Don't Send the Afghanistan Withdrawal Down the Memory Hole

[pjhawk]

Regular readers know that I've long been annoyed by the relentless use of the word chaotic to describe the Afghanistan withdrawal. Of course it was chaotic. It's like saying the D-Day landings were chaotic. There's no way anyone conducts an airlift of 100,000 people in a neat and orderly way from a city that's just been overthrown by the Taliban.

In any case, since it's back in the news it's worth reviewing how the Afghanistan withdrawal played out:

1. In early 2020 Donald Trump negotiated with the Taliban for a withdrawal date of May 1, 2021, and the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners held by the Afghan government.
2. Over the next year Trump pushed hard to reduce US troop levels. By the end of his term he had reduced troop levels to 2,500.
3. When Joe Biden took office, he moved the withdrawal date out to September 11. Trump criticized the change. "We can and should get out earlier," he said.
4. In July Biden moved the withdrawal date to August 31. At this point, the Taliban was fighting but hadn't yet taken over a single province. The broad assumption was that when the US withdrawal eventually took place the Afghan government would still control the country. The US, naturally, was committed to protecting the government through the withdrawal.
5. That changed suddenly because the Afghan army collapsed faster than anyone expected. On August 15 the Taliban took over Kabul and the president of Afghanistan fled the country. With only two weeks to go, this made a large-scale evacuation imperative.
6. The withdrawal started chaotically, but within a few hours the Army restored order. Meanwhile, despite the Trump administration's longtime policy of delaying visa requests, which left a huge backlog of unprocessed applications, the State Department worked heroically to process visas for Afghans who wanted to leave the country.
7. In two weeks, the Army evacuated about 90% of Americans in Afghanistan and nearly 100,000 Afghan nationals. By any kind of historical standard, this was a superb performance under the most difficult circumstances imaginable.

The entire operation had only one serious failure: the death of 13 American service members (and 170 Afghans) to an al-Qaeda suicide bomber at Abbey Gate. Multiple investigations by the Pentagon concluded that there wasn't really anything that could have stopped it.

Everyone processes grief differently, and I can't bring myself to reproach the families that blame Biden for the deaths of their children. But the fact remains that Biden wasn't at fault; the Army wasn't at fault; and deaths in the line of duty are a natural occurrence in war.

The withdrawal wasn't handled perfectly, but there weren't any huge mistakes. Nor was it really possible not to withdraw given the situation Biden inherited: the Taliban's takeover was inevitable as soon as Trump signed the withdrawal agreement with them. It might well have been inevitable even without that. After 20 years it was as clear as it could be that there was simply no more the US could do, and Biden showed a lot of political courage in facing up to that.

In the end, despite everything, the evacuation and airlift were considerable successes—and it's remarkable that the only serious casualties came from a single al-Qaeda suicide bomber. The blame for that rests squarely on al-Qaeda and no one else.

Don’t send the Afghanistan withdrawal down the memory hole - Kevin Drum

Regular readers know that I've long been annoyed by the relentless use of the word chaotic to describe the Afghanistan withdrawal. Of course it was chaotic. It's like saying the D-Day landings were chaotic. There's no way anyone conducts an airlift of 100,000 people in a neat and orderly way...

jabberwocking.com

 

[Chishawk1425]

 

[DirtyJohns97]

 

[TheCainer]

Regular readers know that I've long been annoyed by the relentless use of the word chaotic to describe the Afghanistan withdrawal. Of course it was chaotic. It's like saying the D-Day landings were chaotic. There's no way anyone conducts an airlift of 100,000 people in a neat and orderly way from a city that's just been overthrown by the Taliban.

In any case, since it's back in the news it's worth reviewing how the Afghanistan withdrawal played out:

1. In early 2020 Donald Trump negotiated with the Taliban for a withdrawal date of May 1, 2021, and the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners held by the Afghan government.
2. Over the next year Trump pushed hard to reduce US troop levels. By the end of his term he had reduced troop levels to 2,500.
3. When Joe Biden took office, he moved the withdrawal date out to September 11. Trump criticized the change. "We can and should get out earlier," he said.
4. In July Biden moved the withdrawal date to August 31. At this point, the Taliban was fighting but hadn't yet taken over a single province. The broad assumption was that when the US withdrawal eventually took place the Afghan government would still control the country. The US, naturally, was committed to protecting the government through the withdrawal.
5. That changed suddenly because the Afghan army collapsed faster than anyone expected. On August 15 the Taliban took over Kabul and the president of Afghanistan fled the country. With only two weeks to go, this made a large-scale evacuation imperative.
6. The withdrawal started chaotically, but within a few hours the Army restored order. Meanwhile, despite the Trump administration's longtime policy of delaying visa requests, which left a huge backlog of unprocessed applications, the State Department worked heroically to process visas for Afghans who wanted to leave the country.
7. In two weeks, the Army evacuated about 90% of Americans in Afghanistan and nearly 100,000 Afghan nationals. By any kind of historical standard, this was a superb performance under the most difficult circumstances imaginable.

The entire operation had only one serious failure: the death of 13 American service members (and 170 Afghans) to an al-Qaeda suicide bomber at Abbey Gate. Multiple investigations by the Pentagon concluded that there wasn't really anything that could have stopped it.

