This episode has been in the works for a long time. Around June, we were deciding upon the topics for our new TG-Short format. We knew we wanted some of them to inform people about historical events relevant to the present day. With U.S. forces pulling out of Afghanistan this summer, we thought it was a good opportunity to offer some insight as to what first brought them there 20 years ago. But like a lot of people, we had no idea how fast the situation would deteriorate. As this comment is being written, the news is that Kabul has fallen and that the Taliban has declared the war to be over. There is no telling what will have happened by the time this video goes public on August 18. What is certain is that the suffering of the Afghan people - whether from the brutality of the Taliban regime or continued civil war - won't stop for a long time. This episode is just one part of a complicated story that stretches back even earlier than when American boots first touched Afghan soil. If you don't know much about it, we encourage you to watch this video and then go out and learn as much as you can. Don't forget to read our rules of conduct before commenting: community.timeghost.tv/t/rules-of-conduct/4518
A very timely and good video here with this past weeks events. I'm admittedly not a fan of Joe Biden but I do actually believe he and Donald Trump were correct in wanting to get the last of the US forces out of Afghanistan and that Biden was correct in his reasoning for leaving. Having US troops in Afghanistan 1 or 5 more years was not going to give us a different result. We have to accept that the majority of the people of Afghanistan care more about being alive then they do living in a free country. The goal of the US and NATO was not to make Afghanistan a western democracy. The goal was to kill/capture Bin Laden and destroy Al Qaeda which the US and NATO completed. But because the Taliban fled during the NATO invasion there was no government in Afghanistan any more so a government had to be put in place. But then we somehow felt morally responsible for keeping that government in charge of Afghanistan which we should never have done. We should have destroyed Al Qaeda and then left. If the Taliban took back over (like they did this week) and they allowed Al Qaeda to rebuild we then just go back in or bomb Al Qaeda if they start to build back up there. It is not our job to make Afghanistan a western democracy. I feel terrible for the women and children who will now have to live under the Taliban's medieval rule and have their rights they had the last 20 years taken away from them but in the end the people of Afghanistan need to feel even worse for their people and have a actual want to fight off the barbaric rule of the Taliban. Not like what they did over the last month of having almost no desire to stop the Taliban from taking back over Afghanistan.
@@PhillyPhanVinny Well let's be honest the US installed a weak puppet government because Afghanistan is a mineral rich country. The supposed human rights that the US and NATO care about so much weren't really there during the past 20 years, sure it improved a little bit, but you still had pedophile warlords who were being paid by the US. This is a fact that US troops were told to look the other way when it came to pedophile warlords and these people were always ready to switch to the Taliban side. Also women's rights fall under the same category, the most they got was in Kabul near US forces, but if you went to other places in Afghanistan that weren't under Taliban control the women there had no rights like before. The Taliban are bad, but the US did a lot of damage as well all because of imperialism.
@@TheBreadB 100%. The whole media spin around the occupation (which is what it was) is a complete web of lies. They never bothered to root out blatant corruption even though it was American dollars being spent paying their government and military for the longest times. No real effort put into education or strengthening democracy (but then again, does America do that at home?). And then a hasty retreat after releasing all the Taliban back into the wild and they wonder why the puppet fell down once its strings were cut.
@@andromidius True, the withdrawal even though I want it, is being handled poorly and without any concern for the Afghans whose country the US and NATO demolished.
I think we should push active US involvement in Afghanistan to since 1979 when the Soviet Union invaded and Charlie Wilson and the CIA created the mess. Bin Laden was a fighter the US supported in the 1980's. It is not 5 presidents but 8 presidents who have dealt with Afghanistan.
Because to understand the Afghanistan unrest now u must understand the years of conflict in Afghanistan they the Taliban been fighting long before the Russians meaning British they are stunt fighters been since before WW1 they defeated Mongolians Romans and during the crusades many of there fighters went to the holylands and fought these ain't normal fighters there like Vietnamese Viet Cong and NVA politicians Fail to understand warriors who know history and know how to outlast a enemy even the North Vietnamese knew its all on public opinion
I know how you feel. Was a freshman in high school when the US invaded. Also felt old when teaching students who were no even born when 9/11, Afghanistan, and even Iraq happened.
