BF2S Forums America has lost the war in Afghanistan

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Not in any way dismissing the big part the US had to play in these wars, but other countries also had a role in Vietnam, Afghanistan. If we're cucks, you're cucks too.

vietnam was wholly america’s war. any allies were notional at best. america’s ‘greatest’ allies (like the U.K.) explicitly said no. don’t put that on us. nobody else had the appetite for it.

we all share shame and complicity for iraq-afghanistan. public mood was overwhelmingly against those wars. the biggest protest in U.K. history.

The Afghan army is collapsing much quicker and more dramatically than the South Vietnamese. I would be unsurprised if at this point next Friday, Kabul is conquered or at least under intense siege. The Taliban took over a provincial capital to the south of Kabul bloodlessly a few hours ago. Local tribal elders and religious figures convinced the governor to hand over the city to the Taliban. They then declared the city a free city and the Taliban occupied it. The Taliban now have large pockets surrounding the capital on all corners.

The south and west of the country is under total Taliban control. The government just has Kabul and a scattering of provincial capitals and countryside in the east on the Pakistan border region. All of the defectors and captured equipment in the west and south is going east now too. Nothing short of a miracle can stop what is going on. The U.S. militarily doesn't have the resources in region to stop the campaign if we wanted to.

It's not being dramatic to call this the greatest military campaign of the 21st century so far. Unlike our victories in Iraq and Afghanistan, what is special about this is that the Taliban will actually be able to bring a final peace settlement.

Finally, I just remembered that ISIS took over half of Iraq after we left and we needed to go back in to stop them. Now Iran runs the place. We lost both the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. Think about that for a second. We completely lost the War on Terror everywhere we fought it. 21 years of near total military failure.

Bolstering the Taliban's confidence and legitimizing them behind Afghanistan's back, not the best thing a US administration (Trump) has ever done. The Taliban, of course, opting for violence rather than honoring the agreement. Trump recently sputtering that he could have handled this situation much better. "It would have been a much different and much more successful withdrawal, and the Taliban understood that better than anyone." What a prick. Of course short term memories will eat it up.

The world we be better if he doesn't live much longer.

America is losing its longest war and all we can do at this point is make memes. Send help.

40% of the afghan population are pashtuns, which basically means = they support the taliban.

how 5,000 troops and some drones are meant to ideologically reprogram 40% of a population in '3-4 generations' is beyond me.

the entire idea that you can win over a population's deep-seated beliefs and convictions using shock-and-awe or occupation is beyond debunked. and i'm talking way back into the 19th century and not just debacles like vietnam. you'd think that nobody had even learned the basic lessons of a dunderhead like westmoreland from comments like that.

i never meant to suggest that afghanistan is divided on ethnic or sectarian grounds. just that, as it so happens, most of the tribal alliances and kinship networks that lean towards the taliban are from the pashtun population. it's a pretty rough generalization but it's true to say that deep, residual support for the taliban is practically at 40-50% nationwide. my point still stands. i never claimed there would be a civil war between ethnicities (though civil war is still entirely possible, along the lines of alliances which you demarcated yourself).

a lot of speculation that due to water scarcity/resource control, the uzbeks and tajiks will be next. a newly energized taliban might start taking an interest in destabilised neighbours then.

inevitably at some point china would be drawn into the conflict. having sunni fundamentalists at their borders kind of negates the cultural dry cleaning they’re doing in xinjiang already.

all speculation of course. fun 20-30 years ahead. america and her allies have just created a total vacuum.

Last edited by uziq (2021-08-14 02:22:06)

America can't convince blacks kids in the ghetto to not kill each other over sneakers or where their parents rent an apartment. America can't convince white people in rural areas to not base their personality on being resentful of young people on college campuses in cities.

We were never going to convince a bunch of Muslims who can't read or write that a secular democracy will work out better for them than whatever the Taliban is offering. People in America barely want democracy anymore either.

Read a headline that the Taliban is attacking Jalalabad. I wonder if their commander is using artillery on the first flag like they should to get down that road.

But anyhow it's 9:16 PM in Afghanistan at the moment. Today two cities just 11 KM from Kabul's city center fell to the Taliban. The U.S. government is now saying the city could fall in a week or less. The joke going around is that the Taliban did a speed run of the whole thing. We expected them to win in 90 days then 30 days and now a week.