Everyone processes grief differently, and I can't bring myself to reproach the families that blame Biden for the deaths of their children. But the fact remains that Biden wasn't at fault; the Army wasn't at fault; and deaths in the line of duty are a natural occurrence in war.

The withdrawal wasn't handled perfectly, but there weren't any huge mistakes. Nor was it really possible not to withdraw given the situation Biden inherited: the Taliban's takeover was inevitable as soon as Trump signed the withdrawal agreement with them. It might well have been inevitable even without that. After 20 years it was as clear as it could be that there was simply no more the US could do, and Biden showed a lot of political courage in facing up to that.

In the end, despite everything, the evacuation and airlift were considerable successes—and it's remarkable that the only serious casualties came from a single al-Qaeda suicide bomber. The blame for that rests squarely on al-Qaeda and no one else.

Don’t send the Afghanistan withdrawal down the memory hole - Kevin Drum

Regular readers know that I've long been annoyed by the relentless use of the word chaotic to describe the Afghanistan withdrawal. Of course it was chaotic. It's like saying the D-Day landings were chaotic. There's no way anyone conducts an airlift of 100,000 people in a neat and orderly way...

jabberwocking.com

This is the closest to the truth of any narrative that has been presented, especially of any narrative put out by Trump and his psychophants.

They have an agenda which they have been pushing for political purposes, and it is full of holes from what they are trying to push.

If you doubt this, just look at what John Bolton has put out stating the failures of the Trump administration. Please explain how the 5000 Taliban POWs being released before Biden even took office couldn't have affected the results we saw. The Afghanistan Government was abandoned by Trump during the Afghanistan withdrawal in favor of the Taliban, which Trump wanted to invite to the White House on the anniverssry of 9/11. Check it out.

What became of the Afghan withdrawal was so much smoother than what we saw during the Vietnam withdrawal. We saw helicopters being pushed overboard from the flight decks of American naval ships to make room for more aerial retrieval operations to rescue Americans and loyal Vietnamese who were being evacuated from Vietnam under enemy fire.

Trump's MAGAts are simply FOS if they try to compare the 2 operations, especially given that the Trump administration sabotaged the US evacuation from Afghanistan from the beginning.

 

[DirtyJohns97]

This is the closest to the truth of any narrative that has been presented, especially of any narrative put out by Trump and his psychophants.

They have an agenda which they have been pushing for political purposes, and it is full of holes from what they are trying to push.

If you doubt this, just look at what John Bolton has put out stating the failures of the Trump administration. Please explain how the 5000 Taliban POWs being released before Biden even took office couldn't have affected the results we saw. The Afghanistan Government was abandoned by Trump during the Afghanistan withdrawal in favor of the Taliban, which Trump wanted to invite to the White House on the anniverssry of 9/11. Check it out.

What became of the Afghan withdrawal was so much smoother than what we saw during the Vietnam withdrawal. We saw helicopters being pushed overboard from the flight decks of American naval ships to make room for more aerial retrieval operations to rescue Americans and loyal Vietnamese who were being evacuated from Vietnam under enemy fire.

Trump's MAGAts are simply FOS if they try to compare the 2 operations, especially given that the Trump administration sabotaged the US evacuation from Afghanistan from the beginning.

 

[Titus Andronicus]

How does the abandonment of all of our military equipment square with the above narrative? What were the plans for getting that out of there, if indeed there were any plans?

Were we planning on gifting it to the Taliban right along?
..............

As the date came closer, it seemed that the Taliban was on the move all across Afghanistan and in the general direction of Kabul. It honestly appeared that they had us on the run.

 

[DirtyJohns97]

How does the abandonment of all of our military equipment square with the above narrative? What were the plans for getting that out of there, if indeed there were any plans?

Were we planning on gifting it to the Taliban right along?

 

[GOHOX69]

Do people on here actually know grammar and word usage? Don't sent? What in the actual fk?

 

[TheCainer]

How does the abandonment of all of our military equipment square with the above narrative? What were the plans for getting that out of there, if indeed there were any plans?

Were we planning on gifting it to the Taliban right along?
..............

As the date came closer, it seemed that the Taliban was on the move all across Afghanistan and in the general direction of Kabul. It honestly appeared that they had us on the run.

With all due respect, your questions call into question what Trump had intended.

The military equipment was originally intended to be given to the new Afghan government for their use and control of the nation.

However, Trump let the 5,000 or so Taliban POWs released to sidetrack the Afghanistan government, and they in turn, undermined the Afghanistan government which was supposed to take control of the nation, but were cut off by the same release of the Taliban POW's. The Afghanistan government military basically gave away control of the nation to the Taliban POWs, which were a lot stronger than the Afghanistan government at the time of the release of the Taliban POWs.

It was a very simple operation gone amuck. Instead of the Afghan government taking control of the country, it was the Taliban which took control after the Taliban was released from prison.

And, here we are today. The Taliban controls Afghanistan even after all of the years we (the US) controlled the country.

That was Putin's (Trump's) intention all along.

 

[pjhawk]

Do people on here actually know grammar and word usage? Don't sent? What in the actual fk?

Fixed. I typed out the blog post title instead of cutting/pasting it, hit the wrong letter.

Oh yeah, f$%k you Grammar/Spelling Police Guy!