" ...an exposed checkpoint with almost no cover..."
Take a look at an aerial photograph of the airfield--the whole damn thing was "exposed with almost no cover". And within easy walking distance of about 4 million potential hostiles. No excuse for using it.
Hubris is a bitch. We can console ourselves with the fact we weren't alone in tangling with that particular tar baby. History has spoken over the millennia on the matter.
For those of us who bother to read history, we know the literature is flooded with stories of Army engineers under fire who blow up anything of any use to the advancing enemy, bridges, vehicles, aircraft, fuel stores, everything.
That's their job and they do it well.
The Biden Administration directly ordered Army engineers to leave everything, including friends, to the advancing enemy.
Democrat voters, as usual, are the fundamental problem.
I do have to point out, however, that it was a Republican administration that, right up front, lost sight of what was possible and what was not. Not blaming, just observing.
We have a blindness that every culture is equal and all people are the same that everyone is compatible with democracy. It will lead to fall of the west.
When my great grandparents, Francesco Natoli, Luisa Formica, Filippo Badami, Constanzia Corso, left Sicily for New York in the 1890s, they knew they were leaving a fundamentally failed culture for a reportedly superior culture, and when they arrived, they embraced being Americans, and their great grandson is most grateful.
I kinda suspect that economic factors were much more important for them than any cultural. Especially considering that XIX century Italy was hardly multi-culturalistic.
I must agree, yet disagree, with your statement about ‘democracy’. The right of every adult to vote in a republic is the only known way to guarantee individual rights. That form of government is not a sufficient guarantee, but it is critical. The founders of the United States were able to create our form of government *only* because of their very complete educations and, just as importantly, the impact of the Great Awakening which reinforced the principles of individual freedom. The Islamic world has never been thru that experience. Yes, I know about the Arabic impact on the sciences during the Middle Ages, but that is an entirely different matter. The principles of those sciences were never incorporated into Islam. How could they? Mohammed was the last, and last needed, prophet and definer of human relations, according to the Quran.
America was settled by English Protestants whose experience with the rule of law dated back to Magna Carta. Their parliamentary system had evolved over the centuries. Our Founders tweaked the system somewhat but, IMHO, came up with something better.
Most of the rest of the planet has no such cultural history and should not be expected to fit into a democratic environment overnight, and the evidence is that overwhelmingly they do not.
Bah, simplistic. The Wars of the Three Kingdoms was as nasty a revolution as they get; stupid, bloody and futile. Your "Protestants" were as backwards as the Taliban, and equally dictatorial. They ran a fundamentalist religious dictatorship which they only tossed over when Don, Jr., took over after the death of his Dad.
What saved England was liberalism; the elevation of the individual over the collective, and the protection of individual rights instead of the sovereign's rights.
"What saved England was liberalism; the elevation of the individual over the collective, and the protection of individual rights instead of the sovereign's rights."
The problem is that lots of people in both parties were pretty “liquored up” on the idea of punishing the Taliban. I admit to having that same visceral feeling. Fortunately (?) I wasn’t in charge, though things couldn’t have gone much further sideways than they did. 😉
At the time of the bugout, it was widely reported that the Biden Administration ordered U.S. forces out immediately, no time permitted to allow Army engineers to do their job, despite full recognition of the value of the military equipment left behind untouched.
But you demand a signed copy of the order, akin to Hitler's befehl to implement the Endlösung.
Then some of that "widely reported" information should be easily available.
" The U.S. agreed to an initial reduction of its force level from 13,000 to 8,600 within 135 days (i.e. by July 2020), followed by a full withdrawal within 14 months (i.e. by 1 May 2021) if the Taliban kept its commitments. The United States also committed to closing five military bases within 135 days"
From Korea on...... and, from my own time......famous photo comes to mind, of helicopter on top of "embassy" in Viet Nam with people franticly trying to board during the "end" of that war.
War is Hell. Don't go there unless you are directly threatened; which does not include "interests". If you HAVE to go there........don't go piecemeal. Accept that there will be casualties; get in hard, rip the bandage off quickly, cut deep and permanent; and get OUT.
