Posted on 08/27/2021 9:49:33 AM PDT by Kaslin
With President Biden's August 31 withdrawal deadline looming and the Taliban's insistence that it not be extended, the unanswered question is what the Taliban will do, and how Biden will respond should the evacuation effort stall and U.S. military forces remain at Kabul's international airport on September 1?
Based on the current political and military circumstances, the surrounding topography, and the unforced and tenuous political and military position Biden chose, it is not difficult to see some parallels with France's position in Vietnam at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. Begun on 13 March 1954 and ending 56 days later with France's disastrous capitulation and humiliating withdrawal from Southeast Asia, Dien Bien Phu nearly 70 years later offers a cautionary example of history's lessons for the political intelligentsia and senior military officers.
French national political stasis; military hubris; and strategic, operational, and tactical incompetence led to the Vietminh (North Vietnam's communist army)'s defeat of an ostensibly superior Western power. Vietminh forces were able to quickly mobilize and amass a 5-to-1 advantage over the French at the start of the battle. The Vietminh emplaced heavy artillery in the surrounding hills and employed effective anti-aircraft fire, supported by herculean logistics, to destroy an encircled French garrison of 16,000 men huddled at a small and isolated airfield.
"Dien Bien Phu," wrote Lieutenant Colonel Shull, "is in a 75 square mile valley bottom ringed by small mountains of 1,400 to 1,800 feet. Once the Vietminh seized these mountains, emplaced artillery, and blocked the French from moving beyond their fortifications, the French loss became inevitable." The Vietminh disabled the airfield on the second day of the battle and for the next 54 days laid siege to the French garrison, unleashing unrelenting attacks resulting in all but 100 French killed, wounded, or captured.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Ha! It’s ABOUT as dumb, militarily!!
It already is.
Not yet, but it has the potential.
All the Taliban has to do is bring up their artillery and US troops could be trapped. They could destroy any aircraft on the ground, landing, or taking off, and maybe crater the runway beyond use.
They don’t have a lot, but in the current situation, they don’t need a lot.
Of course, we have counterbattery in the form of air support, assuming they can reach Kabul. Some nations (Pakistan) might not allow it.
Ridiculous premise. The two situations bear no resemblance to each other. Idiot should actually read up about DienBienPhu.
Hell In A Very Small Place: The Siege Of Dien Bien Phu

Trust the American Thinker to get things wrong. Dien Bien Phu was a battle. This is a collapse. This is Saigon. This is the end.
My only friend, The End.
Saigon -- and Not Saigon.
Why is the second picture "Not Saigon"? Because Saigon is in Southeast Asia.
Why is Kabul not Dien Bien Phu? Because the French aren't there.
France lived on, and their ruling class was not trying to exterminate their own population.
Be prepared to have all this thrown back in our faces. Biden will get ALL Americans out by the 31st, or an extension date. He will then become the hero of Afghanistan in the media’s view. It’s just too fishy for me. These people are diabolical and won’t hesitate to kill a few for favorable press in the end. Remember, the ends justifies the means to these perverts.
Dien Bien Phu was supposed to be a French trap to mass the enemy’s troops.
Kabul is an evacuation.
Can we have a break from these nostalgic American thinker types?
Kabul will turn out to be the most prominent fiasco since Before pre biblical times. Before Homer wrote about war.
It will have had no precedent.
12 marines and a Navy corpsman were killed yesterday
The taliban and Isis are just getting started.
Our stupid administration is importing military men leaving not only Americans there but active duty military.
The reasons for this are unthinkable but there are reasons for this.
IDK why, but everyone keeps saying that Biden is not extending the deadline. HUH? He was told by the Taliban that they refuse to extend “the occupation”. He didn’t have a say in that, the Taliban said “absolutely not”.
Any soldier with half a brain would never put forces in that location and under those circumstances. The fidiots with stars know this but did it anyway. If the Taliban or ISIS wanted to,they could easily slaughter and destroy everything within the perimeter.
More like Khartoum in 1885.
Of our elaborate plans, the end.
Yeah, in reading history.
No. There was a battle there. Biden just surrendered. What would anyone expect from a shell of a man who was never that much in his prime.
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