Being an 8 year old when 9/11 happened was surreal, seeing the towers fall on TV was the second major event in my lifetime that I knew about at the time.
It's interesting how something like "9/11 was twenty years ago and the USA has been in Afghanistan almost as long" can sit quietly in one's mind until one is directly reminded of it, and then the weight of *twenty years* resurfaces.
The longest war in US history. We’ve been at war with Afghanistan for as long as i remember. I quite literally don’t remember 9/11, because i was 3, though the WTC attacks injured my family members.
I was almost 10 years old on 9/11 and later served 2014-2018 in the Army. As I was leaving, 17 and 18 year olds were arriving at 10 Mountain Division with no living memory of why the war had began. It was a bit of shock to me learning this conversing with some of them.
It's still crazy meeting troops that were born after 9/11. Some of the younger troops in my element just barely graduated high school and only learned of 9/11 through documentaries. I still remember seeing the footage live on my television.
Small issue, I was born in October 2001 and am now 19 years old. In other words, there are people younger than the conflict that have voting rights that can influence said conflict. You'd think those people deserve the right to know what happened as well.
@@martijn9568 non American here, I remember when it was unfolding. Everyone except the American and British government (and morons) thought the reason for the wars were complete bullshit even before the started. Here we are 20 years later.
@@googlesucks6029 Thanks for the information, but I don't think it's very relevant for what's happened since then. Remember: Eventually there were many more nations stuck in Afghanistan together with the Americans and the Brits.
@@googlesucks6029 In what way is it "bullshit" to go after terrorists in the country they're hiding? As Indy laid it out, the American justification was pretty clear. "We are coming for Al Qaeda. Give them over, or we're kicking your @$$, too." Sure, Al Qaeda fled into Pakistan and we eventually took out Bin Laden there, but they WERE in Afghanistan in 2001 and they WERE being protected by the Taliban. If you want to debate the justifications for war in Iraq fine, that's a different matter entirely, but few people really viewed the decision to go to war in Afghanistan as unjustified. Also it's not relevant to label yourself "non American" as if that lends you more credibility. Being born somewhere else doesn't somehow make your claims less ignorant.
Yeah I didn't expect Indy to do a video of our war on terror 20 years ago. Not about the collapse. I called it last week when the Taliban had 60% of the country and I had no faith in the Afghan forces to hold out.
(slightly off-topic) I love the intro with Idi Amin, The Queen, Goring, Raegan, Gandi. What's in common between them and why are they sorted unchronologically ?
@@eljanrimsa5843 the specters of Amin, Göring, Reagan, and Gandhi are all given form by being harbored within the body of the Queen, so it’s true even to this day
Do you have plans to make more videos on this subject? I think it is so important especially with that has happened in recent events so that people don't forget why we went but what also happened afterwards. You guys do an excellent job at covering topics in such a non-bias way. This goes for all your videos from WW1 and WW2 to this one. Its just the history as it happened and I think it is really easy to over look just how important that is. Keep up the great work and thanks for what you do!
I hope indy and the rest of the team continue teaching us in this format from the end of WW2 until the present. I feel like ive retained more knowledge from them than any history class i took in highschool or college
I still find it strange hearing historians talk about things that I lived through and basically determined the entire path of my adult life. I don't want to write an autobiography here in the comments, but I'll just say that my thoughts and feelings about this are...complicated.
All of us that were alive on 9/11 in the US have a very complicated feeling about this. I'm 49 and remember it like it was yesterday. If I wrote down what is in my head right now. It wouldn't go well. It has nothing to do with the people or religion either. It's how I'm watching those who have no memory of why we went to Afghanistan are reacting today. That or how it was ignored for Iraq.
@@WayneMoyer What you said in your last sentence summarizes what ticks me off the most about all of this. Looking back on it, I seriously wonder if invading Iraq was always a goal of that administration - even before 9/11 - and that all of that and Afghanistan were unintentional diversions from their main objective.
