I’ve read a lot about our failures in Afghanistan, and have reached the following conclusions. The U.S. went to Afghanistan to root out Al Qaeda. While there we tried to train an army for Afghanistan, with local soldiers hired with our riches in that poor country.
We hired an army but the locals weren’t fooled, they understood it was our army not theirs. What we call the Taliban, those are the Afghan patriots, the guys who care enough to risk their lives for little pay on behalf of the jihadi country they want (but we’d hate).
What we called the “Afghan Army” was in truth a mercenary outfit paid for by us, and led mostly by us. It’s assigned role was to do fighting we didn’t want to do.
When we announced we were leaving, our pay stopping, our leadership abdicating, they either switched sides or went home. As noted below, they reassessed the payoff matrix, concluded we’d reneged on the deal, and did what employees do when no longer paid and directed, they stop showing up.
Apparently switching sides when it proves beneficial to do so is an ancient Afghan tradition. Our shock occurred because we believed our own propaganda which claimed we’d trained an Afghan national army.
In truth, it was no such thing. It was what would be called in neighboring India a “sepoy army,” hired guns.
