Seven Days in Kabul

[AltaGuy]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

Pakistan has always been a ####ty ally to the West. Basically, they are just used for their geographical position. As a side effect of this, India has also pushed closer to Russia.

Pakistan's geopolitical position is super complicated. They've been close with China because of a mutual distrust of India for quite some time. If the West turns its back on Pakistan, China will certainly step right up. Some of the Taliban-appeasement under Trump and Biden likely has Pakistan and a wariness of China's influence there as a motivating factor.

[wwkayaker]

Originally Posted by Firebot

I don't think I need to do that when people are literally falling from planes to escape the Taliban instead of meeting their fate at their hands.

Precisely. There is enough crazy #### happening that you don’t need to put out unfounded events yet you still chose to do so.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Originally Posted by opendoor

And they're still proud of it:

https://twitter.com/user/status/1379437049728659459

In the twilight of the Cold War, the United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings, part of covert attempts to spur resistance to the Soviet occupation.

The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system's core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books, though the radical movement scratched out human faces in keeping with its strict fundamentalist code.

As Afghan schools reopen today, the United States is back in the business of providing schoolbooks. But now it is wrestling with the unintended consequences of its successful strategy of stirring Islamic fervor to fight communism. What seemed like a good idea in the context of the Cold War is being criticized by humanitarian workers as a crude tool that steeped a generation in violence.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archi...?noredirect=on

[agulati]

Originally Posted by 81MC

Colonization isn’t always the worst thing eh.

I’m not sure if I understand what this statement is supposed to mean.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by fulham

this is what actually losing a war looks like.

fyp

[Azure]

Originally Posted by FlameOn

No... this is what a hastily thought out retreat from a country that had massive insurgent elements looks like.

Ending a war and putting in the proper elements to modernize and stabilize the country would have looked a lot more like Korea, Japan, or Germany... but Afghanistan had 50 years of prior war, religious tribalism, no clear sense of national identity, and urban/rural divide that would have taken generations to fix in a stable modernized society.

Americans did not have the political will to properly do this longer term since it would have required a long term permanent military presence and significant investment capital. There was no real driving force or huge enemy to motivate this type of investment nor resources they could gain from Afghanistan. Not to mention Trump or not talking about the US should never have been in there in the first place.

I think most of us would agree that regardless of how the US would have left, the Taliban would have taken over.

The issue seems to be with 4 things.

Issue 1: Lying by the Pentagon & US Department of State when it comes to the state of the Afghan Army. This has been going on much longer than Biden has been President, and isn't actually a 'POTUS' issue in my opinion. Every single US commander that had anything to do with operations there has been lying to the world for over 15 years about the state of Afghanistan.

Issue 2: Not properly making sure that the people most at risk of execution were given adequate resources in order to leave before the inevitable happened.

After the US left Vietnam, they gave refuge to roughly 130,000 people. Between the US, Canada, UK and others, I'm sure we could have done a MUCH better job at getting as many people out of Afghanistan, if not more.

Issue 3: Once the poop hit the fan, politicians did what politicians do, and didn't commit to all hands on deck in order to get everyone out. And I'm not just talking about the Afghans, but actual Canadian, American, Brits, etc, etc. Everyone from the media to diplomatic staff are stuck there in danger.

There are also numerous reports of Canadian resources being held back from helping.

Issue 4: Not making sure Kabul Airport is secure. How the US screwed this up is beyond me.

What a bloody mess.

[calumniate]

Is Obama on summer holidays? Wonder if him and Biden saw eye to eye on this one

[afc wimbledon]

What we should have done at least, but Trump's deal precluded this, was withdraw in stages, province by province over several years, this would have possibly enabled the Afghans time to work out their own logistics and actually if not control the whole country but at least maintain control of the non Pushtan areas but more importantly would have allowed a functioning refugee withdrawl

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by Azure

I think most of us would agree that regardless of how the US would have left, the Taliban would have taken over.

The issue seems to be with 4 things.