Dont go in and fight unless your willing to fight a total war with everything your country can bring to bear might be a good way to look at things. If it's not worth that then it's not worth the fight.
The dirty secret of the Saigon bugout was that Graham Martin, our Saigon Ambassador's political weaving, cost American lives as Saigon fell to avoid the image of us evac'ing
From one Afghan vet (I last left Afghanistan in August 2020) to another, well and truthfully said (then and now). The debacle didn't have to be, but it was preordained once Biden unilaterally announced the rush for the exits in March 2021 on a completely arbitrary and politically-driven timeline ("all troops out by September 11", conditions be damned). He and his corrupt cadre ensured the "abandonment" narrative--which worked against us the entire time we were in Afghanistan (whether in the minds of the Afghans who wanted a different future than the enemy offered or that fundamentally underpinned the Taliban's relentless information campaign: "the Americans will eventually leave; do not forget that we will not")--was made manifest in short order. F--ing catastrophe.
Folks like your comment. I find your partisanship disgusting. Afghanistan was an American failure; it was not Republican Trump's failure for agreeing to the 2020 Doha Agreement or Democrat Biden's failure in implementing the agreement. It was an American failure. Taking a partisan stance on a national failure is exactly the kind of bullshit that Washington and Hamilton predicted will lead to "ruins of public liberty."
We were doomed when we went in; it was dumb to invade Afghanistan after we were the victim of an attack perpetrated by Saudi Arabians. It is not possible for a nation on the American continent to invade and occupy an Asian country, and replace a feudal system run by fundamentalist religious zealots with a modern liberal democracy. Our regime change wars are doomed to fail. You can't get folks to love you by murdering them.
Biden did not move into office and sweep the DOD clean. The folks who implemented the withdrawal were all promoted into their position by Trump. The folks who paid for this war were Republicans and Democrats. Afghanistan was a bipartisan, American endeavor.
Trump was not wrong in agreeing to get us out. We were never going to "win." Afghanistan is not our nation. We had no more business there than did the USSR. Biden was not wrong in getting us out. He ripped off the bandaid. It hurt, but it had to be done. Sure, we can armchair quarterback and pick nits, but the fact of the matter is that Biden implemented Trump's agreement. Ending our involvement was the correct decision.
Afghanistan was wrong from the get-go. If you want to know exactly where it all went wrong, read "Horse Soldiers" by Doug Stanton. But, blaming Biden for two decades of American failure? Partisan bullshit.
Heart for Kipling. Disagree otherwise. As soon as Obama preferred a timeline with a deadline in his speech, all the Taliban had to do was wait him out.
The Taliban were going to wait anyone and everyone out. That's what you do when you are doing God's work. There ain't no schedule. (See also history of Communism)
The war was lost April 17 2002 when G.W. Bush set an unachievable strategic goal.
Without that speech, West Point never happens, Trumps ridiculous agreement with the Taliban never happens and Bidens idiotic and domestically driven withdrawal never happens. Bush could have just said were leaving. And that would have been it.
"And as Commander-in-Chief, I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan. After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home. These are the resources that we need to seize the initiative, while building the Afghan capacity that can allow for a responsible transition of our forces out of Afghanistan."
This guaranteed domestic support in the moment and slow loss of support in the future. That kind of certainty was a gift to the enemy. Offering up conditional requirements rather than an arbitrary date is preferred IMO.
The Hazara are Mongols who stayed. The Ghilzhai are likely Pashtunized Turks. The Uzbeks are ethic Turks. Kandahar happens to be on top of Alexandria in Aracosia and is preserved in the name.
No one has ever changed Afghanistan simply isn't true.
They changed it by moving in and becoming Afghans. The straight-line flight distance from Kabul to Detroit is approximately 6,859 miles. Should we have made it a state?
Germany was historically about a fractious as somewhere could be, until it wasn't. Did we make Germany a state? We sure did change them, and we sure haven't left yet.
Having a land footprint in central Asia might generate some useful capabilities when rolling back a certain near-peer's anti access bubble. Direct access to the lithium deposits in Helmand might be helpful, too.
Shame about the distance to Detroit, though, I guess.
The war was lost April 17 2002 when G.W. Bush set an unachievable strategic goal.
