I wrote the following two articles during the disastrous and chaotic U.S. and allied retreat from Afghanistan in 2021, and they were published by the Kuri news agency in Serbia. There are many basic points on how not to conduct hostage negotiations, that can be identified from this whole fiasco, which led to the needless deaths of thousands of people.
Hostage Negotiation for Dummies
So, the predicted fiasco in Afghanistan continues, well predicted and expected by those with any understanding of the Taliban and such groups and those with even the slightest common sense.
The U.S. and its allies have had to admit they left citizens of their countries behind, as they scrambled to escape from Kabul and have no plan on how to get them out. To start with, I have been asked by numerous people if I thought the U.S. had done a deal with the Taliban so they could evacuate Kabul after the Taliban had seized it on August 15th, 2021. Well, my response is it’s obvious the U.S. did pay off the Taliban… Clearly obvious…
On or around August 24th the CIA Director William Burns had a meeting with top Taliban officials in Kabul. So, why was he there? Was he there to congratulate them on their amazing military campaign? Or was he there to pay them off and buy some time for the U.S. and its minions to try to save some credibility and spin a complete disaster into a humanitarian rescue mission? I think the latter…
So, how could the CIA Director safely fly into Kabul and deal with the America’s arch enemy, the Taliban safely? From a terrorist perspective would he not be a prime hostage? Would taking the CIA Director hostage been a major publicity stunt for the Taliban? Of course, but why did it not happen? You think they let him fly into Kabul and Fly out again for free? And from a risk assessment perspective, does it make sense that the CIA Director actually went to Kabul for this meeting? Definitely not…
So, who guaranteed his safety? Do you think the threat of the U.S. bombarding Afghanistan again worries the Taliban after they have just spent the last 20 years being bombarded? I don’t think so… So, to start with the CIA Director was able to go to Kabul, as he went there as a bag man to pay off the Taliban, and I expect his safety was guaranteed by the Taliban’s and the West’s, very close friend Qatar…
Now, there have been numerous reports that the negotiations for the deal to keep Kabul airport open for the chaotic evacuation were held between the U.S. officials and the Taliban only. Officials from other NATO countries were kept out of the meetings and had no say on the timeline for the evacuations. It’s reported that the British Government and others ask the U.S. to extend the evacuation deadline but were ignored. So, why were no other countries apart from the U.S. involved in the negotiations with the Taliban? Well, I expect the others would have objected to the terms and they would have witnessed what the U.S. did not want others to see; them asking the Taliban for mercy and paying them off so they could escape without a large-scale hostage situation or slaughter.
As of yet there are still no accurate figures being released on how many citizens of the U.S., U.K. and other allied nations are still stranded in Afghanistan as a whole. The evacuation was from Kabul so people who were in other parts of Afghanistan had no chance to get to the capital to even attempt to join the evacuation. I was told there was a Greek plane waiting in Pakistan for permission to go into Kabul to collect Greek citizens and qualified others, but the plane never got permission to land in Kabul. The Greeks were abandoned.
Now, there have been news reports emerging that the Taliban have stopped privately chartered evacuation flights from leaving the airport at the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif. Apparently, there are at least four planes at this one airport with hundreds of qualified evacuees on board. So, why are they not being allowed to fly? Well common sense says the Taliban wants paying for these hostages to leave the country… Why should they be allowed to leave for free? If you had been bombed like the Taliban for the last 20 years, would you let these planes leave for free?
So, from a basic terrorist business perspective every foreigner trying to leave the country is worth money, but who will pay for them? The situation where the U.S. and its allies are being pushed around and humiliated by the Taliban was for most people beyond belief just a few months ago, but the seeds for this were being spread for a long time.
Now, with all these foreign hostages in Afghanistan, how can the Taliban be persuaded to release them? The answer is simple really… How did the CIA director waltz get in and out of Kabul without being kidnapped? I am sure you’re thinking he was able to do it because he was bringing cash with him, to some extent yes… But who was the liaison, the middlemen, the guarantee? It was Qatar!
Now, it’s pretty obvious that the U.S. and its allied negotiators are to put it very politely impotent and to the level that spoon feeding them Viagra 24/7 will do nothing to assist them in getting an erection. The basics of negotiation when the opposition holds all the cards is to find a means of leverage. But if you have cowards running the negotiations such things as going more gangster than the gangsters will never enter their woke and bureaucratic pathetic little minds.
A classic example of playing the terrorists at their own game took place in response to the Hezbollah kidnapping of four Russian diplomats in the Lebanon in September 1980. To cut a long story short when the person responsible for the kidnapping was sent the severed testicles of one of their relatives the Russians were quickly released. Read the story in my other article, “Kidnap for Ransom – Soviet Style”.
The leverage is simple, it’s Qatar. Tell me why such a small country as Qatar has so much influence? Why have they been allowed to host the Taliban? Why have they been allowed to facilitate the Taliban? The Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar flew into Kandahar on a Qatari military plane…
From a counter terrorist perspective isn’t Qatar providing material support for terrorism? Isn’t Qatar facilitating and assisting the Taliban who have extorted money from the US? Are they not holding foreign hostages and stopping foreign planes from leaving the country? The simple answer is yes… So, why are they not being held accountable?
