7 ms·

Taliban fighters are sick of the 9 to 5 working desk jobs to run Afghanistan

41 points by kneebonian 4y ago

salawat 4y ago
It's all fun and guns til you realize civilization runs on pen, paper, and unsexy paperwork. True martyrdom is doing that boring shit so no one else has to.
dietmtnview 4y ago
Reminds me of Fargo Season 2 when the muscle/hit man Mike Milligan goes corporate.
- tabtab 4y ago
  Was it anything like the "Don Years" in the Whitehouse? I swear the guy has ADHD or something very similar. Almost everyone who ever worked for him and talked has stories.
dsfyu404ed 4y ago
This should surprise nobody. The kinds of people who make good soldiers and leaders in wartime conditions don't tend to have the disposition to succeed in boring peacetime.
stuckinhell 4y ago
I don't think I'd trust business insider to report on what the Taliban are doing in afganistan accurately.
- kneebonian 4y ago
  Ya but on the other hand this article has convinced me that the only way we are going to have world peace is by bonding over our mutual hatred of TPS reports.
- ianburrell 4y ago
  From reading the article, it looks like the hard work was done by Afghan researcher working for Afghan think tank. Can find similar story from other outlets including one in Germany where think tank is based. Hopefully, Business Insider wrote their own story and did some verification, but could have repackaged it.
netsharc 4y ago
Hahaha, the article even mentions one of the moaning about too much traffic and rent being too high. Next they'll be at the cereal aisle, baffled by all the options, and wishing they could return to the theatre of war...
warner25 4y ago
Speaking as a career American military officer, one of the biggest (of many, many) problems that led to our failure in Afghanistan was getting the Afghan National Army to some degree of self-sufficiency as we tried to build them up in our own image, and the biggest gap was in their ability to manage all of the back-office administrative stuff (logistics, human resources, etc.). The US Department of Defense is a massive bureaucracy for a lot of reasons, but some of them are good reasons. It really does take a lot of staff work at desks and in meetings to effectively manage the whole lifecycle of acquisition, fielding, recruiting, training, deployment, sustainment, maintenance, etc. at-scale. I was a helicopter pilot, and we all quickly learn that we spend about 5% of our time flying and 95% of our time doing everything else to keep the aircraft and crews capable of flying. We're very curious to see exactly how long the Taliban will be able to keep all those helicopters that we left in Afghanistan in working condition.
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  > I was a helicopter pilot, and we all quickly learn that we spend about 5% of our time flying and 95% of our time doing everything else to keep the aircraft and crews capable of flying. We're very curious to see exactly how long the Taliban will be able to keep all those helicopters that we left in Afghanistan in working condition. I don't think anyone expected them to keep Black Hawks in the air very long, not without spare parts...unless the Chinese can come up with something? Frankly, I'm amazed Iran has kept their F-14s in the air for so long, but they at least have a culture of desk work and logistics.
  - warner25 4y ago
    I was already surprised to see them flying some Black Hawks in their parade marking the anniversary of their return to power a few months ago. Just starting the engines and getting off the ground is non-trivial. But they still have under their thumb a lot of pilots that we trained, who weren't able to escape. I have no inside knowledge of this, but there was some news earlier this month about them actually training new pilots. We've produced and exported a lot more Hawks (of various flavors) than F-14s, so I imagine that the availability of parts will be much better for them, but they clearly have no ability to produce parts domestically like Iran might have done. I expect that these helicopters will probably be used mainly for showmanship, and later static displays, as a symbol of strength, like Afghan warlords kept old and no-longer-functional Stinger missile launchers on-hand for many years as status symbols.
weekendflavour 4y ago
That's why you keep women around guys..
pvaldes 4y ago
Where are the women that used to do all the hard paperwork silent and efficiently when the poor lads need them most?
- tabtab 4y ago
  Indeed! I'm not saying women are necessarily better at desk work, only that those who did it before have the necessary experience and office habits. But most got fired after the change-over.
egberts1 4y ago
There is some 8 million women in Afghanistan available that can do wonderful military clerical works. Oh wait, we can't be having men working side-by-side with women. NVM.
veal113 4y ago
Sounds similar to America, no more enemy to focus on, will begin to eat their own

