800 people evacuated on one C-17 flight

Velocity173 said:
I’m hearing the PIC of the C-17 is being court martialed because none of his 640 pax were wearing PT belts while walking on the ramp at night. He’s screwed.
Click to expand...
Doh! :eek:
 
Velocity173 said:
You can’t trust those people.
Click to expand...

Sure you can, but not when you try to group all the land of Afghanistan into a single country with a single army. It’s tribal, just like Yemen. Move one village down the road and you’ve got entirely different allegiences. In Afghanistan you even have different languages. It can never work like a Western country and our people in charge just can’t wrap their head around that.
 
DesertNomad said:
Sure you can, but not when you try to group all the land of Afghanistan into a single country with a single army. It’s tribal, just like Yemen. Move one village down the road and you’ve got entirely different allegiences. In Afghanistan you even have different languages. It can never work like a Western country and our people in charge just can’t wrap their head around that.
Click to expand...

...we should have learned this about 200 years ago. The ironic thing is that we named a bunch of helicopters after tribes from that first experience, that we then used in this recent CF. If the ancestors from those early conflicts could look down on the situation, they'd probably be amused.
 
Velocity173 said:
I’m hearing the PIC of the C-17 is being court martialed because none of his 640 pax were wearing PT belts while walking on the ramp at night. He’s screwed.
Click to expand...
I totally get that. #safetyfirst
 
DesertNomad said:
Sure you can, but not when you try to group all the land of Afghanistan into a single country with a single army. It’s tribal, just like Yemen. Move one village down the road and you’ve got entirely different allegiences. In Afghanistan you even have different languages. It can never work like a Western country and our people in charge just can’t wrap their head around that.
Click to expand...

Well I think we knew full well that we were dealing with a multi cultural society. I think we just underestimated the lack of unity in it’s civilian populace in getting rid of the Taliban. An organization that has never been good for the country as a whole but yet you have a country where the majority of the people don’t have a backbone to stand up to them.

Heck, forget the Taliban, Afghans lack the moral courage in getting rid of the various other terrorist organizations as well. I flew 2 (Cheryl Beckett & Tom Little) of the bodies in this massacre. Just amazes me that these aid workers, who could’ve done anything with their lives, lost their lives serving a people that won’t stand up for themselves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Badakhshan_massacre

At any rate, back to not trusting it’s people. Outside of maybe the Commandos and the Northern Alliance the vast majority of Afghans there I wouldn't trust. I’m actually hearing rumors that the Commandos have gone into hiding but are forming with the Northern Alliance to start a resistance. Now all we need is to drop American SF in to join the Northern Alliance we’ll have the initial stages of OEF in 2001 all over again.
 
Velocity173 said:
Well I think we knew full well that we were dealing with a multi cultural society. I think we just underestimated the lack of unity in it’s civilian populace in getting rid of the Taliban. An organization that has never been good for the country as a whole but yet you have a country where the majority of the people don’t have a backbone to stand up to them.
Click to expand...

Afghanistan is not really a country at all. It is an area of tribal land surrounded by real countries (Iran, Pakistan and China definitely, the three former Soviet Republics to some extent). It just doesn't fit into the modern nation-state system and it's no surprise that nobody is willing to fight for it.
 
By the way, if anyone gets a chance, watch the movie on Netflix called “The War Machine” with Brad Pitt. You’d think it was a not so funny fictional comedy if it weren’t for the fact it’s a pretty dead on depiction of events. Almost felt like I was reliving the experience watching it.
 
Velocity173 said:
By the way, if anyone gets a chance, watch the movie on Netflix called “The War Machine” with Brad Pitt. You’d think it was a not so funny fictional comedy if it weren’t for the fact it’s a pretty dead on depiction of events. Almost felt like I was reliving the experience watching it.
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I don't know, it kind of ****ed me off. I worked with McChrystal in Iraq. He was portrayed as an awkward dork in the movie. In real life he was a highly respected leader. He commanded the most demanding organization in the military during one of the most demanding periods of it's existence, and in many ways revolutionized modern special operations at the operational level. I don't agree with everything he did, but the man was a machine. He was the 2nd most capable and effective human being that I have ever observed up close.

