There were about 2,500-3,000 troops in Afghanistan before the latest final withdrawal. Sure if you put the timetable as last several months, there is a constraint and only so much Biden can do. Let's not artificially say agreed-upon timetable. Who cares, the past 3 Presidents have missed their timetables.

(BTW - we are sending 3,000 troops back in to help out in the Embassy. Arguably in a more dangerous situation than 2 months ago)

So how about over the next 2 years (?). Buy time for 2 more years to transition out gradually ... 3,000 to 2,500 to 2,000 etc. As my boss tells me, have to get creative ...

1) Pull out region at a time and not en masse. Here's Iraqis, pulling out of the North. You own it for the next 6 months but feel free to call for air or artillery support. Let's do the south next.

2) Hey Blackwater-et-al. Can't use US folks but do you have some dependable mercenaries that want gainful employment for 2-4 years? What, that's triple the price ... nevermind we'll pay it.

3) Hey Warlord. Central government ain't getting it done. How about we do some business. Your boys seem much better fighters. What do you need?

4) Hey central government. Here's $500M cash and passports for you and your cronies. You do what we want and we'll fly you out after 2 years to Monaco (?). Just sign these proclamations, promotions, shuffles etc.

5) Hey women & children, we've negotiated a couple nice countries we can move you to. Not going to force you but it'll be messy next couple years so think about it.

6) etc.

Look, before everyone chimes in and shoots holes into all these options ... I get it, easier to say than to do/execute.

Bottom line. I am sure Biden was presented with options on How and he thought this was the best option. However, in retrospect, his decision on How was based on bad assumptions (e.g. wilingness to fight).


Question to you:

Knowing what Biden knows now, do you think he would made the exact same decision on How to leave?

I don't think so. He probably would have picked another option. So IMO he has some blame in picking a How option that is becoming a debacle.

It's not artificial. The difference between the situation Biden walked into and the previous ones is that we had a written, negotiated agreement as of February 2020. The word of the United States was at stake here. So anything we gain by delaying is going to be more than offset by us not honoring our agreements. A President saying they want to be out by X date is completely different than such a written agreement.


What convinces you those kinds of options weren't explored over the previous two decades?


Yes, without much doubt. He simply didn't have a lot of choice.

I think the bottom line is the only way for a positive future is a stable, competent Afghan government that had the support of the people. Given what we're seeing now, it's obvious that didn't materialize. A bad outcome doesn't always mean there was a better path available. Sometimes there's nothing you can reasonably do to prevent a bad outcome, and the only path is to avoid an even worse one.

If they won't fight for their own country after 20 years or training, support, infrastructure, etc...for their own country why should we?

So the Taliban kept to their part of the written deal? I'm pretty sure we can find legit-negotiated-agreement irregularities to delay if we wanted to.

re: the word of the US. Is it worse doing creative-and-arguably-valid-excuses delay this deal or leaving an pseduo-ally to fall after supporting it for 20 years? From many other countries point of view (and certainly vast majority of normal Afghanis) it is the latter.

I don't disagree about leaving. I disagree with some here that say Biden has no blame in what is happening right now in Afghanistan.

I say he has some blame for the How option he picked.

Sure, but we'd need a good reason for doing so. There's an assumption baked into your argument that there was/is a reasonable way to not leave our psuedo-ally to fall. I think it's evident the only way for them to not fall is for us to stay there indefinitely. We've given them far more than enough support. I haven't seen anyone dispute that they have far superior numbers, training, weapons, etc. to the Taliban. I see no evidence that staying another six months or two years or five years or ten years would significantly improve the situation.

I also don't think after 20 years there are any 'arguably valid excuses'. I don't think that was the case even 10 years ago. There's a point beyond which you either turn the country over to those to whom it belongs or you don't. Whatever the point of reasonable support for the government to get there is, we are way, way, way past it here.

100000000%

The only alternative to leaving is staying for another 20+ years or attempting to fully occupy the country. Both which are far worse.

Pre 9/11/2001, there was a formidable grass roots resistance to the Taliban. "The Northern Alliance" was led by a guy named Ahmad Shah Massoud. He gained limited knowledge of an impending terrorist attack against the United States, which he first announced in a speech to the European Parliament in the summer of 2001. Massoud was assassinated on September 9, 2001 by two Al Qaeda operatives posing as reporters. Analysts believe Osama bin Laden ordered Massoud's assassination to help his Taliban protectors and ensure he would have their co-operation in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks.

Massoud's funeral was attended by hundreds of thousands of Afghans, and he is a national hero to this day, called the "Lion of Panjshir."

Unfortunately, the 300,000 troops that we armed and trained are not possessed with the same courage and determination that "The Northern Alliance" had.

Plus it seems like an ungodly amount of the funding we pumped in was lost to corruption as well. Just sad all around, the waste in lives and money and now the people will suffer horrendously again.