@@WayneMoyer i was alive, but too young to remember the attacks. I am however a Manhattan local. I’ve grown up seeing ground zero barricaded and seeing one wtc being erected. Though it’s great we got OBL, it’s sad that we couldn’t achieve the goal of destroying his allies.
@@peteranderson037 it was, which is why the excuse to invade iraq is completely irrelevant to the war on terror. Even if Saddam had nukes and was killing his own people, it’s not relevant to US interests in eliminating terrorism towards us
"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, and the women come out to cut up what remains, jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains and go to your gawd like a soldier." ~Kipling
Fun fact, when Osama bin laden escaped Saudi Arabia to my country the previous regime welcomed him with flowers, only later face pressure from the US to kick him out, it was rumoured Sudan did offer the US to arrest Bin Laden but they refused and insisted on kick him out, later he went to Afghanistan.
Woah TimeGhost I didn’t know this was on its way. Very good episode. It has me thinking how history remembers these events. Shocked how it almost seems like a different event from above and 20 years later. Nothing like being a child hiding underground because you don’t know if more buildings are going to come down around the city. That said, this is a great short and brings in pictures of people and faces that are forever in our memories.
Great job on giving me the facts, I really appreciate it. Short and simple easy to understand and follow that's why I love your show so much. I watch all or most of them.
Thanks for quoting Omar, however, the deputy minister for Taliban did offer to hand him over, to a neutral country, if evidence was provided. Of course this likely a stall as the Taliban backed out of a hand over of Bin Laden to the Saudis in 1998
To be fair to the US, the Saudis are not exactly the country you would want to hand a Wahabist terrorist over, if you wanted to see said terrorist face justice for his actions.
@@TLTeo Bin Laden's family emigrated to Saudi Arabia from Yemen over a century ago so he was a Saudi citizen. If he was to face justice for his actions, where else would have been more appropriate?
The condition for releasing bin Laden was direct concrete proof of his involvement, which could only be provided once you have bin Laden and/or his documentation. Hence it was a circular proposal, impossible to fulfill.
We're really glad that you enjoyed our show! Are you aware that we're also doing a World War Two series? If not you should definitely check it out: ru-vid.com/show-UCP1AejCL4DA7jYkZAELRhHQ
As always I very much appreciate TimeGhost History's videos. In this case it lacks a lot of background information, however. I am missing: Weren't it the USA that made Taliban strong to fight the Soviets? Didn't the "old" Taliban come from the Koran schools in the allied Pakistan? Wasn't it Pakistan that granted them a save ground for training, retracement and recreation? Didn't Pakistan hide Osama bin Laden? Wasn't it Americas Ally Saudi Arabia that had financed the terror network of Al Qaida for years? Was not the major staff of them Saudis? Didn't the Americans tolerate the cousin of Al Qaida, the IS to let them fight Iran's influence in Iraq and Assad? This all remains unreflected in the merely technical approach of the video. So that the given answer of the question "Why America Invaded Afghanistan in the First Place", to "build a new democratic Afghan nation" and to hunt Bin Laden becomes very doubtfull. Nevertheless, I give you a thumb up as usual, as even this video is interesting enough to watch.
The shorts concentrate on a narrow scope by force. Even then though the origins you are giving are also not the origins. It really begins with the Saur Revolution in Afghanistan in 1978. That’s what our next video on Afghanistan will cover - it comes out in a few weeks.
I was 6 in 2001, and I remember how a lot of the justification for the Netherlands joining in was on an empty promise of rebuilding and helping to liberate an oppressed country. Well, it didn't seem like an empty promise at first but over the years things start to eat at you. It's crazy to think that something that has been going on for that long is now over, and an entire population is just thrown to the lions after so much money and blood spent. It feels hollow and helpless, and I can say that sitting here safely behind my desk. Can't imagine what it's like being over there
i find it disgusting how the narrative now is how horrible it was that the US finally pulled out , and not about how horrible and wrong their invasion and occupation was to begin with
Tora Bora's controversial based on different accounts on what happened. There's the story as presented here, but also an alternative one - in which the Commonwealth Forces had the chance to captured Bin Laden, but they were ordered to hold off until the appropriate American forces could arrive to claim the victory for propaganda reasons. This then allowed Bin Laden to escape. So officially it may be placed on the Northern Alliance for entering negotiations that led to Bin Laden's escape, but I'd err more towards it being a mess up on the Coalition force's. Particularly on account of the numerous other times he was allowed to escape because of internal politics (i.e. soldiers having shots on him, but being told not to fire). Along with official channels repeatedly stating over the next 20 decades that they didn't know where he was - when many sources knew exactly where he was in Pakistan.
