You Voted for This, Because 'Mean Tweets'?

[Xan]

Can anyone come up with an example in modern history where nation building has actually worked?
I'm having trouble coming up with one.

Forget modern history. How about any time in human history?

We pretty successfully completely rebuilt Japan and Germany, no?

Yes, good point, but there the circumstances were post war, both countries were decimated, and both countries had initiated war against others. I guess I'm talking more about a situation where the nation building was initiated by the outside power, not the result of direct military provocation.

That's pretty much hairsplitting and goalpost-moving.

[Kriegsspiel]

Kriegs, on the quote above: what intelligence info is physically contained in the embassy? Surely everything was constantly being backed up to servers in the US, right? Or are you talking about physical items that are somehow important for intelligence? I wouldn't think that any embassy would keep any information remotely of value only within the walls of the embassy in this age of Internet connectivity and encryption.

I'm not sure. I'd guess things like hard drives, evidence, IED artifacts, biometric data, etc etc.

[Xan]

I'm not sure. I'd guess things like hard drives, evidence, IED artifacts, biometric data, etc etc.

Anything that's an "artifact", sure, so the IED thing qualifies. Anything that's "data" should already be somewhere else, which covers biometrics and hard drives.

[pp4me]

I watched the PBS documentary "Last Days in Vietnam" and I highly recommend it. I watched it 3 times last night. There was at least some semblance of a plan in place for the evacuation and the agreed upon signal to go was an announcement on the radio that it was going to be 105 degrees that day, followed by the playing of "White Christmas". Needless to say, people were shocked to hear it and then all the chaos began.

The ambassador was criticized for waiting until the last minute to give the signal but when you think about it, what else could he do? How do you quickly and secretly destroy all the documents and weapons and get thousands of people out of the country?

Must have been a similar dilemma in Afghanistan. How would it have worked to tell the Afghan army personnel to start destroying all of the U.S. weapons and also, BTW, you won't be getting paid any more?

Documentaries and movies to follow will be interesting when they start coming out. I'm sure there will be lots of stories to tell.

Big problem they must be facing in Afghanistan is that you can't escape by sea.

[Kbg]

Can anyone come up with an example in modern history where nation building has actually worked?
I'm having trouble coming up with one.

Forget modern history. How about any time in human history?

We pretty successfully completely rebuilt Japan and Germany, no?

Yes and no. Yes in that we provided help and didn't put a significant punitive peace on them. No in that the people of both countries basically wanted to rebuild and join the "community of nations" again and they, the people in power, were basically good with the post war security and values systems.

Iraq and Afghanistan, not so much.

[Xan]

Can anyone come up with an example in modern history where nation building has actually worked?
I'm having trouble coming up with one.

Forget modern history. How about any time in human history?

We pretty successfully completely rebuilt Japan and Germany, no?

Yes and no. Yes in that we provided help and didn't put a significant punitive peace on them. No in that the people of both countries basically wanted to rebuild and join the "community of nations" again and they, the people in power, were basically good with the post war security and values systems.

Iraq and Afghanistan, not so much.

Sounds like nation-building works when there's buy-in to the new value system and not when there isn't. Pretty straightforward.

[Kriegsspiel]

I'm not sure. I'd guess things like hard drives, evidence, IED artifacts, biometric data, etc etc.

Anything that's an "artifact", sure, so the IED thing qualifies. Anything that's "data" should already be somewhere else, which covers biometrics and hard drives.

"Should"

Yea, obviously if they got into the hard drives and forwarded the contents on to a database outside Afghanistan, all is good. But if they didn't, then that's a failure.

I just saw a quote from Dan Crenshaw:

And here's another thing the State Department never did. They never even built a contingency plan to take people out of the embassy. They were planning on just staying even though the conditions on the ground were getting worse and worse and worse. Capital city after capital city was just falling. By Saturday, they had no plans to leave.

And this is what we're hearing from insiders. The secretary of the state owes the American people a lot of explanations for this. Now, of course, the buck stops with Biden. Biden made all these decisions and it's absolutely reprehensible. But the State Department really botched this. link

So yea, it looks like they didn't have any intention of evacuating the embassy.

[Xan]

Anything that's an "artifact", sure, so the IED thing qualifies. Anything that's "data" should already be somewhere else, which covers biometrics and hard drives.

"Should"

Yea, obviously if they got into the hard drives and forwarded the contents on to a database outside Afghanistan, all is good. But if they didn't, then that's a failure.

