Thanks for sharing that experience, JH...if I had been in your shoes, I'd definitely have flashbacks

Author: TyroneIrish (17556 Posts - Joined: Oct 8, 2020)
Posted at 12:14 pm on Aug 16, 2022

as well as strong opinion on the security of any location in a war zone...that being said, IMO the Afghan situation was very different from Vietnam for these reasons...

> Vietnam was a full-on war zone...while the Afghan withdrawal was being conducted under the terms of an agreement which required the Taliban not to attack U.S. forces...and they (Taliban) were definitely holding up their end of the deal...so it wasn't necessary to use a fortified base (Bagram) for travel.
> You have to admit that not just anyone was being allowed onto jet transports...there was a process...hectic, I'm sure...being conducted that involved the U.S. Embassy staff and others...they were all in Kabul, not Bagram...and if the security situation was as bad as you allude to in your Chu Lai recollection, then it would be nearly suicidal to transport those people to Bagram while leaving the Embassy, et al, in Kabul unprotected...note that we only had ~2,500 troops available.
> In the end, there was one serious breach of security from a lone ISIS suicide bomber in Kabul...not sure how you protect against that...again, no need to keep Bagram fully operational and transport everyone 45 miles from Kabul.
> Let's not forget that due to the Biden admin's efforts we got 120,000+ Afghanis...who had our troops 'backs'...out of there...not unlike the South Vietnamese who helped us back then...and Trump's "Deal" had ZERO planning for even ONE Afghani refugee...those are facts, JH...you need to face them.

As for Biden being able to set any date he wanted, that's not reality...as soon as the "Deal" was signed, the Afgan government and military began to crumble...Biden should be credited for moving the date from May 1st to August...yet even then, he wanted September, but conditions were deteriorating at such a rate they couldn't even get that.

Bottom line...Trump set a totally unreasonable date for withdrawal of U.S. troops/equipment, with NO provisions at all for the safe passage of friendly Afghanis...with this as a starting point, it is remarkable that the Biden administration was able to accomplish what they did...especially given the rapidly deteriorating conditions.

Glad you mentioned Trump being an Idiot...hold that thought.


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