They didn’t rout anyone, the west left.
And what made the West's military leave Afghanistan after 20 years? America's longest ever running War cost them $2.26 trillion and counting, which is the main factor behind America and the West jumping ship and making a run for it. Also, they can't have a trillion dollar war on going in Afghanistan and then also challenge China and Russia for supremacy.
The war in Afghanistan has cost $2.26 trillion
Stephen Losey,
Military.com Apr 17, 2021, 6:54 PM
- The two-decade war has cost the US $2.26 trillion, according to researchers at Brown University.
- That analysis doesn't include the costs of lifetime care for veterans or future interest on money the US borrowed for the war.
The nearly two-decade war in Afghanistan has cost the United States $2.26 trillion, according to a new analysis by Brown University. But
even after the last American service member leaves Afghanistan later this year, as the Biden administration has pledged, the costs will continue to rise, according to Brown's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. In its Costs of War report released Friday, the Watson Institute tallies the staggering expense of the nation's longest war, as the Biden administration prepares to withdraw the last few thousand troops from Afghanistan no later than Sept. 11.
The report estimates that up to 241,000 people died in Afghanistan and Pakistan as a direct result of the war.
www.businessinsider.com
There’s still b 52s dropping munitions and inflicting heavy casualties on them. The Americans fly right through the “boulevard”, make mincemeat of them and leave. Which also means there’s Americans on the ground.
Airstrikes against the Afghan Mujahideen, who have been engaged with the West in a military conflict for the last 20 years. These battle hardened Afghan Mujahideen have learnt how to deal with the airstrikes. Without "
boots on the ground" no military can claim conquest, and the illusion of Air Power becomes apparent. Since Air Power affords the military to dominate the airspace in order for it's soldiers to go into the territory of the enemy and capture it. That has not happened and with ANA fleeing like rats out of their holes, the whole point of airstrikes becomes moot.
They’ll never take Kabul, these cavemen.
Whom you refer to as "
Cavemen" .... in 2012, the Afghan Mujahideen conducted a coordinated five pronged attack on the US-NATO Military Base, Camp Bastion occupied by american and british military. The scale of the destruction wrought on by the Afghan Mujahideen, sent shockwaves through the Western Military Command.
6 Harrier jets destroyed, 2 damaged in Taliban assault on Camp Bastion
BY
BILL ROGGIO | September 16, 2012 |
admin@longwarjournal.org |
@billroggio
Friday night’s “well-coordinated” suicide assault on Camp Bastion resulted in the destruction of six US Harrier strike aircraft and significant damage to two others. The
members of the suicide assault team wore US Army uniforms and “appeared to be well equipped, trained and rehearsed,”
the International Security Assistance Force said.
The nighttime attack, in which a suicide assault team penetrated the perimeter of Camp Bastion, a sprawling base in the Desert of Death in Helmand province, resulted in the
death of two ISAF soldiers. Eight other ISAF troops and a civilian contractor were wounded in the attack. Fourteen members of the assault team were killed and one more was wounded and captured.
“The attack commenced just after 10 p.m. when approximately 15 insurgents executed a well-coordinated attack against the airfield on Camp Bastion,” ISAF said in a statement that provided additional details on the attack.
“The insurgents, organized into three teams, penetrated at one point of the perimeter fence.”
The members of the jihadist assault team were “dressed in U.S. Army uniforms and armed with automatic rifles, rocket propelled grenade launchers and suicide vests.”
Once inside the perimeter, the assault team “attacked coalition fixed and rotary wing aircraft parked on the flight line, aircraft hangars and other buildings.”
ISAF confirmed that six AV-8B Harrier strike aircraft “were destroyed” and two more “were significantly damaged.” Although ISAF did not state which country owned flew the aircraft, the US Marine Corps is the only military branch flying Harriers in Afghanistan. The aircraft cost an estimated $30 million each.
Additionally,
“three coalition refueling stations were also destroyed. Six soft-skin aircraft hangars were damaged to some degree.”
However, a US Marine aviation officer familiar with operations in southern Afghanistan disagreed. The Harriers are used to provide close air support for Coalition forces conducting combat and counterinsurgency operations in the south, and with eight of the aircraft taken offline, there will be less to support these missions.
“Our resources in the south including aircraft are already stretched,” the officer told
The Long War Journal. “We couldn’t afford this loss, and our troops on the ground are going to feel this.”
Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.
The loss of the strike aircraft will impact military operations in the south. The members of the suicide assault team wore US Army uniforms and "appeared to be well equipped, trained and rehearsed," ISAF said.
www.longwarjournal.org