Again stunning success. I will post an updated map of the situation tomorrow.

I agree that it is tasteless to name maps after areas of ongoing conflict. Russians conquering Seattle is as plausible as SciFi though. Also, how long of a wait is it before we can start to make games based on real conflicts? Still plenty of survivors of Vietnam around. Is that setting off limits for an EA microtransaction scheme?

There has been a handful of games set in the middle east that try to squeeze an anti-war message into the cutscenes between simulated mass killing. I am deeply skeptical of their anti-war message. There was a director who argued "You can't make an anti-war movie without making a movie that appeals to some people who enjoy war". I guess "you can't make an anti-war game without making a game that appeals to some people who enjoy war". But there is a big difference between watching a character end young men's lives on a screen and you controlling a character ending lives in a game.

All that said, America's problems with violence go way beyond names of maps in games. I would argue that games, movies, and real life violence are more tied together than media people will acknowledge though.

The Taliban back in power may not be the worst thing honestly. Bad for the people there but the place was a shit hole during our occupation too. As long as they don't export terrorism to the west, it is not our business how they run their scenic mountains and hills.

Finally, the war greatly undermined American's perception of their country. "We can spend a trillion dollars bombing Afghanistan but can't have universal healthcare?" is a strong complaint. It will be a long time before that line isn't relevant and the disgusting pig people who scream about communism while stuffing their faces with lasagna aren't going to wise up anytime soon. But at least we aren't putting more payments into that lost cause and can start the healing process.

Finally, I will acknowledge a lot of people maybe even most Americans learned absolutely nothing from this experience. I still read many comments on Reddit arguing we won the war in Afghanistan because we killed more of them than they killed of us and people will be afraid of us now. Oftentimes on videos of cartel members doing violent stuff you will get many Americans strongly arguing "we should send the U.S. military to Mexico to stop the cartels. They can't stop our drones. They can't beat real soldiers in a battle". What dude? Judging by our success in the Middle East, we would end up negotiating a treaty with the cartels for our withdrawal in 10 to 20 years.

Anyhow, Vietnam, Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Print out a map of the eastern hemisphere, close your eyes, and throw a dart at it. There is a higher than 1% America will lose a war there in our lifetime. At least we can get some cool games from it though.

I assume the MEC live in some timeline that diverged from ours a century ago. Only way to explain how the MEC spoke Arabic, fought in Afghanistan, and were better armed than the 2021 Russian military. Maybe the Arabs figured how to pump oil before we got there.

And yes, video games don't just promote people joining the military. They also promote people buying guns. I almost bought a black AK pattern rifle in real life out of admiration for BF2's AK 101. I am sure plenty of 'totally not gay' Americans bought AR-15s because this guy made them feel some sort of way.

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

There's an AR-15 type rifle in the family, but it's basically a gun safe queen. Nobody in that household goes shooting anymore (and I haven't been in a good while either). But also, nobody is going to the open carry demonstrations or to loom over BLM demonstrators.

That sort of gun really does have a bit of a pit bull reputation, doesn't it. I'd rather take my bow out or go shoot clay. Somewhere outdoors around people who are non-beginners and won't inadvertently point their boomstick at the next lane over. It would be lovely to have a piece of land for it, but prices man. If I was super into the hobby I might just get some undeveloped strip on the cheap and bring a big tent on the weekends to share some BBQ with the local forest spiders.

I really enjoy tending to my backyard tomato garden. I was thinking it would be nice to move to the country side away from people and cultivate marijuana. Not for mass distribution but just as a thing to do. Nearest rural area is on the other side of the state though. I refuse to be one of those people that spend 2 hours commuting from PA.

haha. grows some tomatoes once in NJ. 'i'm thinking of moving to the country ...'.

i don't know why people romanticize having a lot of land. it's backbreaking work. add any sort of animal and you've got to get up at 5am for the rest of your days.

america's relationship with violence goes back much further than 'tHe meDiA' or 'violent computer games'. cultural entertainments reflect upon and critique society; they don't create it. interpersonal tensions and violence against another person aren't incited by FPS games. you need deep wellsprings of anger and resentment to do that.