I have no idea what could have been done differently FWIW. Outside of the full occupation suggested a few posts ago, but I don’t think anyone had the stomach for double digit deaths a day and what that would mean for the military. And chances are it’s still a shitshow when we leave.

Even the Afghans have no idea how many troops were trained or they actually have. Some of these troops were either cobbled together just to get the money for their commanders and some may have never existed but were claimed for the same reason. Ultimately we just didn’t understand the tribal alliances and who we could and couldn’t trust and just threw as much money as we could at it anyway.

One idea I remember reading over the years was that we never really thought we were going to install a Western Democracy in Afghanistan with a Starbucks on every corner. The idea was more that Afghanistan would act as a lightning rod and jihadist destination for relative sporadic indefinite conflict so that those entities weren't instead able to get comfortable and launch terrorist attacks and more aggressive military campaigns across borders in the region.

If the Taliban sticks to banning independent expression, brutalizing women in the own borders, that's basically the best-case scenario, which is sad. If the stability of a county creates bigger ambitions again, we'll be at war with them again sooner or later.

I only learned about this guy last week - walked behind a group, one of whom had an arm tattoo under his T-shirt sleeve ‘Massoud - War Hero’. It meant nothing to me, didn’t know whether he was good/bad, and read up a little on him. Such a shame what has happened to that country

If something really bad is happening because of a decision I made ... if provided the opportunity with 20-20 hindsight, yeah I would try other things. I personally think most people would.


I tossed out earlier, possibly a strong warlord. I guess we can debate on what positive means but looks like pretty much anything is positive now compared to what's coming. But yeah, I get what you are saying and generally agree.


I disagree with this. I guess its possible there are times when there is nothing one can do to reasonably prevent a bad outcome but there are always ways to have a better or less bad outcome. Let's say the bad outcome is a 10, I believe there are ways to make it a 8. Still a bad outcome but better relatively speaking.

Just so you now where I'm coming from. In my profession, it is normal to do win-loss reviews, root cause analysis and like. Although not done to blame someone(s), sometimes it does. But more importantly, we try to understand why we lost (or won), what happened etc. and come up with ways to mitigate what happened.

In other words, there are stuff that could have been done for a better outcome. ​


Going back to above. I believe there is almost always a "better" way and in this context, a better outcome is possible.

Should we spend another 2 years of US lives, absolutely not. Should we spend another 2 years of US $ ... something to consider seeing what's happening right now.


Not sure if I or you misunderstand here. My 'arguably valid excuses' statement was in the context of your statement that "word of US is at stake here, not honoring our agreements" in delaying our departure and not beholden to an artificial date.

That "contractual date" is null and void and isn't a valid reason to have to leave. There are a lot of valid reasons to leave for sure but not because of a date on a piece of paper.

Our allies and neutrals would be more concerned about our bailing out of Afghanistan in this debacle than us staying past the negotiated date. That is more negative, that is more "not honoring our (implied) agreements" than the piece of paper.

I'm hoping they'll enjoy their caliphate for 20+ years before they decide to expand outside their borders. I think the Taliban has always been content to stay in Afghanistan, its the other crazy foreign muslim extremists.

Why do you think this was the plan? We aren't exactly huge fans of democracy and our military has been a laughingstock for decades. Seems only the most gullible of folks thought that was the plan.

Seems the plan was to run in and get some revenge. Then when they failed at that, just hang around and line the pockets of military contractors.

Random political thought:

I am very surprised at the lack of attention by the Biden administration towards healthcare. It was a very hot topic during primary debates and was warm during the elections.

But now you seem to hear little about it, whether Biden wants to strengthen Obamacare or pivot towards Medicare for All.

Or maybe it's just me.

Obamacare/Medicare is coming up in the $3.5T bill.

I think he just wants to get the Infrastructure $1.2T done first.

I don't think any of this is true. As a general statement, I'd say we're so far apart here that it's not really worth the effort to discuss it, common ground is a long way off.

Given what we know, I think what we're seeing now is a lot closer to the 8. It'd be more like a 10 if we stuck around. There's no way to prove one way or the other without a time machine, I just don't see any evidence that it could be significantly improved.


This is probably the crux of it. I don't think it's happening because of decisions Biden made, but because of those made long, long before Biden became president. What I know of history suggests to me that the warlord option would not have been an improvement and almost certainly backfired. I could be wrong about that, but I just don't see a reason to think otherwhise. .02

I have read that the bills includes some particular focus on nursing homes and elder care 'infrastructure' which I do think is overdue. I get the impression that Biden isn't personally all that progressive or motivated on healthcare in general, but that's not based on much but my own assumptions, and I'd love to be wrong.

Pretty standard. Most Presidents talk a big game during the election but end up bending over for special interest when in office when in comes to health care.

He did expand tax credits for those on the exchange, but there is almost no chance he takes on anything substantial.

That is because you know nothing of our military or the war in Afghanistan. Nothing that has happened is a surprise.