I just saw a quote from Dan Crenshaw:

And here's another thing the State Department never did. They never even built a contingency plan to take people out of the embassy. They were planning on just staying even though the conditions on the ground were getting worse and worse and worse. Capital city after capital city was just falling. By Saturday, they had no plans to leave.

And this is what we're hearing from insiders. The secretary of the state owes the American people a lot of explanations for this. Now, of course, the buck stops with Biden. Biden made all these decisions and it's absolutely reprehensible. But the State Department really botched this. link

So yea, it looks like they didn't have any intention of evacuating the embassy.

What I'm saying is, plans to evacuate or not, all data stored at the embassy would/should be set up to automatically be transferred to the US for its main storage. There's no reason for the only copy of anything significant to reside only on a hard drive at the embassy, ever, regardless of how likely an evacuation is thought to be.

Do you have a source for the claim? If it's true, then State Department mismanagement is several times worse than what you describe.

[Kriegsspiel]

What I'm saying is, plans to evacuate or not, all data stored at the embassy would/should be set up to automatically be transferred to the US for its main storage. There's no reason for the only copy of anything significant to reside only on a hard drive at the embassy, ever, regardless of how likely an evacuation is thought to be.

How do you know that's the procedure? What if the SOP has been to do the translating on site at the embassy by the Afghan terps, then send the translated documents back to the US? So any untranslated documents on the hard drives awaiting translation are now lost. Either way, neither of us knows, and I doubt there will be any disclosure of what (if anything) was lost. Hopefully nothing was.

Do you have a source for the claim? If it's true, then State Department mismanagement is several times worse than what you describe.

You mean about the embassy? I think it was this article.

[yankees60]

Can anyone come up with an example in modern history where nation building has actually worked?
I'm having trouble coming up with one.

Forget modern history. How about any time in human history?

We pretty successfully completely rebuilt Japan and Germany, no?

Yes and no. Yes in that we provided help and didn't put a significant punitive peace on them. No in that the people of both countries basically wanted to rebuild and join the "community of nations" again and they, the people in power, were basically good with the post war security and values systems.

Iraq and Afghanistan, not so much.

Plus the Marshall plan did not start until 1948. During those intervening three years after the end of the war and the start of the Marshall plan there was tremendous suffering in the defeated countries. Aside from our country mourning the loss of lives and all the casualties our country was able to just jump back into normal life.

[Xan]

What I'm saying is, plans to evacuate or not, all data stored at the embassy would/should be set up to automatically be transferred to the US for its main storage. There's no reason for the only copy of anything significant to reside only on a hard drive at the embassy, ever, regardless of how likely an evacuation is thought to be.

How do you know that's the procedure? What if the SOP has been to do the translating on site at the embassy by the Afghan terps, then send the translated documents back to the US? So any untranslated documents on the hard drives awaiting translation are now lost. Either way, neither of us knows, and I doubt there will be any disclosure of what (if anything) was lost. Hopefully nothing was.

Do you have a source for the claim? If it's true, then State Department mismanagement is several times worse than what you describe.

You mean about the embassy? I think it was this article.

Bandwidth and storage are so amazingly cheap and plentiful that there's no reason to do it the way you describe. It would be crazy to do that with anything of any value. The original untranslated documents had value, therefore they would have automatically been sent to US servers within hours (on the outside) of them hitting a computer in the embassy.

The article is all about destroying sensitive data to keep it from falling into the wrong hands. Nothing about preserving it so that we still have it.

[glennds]

Can anyone come up with an example in modern history where nation building has actually worked?
I'm having trouble coming up with one.

Forget modern history. How about any time in human history?

We pretty successfully completely rebuilt Japan and Germany, no?

Yes and no. Yes in that we provided help and didn't put a significant punitive peace on them. No in that the people of both countries basically wanted to rebuild and join the "community of nations" again and they, the people in power, were basically good with the post war security and values systems.

Iraq and Afghanistan, not so much.

Sounds like nation-building works when there's buy-in to the new value system and not when there isn't. Pretty straightforward.

Is there a straightforward way of knowing at the front end whether that buy-in will be there or not? Maybe that's the rub.

[glennds]

We pretty successfully completely rebuilt Japan and Germany, no?

Yes and no. Yes in that we provided help and didn't put a significant punitive peace on them. No in that the people of both countries basically wanted to rebuild and join the "community of nations" again and they, the people in power, were basically good with the post war security and values systems.

