Time to go back in to Afghanistan

ollie989898 said:

This is hardly news. Corruption in a foreign country which has been receiving billions in aid from overseas?

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OK Captain Hindsight,who told you that the "Afghan Army" numbers were just made up and a total farce? Plenty newspaper columnists coming out the woodwork now, "i thought as much,when i was there in .........." (any year in the last 20 )...................(Mathew Parris for one in yesterdays Times)

jendan said:

OK Captain Hindsight,who told you that the "Afghan Army" numbers were just made up and a total farce? Plenty newspaper columnists coming out the woodwork now, "i thought as much,when i was there in .........." (any year in the last 20 )...................(Mathew Parris for one in yesterdays Times)

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I'm not 'captain hindsight', I am 'captain realist'. There are many parts of the world where the expected principles of government, including law and order, do not really exist. In some cases it is actually very difficult to know who is really supportive of the Western involvement and those who are totally opposed to it. To hear of endemic and massive corruption of this scope or scale is of no surprise to me. It was the very same state of affairs in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation when they entered to support their puppet socialist government there.

I cannot say for certain but I would guess that only a portion of the Afghan population, probably that centred around Kabul and the major urban population centres etc actually want or desire a government of the same kind we expect in the West. For many, living out literally on the frontier and miles from the outside world, with scarce communication links, they have lived the same way for literally hundreds of years and they have little or no established relationship with the government in Kabul. As I have said before, in many countries there is not much of an established national identity- one's loyalty is to their (often very large) family or regional community first and foremost.

I know a chap who served extensively in Saudi Arabia helping to train their military pilots. During GW2 if the base suffered an alert, the front gates to the place had to be locked because at the first sign of trouble, literally all the base personnel would bolt for home, including a good portion of the officers. Their first instinct was thus to rush home- their families were their obvious priority. Not their base, their fellow airmen, their commanders or their country. Such is the way in many parts of the world. Money does not buy reliability in such circumstances hence I was not at all surprised to see that the Afghan government had been collecting the pay cheques for thousands of police, military or security personnel who do not exist.

"Afghanistan: Seven people killed in crowd near Kabul airport as Taliban seeks clarity on foreign forces exit | World News | Sky News" https://news-sky-com.cdn.ampproject...kabul-airport-uk-ministry-of-defence-12387611

I think the point of the article is not that there was corruption. That has always been known. It was that there's no point wondering why 300k forces couldn't resist 70k Taliban. Because there weren't.

Anyone noticed that T Bliar has weighed into the blame game today. This from the man who has made himself £millions, touring the world talking of his great success in starting wars...

Danllan said:

Yes - bar the word 'cream', that tended and tends to refer to the best units rather than actual commanders. Were it to be applied to the then officer corps it could not, by definition, have included the fools that failed to adapt.

But the fact remains that there were a great many excellent officers back then, who were also failed by the 'system' of patronage and deference, and every bit as much as the men.

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I was referring to so called top brass and politicians really. The serving officers on the front had an extremely hard time.

The Agrarian said:

I think the point of the article is not that there was corruption. That has always been known. It was that there's no point wondering why 300k forces couldn't resist 70k Taliban. Because there weren't.

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I don't think 300,000 Afghan personnel would resist the Taliban even if they existed in the first place. The Taliban, though far from being a homogenous force, are pretty motivated and are very experienced in conducting the kind of operations they carry out. What is more, they are not adverse to using methods we would deem abhorrent in the west- IEDs, car bombs, mass executions, assassinations and even suicide bombings. That kind of threat is very difficult to resist or defeat even for a technologically advanced force. Like I said, when faced with that, it is no wonder folk disappeared back into the fog.

I agree. Difficult to win a war when the opposing sides play by different rules.

So the Afghan president walks off into the sunset carrying 170 million dollars, well he must be the strongest man in the world, the largest dollar bill is $100 and they weigh 1gram so thats nearly 1700 kilos, a million dollars in 100 dollar Bill's is just over 4 ft high by 2.6 wide and 6 ft long,
Then the press wonder why people dont believe what they print

The Agrarian said:

I agree. Difficult to win a war when the opposing sides play by different rules.