They are already there. Their job is to protect the mining industry at the expense of US taxpayers. That's been the priority for the US in Afghanistan for the past decade. We aren't allocating those resources away.


Just sheer American arrogance to assume you can just bribe deeply religious and prideful people into doing whatever you want. But for the record, we've done this repeatedly and it hasn't worked. The Taliban has been tactically superior to the United States from the start.


Sure we orphaned you or made you a widow. Not to mention ignored you for the last 15 years. But trust us this time, we have your best interest at heart.

The question of whether Biden would do it this way again only relates to his political career. The war was lost before Obama even took power. The incompetence within the military assured that there was no conceivable way to turn things around. What is happening now was inevitable. It was just a matter of which President would be stuck holding the football at the end.

So while I don't think there is much you can blame Biden for in terms of what is happening now, you can blame him for his Senate vote to authorize an endless war with no discernable goals. Biden has been wrong about almost every single foreign policy decision this country has made since he's been in office, but with this one, he realized he had an unwinnable hand and is folding.

Or, I simply draw a different conclusion from the available facts. Not every difference of opinion is down to ignorance.

We concluded a while ago that we live in two very different worlds and our discussions are non-productive. Let's continue ignoring each other.

The topic is not if we withdraw (I'm definitely all for that), it's How we are withdrawing (e.g. last 2-3 months). With that in mind, I don't see how "now is a lot closer to the 8 vs 10 if we stuck around".

But let's agree to disagree.


I don't necessarily disagree about the warlord option not being an improvement. It was just something I tossed out because, arguably, some countries need a strong authoritarian leader vs democratically elected leader crippled by infighting, long established political factions, religious dogma etc.

Referring to post above, I do remember reading about Massoud's assassination. Wonder if he could have made a difference.

Right now Afghanistan is that bad Civ game where barbarians keep sacking your shit.

I think so. He had the respect and admiration of the majority of his people and the western democracies. From his biography, written by Pepe Escobar:


From Steve Coll's Pulitzer Prize winning "Ghost Wars":


This was a once in a generation type of person, and it is highly unlikely that anything close to him will emerge in the future in Afghanistan.

Do you ever sit around and kill time by seeing if you can start the process of booking travel and hotel accommodations in dangerous places?

I can book a pretty decent one-way trip to Kabul right now, with only two stops. Boise to O'Hare, a 1:21 layover there. Then O'Hare to Istanbul, and an 8 hour 35 minute layover there. Then Istanbul to Kabul. $4,264. If I leave this afternoon it will take me about 26 hours to get there. Who wants a postcard?

From what I have read, the majority of the 2,500 troops officially on the ground in Afghanistan when Biden took over were there in advisory and logistical roles. The rest were there to provide security for the people in those roles. At this point, all the advisory and logistical work has been completed. There is no reason to keep those people on the ground, especially since history has told us that the preferred time for Taliban offenses has been during the spring and summer. Leaving them exposed to Taliban attacks without a proper defense force would be the ultimate betrayal.

26 hours is a long time. I wonder if the airport will still be named "Hamid Karzai International Airport" when you land?

Nice analogy.

Generation is every 20 years (?) so it's time for the next one!

Even odds no.

Anecdotal, but my brother’s best friend worked in the Army Corps of Engineers for several years in Afghanistan. We suspect he was actually CIA, but that’s a whole different story. Brilliant guy, morally flexible. He was always convinced any type of nation building in Afghanistan was a fool’s errand. Ultimately, outside of Kabul and maybe some other urban centers, the Taliban is what they want. It’s gone down about exactly as he said it would when we leave and he told me this stuff 10 years ago or maybe more.

All this hand wringing about how we could save the outgoing Afghani government and keep the Taliban in check is just looking at it from a jingoistic American perspective and ignoring that the government we propped up also sucks. In ways more acceptable to us Americans. But as we can see by the resistance put up by the Afghani people, the Taliban suck less to them.

not until today, but now it's one of my things to do

thanks :(

I don't see what is so hard about booking a hotel in St. Louis

The more I've read about what's going on right now, the more clear this seems to be.

A related hobby is reading the travel guides and blogs about how to visit these places.

I remember some of my favorite tips over the years - if you're driving into Iraq (this was about 10 years ago), buy a car at the border, paint it orange and white, and you have a rough approximation of a taxi. But don't ever use your headlights, even at night, because Iraqis never do for some reason, and you don't want to stand out.

And the tips and what to expect traveling back and forth into the occupied Palestine territories. Where the bathrooms are, how the indication light system works going down different corridors at the checkpoint, where your luggage will show up after you surrender it for checks, etc.

History tells us this would eventually lead to the same issues with radicalism and jihadism. In a bizarre way, we're better off (and to a certain extent, many of their citizens) with atheist secular dicatators like the Shah of Iran, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, Bashar al-Assad, etc. in power.

Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan ... catchy.


How are we going to pull 3-5k troops out of Kabul. Don't think they can go via troop transport (I'd think way too easy to shoot down since the Taliban are already in Kabul).

