Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

Joe Biden was the Deep State candidate for President, but apparently, they don't like what he's doing leaving Afghanistan. Every day there are articles condemning him for it. The articles are riddled with lies, and this one is a doozey. 

Our 20 year involvement in the war? We weren't involved in it; we crossed an ocean and two seas to start it. It was our war. It was the U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. How can that be called an "involvement"? That is one of the most disgusting euphemisms I have ever heard. Then, there is this from Newsweek:

Again, there is the use of the pernicious word "involvement," but what distinguishes this article is what it leaves out. The Taliban has taken over 10 provincial capitals in the last week, and the article says that. But, it's not pointing out that these conquests are occurring with very little violence, very few casualties, and very little military action. Essentially what is happening is that when Taliban fighters approach, Afghan government forces flee like rats in a corn cellar, or they surrender. There isn't much fighting going on. These conquests have been practically bloodless. 

So, why is the Afghan Army giving up? It's because they recognize, like everyone else, that the Taliban is going to win in the end, so why get killed in the meantime? And secondly, the Taliban has greater and growing grass roots support among Afghans, and that's a tide that cannot be overcome. 

The fact is that the speed of the Taliban tsunami is like a blessing. It's like the Afghan Army is deciding for the Afghan government that it's time to give up. It's like the Afghan soldiers are telling Ghani and Abdullah, "you and your relatives can go fight them."  

If you had to sum this up in a mere phrase, it would be: "The Taliban are winning the hearts and minds." 

Hundreds of Afghan soldiers are either surrendering or running away from the continuing intensified Taliban assault, which has allowed the group to gain a dozen districts across northern Afghanistan. 

The Taliban’s recent campaign, which has evoked memories of its 1996 takeover of Kabul, the Afghan capital, is happening amid the US-led NATO withdrawal from the war-torn country.  

Obaidullah Baheer, an Afghan political analyst and a lecturer of Transitional Justice at the American University in Kabul, sees multiple reasons for why central government forces are abandoning their posts in the tenacity of Taliban’s attacks. The Afghan government denies reports that its soldiers have left their posts to escape from Taliban attacks. 

Instead of executing and imprisoning Afghan soldiers, the Taliban is using two main tactics to persuade troops that a willing surrender is “a safe option” for them. Firstly, by establishing direct contacts with Afghan forces, the Taliban pledges to troops that if they surrendered they would be left alive and even given allowances to return to their homelands.  

“They [soldiers] are given some allowances and change of clothes and they are let go,” Baheer explains. The Taliban is using social media very efficiently and recording those incidents where troops surrendered to the armed group, adds the analyst. 

“On the other hand, we have seen specific councils formed within districts by the Taliban that facilitate the surrender of troops,” Baheer tells TRT World. The Taliban is using these district councils composed of elders to negotiate the surrender of Afghan troops, who pledge that they will not fight against the Taliban in the future, the analyst says. 

Working with tribal elders

Enayat Najafizada, the founder and CEO of the Institute of War and Peace Studies, a Kabul-based think-tank, confirms the Taliban’s tactics persuading Afghan troops to surrender. “The Taliban has used these tactics in some provinces in the north. That worked in some places and that did not work in other places,” Najafizada tells TRT World. 

In those areas, where the Taliban appears to be successful in persuading Afghan soldiers to abandon their posts, the armed group is working with community elders, who are mainly from Hezb-i Islami, an Afghan political party with a military wing, according to Najafizada. Hezb-i Islami was involved in the Afghan civil war back in the 1990s. 

“According to reports, these elders went to some of the checkpoints of Afghan security forces, asking them not to fight,” the analyst says. They were challenging Afghan security forces with questions like “why are you fighting?” and “who are you defending actually?” according to Najafizada.