Without that speech, West Point never happens, Trumps ridiculous agreement with the Taliban never happens and Bidens idiotic and domestically driven withdrawal never happens. Bush could have just said were leaving.
Agree to the extent that it highlighted the concept of a "war" against terror organizations and states. The best approach would have been punitive expeditions on an as-needed basis. Politically, the speech gave the President an extended credit line of political capital within his own party. It would have been much harder justifying whack-a-mole operations like Just Cause or Urgent Fury every 18 months.
"After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home. These are the resources that we need to seize the initiative, while building the Afghan capacity that can allow for a responsible transition of our forces out of Afghanistan."
Yep. Right there. Arbitrary time table put out for domestic consumption. It's what politicans do best.
My "partisanship" was the product of years in uniform spent in country (and, yes, in combat), serving alongside Afghans, allies, and US troops, and with high level access and clearance to gain a pretty full understanding of the realities in Afghanistan and the region. Of course, over the years it was a 'bipartisan' effort, with all sorts of zigs and zags and, yes, errors--strategic and operational in particular. I wonder where your vehemence and certainty come from? From personal experience? From actual developed expertise about the country, the regions, the actors....from where? (You seem to be unaware that it was the Taliban that granted sanctuary to Bin Laden and AQ and it was only when the TB refused to stop their patronage and turn Bin Laden and AQ over to us that we Americans chose to invade Afghanistan. Blaming it on "Saudi Arabians" is a silly dodge). I would argue that Biden did not faithfully implement "Trump's agreement" (which, for the record, I did not agree with). You might be interested to know that "Trump's agreement" always remained a conditions-based one and that Biden chose to pull the rug out from our Afghan allies and western allies (who had more troops in country than we did in 2021) and throw away a position that might have far better served our vital national interests, especially in the region. I gather you'd rather spew diatribes and spittel at your computer screen than give any serious consideration to differing views on the subject but, hey, have at it.
Blaming one party, or one person, for 20 years of a quagmire is wrong. Afghanistan was an American decision, an American tragedy. We are all to blame. Our representatives voted for it. I think in the long run the decision will be found to be wrong, but, it is what it is.
But, staying the course was not the answer. The rug needed to be pulled. The straight-line distance from Detroit, Michigan, to Kabul, Afghanistan, is approximately 6,859 miles. Why were we there telling those folks what to do? "Why quit our own to stand on foreign ground?"
"Blaming it [9/11] on "Saudi Arabians" is a silly dodge)"
Actually, blaming it on A'stan is the "silly dodge".
" They hailed from four countries: 15 of them were citizens of Saudi Arabia, two were from the United Arab Emirates, one was from Egypt, and one from Lebanon"
The only bullshit being shoveled is you ignoring what Biden actually said and actually did. How we left mattered. That failed military operation concluding another failed military operation is the subject…put lipstick on it, run for historical cover, do your typical biased dance…but Biden wanted to showboat for a 9/11 exit and got people killed. A discussion of misguided military adventures in general does not change that.
We left because it was not our country. After twenty years of failure, it was time to get up and go. How much blood and treasure must we waste on an unwinnable Asian land war? How many times to we have to send our best and brightest young men to Asia to get their legs blown off?
Biden is not a military man. Trump ran the Department of Defense for four full years before Biden took office. Biden took advice from the military professionals, most of whom had been promoted to their position by Donald J. Trump. Maybe you could devise a better plan that the Trump/Biden plan, but you were not there.
All this partisan nitpicking adds nothing. Maybe we should have done it your way, but there is no guarantee that more Marines would not have gotten killed. How many killed and wounded would we have had waiting for the metrics to be met? Folks were going to die either way. Biden's choices were; risk kids getting killed while we push to Trump's metrics, or risk kids getting killed bugging out. I'm glad we are out, and horrified at the prospect of sending another generation of kids to Iran to get shot and killed in another Asian land war.
Straw man. Not a word was said about the wisdom of leaving or better yet never going. You know that. Biden took the framework, then executed poorly. The military “professionals” do not support your weird version of whataboutism. It’s always “nitpicking” from you and your partisans. You channel Hillary’s Benghazi “What does it matter?” perfectly. It matters.
