Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by gordon_gee1 1768 days ago
the ANA retreated from every fight they involved themselves in. I wouldn’t expect anyone to be fired because this is exactly what was expected when the US left, minus 2-3 months. Embarrassing photos for a few weeks sure, but saving the equivalent of the NHS budget every year by not spending it on a corrupt Afghan government and failed military project has its domestic benefits
1 comments

But wasn't it some US general's job to train the ANA? If you're training someone to do a difficult dangerous job and the moment you hand things off to the person everything blows up - you probably deserve a lot of the blame.
The US directly trained the Afghan special forces, who in fairness to them did their job well but were often left with hardly any ammunition or air support. The Afghan government was in charge of funding operations and recruitment of the ANA. You can find countless evidence of how they frequently betrayed their units, fled, sold their equipment or were otherwise immensely incompetent. Added to this, the taliban forces stand between 50-100k troops across the entirety of afghanistan with no air support,tanks, or heavy artillery. Its often simply 100 guys with AK-47s on motorcycles going into a capital and claiming it. You cant solve will to fight as a foreign entity.
Can you provide any good resources about the flawed dynamic between the ANA and the Afghan government? I'm curious to read deeper on this.