I'm betting there are some midnight oil burning at the Pentagon right now.

The CIA is like "that's what we've been saying for the last 80-odd years". That said, I'm not sure they're right, especially for the long term.

SI

Not saying that it won't happen, but it makes very little sense for the Taliban to bother the Americans at this point. As I described in my previous post if they wanted to go after the Americans, they would have done so already. They are getting exactly what they want. The West is leaving Afghanistan. Why do anything to might stop that?

Yep. I agree with that as well. It seems to me they are behaving in a way to encourage other nations, esp. but not just us, to not be involved. I.e. so-far peaceful occupation of Kabul etc.

Brit student 'stuck in Afghanistan' in plan to visit all the 'worst places in world' - World News - Mirror Online

As much as this was always going to be the outcome, Biden is going to catch a lot of crap for this.

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

This is part of the "they're just savages" trope that gets passed around to absolve ourselves of responsibility.

Fact is that Iran was much better before we helped put the Shah in. Iraq was much better off before we helped put Saddam in power. And how do we know what Libya and Syria would even be like if it wasn't for European colonization and the events that led to dictators taking power (which the United States played a role in)?

The only thing "history tells us" is that we'll keep meddling with other countries and then act perplexed when our actions lead to destabilization.

I agree the leadership probably wouldn't want anything to happen. But I could see some grunts wanting to take shots.

Honestly, if the US gets shot up (transport downed), there is no way we are going stay/return even then. It may delay the departure some but that's all.

My guess is our troops will have to protect the airport until all the foreigners are gone and then we'll negotiate a clear path out for a convoy. Same as the rooskies way back when.

In a way, I admire him. But yet think he's just asking for it and a Darwin nominee.

I'd like to visit Jerusalem and the Pyramids, and consider those 2 places risky enough.

Probably the only time I was happy from a Trump decision.

It was always a house of cards and it never was going to get any better. You would've had to wipe out 75% of the population to perhaps have a sea change.

The Taliban represent what American Conservatives really want, total control over cultural, scientific and political aspects through a pseudo-religious dictatorship. The subjugation of the women, the curtailing of intellectuals, and the return of the landowner-peasant fiefdoms.

Once again, Trump did this to create a scorched Earth on Americans. To all the people who did put effort into stabilizing a fruitless nation-building, it's bitter. To the military who've lost brothers and sisters, I'm sure the bitter will easily to finger point to Biden, but really Bush is the culprit. And the reality is, it was a lost cause.

Obama should've pulled up stakes the moment Bin Laden's head was blown off in Pakistan.

No one is going to mourn Afghanistan. And when the drone strikes continue afterwards, no one will care.

The crisis might be averted. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, just warned the Taliban to protect the human rights of its citizens, especially the girls and women. He also instructed them not to enable terrorist groups to organize and train.

No one cares Vic.

There are two things about this. First, the shock and dismay Americans are having because they feel like they win every time and should always win, and because this doesn't feel like winning, but they can't understand why. The why part should be the easiest thing to understand if you've even paid any passing interest in the region. It's been like this since Bush was in power and it was never going to change. So many Americans are clutching their pearls over this and pointing fingers instead of really trying to understand what was going on. It's not like the military didn't try, it's not like countless American leaders (not just presidents, but leaders at every level) tried to come up with a solution that would work, but the failure was the constant destabilization of the general populace by the outside forces of the Taliban and their supporters whether it was solely Pakistan or whether or not Russia or another foreign agent was involved.

Second, I think the best way to understand it is that unless you feel like the US should have stayed there forever, and turned the country into a puppet state that at some point the end had to come. The country then turned to the Taliban and gave it away. Literally, gave it away. So the country and it's populace gets exactly what it wants. It wants this, it has this, and don't cry for it, and don't cry for the corruption that lead to it, and don't cry for the failures of the Afghan government. They have what they want. It is what it is, and life moves on.

I just heard from a friend who in conversation with a right-winger that is a contractor for the military about Afghanistan and the right-winger said, "Biden's a traitor." So that's how that wing is going to see this.

This is unfortunate.

There are some legitimate questions that need to be answered on the logistics of the withdrawal; specifically why weren't the civilians evacuated before any military personnel, and why was so much equipment abandoned in place (instead of removing or destroying it).

It feels like they assessed the danger of the between time as equipment and personnel being pulled being too high. TheUS troops were always going to be at thier most vulnerable once the pull out started. They must have decide speed was more important than being thorough.

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

I remember reading the estimate that it would take 18 months for the Taliban to take over. Last Monday it was reported that the range was one to three months. It took less than a week.

It's damned near impossible to make good decisions when the information is so flawed.

I'm shocked that so many people that fail to even attempt to understand the complexities of a situation in so many avenues of life and were in favor of this solution, especially when their idealogue of choice was behind it, would completely flip-flop. /s

We all know it's in the process of happening but it's amazing how quickly and efficiently this will go/is going from an 80/20 issue to a 50/50 issue just because it's a chance to spike a political football. But, hey, we'll be "educated" with variations of the same 3 talking points, ad nauseam, over the next month and through election time.

