I remember the road to Basra
Posted on 08/24/2021 1:22:51 PM PDT by cll
Afghanistan is landlocked. The Kabul airport is surrounded by Taliban and other enemy fighters, and by a mob of thousands who won't be restrained as the U.S. checkpoints collapse back into the airport.
How can that airport be secured while the last of our troops are loaded into airplanes or helicopters? And our helicopters only have a couple of hundred miles of range. It seems to me like you would need, out of the two brigades that are holding the airport right now, one to keep the mobs and the Taliban at bay, and the runway open. Then HOW would that brigade get out? That would need a great number of helicopters, which we don't have there right now, to exfil them out under fire, but then they could only get so far. Only a handful of helicopters have air-to-air refuel, and certainly not enough to evacuate a brigade.
Me thinks that the 82nd must be airlifted first, like right now, then dropped on a forced entry into Bagram, secure that, and then start this shit all over again, but from there.
Pallets and pallets of cash.
What, you think there needs to be a PLAN? Hasn’t been one so far.
Ok, on one side you have three missionaries. On the other side, three cannibals. The missionaries have one boat. ...
“How can that airport be secured”
5 mile perimeter, with A-10’s and Napalm?
I know, I know. It’s Farside-level macabre humor - that’s how messed up this situation is.
Two many civilians around the KBL airport. That’s why abandoning Bagram was such a stupid mistake.
We have five thousand troops inside the wire and many thousands of other Americans outside. There better be a plan.
But they will still be counting on the Taliban letting them leave.
If they have to be withdrawn under fire, there will be huge casualties and the image of Bataan or Wake Island comes to mind . If they do suspect helicopters, covered by suppressing overhead gunships will ferry troops to makeshift airstrips outside of Kabul for quick evacuation. Those 155mm howitzers left intact for the Taliban might be problematic once the locations are accurately defined by global positioning.
Actually think the CIA director was summoned to Kabul by the Taliban to increase the price paid in cash for a “safe” withdrawal. Biden has been and will continue to pay. No guarantee that the jihadists won’t attack.
It can’t. We botched it by assuming the Afghan army could handle and the place would stay a country after we left. Had we realized it would fall almost immediately we probably would have evacuated our civilians last year so there’d be nobody to get left behind when our military left.
Its why the head of the CIA had to meet with the Taliban.
Taliban control the perimeter of the airport. Taliban had to agree to a cease-fire a few hours. A-10s and F-18s are on patrol nearby, and when the last US chopper is gone, someone higher up gives them the signal their forces can move in.
Three days. They are trying to clear the airport perimeter, and hopefully the tolly-bon have worked out safe passage for Americans to the airport.
hollywood will have a movie out in a year or two congratulating jose bitme on his work..
Final analysis: blood, and lots of it. Not an outcome I desire, but that's an honest assessment.
I think there will be attacks on the airport before then. It’s been a cluster. They will leave in a rush. No real way this goes smoothly. If Trump was in there still maybe attacks on the airport, difference is this would be done and we would drop many many bombs on the way out. And if there was a attack some would be on talibans heads.
I remember the road to Basra
If anyone really trusts the Taliban at this point, our people there are really screwed. Unless like Jon says, we are making each and everyone of them very rich with promises for more.
That’s a bribe. And a tactical nightmare. The question is, who was the idiot who gave up Bagram?
It was clear a week ago that Biden won’t risk the safety of the military, and by doing that he has actually endangered them. There is no grand military plan coming from his demented head. A bigger fuster cluck I’ve never seen.
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