Afghanistan

[noggins]

Pipeline - I never grasped how the USA would profit from Turkmenistan selling gas more cheaply to India.

The supposed mineral wealth seems to have been conveniently discovered long after the intervention.

[dyqik]

Well, there was the Trans-Afghanistan pipeline that the presence of the Taliban made more difficult to complete. And the country has about $1 trillion in mineral resources.

I don't think that was much of a consideration initially. The main consideration was almost certainly "we have to be seen to hit back", and Afghanistan was the relevant target without massive international political downside.

I agree.

In both Afghanistan and Iraq there was never an attempt by the US government to actually seize any oil or mineral resources. Iraqi oil was sold on the open market.

Some US companies made profits but it would have been vastly cheaper and less difficult to just give them some government contracts without invading. Seizing natural resources really doesn't figure as explanations for either.

Although there may also have been considerations around diplomacy with competing oil producing states.

[Woodchopper]

I don't think that was much of a consideration initially. The main consideration was almost certainly "we have to be seen to hit back", and Afghanistan was the relevant target without massive international political downside.

I agree.

In both Afghanistan and Iraq there was never an attempt by the US government to actually seize any oil or mineral resources. Iraqi oil was sold on the open market.

Some US companies made profits but it would have been vastly cheaper and less difficult to just give them some government contracts without invading. Seizing natural resources really doesn't figure as explanations for either.

Although there may also have been considerations around diplomacy with competing oil producing states.

Certainly. IMHO one of the motivations for the invasion of Iraq was that it was intended to be a demonstration of US power to the governments of Iran and Saudi Arabia. Oil wealth explains why the Bush administration cared about the region. But that's a long way from invade and grab natural resources (which they didn't do).

[Martin_B]

Pipeline - I never grasped how the USA would profit from Turkmenistan selling gas more cheaply to India.

The supposed mineral wealth seems to have been conveniently discovered long after the intervention.

If a USAian company owned the pipeline, they would charge the Turkmenistanese and Indians for transporting the gas, and make money that way.

[Woodchopper]

Pipeline - I never grasped how the USA would profit from Turkmenistan selling gas more cheaply to India.

The supposed mineral wealth seems to have been conveniently discovered long after the intervention.

If a USAian company owned the pipeline, they would charge the Turkmenistanese and Indians for transporting the gas, and make money that way.

Yes, it would. But those profits would have been minute in comparison to the costs involved in taking over Afghanistan.

[Little waster]

Re the Big Lie.

I can see the appeal of Magic Iraq, with its oil and position.

But I cant follow the money for Afghanistan. Intervention seems completely irrational. Iraq being rational, but stupid.

The motivation can still be going after Al Qaeda. It's the "and so we have to remove the Taliban entirely and build a new country" that was the moved goalpost.

The main lie is that the base of 9/11 wasn't Saudi Arabia.

From the memoirs I've read of some of the Americans involved they say it was actually Blair who pushed the "Afghanistan-First" policy whereas the Bush's administrations original plan was to use 911 as a pretext to just go after Iraq, without giving Afghanistan a second thought.

Blair won the argument, causing the pivot, and it went a long wat to convincing him he, uniquely, could continue to guide Bush to do what he wanted.

Blair's reasoning apparently went:-
a) AQ are actually in Afghanistan in some form, unlike Iraq.
b) the Taliban are odious in their own right
c) an anti-Taliban international coalition will be easier to put together
d) it will be militarily easy
e) it will be popular
f) once we've demonstrated the success of the policy in Afghanistan it will be easier to sell an Iraq invasion to the public and it may even force Saddam to simply capitulate without another shot being fired.

In hindsight it was only d) he got wrong and only in the sense of the occupation not the initial invasion, which was every bit the cakewalk that was expected.

You can still see remnants of Bush's original plan in how the Iraq pretext initially still leant heavily on the "Saddam Did-It" narrative before they began chucking UN resolutions, Israel-Palestine, Nuclear Weapons, WMDs etc at the wall in the desperate hope something, anything, would stick.