SI

Would be great if people were this pissed about checks notes 621 thousand dead Americans due to a pandemic that we are still dealing with. But yes, let’s have everyone circle jerk and grand stand about a country on the other side of the globe that we should have never been involved with in the first place.

Those people were probably sick and going to die anyway, they are completely irrelevant to the universe.

trump made a big deal, only a month ago, that he got the troops out of Afghanistan and brought them home and Biden couldn't stop it, even though he wanted to...........how does that message sound now?

It certainly appears that the Taliban, after the agreement for the US to leave was signed in Feb 2020, went around to every single major leader in the provinces and basically said, we're coming, choose sides, here's some money, we get what we want when the time comes....and what was anyone else going to do? Die for America when they were leaving and taking all the support with them? Not in the country where "I'm out for me and mine" is the national motto which is should be there given how much money has been pissed away with the corruption there. They basically have "fear will keep the other systems in line; fear of this battlestation" in charge now, and that's how it will be for the rest of my lifetime I'm guessing.

The Taliban were able to fight back in the Gulf War because they had AKs leftover from the Soviets. It's standard practice to leave your crap and get out of there. It's a waste of money and time trying to disarm everything and everyone.

Also who the fuck cares about Afghanistan. It's been one big sunken cost, pull out, take the loss, move on.

As someone who works in the aviation business, those choppers and humvees they've collected are useless. I doubt they have enough qualified manpower to perform inspection and maintenance let alone having the right tools for repair.

Much of the new equipment they've been using over the past decade was actually purchased from Russia, including surface-to-air missiles. They've also purchased a substantial portion of their modern weaponry from Iran.

The Taliban fought in the Gulf War?

I was keeping an eye on some of the Facebook and twitter accounts of some of the nice hotels in Kabul. Just to try to get a glimpse of what life is like, how it changes when something like this happens. Do you still get up and go to work, do you stay home for a few days to see what happens, do you make a mad dash to the airport and climb on a plane as it's taking off? If you work in a government agency, do you show up for work and hope there's some kind of transition? Do you go to your office and wait, or do you try to make contact with the Taliban? (I had similar thoughts when I wondered what would have happened if the capital mob killed Pence and the Dems in Congress - kind of petty but real-life things - would my federal cases I work on still be on the same briefing schedules or is everything suspended indefinitely, would there a period of more direct federal control over states, or would the default be state independence and direct party control over everything?)

One of the hotels had a social media post yesterday about some of the dinner specials it had, and said something like, "in the end, isn't good food the thing that keeps us going"? (or something like that). All those social media accounts are down today, though the hotel websites are still up. I wonder if everyone just made a run for it, if or there was an easy switch for the regime to flip to shut off internet access. The good hotels were good because they had security - do those forces stand down, report to duty with the Taliban, stay in place until someone tells them otherwise, etc.? And how long could you hold out in one of the rooms, with maybe access to a restaurant that may or may not be informally serving food?

I mentioned above about people traveling to these kinds of places - I have read some books about that from the perspective of the well-trained and experienced-type travelers who are do this all the time and are there for private security assignments, journalism, or just the thrill. It always strikes me how relatively normal things can stay, at least in part. Like in a complete war zone you're still going to have pockets of normalcy - shopping, coffee shops, whatever. It takes a lot for people to just abandon the mundane and routine and the simple commerce, and there is just so many more people participating in society than military or government personnel trying to change it immediately.

It was right after the German's bombed Pearl Harbor.

Hey, if we could defend airports during the Revolutionary War, the Taliban could fight during the Gulf War.

Oh ... wrong president, oops.

I know the little fascists are either arguing in bad faith or stupid (usually both). But Trump literally said this a month ago.

“I started the process, all the troops are coming home, they (Biden) couldn’t stop the process. 21 years is enough. They (Biden) couldn’t stop the process, they (Biden) wanted to but couldn’t stop the process.”

- Trump, 1 month ago pic.twitter.com/9UPPbseyiI

— david nussbaum (@theNuzzy) August 15, 2021

1) I would say part of the shock and dismay can be blamed on the education system and our media. We were taught throughout life that America kicked everyone's ass. Heck, I remember learning WW2 history and barely hearing about the Russians involvement. It was just "America came in and kicked everyone's ass". And the media glorified everything they did.

So there is this idealized version of the military from the public. When in reality, our military has been a comical failure since World War 2. An immensely funded part of our government that is routinely dismantled by lesser foes. The one lesson we should be getting out of this is "why are we spending so much money on such a poor military?".

2) This is a flawed understanding of what happened. We stormed into the country for revenge on a foe who really had nothing to do with 9/11. Murdered countless innocent civilians, destroyed livelihoods, and treated everyone like a criminal.

