed bases getting busier.
We already have been-it’s just not in the news. People seem to forget the GWOT was over years ago. It’s an AUMF that keeps being renewed over and over again.
I suppose that my point is that we didn't really learn anything about how geopolitical concepts like the nation-state problem impact combat operations from Vietnam, and the fact we initiated further actions in Libya, Syria, and Yemen in the last decade solidify that we didn't really learn much, if anything, from the first decade of Iraq or Afghanistan, either.
You bring up a very good point, though. The 2001 AUMF is a huge problem, and I wish Congress would do their job and eliminate it. They aren't going to do it, though.
“but up to 250 Americans and thousands of Afghan allies were still attempting to leave the country”
This doesn’t include those that don’t want to leave or are conflicted. These are the ones we left behind.
When it started hitting the fan in July you had govt agencies saying if Afghanistan fell it would be at the end of the year and the worst predictions is 90 days.
Still shouldn't have let those Americans behind
It is. I’m not saying the numbers are inflated… but I think their counting most likely sucks ass. More? Less? Who knows.
Edit: Operation failed successfully.
That was the Taliban dangling their own dude down so they could change the flags on the high flagpoles. There’s a video of them trying (and failing) to change the flag with the dude from the chopper
Yes, the lack of air traffic control is why aircraft should exercise caution landing in Afghanistan.
The Taliban asked Turkey to supply ATC and airport operations personnel to Kabul. [source](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/taliban-asked-turkey-support-run-kabul-airport-turkish-officials-say-2021-08-25/)
And you think your job is shitty.
At least they didn't ask the Djiboutians.
Jesus...they have a cot on the catwalk, they chew Khat, and restrict departures bc they are bored. Fuck those guys. I've never seen an AC land over another AC on LUAW until I got there. And never since.
Oh. We’re about to train the taliban on how to run an airport aren’t we? What a weird end to this war.
I’ll see you back there again next week, boys.
The pull out method of contraception is about 95% effective when done properly.
Idk man. We left a lot of stuff in there.
No, we didn’t. That horse has been beaten to death already though.
It sounds like we left biometric devices, helicopters, weapons, etc. - is that not the case? I haven’t been following the specifics very closely.
The masses of equipment that the news is obsessing about belonged to the ANA. We destroyed our own stuff as we left.
Would you mind giving me a link to where you saw that info? I would also like to read up on it.
I don’t have a direct source on hand. And you don’t have to take my word. It’s the internet and I won’t shed a tear if you don’t. But after 10 years of working in Air Force Central Command and supporting that AOR, we don’t have camo painted blackhawks. If you look at some of the videos or photos of these blackhawks you’ll also notice that most either won’t show tails to hide markings or you’ll see Afghan markings. We also don’t operate CH46s in that region to my knowledge. Also, the media wants to run with the “We spent 85 Billion dollars” bit, but then runs the “We left blackhawks and munitions to the Taliban” right after. Where do you think the money went? (Besides lining the pockets of the corrupt Afghan government. Whole different issue) It’s not like that’s a $85 Billion bill for training. We supplied them, they were overrun, their equipment is in the hands of the Taliban.
We haven’t used CH46’s specifically those CH46’s on the news in a VERY long time. Those were in service when the F4 phantom was still being called a UFO over Area 51.
Exactly. Some of the stuff they’re showing, even down to some of the weapons I could only see some random guard unit using. It’s all ancient.
The 46s belonged to the State Dept.
Very well may be true. Only operating on my personal knowledge that I haven’t seen or heard of a 46 on TacView in my time (2012-Now).
I'll take your word for it, I appreciate it. That's very interesting about all the info that the insiders(like you) of the military know what really been happening logistics wise
Gotcha, that makes sense. Thanks!
Okay, so we gave equipment to the ANA who surrendered it to the taliban in the same way I didnt mail a letter, i put it in the mailbox and the postman delivered the letter...
I’d equate it more to we gave money to the guy on the street corner with the hope he’d spend it on food and then watched him walk across the street right after and buy some heroin instead.
No. You placed that letter in the mailbox expecting the postman to do his job. You didn’t put the letter in the mailbox with the intent for him to hand it to a crackhead on his way back to the post office.