The whole thing was a hit piece by that Rolling Stone reporter. I'm not surprised it happened. Very few men could keep pace with him, so when he found those who could, he overlooked some character flaws that were evident to others. That resulted in him being surrounded by narcissistic douchebags who ran their mouths when given the chance.

The failures in Afghanistan can't be laid on his lap. He was very poorly prepared for the job. He had spent his professional life running a hyper-effective precision killing machine. Then they put him in command of a counterinsurgency effort where precision killing is about the 20th priority, and everything else is fuzzy political stuff. His response was to fall back on the new COIN doctrine which had been 'validated' in Iraq through the Petraeus surge. Neither he nor Petraeus could transfer the concept successfully to an entirely different situation. Neither could anyone else for that matter, including Scott Miller, the 1st most capable and effective human being that I have ever observed up close.
 
Velocity173 said:
I’m actually hearing rumors that the Commandos have gone into hiding but are forming with the Northern Alliance to start a resistance. Now all we need is to drop American SF in to join the Northern Alliance we’ll have the initial stages of OEF in 2001 all over again.
Click to expand...

Me and some of my SF buddies have been theorizing on what we would do if we were ANA SOF. Negotiation not an option, so ditch your uniforms and try to blend into the crowd, or stay together as a unit and fight your way to the northern border. The problem is most of the power brokers in the Northern Alliance have either cut a deal or bugged out. I'm not sure it exists anymore.

But let's face it, the Taliban = Pashtunistan. Only a matter of time before all the other ethnic groups get tired of their nonsense and band together, and then we are back to 1996.

It will be interesting to see if the Taliban learn their lesson from 911 and keep all the crazies out. The last time we gave global jihad a playground was ISIS, and look how that turned out. If we start seeing gunmen in theaters in France and guys with knives in England, we'll know it's only a matter of time before Reagan's Kickoff Team (old nickname for Ranger Battalions) chutes up.

On the other hand, maybe we'll get to see a narwahl tusk used as a weapon again.

Narwhal-london.jpeg
 
DesertNomad said:
It’s tribal, just like Yemen (where I have spent some time). There is little sense of an Afghan nation the way there is of Japan or Spain. It makes complete sense to me that trying to build an “Afghan” army is not going to work. If we get involved in Yemen (now that our guys need something to do) it will be the same.
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There is a book, Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell that speaks to tribal loyalties in Afghanistan. There’s a movie to but read the book.
 
Velocity173 said:
While the end result of the pull out was predicable, I actually thought there’d be way more resistance. I always said, the only thing keeping Afghanistan from tumbling into chaos would be the Afghan Commandos standing in Tali way. ANA and ANP are absolutely useless but I at least thought they’d be heavy fighting with the Commandos. Their SEAL / SF advisors right now have got to be shrugging their shoulders thinking, well, what a waste of time that was. But, they probably knew that anyway.
Click to expand...
ANA, ANP ??
 
Sac Arrow said:
Well that is the problem. "We" understood a lot about Afghanistan, and a large part of that was assessing the Soviet Union's failure. We could control them, we could curb the Taliban (something that the Soviets could not, partially because we supplied the Taliban during the Soviet occupation), but we refused to accept the reality that if we wanted to maintain the status quo we had in the 2010's, we had to remain for eternity.

Vietnam is not even a close parallel. The Vietnamese, even the North Vietnamese, believed in fundamentally the same way of life as we do. They, the Afghanis, operate on a different level, and one we cannot reconcile with the West.

Ultimately, it will be up to them. Period. They will have to figure out how to get out from under the stranglehold of AC and the Taliban, and will have to have the will and drive to do it on their own. They haven't shown that so far.
Click to expand...
AC ??
 
Velocity173 said:
Well, like @Half Fast stated above, doesn’t matter if they have the tools to get the job done. Their unwillingness to defend their own country is telling.