Yup, our youngest voters were born after 9/11. I was 10 when the towers fell, I didn't really know what was happening but the adults were certainly reacting. Now I find the odd strand of gray hair on my head as Kabul fell. I feel like the millennial generation along with the Zoomers will deal with a generational malaise as they have grown up with a sputtering economy and US foreign policy failures as the US's hegemony unravels.
@@awildtannerwasfound5045 some are happy you're leaving, I don't think they will be happy when they see what the Taliban does, but a lot of Americans are acting kind of personally hurt that they didn't like you, completely forgetting the damage you caused there and how good American presence was for Taliban recruiting..
@@torgogorgo1888 It’s debatable. The people of Afghanistan didn’t like us that much, but I think they thought the Taliban were worse. Honestly mate I think the biggest mistake America made with Afghanistan was supporting the Northern Alliance and then tried to make them democratic. The only thing we managed to do with the Northern Alliance after it took over was give it new jurisdictions where it couldn’t manage, which ultimately was sealed as areas completely outside of their control thanks to corruption. Though, if the current U.S politicians don’t, I at least will remember this, and continue researching to find a better solution of America ever invades some area again. But, for now, we will watch the situation as resistance against the Taliban grows.
What was the US thinking? Well, in 2001 the US was led by a president that wasn't known for "thinkin'." The war in Afghanistan might not have started as a slush fund for the military industrial complex but it ended that way. 2 TRILLION dollars and 20 years later the Afghan army the US had trained and equipped didn't even put up a fight. So where was that money spent?
It was spent as follows: 1. Keeping Al-Qaeda or a similar group from re-establishing themselves, thus preventing more attacks on US soil. 2. Keeping China out of there. 3. Neutralizing a destabilizing influence on nearby nuclear-armed Pakistan, and 4. Giving an entire GENERATION of Afghans a taste of freedom, which might STILL yield fruit. Only bean-counters can debate the dollar value of all that.
To be fair it's not just 2001 and/or Bush and/or Republicans. American foreign policy has consistently been a shitshow of "hey the military can take care of it". Afghanistan is not exactly the first time they have made that mistake.
It's weird seeing the war end. I was born in 2000 and have lived with it all my life. Now it's over and the whole situation fell apart faster than tissue paper in water.
Awesome to hear Indy explain contemporary events. I would love to see more of these. I’ve been following the WWII weekly series for a while, but this is what convinced me to join the patreon.
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Taliban fighters maybe, IIRC the last American to die in Afghanistan died in early 2020 and both men were nearly 30, which would still have been too early for anyone born on or immediately after September 11th, 2001 who enlisted on their 18th birthday to have even finished basic training (which lasts roughly 4-6 months depending on MOS). So the born-after-9/11 generation dodged a bullet (just barely).
The US had "beginners luck" in the Mexican wars of Texan annexation. The US seemed to have discovered a formula for invading foreign countries and creating new states. This formula seemed to work for the next century, up to the Korean War, but it hasn't worked since the 1950s. There was indeed an early warning: the slave owners' confederacy was established according to this formula. The fall of the confederacy was characterised by mass desertion and chaos, especially by its own destruction of Richmond in 1865, which foreshadowed some aspects the fall of Saigon and Kabul. Learn History; learn from History: stay out of war if at all possible!
Once the mission changed from "kill al-qaeda" to "occupy & build a nation" but there wasn't a change in who was tasked to accomplish the new task, the game was lost. You can't take the same soldiers, who have been killing people, what they're trained to do not knocking them for that, to suddenly become diplomats/trade negotiators/infrastructure managers & builders/PR reps/etc.... and expect positive results. Having said that, could there have been a better/different result, doing things differently? I doubt it, you're dealing with hard-core religious zealots willing to kill themselves, burn schools, and kill their own people, but the collapse might have been slightly slower and that's the best one could have hoped for.