Going into the war 70% of Americans were still convinced Saddam was behind 911 long after it had been debunked, one of most egregious changes in the Dodgy Dossier was the insertion of false claims Saddam was "supporting terrorist organisations in hostile regimes" and Blair himself painted nonsensical scenarios of Saddam, having gone to all the trouble and risk of acquiring the WMDs that he "definitely has" would then simply hand them over to an AQ network he couldn't stand, to use as they saw fit.

The irony is under other circumstances the "Our S.O.B." Doctrine would have seen the US embrace Saddam as their staunchest ally in the war against AQ.

[dyqik]

The irony is under other circumstances the "Our S.O.B." Doctrine would have seen the US embrace Saddam as their staunchest ally in the war against AQ.

Saddam would probably also have been a pretty useful ally against both ISIS and Iran, if you are that kind of hawk (see the '80s for details). Of course, the history of ISIS and Arab Spring would be very different.

[Little waster]

*my cousin despite being a Chief Petty Officer in the RN actually served in Afghanistan. They had him driving supply trucks out there for 6 months because that doesn't set off alarm bells regarding military overstretch.

Good, that sounds like a sensible , flexible , cross-service use of personnel and taxpayers money.

See, I’m less convinced about how transferable 25 years of Anti-Submarine Warfare training is to dodging IEDs in the Khyber Pass while driving a truckload of Pop-Tarts and bog roll.

[noggins]

Yeah your right he should have stayed at sea looking for Taliban submarines

[Little waster]

Yeah your right he should have stayed at sea looking for Taliban submarines

Exactly, the Afghan Navy has stealth capability like nobody’s business!

[jimbob]

Tom “Rhyming-Slang” Tugendhat in usual disingenuous form on the BBC.

Apparently this is all down to Biden and Obama, presumably his own party’s decision to also withdraw all* UK troops is just one of those uncontrollable things like solar eclipses or continental drift. Also there was only the briefest acknowledgement that Trump may also carry some of the blame, it’s a pity that whoever was US President before Obama has been lost in the mists of time as if w.nker’s-Hat could recall his name he’d perhaps have reserved some excoriation for him too.

He pooh-poohed any suggestion that the Afghan engagement couldn’t just continue indefinitely, highlighting South Korea, Germany and Cyprus as examples. I can only assume his zoom webcam developed a glitch as his sentence acknowledging that unlike Afghanistan none of those are active war zones and haven’t been almost from the outset seemed to have went missing. Damn technical glitches!

Tugendhat is one I despise even more than my MP (Andrew Largan) for that very reason. He's my Dad's MP and Dad did say that he agreed with quite a lot of Tugendhat's criticism of the government, because he often criticises the government and then votes to support it. Which means he can see the problems, but in the end thinks his morals are not worth actually voting for.

[Martin Y]

WHAT WE NEED TO LEARN: LESSONS FROM TWENTY YEARS OF AFGHANISTAN RECONSTRUCTION

This was fascinating and enlightening. Thanks.

[jdc]

I've given it a go, but frankly the useless potted plant we have for an MP won't do anything unless it follows the party line. Am not even holding my breath that I'll get a reply before Christmas if she follows her normal behaviour.

Mine will either get a brief reply from his secretary or a longer reply that's actually the party line that will be presented as his own thoughts, meanwhile he'll never know it was even sent. But it's the only thing that's really in my power to do right now so I'm doing it.

For anyone who wants to pre-empt the "it's all men refugees", this is a great piece. The TL:DR is that it's incredibly risky and expensive to become an externally-displaced refugee, even more risky for women, so most families pool their resources to finance a male relative to essentially act as a scout - go and find somewhere safe to settle so that they can then bring the rest of the family once they have the facilities. So if the UK's (pathetic) plan to take 20,000 refugees over 5 years wants to prioritise women and children they really need to prioritise the men who are escaping now.

Looks like we weren't even planning to prioritise the guards who worked at our embassy: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... protection

Nearly all 160 GardaWorld employees working on the British embassy contract applied for help from the Ministry of Defence-run Afghan relocations and assistance policy (Arap), designed to assist people working for UK organisations, and all except 21 translators were rejected last month. They received letters explaining they were not eligible because they “were not directly employed by her majesty’s government”. “We realise this will be disappointing news,” the letters said.

