OK, I Might As Well Say It.

After reading the discussion in the other thread and learning that Taliban now is in half-an-hour drive from Kabul, and we are observing America's defeat in a real time, I might as well tell what is this all about. I'll explain. During US 1990s "high" from self-proclaimed "victory" in the Cold War 1.0 to a turkey shoot of a third-rate Arab army of Iraq, there were many TV shows about Soviet war in Afghanistan, including on what used to be then the "Wings Channel" and in one of the shows about Soviet Air Force in Afghanistan this dude, brigadier general Rahmatullah Safi, you can see him in this video about Stingers:

Was waxing all "strategic" and "general staffish" and spoke about how Russians didn't care about losses and gave an example of...Stalingrad. It has to be considered that the dude was a brigadier general in Afghan Royal Army (yes, that thing existed, alright) and his whatever military "education" wasn't necessarily that of a officer with broad enough view to assess ratios of losses of the Axis and the Red Army in combined arms operations which dwarf anything in world's military, not to speak of Afghan Royal Army, history. 

The United States, fresh from 1980s-1990s successes, didn't hesitate to write and narrate an alternative military history regarding the Soviet Union, including the Soviet war in Afghanistan. The United States was content with the narrative that some Quran carrying, sandals wearing, Stinger shooting mujaheddin "defeated" the superpower. Of course, reality was vastly different but the United States didn't grasp then what Russians grasped from the git go and talked about it non-stop. Recall this 11 years ago: 

In fact, we were the first to defend Western civilization against the attacks of Muslim fanatics. No one thanked us. On the contrary, everyone was impeding our actions: The United States, NATO, Iran, Pakistan, even China. After the withdrawal of the Soviet Army, the Najibullah government that we left behind in Kabul remained in power for another three years. It is true that Soviet troops committed serious errors in Afghanistan. We had no teachers.How long would the Afghan government endure today if it were left alone to face the Taliban? A rapid slide into chaos awaits Afghanistan and its neighbors if NATO pulls out, pretending to have achieved its goals. A pullout would give a tremendous boost to Islamic militants, destabilize the Central Asian republics and set off flows of refugees, including many thousands to Europe and Russia.

Do you need me to repeat it? OK, in bold:

In fact, we were the first to defend Western civilization against the attacks of Muslim fanatics.

OK, one more time:

to defend Western civilization against the attacks of Muslim fanatics. 

How about learning this simple fact, that everything what was happening since 1979 was about stopping Islamization and from the get go the war had a distinct religious flavor. Try to explain this to some D.C. political general who would shit his pants when forced to speak in operational and strategic broadsides and call things their own name. It was the United States which set the precedent, even if the virtual one, in convincing the Islamic world, especially US Gulfie satrapies, that these medieval backward regimes could challenge real superpowers militarily and, in fact, have a political Islam as a viable instrument on the way to blowing up World Trade Center, to committing atrocity in Chechnya, culminating in a bestiality worthy of Nazi death camps in Beslan. All that with cheering and support from the combined West which couldn't see that bestowing some "victory" on Jihadists allegedly against the Soviet Union--a complete propaganda BS--the combined West was writing a scenario for own real humiliation. 

OK, it is a Saigon Moment, alright. Iraq is going not much better and in Russia it is a payback time, because Russians didn't run from Afghanistan, combined West is running. Lester Grau was prophetic, as was anyone with proper military background, where they teach you about political objectives and tactical and operational levels of war. I will repeat it again:

"There is a literature and a common perception that the Soviets were defeated and driven from Afghanistan. This is not true. When the Soviets left Afghanistan in 1989, they did so in a coordinated, deliberate, professional manner, leaving behind a functioning government, an improved military and an advisory and economic effort insuring the continued viability of the government. The withdrawal was based on a coordinated diplomatic, economic and military plan permitting Soviet forces to withdraw in good order and the Afghan government to survive. The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA)managed to hold on despite the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Only then, with the loss of Soviet support and the increased efforts by the Mujahideen (holy warriors) and Pakistan, did the DRA slide toward defeat in April 1992. The Soviet effort to withdraw in good order was well executed and can serve as a model for other disengagements from similar nations."

But the United States out of "exceptionalist" expediency was ready to listen to fairy tales of its mujaheddin clientele rather than to Russians whose experience with real wars is immense, Russians DID offer advice on Afghanistan and, in a dramatic contrast with American actions in 1980s, helped. All in vain. Now, the United States needs and is undergoing a military-political humiliation, which unlike Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, does bear all hallmarks of fleeing a battlefield, leaving after itself one gigantic clusterfuck, which Russians (and Chinese) would need to clean up and put it under some sort of a control. And here is the morale of that all, that good ol' Noblese Oblige between superpowers I was talking about--you do not rush to diminish and insult other superpowers in such affairs, when at stake is not some loss of battle or a campaign, but the effort to stop a Jihadist Internationale from forming, not least based on the American-produced myth that some head-choppers can defeat a superpower. But then again, the United States just proved that they can. As I always say, Karma is a bitch, and as one of the greats once said--if you spit into history, it may respond with a cannons' salvo. It seems like it did... In the end, present West is not even worth saving.