“Making friends and uniting communities one tough decision at a time.”

Good day gamers,

A lot going on as usual…

• I have to turn in my term paper topic this weekend for my World War I class. I was toying with the idea of that there were four technologies that were developed in World War I, but didn’t affect the outcome of the war: submarines, planes, tanks, and weapons of mass destruction. What do you think?
• Talk about responses, I need help with this blog. It seems hard for you guys to comment and sign up for a subscription. You have to have a WordPress account or something? There has to be a way to change that, but I’ve looked on the forums and I have tried everything they suggested. Anyone out there have a WordPress blog that can help me? Dave@GameMasterGames.com
• For my birthday gift from my wife, we bought Castles of Mad King Ludwig and Mariposas. We played Castles last night and I just barely won. We had to read the rules, since the last time I played was about six years ago. It was fun. Have you played it?
• OctaCon coming up on October 23 & 24. I’ll be posting a lot of stuff very shortly. I hope you can make it!

Conversation with an Afghan General: So, I just listened to the New York Times Daily podcast that was titled ‘Conversation with an Afghan General’ and it was informative and very good. If you want to listen yourself, the link is here. Here are my ‘takeaways’ from this podcast…

• Brig. Gen. Khoshal Sadat was interviewed. He joined the Afghanistan Army and rose through the ranks.
• When he was a teenager he witnessed a lot of brutality from the Taliban on Afghan citizens and he felt he would fight for the freedoms of his people and his family.
• He quickly recognized something negative when on patrol fighting alongside the American forces. The US and Afghan forces would sometimes be looking for an individual, but they would round up several male Afghans and put them in handcuffs and take them away to be questioned. This action was done for the overall good and safety of the people, because many times a supporter of the Taliban would be found. However, most of the rounded up men would be completely innocent and there were taken away, embarrassed in front of their families, and held for several days in some cases. Over time, this led to a lot of hatred toward Americans and the Afghan government.
• In addition, he witnessed wide spread corruption in the Afghan government. He tried to fight it, but people higher up the chain-of-command would then have his teams dismantled or have him transferred around. The corruption, with a lot of money coming from the United States, led to many members of the government getting very rich and the poor people of Afghanistan still suffering through lack of resources, schools, roads, etc… The Afghan Army and the US Military were full of promises that they very rarely delivered.
• So, when the United States announced they are leaving and they expected the very well trained and materially supported Afghan Army of 300,000+ to fight for the defense of their country, they were surprised when most of the Afghan Army melted away and there was only limited resistance. The General goes on to explain this.
• According to Gen. Sadat, the reason why the military didn’t fully fight is complicated, but here are the main points…
  • The President of Afghanistan fled. Since the President fled, many soldiers didn’t want to risk their lives for leadership that wasn’t even there anymore.
  • The current government was very corrupt and why would someone risk their lives to maintain that system of government.
  • The Taliban promised to not give reprisals to former soldiers if they laid down their arms.
  • Even though the Afghanistan Army had vehicles, tanks, artillery, helicopters, fighter planes, and bombers, they did not have the proper maintenance crews or any way to produce more ammunition. Most of the maintenance crews were Americans and they had already left.
  • If the Afghanistan Army stayed and fought, it would lead to many deaths, the further destruction of buildings and infrastructure, and the general population would greatly suffer even more than they had before.
• The General concluded that though they are nervous about Taliban promises, it is better to be alive and work towards a better Afghanistan than have everything destroyed and many more casualties. This is why he claims that the Afghanistan Army did not put up much resistance.

Very interesting podcast episode. Check it out if you want. Link is above.

Thank you for making it to the end of another Game Master Dave’s Dispatch. Give yourself 100XP. And until we meet again across the internet, keep you mice dry, your keyboards ready, and your internet strong.

See you soon!

• Game Master Dave