New strategy: Leave Afghanistan, get everyone who wants evac'ed out. Let Taliban take over Kabul. Nuke from orbit while most are in one place?
Profit?
For now, just going to focus on hoping everyone gets out without any casualties.
Regardless, "10k Americans trapped behind enemy lines" is horrible no matter who is at fault. And that's nothing to say of the optics and future electoral ramifications, although not important right now as lives are at stake. I am curious what the worst case scenario was that was presented to Biden and his staff, re: timeline of withdrawal and expected fall of government.
I also find myself wondering how I and others here, in the media, congress, etc would be reacting if this had played out exactly this way but under Trump.
Would we be calling for impeachment?
Still say the better, and less genocidal, strategy would have been to have given the entire female population US (or European) citizenship and let them leave. Then let the Taliban build their little incel kingdom bereft of any women, and see how long it lasts.
What you're missing is we had gone from a force level of 2500 to about 1000, and had to surge back in 5k at the last moment due to the crisis. By all accounts, that was not the original plan and was a snap decision based on the rapid capitulation of the Afghan government. You know all this, so weird that you're acting confused.See, this is what is confusing me. We had 2500 troops with plans to add 4000 to help with drawdown on the 15th. Here you are saying we drew down troops when we were planning on adding more? That makes no sense to me. What am I missing?
We had been drawing down troops for weeks; we handed off the largest U.S. base at Bagram last month. Obviously the administration and/or DoD assumed Kabul wouldn't fall for weeks or even months, so civilians who needed to get out would have ample opportunity. That proved to not be the case. Look, I agree with Biden's claim that any way you structure the military withdrawal was fraught with risks and unintended consequences. Logically if that's true, you plan for the worst case and hope it doesn't come to that. Instead we planned for a relatively optimistic case, and it blew up on us.
As others have said, hopefully the Taliban doesn't fuck up and start interfering with evacuation.
But there has been one notable exception among jihadist groups: the Islamic State (Isis), which considers the Taliban “apostates” because of their willingness to negotiate with the US, their apparent pragmatism and their failure to apply Islamic law with sufficient rigour.
Such criticism is not new – the Taliban faced similar attacks in the 1990s when the movement had contacts with the UN and western governments – but now it comes after fierce battles in Afghanistan between the local Isis affiliate and Taliban forces. On Thursday after followers spread vitriolic criticism on social media, Isis issued its first official statement on the matter, accusing the Taliban of being bad Muslims and agents of the US.
What I worry about is the inter marrying of Taliban families and AQ families. That makes for interaction that we may need to deal with in the future. We'll see.
No I didn't "know all this." As I mentioned, I hadn't followed any of it very closely at all. I had assumed we had pulled out the troops because that seemed to be the high level narrative but when I actually dug into it a tiny bit I found out that Biden increased the additional troops to 5000 from the originally planned 4000. That read to me as we had already planned to add 4000, so why would we remove troops if we were planning on adding more?What you're missing is we had gone from a force level of 2500 to about 1000, and had to surge back in 5k at the last moment due to the crisis. By all accounts, that was not the original plan and was a snap decision based on the rapid capitulation of the Afghan government. You know all this, so weird that you're acting confused.
We had been drawing down troops for weeks; we handed off the largest U.S. base at Bagram last month. Obviously the administration and/or DoD assumed Kabul wouldn't fall for weeks or even months, so civilians who needed to get out would have ample opportunity. That proved to not be the case. Look, I agree with Biden's claim that any way you structure the military withdrawal was fraught with risks and unintended consequences. Logically if that's true, you plan for the worst case and hope it doesn't come to that. Instead we planned for a relatively optimistic case, and it blew up on us. As others have said, hopefully the Taliban doesn't fuck up and start interfering with evacuation.
From what I've read, the 2500 was supposed to get down to about 650 by month's end. Those last service members would have guarded the embassy and the airport. So that seems to have been the plan as far as getting American civilians out before the Afghan government falls. The 3000+1000 surge was decided within the past 10 days once the Taliban began seizing provincial capitals and we recognized that Kabul was vulnerable.No I didn't "know all this." As I mentioned, I hadn't followed any of it very closely at all. I had assumed we had pulled out the troops because that seemed to be the high level narrative but when I actually dug into it a tiny bit I found out that Biden increased the additional troops to 5000 from the originally planned 4000. That read to me as we had already planned to add 4000, so why would we remove troops if we were planning on adding more?