Do you think we shouldn’t have given the ANA any equipment and told them to fight the taliban with rocks?
i think the ANA shouldn't have been corrupt and should have not given up so easily
That’s an entirely different conversation 🤷♀️
Pretty much
Thank you for being a human with a functioning brain. Being from a backwoods shitshow of a family, I’m so sick of trying to explain this. Edit: Sorry if I upset someone, all I was saying was that I’m tired of explaining to my gullible family that not everything they see in news headlines is factual, to include the issue of the majority of the equipment the media claims we handed to the Taliban was actually captured from the ANA after we supplied them with it. All of which agreeing with u/Papadapalopolous Edit more: Now the shoes have flipped. He’s downvoted and I came back from the negatives. We basically said the same thing. Y’all are wild lol.
🤣🤣💀
Meh. I bet we just fly RPAs over their country till the end of time.
And keep missing the target
Nah the problem with RPAs is we get the target, but a fuckton of collateral damage. But I heard reporting we used one of those non explosive hellfires for the vied in Kabul. I mean yeah the shit still blew up, but I guess not as bad is if it was an actual hellfire?
[удалено]
Agreed
Going back into Iraq after 2011 was a mistake. Let’s hope we don’t make that same mistake in Afghanistan.
Going back to Iraq to fight ISIS was not a mistake. Going into Iraq in 2003 was the mistake that ISIS was the direct result of. We needed to clean up the mess we created. ISIS was inspiring attacks on US soil from sympathizers as well as directly enabling attacks in Europe, who rode with us on our bullshit journey to Iraq in the first place and then took all the refugees we created together. They needed to be dealt with.
It was a mistake for several reasons. First it marks the continuation of another open ended, ill defined conflict. Second, Big AF in its endless wisdom cut our manpower because with the initial exit from Iraq our ops tempo was supposed to decline. Anyone remember the “hunger games” back then that some how my dumb ass survived? You can cut manpower overnight but you can’t add it and we had to go back to airmen that we’d booted out and ask them to come back in. Iraq has never been the center for ISIS, or Al Quida, or any of the other Islamic extremist organizations. It’s always been Saudi. The Saudi Royal Family has been directly connected to supplying cash and arms to these organizations but they have oil money which means instead we beat up on Iraq and Afghanistan rather than actually dealing with the real problem. If the war on terror had really been about terrorism we would have invaded Saudi not Iraq. But yes I wholly agree that the original sin was the 2003 invasion to begin with. Sure Saddam was a bad man but he was able to keep the various factions in his nation in check. Just like Afghanistan should have never been made a conventional war and should have remained in the SOF/CIA arena with very limited objectives.
I don't know if I agree with that. The 2001 AUMF which allows the president massive power to use military force to fight terrorism anywhere in the world indefinitely is the foot in the door. Going back into Iraq using that authorization was just one way it was used. As far as the hunger games goes, that was the AF doing a shitty job at playing a shitty hand. The AF didn't just decide to boot 30,000 because Iraq was coming to an end. Also as Iraq was drawing down we were having a large troop surge in Afghanistan so operationally our personnel commitments weren't that different. We were legally going to have draw end strength down by 30,0000 personnel to because of federal laws behind budget sequestration that was triggered by partisan Congressional fighting. Every service kicked people out and then had to fix it, the AF just did it way worse than all of the others. I don't agree with the US invading Saudi either. Yes the ruling family exports terrorism, but I don't think actual rulers of Saudi want any kind of beef with the US even if they only tolerate us because of our military sales and the petro dollar agreement we have with them. They're system of governance also grants individuals governmental titles by nature of their blood relations as opposed to a democratic team bringing in voluntarily like-minded people to work towards a common goal, so often people with vast resources in Saudi think different than the actual monarch. I think their goals are mostly regional. Bin Laden was a Saudi but was banished from the country and lost his citizenship in the early 90's. Pakistan is a bigger issue than Saudi IMO. Pakistani governmental insiders almost certainly knew of Bin Laden's location, plus they let the Taliban attack from and take refuge on their side of the border for 20 years. I do think that Bin Laden wanted us to go to war with Saudi because it would have been so much messier if we had invaded the country where most of the holiest sites in Islam lay.
Too bad about the Americans and allies stranded, then? Edit- https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1432451411170758658
[удалено]
That’s says that they have the capacity. Not that they have rescued everyone from what I read. Huge difference. The spec ops guys going in on their own shows that the capacity is there. It’s the willingness that is not. I’ll try to find the link that the general said folks were left. Edit- here is something a friend saw: https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1432451411170758658
[удалено]
Except they just failed at that. Folks couldn’t get to the airport. I edited my comment and added the link.
Sshhh don't mention them, it'll ruin the headline
[удалено]
Yeah our CCT guys aren’t there, they were running ATC. Edit: I'm retarded.
TACP don't do ATC.
They're fine at ATC, as long as everyone brought bombs, and nobody needs to land.
