Trump had it set up for an orderly withdrawal. He would have bombed the living daylights out of the Taliban if they so much as made a move toward US troops and Kabul.
Trump tried to get us out of there. There was a way to do it. This was not the way to do it.
If there isn’t 100 percent agreement on ‘This was not the way to do it’, well that’s interesting too I guess.
The media has a hand in the Afghanistan tragedy they pimped to s.o.b now look at what we have.
China and Russia plans can now go into motion.
Trump did make plans for a halfway decent, orderly withdrawal, but it was hotly denounced by the media and the perfumed princes because (what else?) Orange Man bad.
You have to define “the Afghanistan tragedy” before you can answer the question.
IF the Taliban decide to facilitate the removal of Westerners from their country, the only “tragedy” is Afghans getting to live the way they want to.
Of course, an 1842-style retreat from Kabul is possible, in which case the meaning of “tragedy” would be undisputed.
If this triggers a regime crisis in the US, “US tragedy” is certainly possible. But I bet the fraction of the US population that would support regime change here is growing fast.
Children can rationalize anything. Their thinking is child-like.
At root, the error that pervades their decision-making stems from their worldview, which is Pagan.
All lil’ Joe had to do was drop a few bombs at the first Taliban group out there and then tell the Afghanis to mop up the rest.
Problem solved (for a while).
In one way or another it would have happened even if Trump had been reelected and pulled out in May. But I don’t think it would have been the disorganized mess that Biden is overseeing.
There is never anything quietly and orderly in Afghanistan.
It’s useful to look at the difference between Obama’s withdrawal from Iraq and Trump’s. Obama announced a sudden withdrawal on date certain, and handed 2/3 of the country over to ISIS along with enormous stores of modern weaponry. Trump destroyed ISIS and started a musical chairs withdrawal that left several garrisons there including a major one in eastern Syria which protects the Kurds and secures the oil for them while giving us options throughout the region. He otherwise kept us out of the Syrian civil war.
This is likely a model for how he would have conducted our withdrawal from Afghanistan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fighting_Season
From a veteran of Afghanistan:
In a criminal lack of judgment, Joe Biden announced and began the unilateral American withdrawal at the start of the fighting season in April. Even worse, Biden planned the complete pullout during the height of the Taliban offensive in August. This meant that the most substantial change of the war, the removal of critical American support, was made at the height of the Taliban surge.
The Puddin Pop Puppet and Willie Brown's Mattress really did it this time.
Bottom line, we should never have been there.
There was a circuitous relationship between what Trump said and exactly how he would carry it out, allowing for changes on the ground.
As for “what are we still doing there after 20 years”, all we have to do is pull out and see.
As for whether we can live with a Taliban Afghanistan, we are all going to get a front row seat.
Funny how this debacle is President Trumps fault, but if it had gone smoothly, it would have all been Joes, absolutely no credit to Trump.
It’s not wrong to want the people of Afghanistan to have freedom and a higher standard of living.
What is wrong is to expect that we could do that on the cheap and that they could be like Massachusetts.
What is also wrong is to ignore human nature.
Lots of Afghanis and Americans saw this escapade as a means to make money. Lots of money.
The fact that they didn’t have a functioning government and useful army within 5 years made it inevitable. At some point we were going to get tired of being there, and they just weren’t going to be willing or able to stand on their own.
The structure of the Afghan military was deficient. It was not sufficiently supervised by US personnel. It should have consisted of Afghan enlisted under US officers, a proper colonial army organization, used by many nations for centuries, and which almost always delivered reliable soldiers.
The US used such a structure several times, with success, such as with the Philippine Scouts.
Both the British and the French colonial armies had many such units of Muslim troops (among many others), most of which fought very well in many wars.
The layer of US oversight would have prevented egregious corruption and inefficiency, and helped morale.
That could have been the basis for a reform.
It was not done, I think, because of concern for US, international and Afghan sensibilities. Also the Afghan forces were built out of former warlord armies.
It was a mistake to negotiate with the Taliban, and announce a planned withdrawal, but the responsibility for the cock-up is all Biden’s. The senile coot can’t avoid all responsibility for his mistakes.