This withdrawal from Afghanistan is a shambolic disaster.
Incompetence on display up and down the chain of command. General McKenzie should be court-martialed. Secretary Austin should be fired. Congress should initiate hearings to discover how the planning for this was so completely fucked up. All those American lives, time, and money squandered in a matter of weeks.
This is going to come back and bite us in the ass. We have handed the Jihadis a complete victory with barely a whimper. Shameful.
Replies to: This withdrawal from Afghanistan is a shambolic disaster.
Wouldn’t it be a brilliant move to let Taliban come out and then…..Boom….
…we didn’t leave yet! After thinning them, then we leave, and they have a good reminder of what can happen if they poke the US down the road.
One can dream.
All of the lives lost and money spent is the disaster.
Shouldn't have gone there in the first place. Should have left a long time ago.
Whether we want it or not
We are in a struggle with radical islam. We just ceded the field to them with a whimper.
This will come back to hurt us.
7K US military died in Afgh and Iraq, 30K have committed suicide.
I don't know what the best way to combat "radical islam" is, but I highly doubt it is to continue to stay in Afghanistan.
Is it? Do tell us how it should have been handled.
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In whichever way would avoid total collapse in a few weeks.
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What's clear is you have very little understanding of Afghanistan, its history and its people
And that is why we're there so long in the first place and why we are leaving at this time.
Nothing against you, but maybe you like the rest of this nation should invest a little time in reading up
on that region of the world, its people, lives and their beliefs.
We never quite seem to to do that. Central governing authorities rarely work well with tribal
societies. And imposing western democracy? Yup, great idea.
And these tribesmen have been adept since the 19th century in tossing out western powers beginning with the Brits, then the Putins, and now us.
Yep
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And that would be how when the army refuses to fight? Two choices: leave or stay there indefinitely.
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The mission has failed.
There should be some accountability.
None of our allies could survive a fight against their biggest foe without our help. China would crush Taiwan. Russia would roll over western Europe. North Korea would defeat South Korea in two weeks.
This notion that "these guys aren't up to the fight, so fuck them" could be applied everywhere. That wouldn't serve US interests, however.
Agree, but there are a couple of significant differences.
First the Taliban isn’t Russia/China. A decently trained and motivated army numbering in the hundreds of thousands should be able to deal with them, if not outright crush them.
The nations you reference would indeed be crushed also, but they would fight for their countries and the French and Brits have Nukes. Taiwan and S Korea would fight to the death. Not so with these people who believe they owe little or no allegiance to the so called nation state.
There should be recriminations over this failure. I have no problem with that concept. I also have no issue that there is a real argument that we should have stayed there notwithstanding the duration or cost.
I have zero doubt though that what’s happening now would happen whenever we leave, no matter how we do it.
No matter when we left, they were going to collapse.
Realistically, how would you suggest that it have been done without staying there indefinitely? The last administration had been telling them for over a year that we were going to leave militarily.
They’ve had 20 years to train to fight. They have a big army and are well equipped. We support them from the air.
Some situations just aren’t fixable. This is one of them. That place has been a failed nation state for many years.
Time to go.
This is correct. It's a tragedy...but it's their tragedy.
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Maybe we should offer the Taliban pallets of cash?
But if they are savvy they will turn it down because the way we are printing it the dollar will be worthless soon.
In the past, the cash pallet included multiple currencies to further assist the recipient...
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We are nothing if not accommodating.
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It’s their disaster, not ours
Twenty years of US training and equipment. And their army still sucks.
Their politicians and officers spent twenty years stealing the money we gave them.
Twenty more years would do no good.
Not so. The execution of this has been terrible. Absolutely terrible.
It can’t even be called a withdrawal. It’s a panicked flight. Really depressing to witness.
These savages are going to march into Kabul on 9/11.
The Jihadis are going to love that symbolism.
Hopefully they fly in some more shredders for the embassy staff, pronto.
Oh stop. The Afghans knew it was coming. They did nothing.
There was no “panic” or rush - it just does not take long to evacuate 2500 people. It could have been done in one night.
This was not Dunkirk.
No matter how we pulled the leg out of this crap tent, it was going to collapse.
Of course if this occurred under Trump, you'd sing a different tune.
Most Americans want to get the muck out of there.
Absolutely incorrect.
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No, I wouldn’t.
This is a strategic disaster for the United States.
That is a debate worth having. There are valid arguments that we just should have sucked it up and
stayed indefinitely for that reason. But whenever we left, this was gonna happen and happen fast. Many of them are savages who want to be governed by savages, and the only reason they were playing along while we were there was for the money to pocket.
Couldn't agree more.
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