That's it, logic is gone. "Benghazi" is the cry of the worst of the partisan Trumpanistas, and Gym Jorden. You folks are killing this country.
Chris Stevens was a brave man, who proposed a dangerous mission to his chain of command and was allowed to proceed. It went bad. Leaders make decisions, sometimes they are the wrong decision. Stevens made the wrong call and paid for his decision with his life. He died a hero.
Stevens was flung wilfully under the bus by the craven dog's-mother then presiding as Secretary of State, who watched the Live-Feed of his killers dragging his body through the Benghazi street from her cozy chair in D.C., and then blamed his death on an irrelevant YouTube video.
Swing and a miss. If you want to extend this discussion into who was actually President, feel free. But yes, the Biden administration executed poorly. By himself? You don’t strike me as being dense, but whatever.
If you want to expand the conversation into the hyper political military professionals who threw Biden and his State Department under the bus in testimony (Milley/McKenzie), go for it. I will never get in your way crapping on Milley and Co.
There is no graceful or dignified way to leave a losing situation.
"Biden wanted to showboat..."
He wasn't the only one.
Several years ago there was a discussion on this site about exiting Afghanistan. I, for one, suggested the commander of the last troops to leave drew the short straw. I also advocated supplying copies of Xenophon's "Anabasis" to all concerned. I further suggested that the final exit emulate (more successfully, of course) Operation Eagle Claw, i.e. operate from a remote, secret airfield as quickly as possible. I think I also pointed out that the first thing to do in a successful withdrawal is to BREAK CONTACT WITH THE ENEMY, which does not mean set up an indefensible perimeter in the middle of four million possible suicide bombers.
If a brokedick former enlisted grunt can figure this out before the fact, why can't graduates of the various War Colleges and Staff Colleges?
Grace and dignity are not the issues…neither was possible. The rest of your comment on a well planned and executed withdrawal is exactly the point. Yes…how we left mattered. Meaning tactics and execution.
As soon as Biden's stooge Austin was in as SecDef, the whole focus of the DoD swung to ourging "right wing extremism" within the ranks, and the forward deployments were left with nothing but a timeline to get home by, and no support nor rational plan for getting it done.
Biden's close-out of the GWOT made the fall of Saigon look like an ordered withdrawal led by Joining himself, nearly.
We tried to turn a 3rd world country of 3rd world people into a 1st world country. A impossible mission 3rd world people make 3rd world countries failing to understand that is folly
Flying the Gay Pride Flag at our Kabul Embassy demonstrates that our betters have NFC how to win those hearts and minds in A-stan. It was all about virtue signalling
You took the wrong measures. Instead of taking direct control and enforcing such things as infrastructure building (like USSR done), you just funneled a lot of money into the pocket of local leadership, not caring mhch about what are they doing with it.
Best account of the events and decisions leading up to the total debacle I have seen or heard. Should be required viewing by every American, especially those in government and the foreign/national security policy "blob". The incompetence and mendaciousness of Biden and his so-called "national security" are laid bare.
CDFR Sal, as usual you remind me to look back to avoid future disaster. Quotes from your post: "The world's self-described superpower selected the wrong people for the wrong reasons using the wrong selection criteria, through a culture with the wrong priorities. This cannot be argued. The evidence is right there to be seen by all. "We failed these young men and women in detail; we failed our nation and our friends at large." One could write volumes about this specific failure, but the systemic failure of how we select senior leadership cannot be ignored or underestimated. We had a two star (at the time) kick AMCITS off a flight to bring back a war souvenir vehicle after "staging" a "last boot on the ground" video...multiple times. We had a USMC General who now claims he was "responsible" who did not do the honorable thing and resign over the horrific decisions of the "political" class. (He was not alone, BTW). This was ALWAYS going to be a terrible withdrawal. Unlike the Russians, who had the Taliban nipping at their heels every step of the way, they had a land bridge. We only had an air option, and that would have been nightmarish to plan, coordinate and execute. Plenty of bi-partisan blame across multiple administrations exists. This was unplanned, uncoordinated, and only salvaged the results it did by the field and enlisted excellence who paid in blood and lives for the career advancing incompetence of their leaders selected by a rotten incentive system.