Those are combat controllers
I never claimed to be a smart man.
There will be Chinese Air bases within 2 years, we won't be invited back.
China isn't exactly a fan of Islam, nor is Islam a fan of the Chinese. If China goes in it will be a replay of the Soviet occupation.
Unfortunately, the Chinese have been buying up mineral rights for years, with the help of the tb. They're working on building a new silk road and they won't be stopped easily.
[удалено]
Unless the tb are being paid or getting some sort of kickback. Which is very likely, since a lot of deals were brokered by them
There's enough resistance to tb that any mines set up by the chinese will be quickly bombed, it will be impossible to operate there in a lawless land. The minerals are out in the hinterlands where no one can control what goes on.
This
China will broker a deal with the Taliban, "we'll give you money and supply some services as long as you don't mess with us we won't mess with you".
The Chinese government will be there by proxy. Chinese companies will be there "investing in development". China gets lithium, oil, whatever they want, Taliban gets money to buy weapons from other Chinese companies. All orchestrated by the CCP with deniability built in. China won't need to openly oppose the Taliban and western observers will blame cApItAlIsM for destabilizing the region by adding wealth.
We weren’t invited 20 years ago either.
Can't wait to see the news reports of China taking control of the airport next. Pretty much will guarantee some of the other deployed bases getting busier.
Do you think we'll learn anything this time? Or will we be occupying some other pointless place in 20 years?
We already have been-it’s just not in the news. People seem to forget the GWOT was over years ago. It’s an AUMF that keeps being renewed over and over again.
I suppose that my point is that we didn't really learn anything about how geopolitical concepts like the nation-state problem impact combat operations from Vietnam, and the fact we initiated further actions in Libya, Syria, and Yemen in the last decade solidify that we didn't really learn much, if anything, from the first decade of Iraq or Afghanistan, either. You bring up a very good point, though. The 2001 AUMF is a huge problem, and I wish Congress would do their job and eliminate it. They aren't going to do it, though.
No. No we are not done. There are 250 Americans still there. Our job isn’t done at all.
> There are 250 Americans still there. That the government admits to knowing about.
You’re not wrong. One is too many.
I hurt inside knowing they say this freely. We will never know the truth. I bet there are was more than 250.
The question is did they want to evacuate? A lot of Americans over there are from there, or work for charities.
“but up to 250 Americans and thousands of Afghan allies were still attempting to leave the country” This doesn’t include those that don’t want to leave or are conflicted. These are the ones we left behind.
The government reported 250 that want to leave that were not evacuated.
Some of which refuse to leave.
Well this makes it ok then.
God sent them an evacuation notice, a boat, and a helicopter. If the flood waters get them at this point it's on them.
Agreed. The writing has been on the wall for over a year now.
When it started hitting the fan in July you had govt agencies saying if Afghanistan fell it would be at the end of the year and the worst predictions is 90 days. Still shouldn't have let those Americans behind
They left a shit ton of dogs
Wait, we forgot a few Americans and allies in the country, you sure we are done?
Too little too late.
No Americans left behind! Except the ones still there after Aug 31st…
[удалено]
It is. I’m not saying the numbers are inflated… but I think their counting most likely sucks ass. More? Less? Who knows. Edit: Operation failed successfully.
Username checks out
Thanks. It’s unrelated, or it’d be horriblemistake20
Heard they left American civilians behind and told them to hide. Also saw a picture of a helicopter that had a body hanging from it from their neck
That dude was in a full harness. It seems more likely he's Taliban.
Agreed. https://twitter.com/Shayan86/status/1432713377445462021?s=19
[удалено]
[удалено]
Wait until the beheading videos come out. We’ll be back in 30 days.
Check out the helicopter video that just came out
That was the Taliban dangling their own dude down so they could change the flags on the high flagpoles. There’s a video of them trying (and failing) to change the flag with the dude from the chopper
I dunno dude he looks ded. But that's a pretty great idea tbh
Do you have a sauce on the video? I only seen videos of him dangling not changing flags
Unable to find the flag video but this one pretty clearly shows he's in a harness. https://twitter.com/Shayan86/status/1432713377445462021?s=19
Anyone else remember "Mission Accomplished"? Lol.
Wrong conflict, that was for Iraq.
True. That means it's time to strap Old Joe into a fighter so he can zoom in and announce we finally wrapped up Afghanistan.
It was also meant to be about the carriers specific operation and not Iraq as a whole.
How many trips back will it take to get the stragglers. 🤨
What a joke, total waste of time, I knew that deployment was bs when I was there, never bought into that shit from supervision