Iraq and Afghanistan, not so much.

For a time I lived in Japan. For my own curiosity, whenever I got to know Japanese people well enough to ask forward questions, I asked how the Japanese could not absolutely despise and resent Americans given the sheer destruction of WWII and the scars it left upon them. The answer I got more than once was, like all things Japanese, simultaneously simple and complex. First it was undeniable that they initiated the aggression. Even if Japanese people were inclined to spin doctor, there was no escaping that they attacked the US and in effect brought retribution upon themselves. Even at a basic schoolyard level, it's hard to cry foul on the guy who hit you back when you threw the first punch.

Second, in their culture, when the Emperor is defeated or surrenders, the victor is the new Emperor. During occupation, they regarded Douglas MacArthur as a successor emperor of sorts since he was supreme commander of the Allied forces in the Pacific and then functioned as the leader of occupied Japan for three years. So there was a cultural allegiance that helped offset any insurgent efforts. MacArthur reinforced the paternal role when he used his influence to bring in food shipments when post-war Japan was facing mass famine. He also used his influence to see to it that the peace treaty was non-punitive including upon Hirohito who could have been tried as a war criminal.

So what I'm saying is it was a much more complex and nuanced attitude toward the US than some of the other countries that might boil it down to imperialist invaders.
It is deeply embedded in the Japanese psyche that theirs was a close brush with genocide. In the period leading to surrender, and after the atomic bombings, in order to force the surrender Truman (rightly) threatened to wipe Japan off the face of the Earth.

To this day there is an obsession with preservation and celebration of Japanese culture. There are special visas available for people who come to Japan to study in cultural programs. Culinary arts, martial arts, language, carpentry, horticulture, all sorts of things. Immigration is a major issue of contention, IMO for fear of diluting and eventually losing the traditional Japanese culture. Japanese people do not want a melting pot.

The psychology of it all is very fascinating.

[Kriegsspiel]

Bandwidth and storage are so amazingly cheap and plentiful that there's no reason to do it the way you describe. It would be crazy to do that with anything of any value. The original untranslated documents had value, therefore they would have automatically been sent to US servers within hours (on the outside) of them hitting a computer in the embassy.

The article is all about destroying sensitive data to keep it from falling into the wrong hands. Nothing about preserving it so that we still have it.

I think I'm just way more neurotic than you about this kind of stuff.

[Mark Leavy]

Bandwidth and storage are so amazingly cheap and plentiful that there's no reason to do it the way you describe. It would be crazy to do that with anything of any value. The original untranslated documents had value, therefore they would have automatically been sent to US servers within hours (on the outside) of them hitting a computer in the embassy.

The article is all about destroying sensitive data to keep it from falling into the wrong hands. Nothing about preserving it so that we still have it.

Xan,
You would be surprised at how inefficient things were over there.

[yankees60]

Bandwidth and storage are so amazingly cheap and plentiful that there's no reason to do it the way you describe. It would be crazy to do that with anything of any value. The original untranslated documents had value, therefore they would have automatically been sent to US servers within hours (on the outside) of them hitting a computer in the embassy.

The article is all about destroying sensitive data to keep it from falling into the wrong hands. Nothing about preserving it so that we still have it.

Xan,
You would be surprised at how inefficient things were over there.

Surprised that anything in the military that is inefficient? It is not their money that they are spending and it's not like they are going to go out of business if they overspend.

[Kbg]

The psychology of it all is very fascinating.

Great post glennds! The most interesting post I've read on the board for quite a while. Thanks for sharing.

[Mark Leavy]

I heard the real winners of the middle eastern wars of the last 20 years were defense contractors, especially the smaller ones, who lined their pockets with literal gold on the taxpayer dime.

Two words, Tom. Rare earths. Say it with me, "Rare Earths".

[yankees60]

Xan,
You would be surprised at how inefficient things were over there.

I heard the real winners of the middle eastern wars of the last 20 years were defense contractors, especially the smaller ones, who lined their pockets with literal gold on the taxpayer dime.

I think you have it correct. Anyone differ?

[Mark Leavy]

I heard the real winners of the middle eastern wars of the last 20 years were defense contractors, especially the smaller ones, who lined their pockets with literal gold on the taxpayer dime.

I think you have it correct. Anyone differ?

I heard the worst offender was a little company out of Portland, OR. Urban something something. Bunch of greedy assholes.

[glennds]

Xan,
You would be surprised at how inefficient things were over there.