I’d also dispute them being “trained.” When I was there, Stars and Stripes used to publish articles on the challenges dealing with the Afghan National Army. Due to the low literacy rate, plenty of ANA soldiers couldn’t understand the basics of soldiering. Imagine taking a bunch of first graders in America and trying to teach them to soldier. That’s the reality we had there. Combine that with a lack of desire and you get a completely dysfunctional army. Many cases of desertion. Cases of theft. Cases of running away from a fire fight. I was part of a major op where the convoy below us stopped during the middle of a fire fight to have tea! You also couldn’t trust them because of the many cases of insider “green on blue” killings. I had a LTC come up to me one day almost in tears pretty much begging for a ride back to his FOB. Four of his soldiers were just murdered by an Afghan interpreter the day prior. You can’t trust those people.

Like I said, the only group that actually had any desire or fighting spirit were their Commandos. I flew a bunch of them one day from their special ops base in Kabul to Bagram for their graduation. One of the SEAL advisor / trainers was in the back of the aircraft and was telling me how proud he was of these guys. Over the years I’ve kept an eye on their progress against the Taliban and thought wow, they’re actually kicking butt over there. I began to think these might be the saviors of Afghanistan and its people might well end up owing their lives to these “few.” I was wrong.
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LTC, FOB ??
 
Ed Haywood said:
I don't know, it kind of ****ed me off. I worked with McChrystal in Iraq. He was portrayed as an awkward dork in the movie. In real life he was a highly respected leader. He commanded the most demanding organization in the military during one of the most demanding periods of it's existence, and in many ways revolutionized modern special operations at the operational level. I don't agree with everything he did, but the man was a machine. He was the 2nd most capable and effective human being that I have ever observed up close.

The whole thing was a hit piece by that Rolling Stone reporter. I'm not surprised it happened. Very few men could keep pace with him, so when he found those who could, he overlooked some character flaws that were evident to others. That resulted in him being surrounded by narcissistic douchebags who ran their mouths when given the chance.

The failures in Afghanistan can't be laid on his lap. He was very poorly prepared for the job. He had spent his professional life running a hyper-effective precision killing machine. Then they put him in command of a counterinsurgency effort where precision killing is about the 20th priority, and everything else is fuzzy political stuff. His response was to fall back on the new COIN doctrine which had been 'validated' in Iraq through the Petraeus surge. Neither he nor Petraeus could transfer the concept successfully to an entirely different situation. Neither could anyone else for that matter, including Scott Miller, the 1st most capable and effective human being that I have ever observed up close.
Click to expand...
COIN ??
 
ANA - Afghan National Army
ANP - Afghan National Police
QFT - unsure
AC - unsure
LTC - Lieutenant Colonel
FOB - forward operating base
COIN - counter insurgency
 
AC = Al Qaeda

(Autocorrect is a mutha, meant AQ)
 
Qft quoted for truth. Strong agreement with the sentiment expressed.
 
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Albany Tom said:
This. The only rational purpose of the invasion in the first place was to establish a base to go after what's his name, and when that mission was completed the only reasonable thing to do was exit. We're [not allowed to be] anywhere near violent or ruthless enough to fix that country, haven't been since probably the 1860's...and that's probably a good thing. "Nation building" as an outsider is as much an idiotic concept as going to Yellowstone and going outside to pet the animals.
Click to expand...

Corrected for you.
 
Ed Haywood said:
I don't know, it kind of ****ed me off. I worked with McChrystal in Iraq. He was portrayed as an awkward dork in the movie. In real life he was a highly respected leader. He commanded the most demanding organization in the military during one of the most demanding periods of it's existence, and in many ways revolutionized modern special operations at the operational level. I don't agree with everything he did, but the man was a machine. He was the 2nd most capable and effective human being that I have ever observed up close.

The whole thing was a hit piece by that Rolling Stone reporter. I'm not surprised it happened. Very few men could keep pace with him, so when he found those who could, he overlooked some character flaws that were evident to others. That resulted in him being surrounded by narcissistic douchebags who ran their mouths when given the chance.

