Please also respond to Lt. Gen McMaster's assertions point by point. You happen to disagree with him. There is nothing wrong with that.
1. There is nothing wrong with listening carefully to Petraeus’ and McMaster's points of view on Afghanistan but it is informed by American intelligence; which we know is faulty for the last 20 years — in part due to the motivated desire of both officials in Pakistan and Afghanistan to lie to the Americans. McMaster, acknowledged it was a "one-year war fought 20 times over." To be clear, the term ‘Taliban’ is NOT interchangeable with the term ‘Pakistani Army,’ no matter how much lies Afghan politicians and the ANA’s discredited generals tell. For 20 years, Afghan officials deny that they were stealing millions of dollars in American aid. Some of these discredited Afghan generals skillfully manipulate data to pretend they had an army, when in fact, they are just another tribe out to loot the treasury.
(a) Was speaking the former chief ranger trainer of Singapore who is ‘Special Forces’ or ‘SF’ trained at Fort Bragg. He explained the difference between SF and rangers — the SF advisor support model is a single ‘A’ team of 12 soldiers to support 1,000 to 5,500 militia — therefore, if anan had argued that there were 120 to 500 Pakistani soldiers in Afghanistan, supporting the Taliban, he would not be subject to a source challenge. anan cites media personalities like
Lara Logan as evidence, when what she says must be taken with a pinch of salt. There is a distinction between an opinion, belief, allegation, and factual proof — in every post, anan has repeated political beliefs of his ‘qawn’ (translated as ‘his people’) without providing actual evidence — a time honoured tactic of lying or situational retelling of an opinion for outsiders.
(b) We want to have sympathy for anan’s anxiety for the resistance but from my perspective, it is very likely that Pakistan’s intelligence services ISI, are using their proxy, with some of their networks within the Taliban to influence outcomes. I have not seen proof that Pakistani army tanks and artillery are used to attack the ANSF — and certainly not on the scale anan is suggesting. Less credible Indian sources may have unverified Afghan stories of Pakistan Army’s direct uniformed involvement (which may be untrue). Keep in mind that in 2001, it took 400 American troops, supporting the Northern Alliance to overthrow the Taliban. That’s how weak the Taliban were.
(c) Successive U.S. officials believed they had established personal rapport with their various Pakistani counterparts and found them reasonable, charming, and accommodating. Under their spell, U.S. officials came to believe that it was only the strength of Pakistan’s army which prevented chaos and disorder. The limited human intelligence gathered is a reflection on the passing American interest on the tribes of Afghanistan and its greater context in the AfPak threatre.
(d) It is not just the Afghan officials that are lying to the Americans — for 20 years, Pakistani officials have masterfully execute a denial and deception campaign that to manipulate senior U.S. defense officials, diplomats, and visiting congressional delegations. Islamabad wants to make sure that the Taliban’s actions should not give the international community, particularly the U.S., any reason to isolate them diplomatically and cripple them financially.
(e) According to scholar
Ayesha Siddiqa, Pakistan’s Army chief, Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, spoke about his concern that Pakistan may end up being targeted by American sanctions — this is one reason why I don’t believe that there are 15,000 to 20,000 former Pakistani military "advisors" in Afghanistan embedded within the Taliban. The rush among Pakistani officials to give the Taliban a certificate of good behavior and paint a doomsday scenario of what might happen should international engagement with Pakistan and Afghanistan not continue says less about the Taliban’s transformed character and more about Islamabad’s desire to whitewash the “military solution” the Taliban imposed.
(f) While Pakistan did provide information to help the US take out or capture several al-Qaeda leaders in its tribal region, no major Taliban or Haqqani network leaders — whom Pakistan was using as its proxies in Afghanistan — were ever given away. The 2011 Abbottabad raid and the 2016 strike that killed Taliban Amir Mullah Akhtar Mansoor are only two exceptions of the rule — where the Americans have been consistently out played by Pakistan’s ISI’s double game — asking for American money but acting against American interests. These raids also increased both popular anger among the masses, and dissent within the Pakistani army’s own ranks — the nagging conspiratorial sentiment suggesting that the nuclear armed Pakistan Army is either weaker or more hollow than depicted.
2. America went to Afghanistan in 2001 for a reason — to eliminate the sanctuary in which the 9/11 attacks were planned by al-Qaida during Taliban control of most of the country. They stayed 20 years to prevent al-Qaida from reestablishing such sanctuaries. If the Afghan National Army can’t win the fight again the Taliban after years of training, preparation and billions of dollars in equipment supplied, then it’s a fact that we as external observers can only watch with regret.
(a) The coming Panjshir massacre of a few resistance fighters may not end positively for Taliban — I suspect that a long civil war is about to begin; there will more small skirmishes elsewhere with time, before full scale war — this is a prediction I hope to be proved wrong on — for the sake of the Afghan people.
(b) The closure of the American embassy in Afghanistan is also a blow to the CIA’s ability to maintain real-time situational awareness on groups like al-Qaida in Afghanistan. It's not impossible, but it's going to take significant expenditure of assets that was not necessary before. This is not a desired outcome but one Americans must accept, given President Biden’s decision.
(c) Secretary Blinken's team also praised Doha's "indispensable support in facilitating the transit of US citizens, embassy Kabul personnel, at-risk Afghans, and other evacuees from Afghanistan through Qatar."
3. On 9 Oct 2009, President Barack Obama met with his top generals, Cabinet officials, and his VP Biden to hash out strategy for the war in Afghanistan. Gens. Stanley McChrystal and David Petraeus, along with much of the military brass, were pushing for a troop increase of 40,000 to 85,000 in Afghanistan. Doing so would allow for a counterinsurgency strategy, they claimed, and would give the Americans time to recruit and train a larger Afghan national army.
(a) Biden said to McChrystal. “And that our success relies upon having a reliable, a strong partner in governance to make this work?” Petraeus, when he spoke, acknowledged what had become obvious. “I understand the government is a criminal syndicate,” he said.
(b) Biden cut in: “If the government’s a criminal syndicate a year from now, how will troops make a difference?” he asked. Biden was getting at something fundamental: Did anybody believe what the generals were proposing was actually possible?
(c) Richard Holbrooke, special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, chimed in with a
reality that was largely kept from the U.S. public. “Our presence is the corrupting force,” Holbrooke said. Woodward then paraphrased his explanation: “All the contractors for development projects pay the Taliban for protection and use of roads, so American and coalition dollars help finance the Taliban. And with more development, higher traffic on roads, and more troops, the Taliban would make more money.”
(d) Biden’s summation, said Woodward, returned to the theme that the project was doomed due to the failure to have built a real Afghan government.
4. India’s Republic TV runs a video game ARMA-3 shown as Pakistan striking Panjshir. The fake news also running in Times Now channels! anan's false claim is that there are between 15,000 to 20,000 former Pakistani military "advisors" embedded with the Taliban. This is either a traditional Afghan political lie repeated many times (to outsiders) or a mistaken belief not backed by (i) reputable news reports, ground truth, or (ii) military logic.
5. There is an ideal of the ratio of ‘Special Forces’ or ‘SF’ to a rebel group that is well established.
6. The difference with the Americans compared to Israel or Singapore, is the multilingual ability of users of the intelligence — Singapore’s Prime Minister, CDF, Chief of Army all speak Bahasa, as a 3rd or 4th language — they understand not only the info but also the cultural context.
). However I put this as it's also talk on Taliban overture to German for Diplomatic relatioship.