A simple fact is Qatar owns more land in London than the British Queen. So, shouldn’t the Qatari Ambassador to U.K. etc. have been summoned and told that if they don’t tell their Taliban friends to comply with the wishes of the UK government then all of their investments in U.K. will be seized, as they are providing material support to a terrorist group. Simple right? And the same should happen in all the other countries where the Qataris have invested billions.
The U.S. and U.K. have seized the assets and sanctioned Russians over the last few years, so can’t the same type of actions be used against Qatar? Of course, as it’s obvious that Qatar are working with the Taliban. It’s also known that Qatar was funding ISIS and other terrorist groups. The U.S. sanctioned 4 Qataris in 2017 at the bequest of Saudi.
So, why isn’t anyone taking action against Qatar? Well maybe because they have everyone bought and paid for! $400 billion invested in more than 40 countries and as I previously said, they own more of London than the British Queen. In April this year it was reported that Qatar has hired several prominent U.S. lobbying firms to “cultivate a closer relationship” with US President Joe Biden’s administration… Why would they do this and with such excellent timing?
From the questions I have asked so far, I think the situation is pretty obvious for anyone that is not completely stupid. From my perspective the answer to the “hostage” situation in Afghanistan is simple. But for those government officials in U.S. and U.K. who are responsible for recovering their citizens from Afghanistan their vision seems to be extremely blurred… And why? Well let’s start with the facts that they and their superiors are 1. Cowards 2. Complete liars and 3. Bought and paid for by Qatar and the like.
Even though politicians wave their countries flags and promote national values all they really care about is lining their own pockets and promoting their own interests as much as possible while they are in power.
What the situation in Afghanistan has clearly shown to those that want to see the facts, is that the U.S. and U.K. governments etc. are corrupted to the point of disfunction. Too many side deals, too many pay offs and none of which for the benefits of their own countries…
It’s been mentioned in my circles that it would not be surprising if the Taliban are kicking back money that they were paid to allow the U.S. to evacuate Kabul… Will be interesting to see if the Taliban starts buying Hunter Bidens artwork for a few million dollars apiece in the near future… As crazy as the world is at the moment nothing would be surprising!
The Collapse of Kabul
I think the recent events in Afghanistan have come as a major surprise to most people, but for those that have been watching the situation over the last few years with a realistic perspective; what happened was completely expected when the U.S. started its hasty and completely muddled withdrawal.
The War
Can it be said that the U.S. and NATO’s adventure in Afghanistan over the last 20 years has been a complete waste of time, money, and lives? Yes! Did the U.S. and NATO lose to the Taliban? Yes! They had to beg the Taliban and I expect pay another large sum of money so they could retreat from Kabul… So, after kicking their asses the Taliban then squeezed their balls as they ran away as quickly as they possibly could…
It’s pretty obvious that whoever was in charge of planning the U.S. withdrawal and those supplying the intelligence reports had absolutely no clue about what they were doing or talking about… Or was it just the usual U.S. and U.K. government employee combination of arrogance, ignorance, and incompetence? I expect a combination of all of these factors and in a real democracy these people that were responsible for this completely humiliating disaster would already have been arrested and charged with a multitude of crimes… But real democracy like the truth, are nothing more than dirty words these days.
There is an old saying that says “You can rent an Afghan, but you cannot buy one”, and this has proven to be very true especially over the last few weeks. I found it very amusing when the intelligence and political experts were talking about how long it would take the Taliban to takeover Kabul, their estimates were 3 months, and I think that was being said 3-days before the Taliban actually reached Kabul. What people missed was that they had been in Kabul all the time…
For anyone that understands a little bit about tribal cultures and has some common sense the fact the warlords and the Afghanistan army did not really fight and just changed sides is not surprising. Such things are also very common in the history of mercenary warfare… When the old paymaster stops paying or as in this case runs away then the troops change sides, that’s just business. There is nothing to do with ideals, loyalty and just causes, it’s all about the money and survival…
The Tactics
With the number of arms, munitions, equipment and training the U.S. and NATO had provided to the Afghan security forces then why did they not put up a determined resistance to the Taliban? Well, why should they? How would it have benefitted them? Their U.S. paymaster had just runaway… So, why should they fight for someone else’s cause for no rewards, this is a basic principle of mercenary warfare…
From a tactical perspective how were the Afghan security forces with all their weapons and training unable to dominate the Taliban and not just in the last few weeks but for the last 20 years? Because again for anyone with a little common sense who is willing to see the real picture the facts are there, the cultural understanding, the training and the tactics were flawed, to put it politely. The same was seen in Iraq when the Islamic State (ISIS) entered the war and for the most the Iraqi Army capitulated. So, you see, there is a pattern…
The U.S. trained the Iraqis and the Afghanis to fight the American way, which works for the American war machine. American tactics rely heavily on fire support, the ground troops move forward and when they encounter the enemy, they call in air support or artillery etc. to pound the target and they keep pounding until the enemy is destroyed or weakened enough for the ground troops to overrun them.