The failures in Afghanistan can't be laid on his lap. He was very poorly prepared for the job. He had spent his professional life running a hyper-effective precision killing machine. Then they put him in command of a counterinsurgency effort where precision killing is about the 20th priority, and everything else is fuzzy political stuff. His response was to fall back on the new COIN doctrine which had been 'validated' in Iraq through the Petraeus surge. Neither he nor Petraeus could transfer the concept successfully to an entirely different situation. Neither could anyone else for that matter, including Scott Miller, the 1st most capable and effective human being that I have ever observed up close.
Click to expand...

Yeah he was definitely a Soldier’s Soldier and the movie didn’t depict him in a very good light. Maybe not a bone head but made him look to be out of touch with the realities of dealing with that type of warfare (COIN). In reality the guy was brilliant.

What they got right in the movie though are the challenges he faced in trying to prosecute a war with poor communication and direction from the top (Obama) and no support from the moron (Karzai) in Kabul. It depicted a general with the typical attitude of I can win this war with the right tools, just give me those tools (troop increase). Personally just like in Iraq, I think the reduction in violence in both areas was a direct result of the troop increases. Unfortunately, those measures resulted in only a short reprieve of violence and not lasting peace.

The movie did a good job in showing the confusion at the lowest level in that a lot of young Soldiers / Marines didn’t understand who they were fighting. It also portrayed the ANA as the completely dysfunctional cowards that they were.

Finally, the movie depicted what arrogance McChrystal’s posse had. Yep, I agree, McChrystal was a badass but they let the power of being the biggest show in town go to their heads. Experienced that first hand in dealing with his dimwit PSD one day…that’s Personal Security Detail @luvflyin ;). Anyway, I’m chalk 2 sitting there on the ramp at Kabul waiting for McChrystal to arrive. Lead’s at idle, I’m on the APU because I’ve got about half the gas of lead and trying to conserve. A PSD Sgt of his walked up to my crew chief and told him we needed to have our engines running like lead. I was like whatever, go away. He comes back 10 minutes later and tries to order us again. I inform lead about what’s going on and he tells me to ignore them. Finally, a Navy PO of McChrystal’s walks out and again tells us to go to idle because “the boss is on final.” Only reason I went to idle was because I was told he was on final. McChrystal didn’t land for almost 40 minutes later! I was ****ed. His group was always disorganized and always late, while some operators like ADM McRaven’s group were a well oiled machine and were never late.

Ultimately though that McChrystal posse met their demise when the Rolling Stone article came out and exposed their arrogance. The movie did get that scene wrong in that when McChrystal was fired by the POTUS, he didn’t fly out on a C-17 during the day. It was at night and on a C-20. I was chalk 2 for his final flight in Afghanistan.

There’s one thing that confused me about McChrystal though. He came there with an aggressive plan to fight the war but then strapped us with the “McChrystal Directive” that restricted ROE even further. It’s almost like he caved in to Karzai and Congress complaining about excessive civilian casualties all the time. Not that we should’ve gone with a scorched earth policy but his directive was like fighting with one arm tied around our backs. Never could figure that out.
 
Velocity173 said:
Yeah he was definitely a Soldier’s Soldier and the movie didn’t depict him in a very good light. Maybe not a bone head but made him look to be out of touch with the realities of dealing with that type of warfare (COIN). In reality the guy was brilliant.

What they got right in the movie though are the challenges he faced in trying to prosecute a war with poor communication and direction from the top (Obama) and no support from the moron (Karzai) in Kabul. It depicted a general with the typical attitude of I can win this war with the right tools, just give me those tools (troop increase). Personally just like in Iraq, I think the reduction in violence in both areas was a direct result of the troop increases. Unfortunately, those measures resulted in only a short reprieve of violence and not lasting peace.

The movie did a good job in showing the confusion at the lowest level in that a lot of young Soldiers / Marines didn’t understand who they were fighting. It also portrayed the ANA as the completely dysfunctional cowards that they were.