Issue 1: Lying by the Pentagon & US Department of State when it comes to the state of the Afghan Army. This has been going on much longer than Biden has been President, and isn't actually a 'POTUS' issue in my opinion. Every single US commander that had anything to do with operations there has been lying to the world for over 15 years about the state of Afghanistan.

Issue 2: Not properly making sure that the people most at risk of execution were given adequate resources in order to leave before the inevitable happened.

After the US left Vietnam, they gave refuge to roughly 130,000 people. Between the US, Canada, UK and others, I'm sure we could have done a MUCH better job at getting as many people out of Afghanistan, if not more.

Issue 3: Once the poop hit the fan, politicians did what politicians do, and didn't commit to all hands on deck in order to get everyone out. And I'm not just talking about the Afghans, but actual Canadian, American, Brits, etc, etc. Everyone from the media to diplomatic staff are stuck there in danger.

There are also numerous reports of Canadian resources being held back from helping.

Issue 4: Not making sure Kabul Airport is secure. How the US screwed this up is beyond me.

What a bloody mess.

Issue 1. Yep.

Issue 2: Again, I think this all just happened too fast. In South Vietnam there was a provisional/buffer government 3 days after the President fled. From April 28 to April 30. That doesn't sound like a lot but you can coordinate getting 130,000 people out in that time. The South Vietnamese government was still considering retreating to the Mekong Delta and regrouping, but it didn't pan out. It wasn't a full blown capitulation.

Issue 3: Again, it happened to fast. The US a month ago were still confident that an Afghan government could survive (see Issue 1). So therefore, how can you have a stable government while at the same time evacuating the best and brightest. They are the pillars. But now, it's too late, Taliban are there, no buffer government to get people out and there's no ocean to flee to like Vietnam.


Issue 4: Once the Afghan army is gone, I don't know how a few thousand soldiers can secure an airport.



This is on the Afghan Army, they're just gone.

[calumniate]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/01/w...istan-war.html

A look back on Obama's dealings with Afghanistan

[GirlySports]

If you don’t follow @Stonekettle on Twitter, you probably should. He’s a vet and he’s got a typically great piece on the fall of Afghanistan.

[Baron von Kriterium]

Originally Posted by Baron von Kriterium

Well, some good news. Apparently the crew of a USAF C-17 crammed 800 souls into the plane.

So, it was actually 640 people - still impressive.

"The C-17, using the call sign Reach 871, was not intending to take on such a large load, but panicked Afghans who had been cleared to evacuate pulled themselves onto the C-17’s half-open ramp, a video posted late Sunday showed.

Instead of trying to force those refugees off the aircraft, “the crew made the decision to go,” a defense official told Defense One. “Approximately 640 Afghan civilians disembarked the aircraft when it arrived at its destination,” one defense official said."

https://www.defenseone.com/policy/20...aliban/184563/

[_Q_]

Originally Posted by Baron von Kriterium

So, it was actually 640 people - still impressive.

"The C-17, using the call sign Reach 871, was not intending to take on such a large load, but panicked Afghans who had been cleared to evacuate pulled themselves onto the C-17’s half-open ramp, a video posted late Sunday showed.

Instead of trying to force those refugees off the aircraft, “the crew made the decision to go,” a defense official told Defense One. “Approximately 640 Afghan civilians disembarked the aircraft when it arrived at its destination,” one defense official said."

https://www.defenseone.com/policy/20...aliban/184563/

Lol at the guy standing in the back looking like a disapproving father of 870.

[tvp2003]

^^ Damn. It's photos like this that make me realize how thankful I am for somehow managing to win the womb lottery by being born and raised in Canada...

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Azure

I think most of us would agree that regardless of how the US would have left, the Taliban would have taken over.

The issue seems to be with 4 things.

Issue 1: Lying by the Pentagon & US Department of State when it comes to the state of the Afghan Army. This has been going on much longer than Biden has been President, and isn't actually a 'POTUS' issue in my opinion. Every single US commander that had anything to do with operations there has been lying to the world for over 15 years about the state of Afghanistan.