@@d1j16 Yep. It blows my mind that American leaders do not understand that you can't just deploy soldiers to some poor country for a few years and go "yo you're a democracy and we are friends now, isn't that great???". It's not the first time they've made this mistake either.
@@julianshepherd2038 Yea, with a cool $1T and security council cover, they can 'help' pakistan, iran, and a number of other states become as strict as they will be, while massively funding boko-haram, al-shabab ans similar groups throughout Africa. Eventually a country with nukes will get converted, and then 'the infidels will know gods wrath', starting with israel.
Also it's interesting that the Northern Alliance wanted US support, but no invasion. Only when their leader ended up being killed, under some suspicious circumstances, was there no opposition to a US invasion.
The war in Afghanistan was initiated on legal grounds as laid down in international treaties. If state A harbors a militia that has attacked state B, this is justification for invasion of A by B according to the Conventions of The Hague. In fact it’s Afghanistan that was committing a war crime here, as harboring a militia that has attacked another sovereign state is prohibited by the conventions on war and conflict.
@@TimeGhost Yet the UN security council had not given authorization for an invasion. The use of the conventions of the Hague as you state them would surely also leave the US open to a charge of war crimes given their harbouring of and support for organisations such as the Contras and those seeking to overthrow the Cuban regime. Hence this is up for discussion as it is not an open and shut case of it was OK for the US to invade.
Its sad to see how this all happened. The images coming out of Afghanistan are disturbing and heartbreaking. Its amazing the lengths people will go to escape tyranny and oppression. Even if it means losing their lives. Also, being alive during this whole saga gives one a different perspective on history. Its not like WW2 where dates and events are condensed and you don't grasp the passing of time. History is a slow drumbeat of day to day reality. It'll be interesting to see how the past 2 decades will be summed up in texts books and tv shows.
@@509Gman The Afghan National Army does not represent the whole of Afghanistan. Personally, the US government should summon both Ashraf Ghani and Hamid Kharzai(both previous presidents of Afghanistan) and ask them what the fuck happened to the billions of dollars they spent building their military. The only way to prevent Afghanistan from returning to Taliban rule is if NATO remained in the country or if the ANA holds out. The latter did not happen and NATO nations, primarily the US, should not be asked to spend billions of dollars trying to stabilize a country that isn't even theirs. The only real mistake was not the withdrawal, but the slow pace of the evacuation. When the cities started falling, the US should have known that something's up and they should have started pulling people out.
Would be great if you would make a mini series about Afghanistan,atleast a special on the Soviet invasion in 1979 and what lead to it. I bet that most of us here would like to hear it from you Indy!
I used to be an analyst observer of drone strikes in Syria and Afghanistan and the one thing that most stands out in my mind is that when a target was blown up in an airstrike, all the women would walk out of the building they were being kept in (for the target's protection) and pick up the body pieces. Just horrific.
This war is almost as old as I am. I’m 23 and I honest-to-god don’t have any memories of 9/11 or anything before the age of 4 or 5. It’s kinda unsettling to think that I do not have a single memory that occurred before then.
I knew one day I'd get to say I told you so, but I don't even fucking want to. I'd rather we stop getting ourselves into unwinnable wars that don't actually solve any problems, but make more.
I would call this a Self-fulfilled prophesy. It was winnable, but America voted to lose. Now Dictatorships are looked at as better governments than Democracy, and when you no longer have the right to tell anyone what you think, I'll feel the slight satisfaction that useful idiots such as yourself brought upon your own fate.
It's a myth that Afghanistan is the "graveyard of empires", "nobody wins in Afghanistan" etc. Islam invaded and conquered Afghanistan in the 8th century displacing Hindus, Buddhists and Zoroastrians. The Pakistan-backed Taliban is just a variant.
@@dragosstanciu9866 And the Persians .. the list goes on! Shows how western-centric we are to perpetuate this myth. Looks to me that with the transfer of power in Afghanistan the sun is sinking in the West as it rises in the East with China, Russia, Pakistan... even Afghanistan itself. What now for India with its 200 million Muslims?