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No, you just have to find a different way to fight them and then do it, hard.

robs1 said:

So the Afghan president walks off into the sunset carrying 170 million dollars, well he must be the strongest man in the world, the largest dollar bill is $100 and they weigh 1gram so thats nearly 1700 kilos, a million dollars in 100 dollar Bill's is just over 4 ft high by 2.6 wide and 6 ft long,
Then the press wonder why people dont believe what they print

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Silly fudger, couldn't he have snaffled a US donated humvee and used that to transport the cash rather than try carrying the lot?

robs1 said:

So the Afghan president walks off into the sunset carrying 170 million dollars, well he must be the strongest man in the world, the largest dollar bill is $100 and they weigh 1gram so thats nearly 1700 kilos, a million dollars in 100 dollar Bill's is just over 4 ft high by 2.6 wide and 6 ft long,
Then the press wonder why people dont believe what they print

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But he hasnt walked off on his own has he? He would have all his "team" around him.Its not impossible.You can get $2.4million dollars in a case small enough to carry weighing about 50lbs. Two each and its about 35 men to walk out with $170 million. Would fit in a transit van no problem. Somehow i dont think he has kept all the pay for the non existent army in $100 bills though,stashed under his bed.

$100million is a pallet, according to this.

jendan said:

But he hasnt walked off on his own has he? He would have all his "team" around him.Its not impossible.You can get $2.4million dollars in a case small enough to carry weighing about 50lbs. Two each and its about 35 men to walk out with $170 million. Would fit in a transit van no problem. Somehow i dont think he has kept all the pay for the non existent army in $100 bills though,stashed under his bed.

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There are lots of ways to move 'money', and notes are only one of them. With regard to physical things, meaning something one can hold, I've had >$40m in one hand made up of bearer bonds, and that same hand held about $10m of diamonds in it once too - none of it was mine and I wasn't allowed to keep any, but the fact remains.

As for the 'paper army'... it's been known about for years by all who have served there, go on some military fora and you'll read plenty about 'Generals' etc, in charge of supposed brigade-sized units of twenty blokes in an office up Charikar way. I've heard - straight from a former US infantry Colonel - that he was tasked with guarding resupply for a supposed ANA 'Corps', so far so good. After a significant but fortunately safe trip to the Corps' HQ which was indeed large enough for a hell of a lot of blokes - having been built by us - he estimated there was not even a battalion strength there. Asking around later, nobody had ever seen more than that number or could say where the rest of the 'Corps' were?

jendan said:

But he hasnt walked off on his own has he? He would have all his "team" around him.Its not impossible.You can get $2.4million dollars in a case small enough to carry weighing about 50lbs. Two each and its about 35 men to walk out with $170 million. Would fit in a transit van no problem. Somehow i dont think he has kept all the pay for the non existent army in $100 bills though,stashed under his bed.

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No but that's the point the news report makes out exactly what he did, its yet more sensational crap, journalists were once honest respectable people now they peddle exaggeration and lies, just as those they criticise do.

robs1 said:

No but that's the point the news report makes out exactly what he did, its yet more sensational crap, journalists were once honest respectable people now they peddle exaggeration and lies, just as those they criticise do.

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Which news report is it that you're finding fault with? I've read a few but none suggesting he was physically carrying the notes himself.

Estimated 80+billion dollars worth of US military hardware currently in the hands of the Taliban

Highland Mule said:

Which news report is it that you're finding fault with? I've read a few but none suggesting he was physically carrying the notes himself.

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Post 478 , its in the telegraph according to that.

robs1 said:

Post 478 , its in the telegraph according to that.

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Struggling to find what's wrong there from a journalistic point of view, tbh. They have reported that the Afghan ambassador to Tajikstan is alleging he did it, they're not claiming themselves that he did. I'd go so far as to say that your post above employed far more journalistic licence than the Telegraph ("walks off into the sunset").

Mr Jones said:

Estimated 80+billion dollars worth of US military hardware currently in the hands of the Taliban

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This isn't good- they could turn it on anyone or sell it to any neighbouring countries or allied organisations who could then use them to attack civilians or target westerners. There was concern that advanced weaponry (the shoulder fired FIM-92 stinger missile system) that the USA had supplied to the Mujahideen back in the 80's could turn up anywhere and be used to shoot down civilian airliners. Thankfully, few of them ever seem to have surfaced again.