Many people in the country don't support the Taliban. But they have no other choice. The United States proved to be just as vicious to them and woefully incompetent. Plus they were never going to be there for the long haul.

I just hate this idea that it's their fault for how things have gone. As if we swooped in and offered them freedom and those heathens chose otherwise. Our actions over the past century have led to much of what we see taking place in those countries. Not fair to blame them for it.

I flipped on Fox News to see what they had to say and it was predictable. I know I shouldn't be surprised or disappointed but I was. They had every chance to use this as a unifier and instead are predictably crushing Biden, calling for congressional committees, etc...when they could have said, yeah, he could have done things differently, but lets remember majority of us wanted this.

They don't need those skills to sell it to regimes/groups that do have that manpower for cash that they can use for other things.

We leave the shit there because now we get to place some more orders with politically connected military contractors.

Look I'm 45 years old. I don't think the US has won one major war in my lifetime (not counting the Cold War which they fucked up too).

Vietnam - loss
Iraq- loss
Afghanistan - loss

Panama - win?

War on Drugs - loss
War on Poverty - loss

That good ole American exceptionalism fucks up everything. We never unhinged the military industrial complex and we needed to of course exert influence in some way.

It's all been a failure. And the next generation of wars won't be large scale. We cannot nation-build especially against such an obstinate ideology unless you shatter the ideology (We bombed Japan twice to basically make the fanatics understand their emperor god wasn't going to save them.)

If we had caught and killed Hussein and then left, I'd label Iraq a win even though it was a pointless endeavor.

If we had pulled up stakes after killing Bin Laden, I'd say Afghanistan would've been a win (even though his ass was capped in Pakistan).

The lesson is if you go against us, we'll find and kill you. We'll use our unlimited resources to do so, and better yet, we won't disrupt the current governance in the area, we'll let them play leader. When you associate them all together, you get this resistance, but if you zero in on your targets and do so, I believe you'll find more success.

Anything else is a waste of time, money, integrity and lives.

Unless you are physically willing to occupy a country -- that is to say, gobble it up and make it yours (or keep it yours) -- is any war really winnable anymore?

I read this last year and it stuck with me - collapse isn't some thing that happens all at once to everyone, it's gradual and happens on a large scale
https://gen.medium.com/i-lived-throu...e-ba1e4b54c5fc


I don't know if he's right, but I can't deny his experience. I don't know if the roads end in similar places or just echo. But it sounds familiar, especially to the last year and a half.

SI

It brings me to a question I've thought about posting here, when is it time to leave? I don't really know what I would look out for in order to leave soon enough, but not too soon. So often it becomes obvious only when it's too late.

Not to be overly negative I hope, but that's not something I really look at as realistic. The US going down I expect to be part of a global decline; I don't think there are going to be many options that are a lot better. The when is hard to say, but I think anyone who is a teenager or younger today is likely to live through a difficult time globally compared to what we've gotten to used to the last several decades.

Everyone can breathe a sigh of relief. Russia has come out and said the Taliban have made Kabul safer now than it was under the West's propped up government. So woohoo?

I'm thinking more hypothetically rather than related to the USA under current conditions.

RE: Civilians. Which ones the US or the Afghans?

RE: Equipment. You would probably need to be more specific about what equipment you are talking about. The reality is we leave stuff behind in every operation by design. I could see them leaving behind vehicles for example to save space for more important items like missile detection equipment for example.

Mostly the thousands of Afghan citizens who served as interpreters and provided vital information and services to the U.S. government. We promised that we had their back, and now they've essentially been abandoned.

From MSNBC:


The fall of Afghanistan in 2021 is the result of years of American delusion

re: US equipment left behind, now in Taliban hands.

I don't think it was US troops leaving them behind (or at least most of them). I think the equipment were to be used by the Afghani army and they left them behind as they fled.

Otherwise, you would think US troops would have tossed a couple grenades here and there to make the equipment unusable?

Morally, I agree with you. That is the morally right thing to do. But I ask...

Would the U.S. public have been okay with bringing in thousands of Afghan citizens on to U.S. soil prior to say Saturday evening? Just because our leaders promised to that we would if shit went bad? Note that I said our leaders promised.

I am not trying to be a dick. That is a sincere question given the country's attitude to the Afghans and their plight over the last 20 years.

To be fair, evidently the administration had a plan for the interpreters and translators. I will admit that I had no clue about this program. The idea that they were still trying to vet the applicants on July 14th leads me to believe that it was not going to be a speedy one.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/14/polit...ion/index.html

I'm not sure Americans support the idea now. Carlson is going all-in on the Afghans are invading the U.S.

I would be for it. Assuming they can be vetted, no problems in bring in translators etc. and their families to the US.


I think I read somewhere that they would be put someplace outside of the US while we go through the vetting process.

This is also true.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/t...draws-n1273081

Note the dates on these articles. None of this is a surprise.

Depends on what you mean by "win a war". Militarily vs Politically are somewhat 2 different things but assume you mean militarily.

