Posted on 08/18/2021 4:21:12 AM PDT by Kaslin
Several days ago, the intelligence agencies said it would take months for the Taliban to take Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital. It took only days. Shocking videos and photos showed chaos at the Kabul airport, as Afghans desperately sought an exit. Another photo showed a Chinook helicopter airlifting personnel from the American embassy—reminiscent of the fall of Saigon after the Vietnam War.
Many are now saying that the collapse of Afghanistan shows we shouldn’t have left, or that President Biden mismanaged the exit. Rather, the complete collapse of the Afghan army and former Afghan government shows the futility of America’s 20-year war.
One factor in the quick collapse of the Afghan government army was they had grown completely dependent on airstrikes from the U.S.—the American military or Afghan generals never prepared for less American air support, even after 20 years. Another was that America never understood the complex web of relationships between factions on the ground—but the Taliban does and did.
But even more than this, the American-backed government had very little real public support. Many Afghans viewed the Taliban as the lesser of two evils. The Taliban are more popular in the Afghan countryside than many in official Washington would like to admit. The Taliban can be brutal and backwards, but so can Afghan government officials and the warlords Washington was forced to align with. Other Afghans simply weren’t willing to fight for Washington’s government in Kabul. During mass desertions, many Afghan army fighters gave up for a few dollars from the Taliban. Without popular support in the countryside and without a willingness on the part of Afghans to fight the Taliban, the U.S. mission was always doomed to fail.
Far from showing how important it was for America to stay forever, these facts show just how hopeless the mission was from the get-go. Washington, just as in Vietnam, lied endlessly to cover that up. Days before Kabul fell, the Pentagon was claiming that U.S. airstrikes in Afghanistan were “having an effect” on the Taliban’s advance.
Before President Biden’s withdrawal, Afghanistan was a stalemate for around 10 years. An attempt by President Obama in 2014 to hand more responsibility over to the Afghan forces failed miserably. Pentagon and Washington officials knew for years that the war was unwinnable, and that there was no progress on the ground, but they spun the war as an ongoing success.
Washington spent nearly $90 billion training and equipping the Afghan security force. Publicly, generals praised the Afghan forces and claimed they would soon be able to take over operations in the country from American forces—hawkish politicians repeated the line that Afghan forces carried most of the war’s burden. But, according to a forthcoming book on secret documents about the war, the “U.S. military officials privately harbored fundamental doubts for the duration of the war that the Afghan security forces could ever become competent or shed their dependency on U.S. money and firepower.”
Back in 2011, Army Lt. Gen. William Caldwell IV said, “We’ve made tremendous strides, incredible progress.” In private, he was saying the opposite, but also claimed that more money spent by the Obama administration would finally fix a ‘poorly-led, uninspired, and illiterate’ force. That was 2011. A competent Afghan force was always just around the corner, if we only waited long enough.
A former U.S. soldier who was tasked with training the Afghani army put it bluntly: “I don’t think I could overstate that this was a system just basically designed for funneling money [to defense and government contractors] and wasting or losing equipment.”
The takeaway is that the withdrawal from Afghanistan was always going to be messy, because the situation was a house of cards only propped up by a constant and costly American commitment. The risk is that many in Washington have utterly failed to learn the real lesson.
As Kabul was falling, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) called for even more airstrikes against the Taliban. The generals—who never wanted to pull out of Afghanistan and stymied President Trump’s efforts to do so—were also pushing for a perpetual air campaign. But America can’t stay forever.
In the coming months, politicians will try to call the administration “weak” for withdrawing as the Taliban solidifies control, and influential voices in Washington—through overt and behind the scenes methods—will try to convince President Biden that he needs to re-enter the country and maintain a military campaign countering the Taliban. It’s worth remembering that these same officials have been lying about the war for years. The collapse of the Afghan government is an indictment of all those who promised the U.S. was making progress in the nation building campaign. President Biden should listen to his instincts and get us out of Afghanistan for good—and that includes ending all airstrikes unless there’s a direct and legitimate threat to the homeland posed by terrorism.