Issue 2: Not properly making sure that the people most at risk of execution were given adequate resources in order to leave before the inevitable happened.

After the US left Vietnam, they gave refuge to roughly 130,000 people. Between the US, Canada, UK and others, I'm sure we could have done a MUCH better job at getting as many people out of Afghanistan, if not more.

Issue 3: Once the poop hit the fan, politicians did what politicians do, and didn't commit to all hands on deck in order to get everyone out. And I'm not just talking about the Afghans, but actual Canadian, American, Brits, etc, etc. Everyone from the media to diplomatic staff are stuck there in danger.

There are also numerous reports of Canadian resources being held back from helping.

Issue 4: Not making sure Kabul Airport is secure. How the US screwed this up is beyond me.

What a bloody mess.

I think you missed a key point here, and it happens constantly. US Intelligence and other intelligence agencies were warned that this would happen, that there would be a fairly rapid collapse. The political leaders ignored the warnings. The same thing happened in 9/11, however in that case it was because the CIA for example was going through an internal war and so the President was flooded with dissenting positions from the CIA at the time.



In this case the warnings were on the same page, and the State Department in the US and the president and probably foreign affairs and the PM ignored the warnings and dragged their feet and moved with next to no urgency.



Now they're trapped in a situation that is not just a military situation, but a Political Bear trap.


With Canada there was a plan in place as far back as Thursday, and the air and troop assets were positioned in Kuwait, and they sat there with no approval from FA or DND because an election was called and the government was too busy with that. (was published earlier today by the Sun).



Now we're back in line of sending planes in when the American's give the go ahead to use he airfield.

[carmenshoes]

So what is the most likely outcome out of all this?

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by tvp2003

^^ Damn. It's photos like this that make me realize how thankful I am for somehow managing to win the womb lottery by being born and raised in Canada...

We have a bad time flying on holidays and act like it was a life altering ordeal.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

What we should have done at least, but Trump's deal precluded this, was withdraw in stages, province by province over several years, this would have possibly enabled the Afghans time to work out their own logistics and actually if not control the whole country but at least maintain control of the non Pushtan areas but more importantly would have allowed a functioning refugee withdrawl

Very true.

Such a plan was impossible while the headwigs at the Pentagon & DoS refused to admit that the Afghan Army was incapable of maintaining security.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Issue 1. Yep.

Issue 2: Again, I think this all just happened too fast. In South Vietnam there was a provisional/buffer government 3 days after the President fled. From April 28 to April 30. That doesn't sound like a lot but you can coordinate getting 130,000 people out in that time. The South Vietnamese government was still considering retreating to the Mekong Delta and regrouping, but it didn't pan out. It wasn't a full blown capitulation.

Issue 3: Again, it happened to fast. The US a month ago were still confident that an Afghan government could survive (see Issue 1). So therefore, how can you have a stable government while at the same time evacuating the best and brightest. They are the pillars. But now, it's too late, Taliban are there, no buffer government to get people out and there's no ocean to flee to like Vietnam.


Issue 4: Once the Afghan army is gone, I don't know how a few thousand soldiers can secure an airport.



This is on the Afghan Army, they're just gone.

Of course it happened too fast, and that falls squarely on the Biden Administration for not having a plan B, C & D in place in case chaos breaks out.

Captain is also right that the US intelligence agencies, Pentagon, Department of State, Whitehouse, etc were all warned that this would happen. They chose to ignore it.

I just think that at the end of the day, it was going to happen regardless, and the US had two things to do. Get people that were in danger out, and secure the Kabul Airport. But as soon as they withdrew air support (which I honestly don't get), the Taliban could do what they wanted. Makes zero sense.

Just a massive, massive failure from top to bottom going back many years.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by _Q_

Lol at the guy standing in the back looking like a disapproving father of 870.

nah he's just realising how long he's going to have to wait to use a toilet