Apparently they've now extended the scheme and the guards can just reapply so that's fine.

[Woodchopper]

Re the Big Lie.

I can see the appeal of Magic Iraq, with its oil and position.

But I cant follow the money for Afghanistan. Intervention seems completely irrational. Iraq being rational, but stupid.

The motivation can still be going after Al Qaeda. It's the "and so we have to remove the Taliban entirely and build a new country" that was the moved goalpost.

The main lie is that the base of 9/11 wasn't Saudi Arabia.

From the memoirs I've read of some of the Americans involved they say it was actually Blair who pushed the "Afghanistan-First" policy whereas the Bush's administrations original plan was to use 911 as a pretext to just go after Iraq, without giving Afghanistan a second thought.

Blair won the argument, causing the pivot, and it went a long wat to convincing him he, uniquely, could continue to guide Bush to do what he wanted.

Are you sure about that?

In a speech to Congress on 20 September Bush declared the war on terror, identified Al Qaeda as responsible, and stated that issued an ultimatum to the Taliban on 20 September. Bush stated:

Americans have many questions tonight. Americans are asking, ``Who attacked our country?''

The evidence we have gathered all points to a collection of loosely affiliated terrorist organizations known as al Qaeda. They are some of the murderers indicted for bombing American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya and responsible for bombing the USS Cole.

Al Qaeda is to terror what the Mafia is to crime. But its goal is not making money, its goal is remaking the world and imposing its radical beliefs on people everywhere.

The terrorists practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority of Muslim clerics; a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam.

The terrorists' directive commands them to kill Christians and Jews, to kill all Americans and make no distinctions among military and civilians, including women and children.

This group and its leader, a person named Osama bin Laden, are linked to many other organizations in different countries, including the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

There are thousands of these terrorists in more than 60 countries.

They are recruited from their own nations and neighborhoods and brought to camps in places like Afghanistan where they are trained in the tactics of terror. They are sent back to their homes or sent to hide in countries around the world to plot evil and destruction.

The leadership of Al Qaeda has great influence in Afghanistan and supports the Taliban regime in controlling most of that country. In Afghanistan we see Al Qaeda's vision for the world. Afghanistan's people have been brutalized, many are starving and many have fled.

Women are not allowed to attend school. You can be jailed for owning a television. Religion can be practiced only as their leaders dictate. A man can be jailed in Afghanistan if his beard is not long enough.

The United States respects the people of Afghanistan--after all, we are currently its largest source of humanitarian aid--but we condemn the Taliban regime.

(APPLAUSE)

It is not only repressing its own people, it is threatening people everywhere by sponsoring and sheltering and supplying terrorists.

By aiding and abetting murder, the Taliban regime is committing murder. And tonight the United States of America makes the following demands on the Taliban.

Deliver to United States authorities all of the leaders of Al Quaeda who hide in your land.

(APPLAUSE)

Release all foreign nationals, including American citizens you have unjustly imprisoned. Protect foreign journalists, diplomats and aid workers in your country. Close immediately and permanently every terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. And hand over every terrorist and every person and their support structure to appropriate authorities.

(APPLAUSE) Give the United States full access to terrorist training camps, so we can make sure they are no longer operating.

These demands are not open to negotiation or discussion.

(APPLAUSE)

The Taliban must act and act immediately.

They will hand over the terrorists or they will share in their fate.

That was obviously a prelude to an attack.

The only mention of Iraq in the speech was:

Now, this war will not be like the war against Iraq a decade ago, with a decisive liberation of territory and a swift conclusion.

Blair flew over to the US on 20 September, and was present when Bush made the speech, and that day had a meeting with Bush.

Did Blair make a substantive intervention between 11 and 20 September 2001? I haven't found any mention of substantive discussions before 20 September (eg here, here).

So I can't see how Blair would have been able to bring about a shift in US foreign policy for it to attach Afghanistan in 2001 instead of Iraq.

Iraq wasn't listed as a potential target by Bush until the 29 January 2002 State of the Union Address in which Bush stated that:

My hope is that all nations will heed our call, and eliminate the terrorist parasites who threaten their countries and our own. Many nations are acting forcefully. Pakistan is now cracking down on terror, and I admire the strong leadership of President Musharraf. (Applause.)