You are trying to have it both ways here. Your point that this "was ALWAYS going to be a terrible withdrawal," is accurate. Perhaps we should consider how much worse out retrograde maneuver could have been.
Knowing what the Biden administration knew or should have known about the state of the Afghan government and military, anyone on this forum could have come up with a better plan with a free evening, a pen, and some table napkins.
A worse retrograde maneuver was theoretically possible, but would have required active malice rather than simple incompetence.
Heartbreaking and infuriating. But I respectfully disagree that the "fault, shame and humiliation are all ours." Like the thirteen young folks who were sacrificed by the likes of Biden, Milley, and Austin, et. al., there were thousands of other "red, white, and blue" American servicemen and women, just like these thirteen who never made it home (or, if they did, returned terribly disfigured -- both mentally and physically -- from their wounds). And to what end? Decades ago, Robert McNamara and his ilk belatedly sought forgiveness for the same sort of incompetence in Vietnam. A black granite wall in DC attests to the colossal failures of "The Best & the Brightest." What a tragedy.
I remember the last helicopters out of Saigon complete with the Vietnamese allies of ours clinging to the skids. And McNamara's penance was going to the World Bank where he could screw up the whole world.
I support Trump, but I watched a 2-hour program on French TV examining the more recent war with Iran. In one scene the Commander-in-Chief says to a 'journalist'; 'Tell them we are ready, locked and loaded and we are ready to support the people in throwing out this regime ...." Apparently, the MEFs had loaded blank ammunition - and missile stocks have been depleted to critical levels. They are still cruising up and down while 40,000+(?) Iranians who rose up yearning for freedom, but instead they received no help and have been hanged. The video of the 16-year-old girl who took 46-minutes to die is available - if you have the stomach to watch.
As President Thieu said as he left South Vietnam in 1975: "The USA is a bad enemy to have, but a worse friend".
I'd been through that gate as a contractor. The whole "plan" made no sense. The perimeter should have been pushed out, heavily armed detachments of paratroopers and Marines sent out into the city to get our people. Why send the 82nd and then order them to stand down??!! AND Leaving Bagram made no sense. PERIOD. WE SHOULD STILL BE THERE. The teams were getting good intel and killing good targets. The Afghan Army was doing fine with our intel and tactical air support. We have Spec Ops in 140 countries, and the only place we should be in, we are no longer there - right in the middle of Jihad Central. Afghanistan - Pakistan - Iran. How would Bagram have helped our Iran ops? Immeasurably!!
The Afg. effort cost 2.3 trillion dollars. That is the cost of 92 complete carrier battle groups. Which would help more with Iran, Bagram Airbase in a land locked country requiring permission from all the adjacent countries to fly into and to transport fuel to ,all of whom trade with Iran, or 380 acres of sovereign US steel sailing in the Arabian sea, Red Sea, Mediterranean Gulf of Aiden and West Pac?
The point of our being there was to help establish a government and army that could support and defend itself *without* our presence. Obviously we failed.
Thank you Commander Sal. Brutal and honest, and we must learn from and never forget our humiliation and failures.
a clean link to the upgrade story
https://x.com/airpower33/status/2092783724895301883
(from the second picture)
" ...an exposed checkpoint with almost no cover..."
Take a look at an aerial photograph of the airfield--the whole damn thing was "exposed with almost no cover". And within easy walking distance of about 4 million potential hostiles. No excuse for using it.
Hubris is a bitch. We can console ourselves with the fact we weren't alone in tangling with that particular tar baby. History has spoken over the millennia on the matter.
For those of us who bother to read history, we know the literature is flooded with stories of Army engineers under fire who blow up anything of any use to the advancing enemy, bridges, vehicles, aircraft, fuel stores, everything.
That's their job and they do it well.
The Biden Administration directly ordered Army engineers to leave everything, including friends, to the advancing enemy.
Democrat voters, as usual, are the fundamental problem.
I do have to point out, however, that it was a Republican administration that, right up front, lost sight of what was possible and what was not. Not blaming, just observing.
