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US, NATO Outta Afghanistan 2021

Some of NATO's lessons learned via a Canadian Library of Parliament paper ....

Full LoP paper also attached, as well as NATO's fact sheet on their work

Just looking at this and considering Britain's move towards more ISR (to include diplomacy and training) and less strike, and the US's redirection of the SF away from "door-kicking" to foreign training is it worth asking if the overall intent is to eliminate the "Advance to Contact" phase?

It seems to me that the intent could be to treat the conditions under which wars are fought as "endemic" and shade the peace/war boundary by establishing contact when the risks are low and maintaining contact in perpetuity. Then there is less likelihood of accidents happening when nervous bodies advance through the fog.
 
Taliban to the troops: Hey, hey, hey - lighten up a bit ...
Taliban fighters will no longer be allowed to carry their weapons in amusement parks in Afghanistan, the group's spokesman said on Wednesday, in what appeared to be another effort by the country's new rulers to soften their image.

Taliban fighters, many of whom have spent most of their lives in a 20-year insurgency against a U.S.-backed government, flocked to amusement parks in Afghan cities in towns after they took over in August.

"Mujahideen of the Islamic Emirate are not allowed to enter amusement parks with weapons, military uniforms and vehicles," the main Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said on Twitter.

"(They) are obliged to abide by all the rules and regulations of amusement parks." ...
 
I think the word I would use is "canny",


canny in British English​

(ˈkænɪ)
ADJECTIVE Word forms: -nier or -niest

1.
shrewd, esp in business; astute or wary; knowing

2. Scottish and Northeast England dialect
good or nice: used as a general term of approval

3. Scottish
lucky or fortunate

And a canny lass is not a nice one because she's a good looking one. She's a nice one, a good catch, because she's shrewd, thrifty, frugal, lucky, manages the tin well down at the market.

Karzai is canny.
Why is it that every definition of something Scottish has the word ‘frugal’ in it, just saying….
 
Why is it that every definition of something Scottish has the word ‘frugal’ in it, just saying….

We had a guy in my platoon at Sandhurst who was from Glasgow, a former bouncer and as big as a house.

One day, during the usual microscopic level inspection on the parade square, the College Adjutant (a Scots Guardsman) stopped in front of him and had an interaction with him that went like this:

Adjt: Mr. XYZ, why do the Scots have such big noses?

OCdt XYZ: I dinnae know sorrrrr

Adjt (deadpan): Because air is free.


The fact that we didn't all collapse with laughter at that moment probably raised our esteem in the eyes of many onlookers....
 
Color me shocked...
/s


This is a cheerful read (not).

I assume that someone could have written the same thing about Alexander the Great's campaigns ;)

The root cause of ‘Western’ failure in Afghanistan​


US strategists assume the global system prefers American leadership. Conservatives believe that restraint or containment can maintain American dominance; liberals believe that Western rules and institutions make America vital to world order. Neither approach is valid because they take what America should do to be the norm without considering the possibility that other dynamics are in play.

 
US strategists assume the global system prefers American leadership. Conservatives believe that restraint or containment can maintain American dominance; liberals believe that Western rules and institutions make America vital to world order. Neither approach is valid because they take what America should do to be the norm without considering the possibility that other dynamics are in play.
Like the local populace, regional history, culture, ethnicity, religion, language...

Running the ANA like a National Guard unit makes it easy to understand for politicians writing the cheques back home. Makes no sense to the Kandak Commander who has no ties to the local ethnic group he's trying to influence.
 
In other news, Canada seeks to (un-ironically) memorialize embarrassing foreign policy failure for all time ;)


Critics ‘dismayed’ over Ottawa’s plans to install plaque praising Afghan evacuation​


Global Affairs Canada plans to install a plaque commemorating Canada’s evacuation of Afghans and embassy staff when its capital Kabul fell to the Taliban, but critics argue that sends the wrong message.

The plaque carried a $10,000 price tag and was approved in a July 2022 memorandum that The Canadian Press obtained through an access-to-information request.

It reads, in part: “This plaque pays tribute to all the government of Canada employees who contributed to this heroic effort.”

The department said it unveiled the tribute in an October ceremony and plans to install it when renovations at its headquarters are completed.

Conservative Sen. Salma Ataullahjan said she was baffled by the move.

“It’s totally inappropriate, considering how we badly botched the exit,” she said in an interview from her native Pakistan, where she said Afghan children are begging in the streets.

“To me, it seems unnecessarily inappropriate and insensitive when I think of what’s happening in Afghanistan,” she said. “What are we congratulating ourselves on?”

The plaque describes Canada’s role in the chaotic evacuation of Kabul in August 2021, when the Taliban took over Afghanistan, as such: “In the preceding weeks and in those that immediately followed, a complex operation took place under extremely harsh, unsafe and rapidly changing conditions to help thousands of Canadian citizens, permanent residents of Canada and Afghans to flee to safety.”

Last year, a special parliamentary committee studied how it unfolded in depth.

MPs heard that Canada evacuated its embassy before its peers, making it nearly impossible for Canadian veterans’ groups to help get the Afghan interpreters they had worked with to safety.

Canada’s final commander in Kandahar during the Afghan war, retired Maj.-Gen. Dean Milner, said embassy staff left “embarrassingly way too fast.” He said that’s part of the reason “we only managed to pull out maybe about 15 to 17 per cent of those critical interpreters who soldiered alongside us.”

As detailed in a report last June, the committee also heard about failings in Canada’s resettlement process, which it found was “administratively and logistically complex.” Witnesses described poor communication, an overreliance on email and a requirement that people trying to flee the country access documents with a professional version of Adobe Acrobat.

 
Shaq Omg GIF



Well, at least we (DND/CAF) weren't the total morons who thought this was a good idea.
 
Maybe some of the heat and light on the CAF should be directed at that gong show of a department.
Sure, but the CAF is a visible group, rather than Department of XYZ.

Saying "those bureaucrats over there" doesn't have the same oomph on headlines - people will forget which department by the end of the article.
 
Canada ‘limited’ on ability to help Afghans, Trudeau says after ex-MP killed

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada is “limited” in what it can do to help Afghans leave the country, as fresh calls to help more people flee emerge following the killing of former Afghan parliamentarian Mursal Nabizada.

The former lawmaker, a fierce advocate for women and girls in the region, was shot and killed by gunmen in her Kabul home on Sunday — the first slaying in the capital of a lawmaker from the previous administration since the Taliban’s takeover.


Mursal Nabizada knew the Taliban were coming and she'd have a target on her back but she refused to leave.

Maybe what we really need is a plaque to commentate the Prime Minister of Canada bravely escaping the Trucker convoy. That's courage.
 
Canada ‘limited’ on ability to help Afghans, Trudeau says after ex-MP killed




Mursal Nabizada knew the Taliban were coming and she'd have a target on her back but she refused to leave.

Maybe what we really need is a plaque to commentate the Prime Minister of Canada bravely escaping the Trucker convoy. That's courage.
They also serve, who run and hide.
 
Canada ‘limited’ on ability to help Afghans, Trudeau says after ex-MP killed




Mursal Nabizada knew the Taliban were coming and she'd have a target on her back but she refused to leave.

Maybe what we really need is a plaque to commentate the Prime Minister of Canada bravely escaping the Trucker convoy. That's courage.
Fuck that is good!

I will have more to say on this later.

We are now a "cut and run" nation. Then those that caused it get praised. Fuck. :mad:
 
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