Pretty sure we won the first Gulf War. If you are classifying Panama a win, go ahead and toss in Grenada. Bosnia is a win. Ironically the Afghan-Soviet war was a win. Don't know why you think we didn't win the Cold War, pretty sure we did. There is military and political aspect but what I've read is we ultimately outspent the rooskies militarily.

I think we did a pretty good job on the Tobacco wars also.

However, TBF if you count Panama and Grenada, then Lebanon and Somalia should count as losses. Libya is probably a toss-up. El Salvador also a toss-up. Arguably Falklands as we provided support to the Brits. But I wouldn't classify these as "major".

The next big war is the economic & technological war with China. That is not headed in the right direction right now but Trump did blunt it and Biden is essentially following the same policy for now. There's still hope with Biden showing more strategic thought in coalescing allies vs China.

Counting the creation of a terrorist group that has facilitated the decades long decline of this country as a win is definitely a take.

Also did laugh a bit at Grenada being added.

Also toss in the "war" against ISIL in Iraq. Not sure if we had combat troops on the ground and know Iran was also assisting Iraq vs ISIL. But I'd say we provided enough air, intelligence and probably some special operators to sway the day.

Syria is probably a draw but leaning towards a loss.

As I see it, we have (had?) to answer this question. Are we trying to protect the Afghan translators and their families or are we trying to protect ourselves?

We have already vetted the translators. They have been vetted enough to allow them to translate for us and be informants for us. That and that alone puts their lives and their lives of their families at risk. If we are more concerned with having their back, we put them on a plane and we bring them to Atlanta, New York, Tampa, Des Moines, etc. We bring them to the United States proper and we go from there. Does that put the country at risk to potential terrorist activities? Absolutely! Will the Afghans who helped us be safer than they are now? Absolutely!

If we are more concerned with protecting ourselves, then we go through a full vetting process similar to what we would do for any immigrant to the country. That seems to be what we are doing for the translators. Does that make the country safer? Absolutely! Will more of the Afghans who helped us dies before they get here? Absolutely!

I am not saying these are easy choices. Actually it does not have to be an A/B question necessarily. Maybe more of a scale with these being the extremes is more appropriate. Sure, we can place people in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and have them wait while we go through the vetting process. We can shorten the vetting process. No matter what we decide, it comes with more risk being taken by either the Afghans or us.

NEW: DoD officials say they urged State for weeks to act faster. State officials say they were operating based on intel that suggested they had more time. Intel officials insist they long predicted possibility of rapid Taliban takeover. Blame game begins: https://t.co/XRkeBwXvEf

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) August 17, 2021

Tale as old as time. Turns out that every government agency totally knew this would happen and was desperately trying to get every other government agency to listen.

I imagine that you had generals limping back to Rome after Punic war battles figuring out how best to point the finger at the other guy.

And, meanwhile, lots of Afghans who helped us out are going to die for it.

Sigh.

As I recall, emperor Fabius Maximus took full responsibility for the losses, and then proceeded to rattle off a list blaming everyone except himself.

That's so human.

One of my favorite things about history is how everyone is the same as we are today, just 2,000 years earlier.

To be fair the Taliban never provided any air support during the entire Punic Wars.

George Washington's army was so much better at taking over airports

SI

I'm still processing this. It's a really complex situation and I don't know the right answer. Sure, the Fox News and contrarian crowds will carry water for the "it was a total disaster" line - never mind that they helped whip up the fervor to get us there in the first place, have been beating the drum hard to get out, and would also never let refugees within our borders to help out any people left behind. Look, we all know how this crap's going to go from them and we're just going to ignore the bad faith actors there - there's a kiddie table for a reason. Hell, if those folks want to play this game in this thread, there's something darkly amusing about lobbing pedantic points past each other about one of the world's most futile battlegrounds. I'm just not interested in engaging. But, for the adults in the room (and I use this term loosely since I'm including myself), what could we, as the US, do now or could have done in the last couple of weeks to make this different?

I mean, I just don't know the answer - this wasn't ever a war I wanted us to be in, except for the quick and dirty "kill Osama bin Laden" - which, of course, may have required boots on the ground to build up an infrastructure to accomplish it. And we can all relitigate how Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al, helped line their military contractor pockets. This is all true and all awful. But it's a sunk cost and it's in the past. Coming into 2021, what was the best way, out of a lot of bad options, to deal with the hand dealt? It seems to me, we're weighing our own security and the human rights violations against our own other security interests and the wellbeing of our soldiers and treasury.

In the security arena, I keep hearing that the Taliban is going to create an entire country of terrorism safe havens like it's a novel thing. I mean, c'mon, at least a half dozen countries in the region have large swaths of areas that we could describe that way. That said, this one is yet another one and one that's hard to patrol as we don't have any bases nearby. The countermeasure on that security angle is that we're also not going to be bombing the hell out of a beleaguered populace. I don't know how to balance the "we abandoned your entire" country that would push people who were sympathetic to your cause against you. Right now, I'm guessing USA approval rating is like 5% total whereas maybe it was, I dunno, 30% before but instantly creating fully-radicalized zealots every time there's a drone strike.