I guess we'll find out when the cream corn goes flying at Thanksgiving dinner.
Curious to what the Taliban think of the CCP's treatment of muslim Uighurs, and if it will override being broke as shit.
The state department did notify people to get out months ago.Here's what I don't get.
Why are there 15k non-military personnel still in Afghanistan in August 2021?
This was initially going to happen in May. Then 9/11, then finally 8/31. Even in the best case scenario where the Afghan government would last for ~12 months or whatever, it still wouldn't be safe for Americans to stay in that country after our military forces left.
So again, even under ideal circumstances, 8/31 was rapidly approaching. Why were there so many Americans still there? An (additional) gaff on the State dept not notifying these people to get out sooner? Or are they all just procrastinators? Did they think they could take their sweet time leaving the country once our military was gone? The whole thing just floors me, and why I think it's unfair to pin this entirely on Biden as the same thing would have happened under Trump (yeah, yeah, he would have magically gotten all our assets out before May). And aside from all these people now being in danger, it is entirely deflating because it will likely sink the Dems in 2022 and 2024 as the GOP will easily use this to paint them as "weak on security" like they loved to do circa early 2000s when we got into this mess in the first place.
And I worry a GOP majority won't stumble like they did last time in cementing their agenda.
Taliban seizes ‘motherload’ of US weapons and drones as jihadis tear towards Kabul.
Taliban 'just days from Kabul' as jihadis seize ‘motherload’ of US weapons
THE Taliban has captured a massive stash of US-made weapons and drones as they tear towards Kabul. The hardline Islamists’ lightning advance has seen them rip through another provincial city – the …www.the-sun.com
U.S. pull out of Afghanistan appears to be a fiasco !
Biden's government don't seem to know how many Americans are left in Afganistan and instead of worn out AK's and pickup trucks he appears to be rearming the Taliban with modern American weapons who appear sporting M16's, MG3's, Humvees, Black Hawk Helocopters, Drones... etc.
Maybe he's going to send the ATF in there to confiscate them ;o)
The media and many supportive Nations are condemning his actions.
Afghan weapons. Just US made.
Anything that's not a small arm is basically worthless to them unless we really think the Taliban has a lot of experience in military aircraft operation and maintenance plus access to US parts.
Yeah, it would be interesting to see an analysis of what loot the Taliban could make use of vs what is just a functionless, unmaintainable trophy. Can't help thinking things like night-vision goggles are more useful to them than Blackhawk helicopters or whatever else they've got hold of.
Somewhere I saw a quote from some Pentagon guy saying something along the lines of 'it's fortunate that our equipment is so unreliable'.
I was thinking about this the other day. Sure they may have equipment for a little while, but military hardware is ridiculously maintenance intensive. They are basically useless without having all the infrastructure and logistics behind them.Yeah, it would be interesting to see an analysis of what loot the Taliban could make use of vs what is just a functionless, unmaintainable trophy. Can't help thinking things like night-vision goggles are more useful to them than Blackhawk helicopters or whatever else they've got hold of.
Somewhere I saw a quote from some Pentagon guy saying something along the lines of 'it's fortunate that our equipment is so unreliable'.
Taliban seizes ‘motherload’ of US weapons and drones as jihadis tear towards Kabul.
Taliban 'just days from Kabul' as jihadis seize ‘motherload’ of US weapons
THE Taliban has captured a massive stash of US-made weapons and drones as they tear towards Kabul. The hardline Islamists’ lightning advance has seen them rip through another provincial city – the …www.the-sun.com
U.S. pull out of Afghanistan appears to be a fiasco !
Biden's government don't seem to know how many Americans are left in Afganistan and instead of worn out AK's and pickup trucks he appears to be rearming the Taliban with modern American weapons who appear sporting M16's, MG3's, Humvees, Black Hawk Helocopters, Drones... etc.
Maybe he's going to send the ATF in there to confiscate them ;o)
Was not the main reason for this occupation to rid the terrorist threat to America - I have a feeling Biden may have just opened the door again. No doubt the Taliban have there eyes on Pakistan.
The media and many supportive Nations are condemning his actions.