Finally, the movie depicted what arrogance McChrystal’s posse had. Yep, I agree, McChrystal was a badass but they let the power of being the biggest show in town go to their heads. Experienced that first hand in dealing with his dimwit PSD one day…that’s Personal Security Detail @luvflyin ;). Anyway, I’m chalk 2 sitting there on the ramp at Kabul waiting for McChrystal to arrive. Lead’s at idle, I’m on the APU because I’ve got about half the gas of lead and trying to conserve. A PSD Sgt of his walked up to my crew chief and told him we needed to have our engines running like lead. I was like whatever, go away. He comes back 10 minutes later and tries to order us again. I inform lead about what’s going on and he tells me to ignore them. Finally, a Navy PO of McChrystal’s walks out and again tells us to go to idle because “the boss is on final.” Only reason I went to idle was because I was told he was on final. McChrystal didn’t land for almost 40 minutes later! I was ****ed. His group was always disorganized and always late, while some operators like ADM McRaven’s group were a well oiled machine and were never late.

Ultimately though that McChrystal posse met their demise when the Rolling Stone article came out and exposed their arrogance. The movie did get that scene wrong in that when McChrystal was fired by the POTUS, he didn’t fly out on a C-17 during the day. It was at night and on a C-20. I was chalk 2 for his final flight in Afghanistan.

There’s one thing that confused me about McChrystal though. He came there with an aggressive plan to fight the war but then strapped us with the “McChrystal Directive” that restricted ROE even further. It’s almost like he caved in to Karzai and Congress complaining about excessive civilian casualties all the time. Not that we should’ve gone with a scorched earth policy but his directive was like fighting with one arm tied around our backs. Never could figure that out.
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ROE ??
 
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/08/16/afghanistan-history-taliban-collapse-504977

This is as good of an explanation as any. It's not that they lack moral courage or will to fight. That's a bunch of US-centric nonsense. They just lack our concept of moral courage and will to die for it. And why should they? We were always temporary. Sure, milk the US for all we have and then make your own arrangements when US leaves. Just like every other invading force for many centuries. As far as supporting terrorist Taliban.... Again, our concept.

An interesting side note. The Taliban took over Afghanistan before US left. The communist Afghan government held on to power for 3 years after soviets left and actually fought and won many battles against its enemies. It even outlasted the Soviet Union.
 
"The greatest number of passengers ever carried by a commercial airliner is 1,088 or thereabouts (there are conflicting reports of the final count), by an El Al Boeing 747 during Operation Solomon, which involved the evacuation of Ethiopian Jews from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and started on 24 May 1991."
They should get a few old 747s in there.
 
genna said:
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/08/16/afghanistan-history-taliban-collapse-504977

This is as good of an explanation as any. It's not that they lack moral courage or will to fight. That's a bunch of US-centric nonsense. They just lack our concept of moral courage and will to die for it. And why should they? We were always temporary. Sure, milk the US for all we have and then make your own arrangements when US leaves. Just like every other invading force for many centuries. As far as supporting terrorist Taliban.... Again, our concept.

An interesting side note. The Taliban took over Afghanistan before US left. The communist Afghan government held on to power for 3 years after soviets left and actually fought and won many battles against its enemies. It even outlasted the Soviet Union.
Click to expand...
Excellent link. Thanks.
 
genna said:
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/08/16/afghanistan-history-taliban-collapse-504977

This is as good of an explanation as any. It's not that they lack moral courage or will to fight. That's a bunch of US-centric nonsense. They just lack our concept of moral courage and will to die for it. And why should they? We were always temporary. Sure, milk the US for all we have and then make your own arrangements when US leaves. Just like every other invading force for many centuries. As far as supporting terrorist Taliban.... Again, our concept.

An interesting side note. The Taliban took over Afghanistan before US left. The communist Afghan government held on to power for 3 years after soviets left and actually fought and won many battles against its enemies. It even outlasted the Soviet Union.
Click to expand...

Arrangements between the Taliban and the Afghan government may very well have contributed to the quick downfall but that wasn’t the problem for the past 20 years.