I heard the real winners of the middle eastern wars of the last 20 years were defense contractors, especially the smaller ones, who lined their pockets with literal gold on the taxpayer dime.

I think you have it correct. Anyone differ?

Well not differing because the defense contractors have surely done obscenely well. Enough to make the pharma guys jealous.

But Vinny you linked a disheartening article somewhere on this forum that talked about (I think) $80B+ in military equipment that is now in the hands of the Taliban courtesy of the collapsed Afghan forces.

So based on that, and the estimated $1T in mineral wealth and China already in line as customer #1, I'd say the Taliban is definitely in the winner's suite. Pakistan is at the party. Pakistan is a fatherland to the Taliban. China's probably at the head of the table. Hello Silk Road.

The US taxpayer, not even in the cheap seats that I can see.

[Kriegsspiel]

2. There was provision for that; even when I was there in 2010 we helped an interpreter fill out his special visa. AFAIK every deserving Afghan had a chance to get a visa. That said, there seems to be incompetence with whoever processed the visas (or lying/incompetence by the journalists who report it), as I've seen that Afghans who submitted their visas many years ago are having them denied now because whoever vouched for them has died. Also, I want to mention that not everyone who "worked with us" in Afghanistan is a good person who deserved a visa. A lot of them were pieces of shit who were just doing it for money. The guy that we vouched for was someone I would have no issues being my neighbor in America; that wasn't the case for others, so they didn't get special visas. What you're seeing in the news, with all the talk of "we're leaving people behind to be killed" and "we need to let in a shit load of Afghan refugees" is either uninformed or an information operation.

Cheryl Benard's article, I've Worked with Refugees for Decades. Europe's Afghan Crime Wave Is Mind-Boggling, should be required reading. She is the wife of the former ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, and UN.

[glennds]

Cheryl Benard's article, I've Worked with Refugees for Decades. Europe's Afghan Crime Wave Is Mind-Boggling, should be required reading. She is the wife of the former ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, and UN.

Very interesting, and disturbing article. It's hard for me to know whether it was written with some shock value by intention, or whether it is just an objective representation of frightening facts. Probably somewhere in the middle.
It seems that young men have always been and continue to be the feed stock of the jihadi movement. You have to wonder whether the refugee diaspora will ultimately turn out to be nothing more than a highway network for legal export of terror cells.

[glennds]

Cheryl Benard's article, I've Worked with Refugees for Decades. Europe's Afghan Crime Wave Is Mind-Boggling, should be required reading. She is the wife of the former ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, and UN.

On a related note, as you mention, the author's husband, Zalmay Khalizad and what he knows is probably quite a story in itself. His fingerprints are all over the withdrawal agreement hence they are all over the situation as it unfolds. He is a remarkably connected person, having served in various capacities in the Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden administrations, and an ethnic Pashtun himself.

It's difficult to know whether what is happening today in Afghanistan could be any combination of the following:

1. Inevitable hence nobody's "fault" per se, assuming you agree it was right to go there in the first place

2. Trump's fault for setting up a deal that was basically a complete surrender on Taliban terms, and one that excluded the Afghan government completely thus guaranteeing their isolation and collapse (which may have been predestined anyway)

3. Khalizad's fault for possibly functioning as a Taliban representative in US Envoy clothes the whole time, and duping Trump attention span was limited and whose concern was mainly consumed with re-election optics

4. Trump's fault for public statements assuring withdrawal which basically undermined anything Khalizad was trying to negotiate since Trump was now promising the public that he was going to give the Taliban what they wanted anyway so why would they trade any concessions?

5. Biden's fault for accepting Trump's deal and then executing it as incompetently as possible.

6. Biden's fault for possibly checking out and never engaging in Afghanistan post inauguration at all

7. Biden's fault for disregarding the advice of the military and/or intelligence community and making the decisions himself

8. The fault of the Afghani people for being hopelessly directionless and completely unwilling to meaningfully resist the Taliban themselves

There are undoubtedly other possibilities. The exact combination of root causes is really not possible for an average citizen to discern. It's complicated. Deep in TLdr territory

[Kriegsspiel]

It seems that young men have always been and continue to be the feed stock of the jihadi movement. You have to wonder whether the refugee diaspora will ultimately turn out to be nothing more than a highway network for legal export of terror cells.

What you're talking about is the current reality. Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Britain are already terrorist and Islamist hotbeds. Remember, the 9/11 terrorists were based from Hamburg.