3,000 of our troops have been sent to Kabul now to rescue some 30,000 state department and other assorted civilians before the taliban take the city. The taliban are less than 30 miles away. What stands in their way now? I suppose I should take some comfort that other nations are doing similarly but of course we are carrying the heavy freight. I am hopeful that the taliban have some sense of the global outrage that might ensue if they were to take the city and commit further atrocities against the foreigners.
On a side note, I am amazed that after 20 years of occupation and war against them the taliban have any organization left at all let alone one so capable as they have been in taking the country back in just a few weeks.
Today I am praying for the 3,000 mother’s sons sent on a rescue mission to Kabul that should never have been. They will require massive tactical air support if there is trouble.
Just from where do you support such an air amanda of tactical support?
There are no half measures. In such an action you have to take an airfield, you have to bring in material you have to re-construct all that we left behind not a month ago. You really should have artillery and armor. Right now we are attempting by air to destroy that we left behind for the Afghans before the taliban can use it. I see from articles I have not read yet that may not be possible.
You do not supply tactical ground support from the air from a distance. That has been one of the problems of Afghanistan from the very beginning; it is landlocked there are very limited significant overland logistical support facilities to the damn place. Bribe Pakistan for support locations?
These 3,000 poor devils have to go in secure an airfield and corridor to somewhere to collect the innocents to get them on airplanes and secure a large enough zone around the airfield to prevent shoulder fired weapons from taking out the airplanes and then collapse the box and get out themselves after the taliban have had time to get their response in high gear. Never mind that the fools in this administration announced our plans days ago. All the while they are in a fixed location defending a spot while the belligerents, now equipped with our artillery ammunition and rockets, surround them. Traditionally only losers try to hold ground and defend fixed positions.
If this expedition gets in trouble I doubt this administration will make the quick and ruthless decisions necessary to save it. It didn’t at Benghazi. Yes, this administration is the very same one when Benghazi happened.
I desperately hope my concerns are for nothing.
In January of 1842 the British attempted to withdraw from Kabul to Jalalabad, the first British outpost in what was then India and now Pakistan. They left Kabul with 4,500 troops and nearly 12,000 dependents. The story is one man and his horse made it to Jalalabad, a military surgeon named Brydon. In reality some were captured and died while others escaped or were rescued two years later in the British war of retribution. All together about 115 of the original group survived.
Afghanistan is not called the graveyard of empires for nothing. History may not repeat but it often rhymes.
In 480 BC the Greeks, realizing they had been outflanked by the much larger Persian army withdrew the majority of their force of 7,000 from the defensive pass position at Thermopylae they had taken. 300 Spartan troops were left behind to defend the retreat and sacrificed themselves so the Greek army could regroup. I would have picked a different number of troops that did not involve a multiple of 300 to send to Kabul to guard this retreat.
You certainly know your military history.
There is nothing left to do now but fervently pray to the Lord our God to spare these men and women, and those whose lives they have been charged with.