41 points by kneebonian 4y ago

It's all fun and guns til you realize civilization runs on pen, paper, and unsexy paperwork. True martyrdom is doing that boring shit so no one else has to.

dietmtnview 4y ago

Reminds me of Fargo Season 2 when the muscle/hit man Mike Milligan goes corporate.

tabtab 4y ago
Was it anything like the "Don Years" in the Whitehouse? I swear the guy has ADHD or something very similar. Almost everyone who ever worked for him and talked has stories.

dsfyu404ed 4y ago

This should surprise nobody. The kinds of people who make good soldiers and leaders in wartime conditions don't tend to have the disposition to succeed in boring peacetime.

stuckinhell 4y ago

I don't think I'd trust business insider to report on what the Taliban are doing in afganistan accurately.

kneebonian 4y ago
Ya but on the other hand this article has convinced me that the only way we are going to have world peace is by bonding over our mutual hatred of TPS reports.
ianburrell 4y ago
From reading the article, it looks like the hard work was done by Afghan researcher working for Afghan think tank. Can find similar story from other outlets including one in Germany where think tank is based. Hopefully, Business Insider wrote their own story and did some verification, but could have repackaged it.

netsharc 4y ago

Hahaha, the article even mentions one of the moaning about too much traffic and rent being too high. Next they'll be at the cereal aisle, baffled by all the options, and wishing they could return to the theatre of war...

warner25 4y ago

Speaking as a career American military officer, one of the biggest (of many, many) problems that led to our failure in Afghanistan was getting the Afghan National Army to some degree of self-sufficiency as we tried to build them up in our own image, and the biggest gap was in their ability to manage all of the back-office administrative stuff (logistics, human resources, etc.). The US Department of Defense is a massive bureaucracy for a lot of reasons, but some of them are good reasons. It really does take a lot of staff work at desks and in meetings to effectively manage the whole lifecycle of acquisition, fielding, recruiting, training, deployment, sustainment, maintenance, etc. at-scale. I was a helicopter pilot, and we all quickly learn that we spend about 5% of our time flying and 95% of our time doing everything else to keep the aircraft and crews capable of flying. We're very curious to see exactly how long the Taliban will be able to keep all those helicopters that we left in Afghanistan in working condition.

seanmcdirmid 4y ago
> I was a helicopter pilot, and we all quickly learn that we spend about 5% of our time flying and 95% of our time doing everything else to keep the aircraft and crews capable of flying. We're very curious to see exactly how long the Taliban will be able to keep all those helicopters that we left in Afghanistan in working condition. I don't think anyone expected them to keep Black Hawks in the air very long, not without spare parts...unless the Chinese can come up with something? Frankly, I'm amazed Iran has kept their F-14s in the air for so long, but they at least have a culture of desk work and logistics.
- warner25 4y ago
  I was already surprised to see them flying some Black Hawks in their parade marking the anniversary of their return to power a few months ago. Just starting the engines and getting off the ground is non-trivial. But they still have under their thumb a lot of pilots that we trained, who weren't able to escape. I have no inside knowledge of this, but there was some news earlier this month about them actually training new pilots. We've produced and exported a lot more Hawks (of various flavors) than F-14s, so I imagine that the availability of parts will be much better for them, but they clearly have no ability to produce parts domestically like Iran might have done. I expect that these helicopters will probably be used mainly for showmanship, and later static displays, as a symbol of strength, like Afghan warlords kept old and no-longer-functional Stinger missile launchers on-hand for many years as status symbols.

weekendflavour 4y ago

That's why you keep women around guys..

pvaldes 4y ago

Where are the women that used to do all the hard paperwork silent and efficiently when the poor lads need them most?

tabtab 4y ago
Indeed! I'm not saying women are necessarily better at desk work, only that those who did it before have the necessary experience and office habits. But most got fired after the change-over.

egberts1 4y ago

There is some 8 million women in Afghanistan available that can do wonderful military clerical works. Oh wait, we can't be having men working side-by-side with women. NVM.

veal113 4y ago

Sounds similar to America, no more enemy to focus on, will begin to eat their own