“President” Biden is sleeping and just waking up. Please tip-toe and don’t make any noise. He needs his rest before his “hard-hitting” interview with the Greek midget.
I don’t fault the administration or any for finally for getting us out, only that the whole thing was botched.
Was the plan to deliberately strand thousands of Americans in Afghanistan? That is simply unacceptable.
Why would anyone want to come back to our racist nation when they could stay and experience the exotic, diverse and eclectic cuisine and music?
We need to focus on what making sure that what happens in Afghanistan stays in Afghanistan instead of trying to control what goes on inside Afghanistan's borders because controlling Afghanistan is impossible.
The Afghan troops were trained, equipped and led by our best military people and they could barely hold the line with the Taliban.
They present no threat outside Afgan borders with the exception of being a breeding ground for terrorism.
It's kind of hard to believe the U.S. military has been able to get anyone to volunteer since Vietnam.
Afghani dudes dressed in pajamas and wearing diapers on their heads while they cling to the side of a C-17 barreling down a runway at Kabul airport is about as good an illustration of the total disconnect between the 7th and 21st centuries as you will ever see.
In the period of time right after 9/11, the Taliban harbored bin Laden. Years later, we allegedly whacked him in Pakistan. What was the real reason we were in Afghanistan for 20 years? Poppy fields? Rare minerals? Launch pad to invade Iran? To install a democracy?
The official line was to keep Afghanistan from becoming a “terrorist training ground.” Missing from all of that garbage was the reality that nearly all of the 9/11 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia. They didn’t come from Afghanistan, they hid out there; they didn’t come from Iraq. Also missing was the idea that they simply don’t get to come here (this idea was incredibly popular across all demographics in our electorate).
Here’s the real lesson, in valedictory form, from George Washington farewell.
The valedictory
“As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils! Such an attachment of a small or weak toward a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter. Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence ( I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial, else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people to surrender their interests.
The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.”
George Washington
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington%27s_Farewell_Address
I honestly believed going into Afghanistan after Bin Laden was the right thing to do, but believed we had to deal with Pakistan first. Bush made a deal with Pakistan, that didn’t hold up. We as a nation have shown that we are incapable of enduring the inflicting of the horrors of war on our enemies. The media is our weakness, as they continually subvert the needs of the many, for 15 seconds of the unusual fame. Nothing has changed since Vietnam, the nation has not learned or understood the media’s damage to this Republic during conflict. There should be no Freedom of the Press in a war zone. The very term of war belies Constitutional rights.
Last, and this has been a 150 year problem, we continue to raise and progress military minds that are political, but not military efficient. They look great, talk great, but can’t do their job. We need Grants right now: dirty, plain, scruffy, hard talking minds that are neither politically correct or care about it.
It’s a cruel world, and the free world will NOT get a participation trophy when it fails. The people who voted for Biden, to a person, don’t seem to get any of the above.
another lesson they haven’t learned. The penchant to relocate people into the US and Europe. Biden is wasting time trying to talk Uganda and Europe and who knows who else, into taking in the refugees instead of resettling them in UAE, Qatar, Dubai or a dozen other close but safe countries where we have bases or embassies they can be incorporated into - so we can retain the asset of their experience
Barry Soetoro fought with the tolybon back in the 80’s.
Barry could have told the DC elite exactly what drives the tolybon mind.....
Oh wait, never mind
Willis Krumholz is a complete moron. Willfully ignorant not about the withdrawal but for how it was done. That’s the shame and embarrassment in all of this.
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The real question is when will those in government that continually lie about these messes and perpetuate stupidity going to face some real punishment for this criminal malfeasance.
Where is the Harry Truman and the House Committee on the Conduct of the War of this generation?
Heads must roll, there simply isn’t any option left that leads to a constructive outcome. Future bureaucrats and elected pols need to know that consequences exist for them.
I don't believe either side - the admin or the intel community.
There are still Americans there and they can not get out.
Bush's idiotic attempt to create a strong central government meant we backed a corrupt faction in Kabul that no one else in Afghanistan would accept.
Which is...
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