But some governments will be timid in the face of terror. And make no mistake about it: If they do not act, America will. (Applause.)

Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction. Some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since September the 11th. But we know their true nature. North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens.

Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom.

Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens -- leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections -- then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world.

States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.

[Edited to fix links]

[Gfamily]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... an-cartoon


The BTL comments are worth reading too.

[Bird on a Fire]

For me the really interesting thing about "who was behind 9/11?" is why the US government is still, 20 years later, covering up the extent of Saudi Arabian involvement
https://apnews.com/article/sept-11-saud ... 25bab79bb4

[sTeamTraen]

However much I might want to, I find it hard to fault Rory Stewart's argument here.

https://twitter.com/scotfoodjames/statu ... 89543?s=19

[Bird on a Fire]

The White House pretending Macron didn't say they had a moral responsibility to protect allies https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... ate-allies

It's a pretty minor thing in the grand scheme of things, but the official messaging is still clearly pretty dishonest over there, and the America First doctrine has clearly survived regime change.

[Fishnut]

This is an interesting piece on why the Afghan army "evaporated" in the face of the Taliban. The TL:DR is that the army was poorly deployed - it was "spread across the country in piecemeal district centres (often surrounded by Taliban-controlled countryside) and [had] to be resupplied by air" making it unsustainable without US support. Plus the inevitability of the Taliban takeover was obvious to everyone in Afghanistan and they were promising leniency to those troops who surrendered, and death to those who didn't. Not really much of a choice there.

[bjn]

However much I might want to, I find it hard to fault Rory Stewart's argument here.

https://twitter.com/scotfoodjames/statu ... 89543?s=19

Rory Stewart is one of the few Tories I have any time for.

[Little waster]

However much I might want to, I find it hard to fault Rory Stewart's argument here.

https://twitter.com/scotfoodjames/statu ... 89543?s=19

Rory Stewart is one of the few (ex)Tories I have any time for.

FTFY

[bjn]

However much I might want to, I find it hard to fault Rory Stewart's argument here.

https://twitter.com/scotfoodjames/statu ... 89543?s=19

Rory Stewart is one of the few (ex)Tories I have any time for.

FTFY

Gah, of course, he got kick out for not agreeing the with the floppy haired fuhrer.

[Fishnut]

However much I might want to, I find it hard to fault Rory Stewart's argument here.

https://twitter.com/scotfoodjames/statu ... 89543?s=19

Rory Stewart is one of the few Tories I have any time for.

I read his book The Places In Between before I knew who he was. I thought it was just a really interesting and insightful travelogue that had me in tears at the end*. I was shocked when I read the "about the author" and saw he was Conservative MP.

* Spoiler:

A dog he'd befriended and who'd joined him on his trek had died following eating a cooked lamb bone before he'd managed to bring it back to the UK.

[Little waster]

Rory Stewart is one of the few (ex)Tories I have any time for.

FTFY

Gah, of course, he got kick out for not agreeing the with the floppy haired fuhrer.

Who could have possibly have predicted that the Venn diagram of “Tories with even the very barest minimum levels of competence and integrity” and “Tories who thought Johnson was doing a good job over Brexit” had such a vanishingly small area of overlap?

Meanwhile the Venn diagram of “Tories who are odious, corrupt, fuckwits” and “Tories who thought Johnson was doing a good job over Brexit” resembles the view you’d get staring through a well-used gloryhole, and for much the same reasons.

[Fishnut]

I feel it's important to say that while Rory Stewart talks a decent talk on helping people flee Afghanistan, when he was given the opportunity to vote on asylum issues he consistently voted to make things harder for refugees. He voted against the Dubs Amendment that provided support for children fleeing Syria by themselves and he consistently voted for a stricter asylum system. Looking more broadly, his votes on welfare and benefits are indistinguishable from any other Tory who thinks that poor and disabled people should just hurry up and die already. So while he's clearly capable of great empathy and understanding, he chose to join a party devoid of both and then chose to follow the party line.