@@lhpoetry indeed. They say (even) Alexander failed in Afghanistan. I'm not so sure. His invasion was part of the conquest of the Persian Empire which he certainly did achieve and he founded at least one Alexandria and of course Kandahar is named after him. I think he achieved what he wanted to achieve and then went on into India.
Do you think Afghan govt are a bunch of illiterate idiots they dont know what a trigger is? Afghan army literally disintegrated, though they have been trained 20 years straight to be a professional army
There's a great documentary, perhaps indulgent in it's presentation, about a success for the US in Afghanistan 12 years prior to the US invasion after 9/11. It was Charley Wilson's War. It's a great watch (not the movie). It does make one wonder, how did we get from there, to here? It's disappointing when America's misfortune is self-inflicted, and Afghanistan is a primary example of doing exactly that..
Maybe the topic deserves its own series, or at least a handful of episodes. It´s more complicated than that. US basicaly fed this monster in the craddle.
It's a strange, confused world and what seems to be on the surface is not the case underneath. The Taliban were originally a Pakistan intelligence project.
What about the Guardian article showing Bush refused to negotiate with the Taliban for Bin Laden? Doesn't that play a big role into the reason WHY American convinced NATO to take up the Afghanistan intervention? Surely, if negotiation was informed and skilled, the American government would have seen the best interest of the American people was to obtain Bin Laden rather than fight the Taliban indefinitely. What we received was the only alternative to refusing to negotiate: a big L. I think the real reason we decided to fight the Taliban is Bush was conditioning Americans for a long war in Iraq. He never wanted to say "Mission Accomplished" until he completed his fait accompli in Iraq. www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.terrorism5
What about Massoud's death as being one of the main reasons for intervention? I was pretty convinced by the book Ghost Wars that September 11th had little to do with it. Also explains why Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan's government welcomed American bases very quickly...because the Taliban was not planning on stopping at the border. So from that perspective the intervention/money for the Northern Alliance was trying to turn the tide. And this is why NATO backed the intervention in Afghanistan and not in Iraq, because it was seen as something that needed to be done. Thoughts? Also, Washington thought they had a lot more to gain than just catching Bin Laden: Prestige, economic benefits, new markets, regional influence...what they didn't count on was ISI and Pakistan playing the other side. Massoud definitely deserves a special episode somewhere, one of the most interesting men in modern history. Also one of the most interesting parts of the war historiographically, is Russia's position on the intervention, which as I understood changed dramatically over the last 20 years. Likewise the invasion of Iraq was resolved/preluded to with some pretty strong declarations in congress in 1999 or 2000 and Clinton's bombing campaign. I don't think September 11th is that important causally except as a propaganda coup/"Remember the Maine" moment...like it's the cover story, and some of the political motivation, but I think we make a mistake when we paint it as the reason for intervention.
No serious offers to hand over Bin Laden were made. Some handwringing and rhetorical offers as in “if you could prove that he’s guilty we would, but you can’t, so we won’t” which were a mix of delaying tactics, and an attempt to make the coalition look like unreasonable aggressors.
It could be argued that the Afgan war has been a success until now in that it has succeeded in preventing Afghanistan from being a launching pad for another 9/11 attack on the US mainland. With all the difficulties of this conflict we have been free of any mega attacks for 2 decades
We've covered specific conflicts in mini-series already. See here: ru-vid.com/group/PLrG5J-K5AYAWbzTXiTzPEFQHLoozkqchz ru-vid.com/group/PLrG5J-K5AYAWTs_FBEJJNPV_UV_aL548Z ru-vid.com/group/PLrG5J-K5AYAUw4KtvsHRu-ZS0sSEcHmJE It is likely how we will continue things for now. Let us know if you have any suggestions.
@@degamispoudegamis without the formal declaration of objectives is how mission creep creeps in. The article I read about the founders. Argued that they gave Congress the sole discretion to declare war to prevent the very thing that is going on.
The mission should've been called off after Bin Laden was killed. Too many people died unnecessarily afterwards. R.I.P. to all ISAF personnel killed in Afghanistan.