ANA and ANP can’t even be compared to the Mujahideen or Tali. They’re nothing but poor, uneducated, untrainable males who aren’t battle hardened. They lack leadership, cohesion, have high rates of desertion and have demonstrated poor battlefield performance from day one. Those are the facts and this article describes the problem in detail.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/13/afghan-army-pentagon-504469

Some of the Afghan military performed heroically though. Hopefully their deaths get avenged.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/13/asia/afghanistan-taliban-commandos-killed-intl-hnk/index.html
 
Didn’t help that their Air Force was grounded in the last few days. Not gonna win any ground war without air support.

“And if the choppers stop coming, we all get slaughtered.”
 
Kenny Phillips said:
"The greatest number of passengers ever carried by a commercial airliner is 1,088 or thereabouts (there are conflicting reports of the final count), by an El Al Boeing 747 during Operation Solomon, which involved the evacuation of Ethiopian Jews from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and started on 24 May 1991."
They should get a few old 747s in there.
Click to expand...

The 747 was always my favorite people hauler.
 
Velocity173 said:
Arrangements between the Taliban and the Afghan government may very well have contributed to the quick downfall but that wasn’t the problem for the past 20 years.

ANA and ANP can’t even be compared to the Mujahideen or Tali. They’re nothing but poor, uneducated, untrainable males who aren’t battle hardened. They lack leadership, cohesion, have high rates of desertion and have demonstrated poor battlefield performance from day one. Those are the facts and this article describes the problem in detail.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/13/afghan-army-pentagon-504469

Some of the Afghan military performed heroically though. Hopefully their deaths get avenged.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/13/asia/afghanistan-taliban-commandos-killed-intl-hnk/index.html
Click to expand...

Not disputing the facts you present. Just adding context. Russians in WW2 were poor, uneducated, drafted males(and some females) who weren't battle hardened, lacked leadership(most skilled officers were killed years prior) and demonstrated poor battlefield performance in the beginning of the conflict. They also lacked weapons and were often sent straight to death for very little gain or purpose. Yet they had high motivation to defend their homes and country from foreign invader. So they prevailed. Same is true for the mujaheddin in the 80s. In this case, the invader was us. Afghan country was never a country. And any dream of creating viable ANA or ANP was always just that, a dream. There is no nation to have that army. They aren't inherently bad at being soldiers, they are bad at being our soldiers.
 
Frankly, poor, uneducated, green soldiers make up vast majority of all human wars(even ours prior to becoming professional military), so that doesn't mean that much to me.
 
Velocity173 said:
ANA and ANP can’t even be compared to the Mujahideen or Tali. They’re nothing but poor, uneducated, untrainable males who aren’t battle hardened. They lack leadership, cohesion, have high rates of desertion and have demonstrated poor battlefield performance from day one.
Click to expand...

These are military systemic issues, not some kind of inherent characteristic of Afghan men. When my buds in Iraq would laugh at inept Arab soldiers, I would always observe that it was funny how the other side seemed to have no trouble finding Arabs who could fight.

Conscription and signing bonuses fill the ranks with hapless boobs with no other options. Victims mostly. Guys who want to fight go to the side that gives them a good reason to fight. In a culture where religion dominates everything, it is hard to compete with the Imams and Mullahs telling young men to drive out the infidels.

I struggle to understand how the same approach that wound up working in Iraq failed in Afghanistan. Many of the same cultural features existed. I think fundamentally it comes down to two things. First, the Iraqi people were more modern and urban, and understood as a society that national stability was better than tribal and ethnic chaos. Eventually all the sheiks realized, OK, we gotta have some kind of government here or we're going to get eaten by ISIS and Iran, so they did the hard work to hammer out some kind of uneasy method of sharing power. Also, Iraq has Kurds. I love Kurds. All 10th Group guys love Kurds.

Second, Iraq lacks a dominant tribe like the Pashtun. The Pashtun are the world's largest tribal society, with over 50 million people. Since their religious and tribal leadership are pretty much the same, that makes them a very cohesive and motivated foe. Combine that with an untouchable sanctuary and unlimited outside aid, and they are unbeatable in a guerilla war. A quick look at the distribution of Pashtun tribes on a map of Afghanistan and Pakistan tells you pretty much everything you need to know. Basically, Russia and the US fought a 40 year war against Pashtunistan, tagging out in the middle.

pashtun.jpg
 
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