There is an old story from World War Two where a Canadian unit was briefed that if they spotted an unidentified unit of troops to fire a round or two over their heads, so not to hurt anyone, and wait for the response so as to be able to identify them. If they received a fusillade of rapid and accurate rifle fire the unidentified unit was British… If they received heavy machine gun fire the unit was German… If the unit surrendered, then they were French or Italian… And if all went quiet for 5 minutes and then their position started to be hit with artillery or an airstrike the unidentified unit was American.
So, American tactics work for the American war machine but clearly do not work if the troops using those tactics do not have the air support or artillery to back them up. From what I have seen in various places U.S. and NATO training teams do not teach what can be classed as basic light infantry, close with, and kill the enemy tactics… Such basic light infantry tactics are essential for troops working with no support. They might be deemed old fashioned in these days of technology where people have issues getting their hands dirty, but you cannot really go to war and keep your hands clean. I think for most armies these days even bayonets are deemed as being visually offensive to the woke crowd, and this is where the problem begins…
So, it’s a fact, man for man the Taliban in Afghanistan and ISIS in Iraq proved to be far better fighters than the U.S. and NATO trained and equipped local forces. And remember the Taliban and ISIS had no air support or heavy weapons…
So, why did the U.S. and NATO fail to destroy the Taliban over the last 20 years, well I think that was more of a lack of will on the political side rather that a lack of military capabilities. For a fact the U.S. and NATO troops that went to Afghanistan to fight did their jobs to the best of their abilities and would have fought longer and harder if they had been allowed to do so. I would not say the war was lost by the politicians, I would say the politicians gave up and lacked the stomach for the fight.
In war people get hurt, and in war people get killed… That’s war and if you don’t want people to get hurt and killed then don’t go around starting wars. The militaries of the U.S., U.K. and NATO have become like a bunch of professional boxers that are afraid to get punched. They have all the equipment, all the training, all the support but they have a glass jaw… They cannot take punches and punches in war are casualties.
U.S. and NATO failed to destroy the Taliban because the politicians were afraid to commit to the fight which would have by the nature of war caused a lot more allied casualties and losses. It can be understood they did not want to sacrifice anymore of their troops but that should have been considered before the war was started.
We can confidently say that the soft politicians in the West are no longer working for what’s best for their people and their countries, they are just puppets dancing to the tune of social media likes and approval ratings. And as they dance, they throw money and lucrative contracts in the direction of their puppet masters…
The Refugees
We have all seen the pictures of the “refugees” being evacuated from Kabul and heard the stories of those left behind… I find it pathetic and disgusting when the politicians have been making grand statements of what and amazing humanitarian response they have achieved… These idiots cause this complete mess in the first place… It’s no different than sending a submarine to torpedo a cruise ship and then taking credit for having the submarine to rescue the survivors from the water… But the rescue effort takes people’s attention away from the crime, right?
Now, I take it all these Afghani refugees that were working with the U.S. and NATO etc. were being paid for their work? I take it they had benefits? I take it they understood the risks? So, why the hell is the U.S. and the other foreign governments responsible for them now their country has been taken over by the Taliban? If their army had fought, if the able-bodied males among the refugees had fought then maybe the Taliban would have been beaten or the Afghan government could have held a percentage of the country. But why fight and bleed when there is free money to be had in other places… They are no different than dogs following the hands that have been feeding them…
Now among these “refugees” how many were properly vetted? How many have terrorist links? How many are criminals or rapists? Who knows, and this is something I doubt the politicians will want to acknowledge until something goes BANG! It would be fitting if those behind shipping these unvetted refugees into U.S., U.K. and Europe were held accountable for any crimes they commit. But accountability is another dirty word these days…
Throughout Europe Afghani refugees have been responsible for a plague of sexual assaults and rapes, and in the near future more undocumented Afghanis are going to be welcomed into the U.K. and Europe. I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before the tradition of Bacha bāzī, the “dancing boys”, an Afghani custom that is connected to sexual slavery and child prostitution is being celebrated in the woke cities of Europe…
And where is the money going to be coming from to house, feed and educate these new refugees? Well maybe the former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani could give back some of the reported $169 million USD he fled the country with… I take it this money came from U.S. taxpayers so, shouldn’t it be repossessed now that he completely failed to lead or run the country? Why should he live in luxury after 13 U.S. troops were killed while trying to sort out the disaster he and his paymasters created?
When I saw the British troops on the TV doing their jobs, as usual, to the highest standard possible, what went through my mind was the refugees they were helping will most likely be far better treated and taken care of by the British Government than those individual soldiers will ever be. How many homeless soldiers in UK? How many with mental health issues? How concerned for the welfare of ex-troops is the British Government? Not very, they’re more interested in the welfare of refugees…
The complete squandering of $300 million a day for nearly twenty years and the losses of thousands of lives is criminal, but will anyone be held accountable? That’s a stupid question really, right?
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