Quote Originally Posted by Tgo01 View Post
How come the Taliban, with presumably much fewer resources, seem to be able to put together a functioning army?

Or are they like 99% completely incompetent whereas the Afghan government army is 100% incompetent?
Because the ANA is a shell army. It is claimed there were 300,000 soldiers, but how many probably don't exist? And then you got the ones that just take their issued stuff and go home.

Add on to that the corruption from their local leaders that just keep the money that is meant to pay them and yeah, why the fuck would they want to fight the Taliban for people that don't even care about them in the first place?

People think of Afghanistan as one country, but it isn't. It is a bunch of countries. Each tribe is basically its own country. The Taliban is attractive because they see them as people kicking out invaders imposing these silly national laws on them.

Hell, there were people that thought we were the Soviet Union when I was there.