Of course, security is just one aspect. For instance, this administration is not directly responsible for the human rights atrocities (as they're not committing them; at least I don't think Blackwater is over there right now), but they definitely shoulder some chunk of the blame. That's part of the "best of a lot of bad options". This was never going to be clean but if we could have, say, saved 1M more people by doing it another way. But if we've been there 20 years, across 4 Presidencies, sent thousands of troops, and spent trillions of dollars and it still fell so quickly, was there any reasonable amount of "blood and gold" we could have thrown at it to make the situation significantly better (not just around the margins)? I don't know - I'm just not informed enough. And what impact does that have on the military - we've been there so long, asked so much from so many troops, on a cause that looks like a loss. But I'm not sure there ever was a victory condition. Was there a way for them to not just have died to enrich the military contracting cronies of the Bush administration?

Lastly, I really am having a hard time with the "this country just wants Taliban rule" line of thought. For some segment of the population, sure, but for the whole country, writ large? If you had traveled overseas, say, 2 years ago - did you want to be painted with "hey - you're an entire country of white supremacists and your President keeps kids in cages at the border". God knows I voted against him and protested but there's only so much one person can do. There's more than enough screw ups in the country right now but I think there are still enough decent people to fight back. On the other hand, it's not like you could stop something like that easily. If somehow Trump rolled up through Texas in a tank* with the Texas national guard behind him - there's nothing I could do top stop them but try to escape and regroup in the "northern territories". Yet, it would be represented like Texas rolled over and let him through, even though more then 5M people voted against Trump in 2020.

SI

*yes, I picture him looking as a cross between Dukakis and Gaddafi - awkwardly driving a tank that he clearly doesn't understand, weighed down by a ton of fake medals he awarded himself; I mean, really, this is what Trump thinks he looks like in his own mind - even if it looks like rejected Tropico cover art

Least you could do is stay current pal. I made this bad joke yesterday :P

Short answer, nothing IMO. Once we established that the troops were going to be completely gone by 9/11, it confirmed to the Taliban knew they had free reign in the country.


The only thing that might have worked better was to make the pull out date announcement on Inauguration Day, inject thousands of forces into the region with in 48 hours to secure our interests and those Afghans that worked with us within Kabul and immediately begin shipping people out. That is not realistic though so the true answer is probably the best was out of all the bad options.


Well given that we are wedded to the binary in so many ways, it's either they just wanted Taliban rule OR they wanted democracy in the way we see it. They did not accept the second option so they HAD to have wanted the first option. There are no other acceptable answers.

it's not pleasant, and I share some of the thoughts from your (excellent) post. On this ... I just don't see any other way to see it. Not *everyone* wants the Taliban. But I don't see any other way to fairly view the facts that doesn't end up concluding significantly more want the Taliban than don't.


I still think not a whole lot. The information I'm seeing, making the large assumption it's at all accurate but it's certainly better than a guess, indicates Taliban started buying off the Afghan government/negotiating/etc. as soon as the withdrawal agreement was signed. That our intelligence reports were inconsistent and largely incorrect. Etc

I think history should blame Trump more than any other president for the manner of the withdrawal, but I also think it was never going to be good. I agree with the sentiment expressed by others that there was no useful purpose for us to be there after bin Laden was eliminated.

The main thing I've re-learned through all of this is that we really don't know how to put reasonable lines down on a map to govern ourselves as a species. It's going to be painful and it won't happen in our lifetimes, but the sooner we have one government administering all of Earth the better off we'll be. Until then ... fractional conflict like this will not end until the people who live there want it to end more than they want it to continue. I know it's an overly simplistic assessment, but I think in general accurate, that this is basically what happened in Ireland after generations of violence in the late 90s. It's not 'over' there by any stretch, but it's much better than it was.

The sad answer is nothing. You can't turn around 20-years of failure over a couple of weeks. There is no good way to lose a war.


The Taliban did offer to hand Bin Laden over to us. We said no. That needs to be taken into account when discussing the 20 years of disaster in Afghanistan.

And if you follow the money, it seems the primary goal of the war was to enrich military contractors. Basically laundering taxpayer money for Raytheon and Haliburton.

The United States Might Have Saved Afghanistan by Confronting Pakistan

Quote:

Although these numbers are staggering, much of U.S. investment did not stay in Afghanistan. Because of heavy reliance on a complex ecosystem of defense contractors, Washington banditry, and aid contractors, between 80 and 90 percent of outlays actually returned to the U.S. economy. Of the 10 to 20 percent of the contracts that remained in the country, the United States rarely cared about the efficacy of the initiative. Although corruption is rife in Afghanistan, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction repeatedly identifies bewildering corruption by U.S. firms and individuals working in Afghanistan.