So, the US want us to believe that they couldn’t evacuate all these weapons? Yeah right… I’m more and more leaning towards the thought that the US play a double game here, since quite a while. All their actions in recent times have helped the Taliban to come back to power. Letting modern weapons behind will of course help the latter to assert their grip on the country.
But why should we be surprised? It’s what they do all the time after all: talking about democracy and freedom, while actively supporting among the worst political and religious regimes in the world. They’ve done it during the cold-war period, and have continued to do that all the time since the cold war came to an end. Putting their noses everywhere where they think they can help their multinational companies to make profit, and playing the global strategy power-game to that end. No matter the human suffering and social costs coming with it. That’s the US since a long time, and it’s really not funny.
Their friends Qatar, who have donated so generously throughout their wars (and one of the religiously fanatical US-allies), will make sure that they aren’t short of ammos.
If you go back to the period pre-Doha, we had around 15,000 US troops there actively engaged in hostilities with the Taliban and were losing ground
Trump agrees deal with the Taliban directly for a stand down in return for an exit from the country by this April, including non-military contractors. Important to note, this critically undercut the authority and legitimacy of the actual government in the eyes everyone watching.
Biden inherits an already drawn down troop presence of just 2500
The “peaceful status quo” he supposedly inherited (wrt our troops) was not sustainable because it was by definition an interim period as defined by the Doha agreement
Biden is denied a timely transition by the outgoing Trump administration and then dealt with political fuckwittery in the senate confirmation hearings on many of his key appointments.
This on top of inheriting a completely hollowed out state department, the people who would be responsible for helping get all these people out of the country
The Biden admin tested the boundaries of the stalemate agreement with the taliban to extent the pull out date to the end of August
The state department then put out a public notice in April to all US citizens in the country that they should make plans to leave the country asap as their safe exit could not be guaranteed past August.
That is the context in which the exit happened. The idea we could have just extended out the exit
without it inflaming the situation and causing it to kick off is just not realistic. There was no way to do that without eventually finding yourself in direct conflict with a force stronger than it was in 2001 and with less than 3000 of your own troops. So basically, its a choice of picking among numerous shit options. It’s fine to be angry about the outcome of whichever shit options were landed on, but the idea that their existence means the exit was bungled, or that the issue was with the exist itself is naïve.
To me I see so much of this of an indictment of the media who were just intent to portray this as Saigon 1975 regardless of what happened. It’s fucking nuts to try to draw that comparison. You can draw a comparison to the futility of the entire campaign, but not the exit. Saigon was millions of people trying to leave under active gunfire. This was not anything like the same thing, not in type or in scope. But hey look, there is a chopper flying over the embassy…it must be Saigon.
I appreciate that but it doesn’t explain how the Taliban are now seemingly in possession of so much US military ordinance, let alone how it came to be so haphazard and disorderly in such a short space of time. It also doesn’t explain or excuse the passivity of US troops that remain on the ground (to their apparent frustration).
Also, I did say my lifetime so Saigon comparisons, valid or not, aren’t relevant given that’s ancient history and I was born many, many (2) years later
He said it wouldn’t be like Saigon 75 and it wasnt. Yet there was a helicopter so Biden lied to us. Its so fucking childish. So we now have a situation where the news is dominated by opinions from 2 people - 1) Those who have no idea what they’re talking about and just professionally required to come up with the hottest take, 2) Hawks who helped get us in and dont now want to leave pretending that they’re ok with the exit per se but jus not this exit…what we really needed was just another 30k troops to help us exit. It might have taken us several more years and another $100B. Im reading reports from people who book people onto the US cable news shows, the ones that are dominated by talking heads and opinion leaders rather than actual news, and they are claiming they have a long list of people lines up to defend the exit as both necessary and done in a reasonable fashion but no one wants to book them. They’d rather have the likes of Duck fucking Chaney on to say the exit was bungled.
@Limiescouse I was making reference to how he Biden Lamented the Afghan army (after leaving them without any logistical support)!
Another dominant narrative from a supposedly serious person.
I read that senior military and government officials escaped Afghanistan using 50 planes and helicopters. The wikipedia lists nearly 150 planes and helicopters for Afghanistan armed forces. There was considerable logistics at the disposal of the Afghanistan government.
Never should have attempted to nation build in the first place. Get in, clean out Al Queda, declare victory, get out. Trying to create Western-style democracy in Afghanistan was foolish from the off. Have to say most of the blame goes to W, Cheney, Rummy et. al., though certainly any of Obama or Trump could have changed course.
Chain of command. The on-the-ground commanders (I believe) spent most of their time arguing against a pullout, as on-the-ground commanders tend to. They should have been giving the up-chain officers, Defense officials and ultimately the president better information on the state of the Taliban strength in the country. They should have been giving firm plans on how to evacuate without causing the kind of chaos we are seeing now.
Ultimately, however, the Biden Administration has to take some blame here. He’s commander-in-chief. He might certainly have left troops in place and gotten the vulnerable Afghans who helped us and their families out prior to completely withdrawing. Massive failure, that.
Interesting point. I was thinking that it appeared the political decissions seemed to be being taken very low down the chain of command leaving those up the top very poorly informed.
What where the arguements given by the ground commanders to not pull out. If it was that the Afghan army would collapse because they didn’t have the organisational capacity then they would have been correct and one should ask why they weren’t being listened to. To such an extent the Presidendent himself lamented the Afghans for not fighting.
The real problem doesn’t seem to be so much the Taliban strenghth not being known as the fact that they already held 1/2 the country and the government forces were in total dissarray (due to a complete lack of organiseation and logistical backup (I would add where do you place your forces when your surrounded (i.e there is no front))).
Yes they should have been providing firm plans on how to evacuate but perhaps that wasn’t possible in the time line they were given. Training communication experts and logistical straegists takes lots of time and doesn’t seem to have been done at all).
I can not say who’s right or wrong or if it was some combination of these opposing arguements. All we know is that after 2 decades all finished in a clusterfuck with a load of 1/2 truths, untruths and exagerations.
The stories of corruptions (ghost soldiers!) in Afghan Military has only come in trickles so far. I doubt if we will ever know the extent of looting. If the Afghan soldiers were unfed, then certainly some general and his circle lined their pocket with that money.
$90 billions have been poured into building the Afghan Military. A cursory look revels significant inventory of military hardware. Top military and government officials fled onboard 50 aircrafts and helicopters, a convoy of military and government officials fled to Uzbekistan from a northern town (Majar-e-Sherif!), all the while Taliban walked into Kabul and ordinary Afghans couldn’t escape.
Those people now weeping, moaning, fuming in Dubai, Tashkent, and god know where else, are the real criminals.
I am sure there was corruption and we will probably never know to what extent even who was benefitting from that corruption might be quite surprising.
Then I reckon it would be extremely difficult for any government to set up the logistics and communications necessary once the US had pulled out what was in place before. It’s so easy to say oh it’s down to corrupt officers when it could so easily have been down to the Afghan army not having the ability to provide.
Of course that money is somewhere and will probably never be found now.
Yes but it appears none of that was used to provide or train staff to run it. It was just a numbers exercise. The US were the organisers, it was even them who payed the Afghan army through their logistical system. Suddenly they pulled out the staff who did this and left tyhe Afghans in the lurch from what I can gather.
I’m more and more leaning towards the thought that the US play a double game here, since quite a while. All their actions in recent times have helped the Taliban to come back to power. Letting modern weapons behind will of course help the latter to assert their grip on the country.