Reading Peter Calvocoressi and Guy Wint's "Total War", 1000 pages, first half by Calvocoressi on Europe, second half by Wint on the Pacific.
I was surprised to read that the Brits had the same blindness as us, earnestly believing democracy was the solution for all nations.
It's not.
The Republican Admin that you mention made that mistake.
We have a blindness that every culture is equal and all people are the same that everyone is compatible with democracy. It will lead to fall of the west.
When my great grandparents, Francesco Natoli, Luisa Formica, Filippo Badami, Constanzia Corso, left Sicily for New York in the 1890s, they knew they were leaving a fundamentally failed culture for a reportedly superior culture, and when they arrived, they embraced being Americans, and their great grandson is most grateful.
Multi-culturalism is the death of Western Civ.
I kinda suspect that economic factors were much more important for them than any cultural. Especially considering that XIX century Italy was hardly multi-culturalistic.
But the culture drives the economic end results.
The Sicilians and the northern Italians might disagree. Italy wasn't even a country until sometime after 1860. Rome wasn't the capital until 1870(?).
"About 45.9% of the Italian population speak primarily Italian at home, while another 32.2% speak a local language alongside Italian"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Italy
Suicidal empathy...
"Inside every _________ (your choice of ethnic/national pejorative) there is an American trying to get out." h/t "Full Metal Jacket"
I must agree, yet disagree, with your statement about ‘democracy’. The right of every adult to vote in a republic is the only known way to guarantee individual rights. That form of government is not a sufficient guarantee, but it is critical. The founders of the United States were able to create our form of government *only* because of their very complete educations and, just as importantly, the impact of the Great Awakening which reinforced the principles of individual freedom. The Islamic world has never been thru that experience. Yes, I know about the Arabic impact on the sciences during the Middle Ages, but that is an entirely different matter. The principles of those sciences were never incorporated into Islam. How could they? Mohammed was the last, and last needed, prophet and definer of human relations, according to the Quran.
America was settled by English Protestants whose experience with the rule of law dated back to Magna Carta. Their parliamentary system had evolved over the centuries. Our Founders tweaked the system somewhat but, IMHO, came up with something better.
Most of the rest of the planet has no such cultural history and should not be expected to fit into a democratic environment overnight, and the evidence is that overwhelmingly they do not.
Bah, simplistic. The Wars of the Three Kingdoms was as nasty a revolution as they get; stupid, bloody and futile. Your "Protestants" were as backwards as the Taliban, and equally dictatorial. They ran a fundamentalist religious dictatorship which they only tossed over when Don, Jr., took over after the death of his Dad.
What saved England was liberalism; the elevation of the individual over the collective, and the protection of individual rights instead of the sovereign's rights.
Seems like your current England has forgotten all the previous lessons learned.
"Bah, simplistic."
Had a colleague, who had a desktop image reading "if you cannot explain something simply, you don't really understand it".
In fine print, the author of the quote was Albert Einstein.
You were saying about "simplistic"?
And yet it was the Protestants who came up with liberalism, not the Catholics.
"Bah, simplistic."
And yet true.
"What saved England was liberalism; the elevation of the individual over the collective, and the protection of individual rights instead of the sovereign's rights."
Which comes from where?
"Not blaming,..."
Why not, there's plenty to go around.
The problem is that lots of people in both parties were pretty “liquored up” on the idea of punishing the Taliban. I admit to having that same visceral feeling. Fortunately (?) I wasn’t in charge, though things couldn’t have gone much further sideways than they did. 😉
"directly ordered Army engineers to leave everything, including friends, to the advancing enemy."
You have, perhaps, a cite for those orders?
At the time of the bugout, it was widely reported that the Biden Administration ordered U.S. forces out immediately, no time permitted to allow Army engineers to do their job, despite full recognition of the value of the military equipment left behind untouched.
But you demand a signed copy of the order, akin to Hitler's befehl to implement the Endlösung.
Got it.
"it was widely reported"
LOL
Then some of that "widely reported" information should be easily available.
" The U.S. agreed to an initial reduction of its force level from 13,000 to 8,600 within 135 days (i.e. by July 2020), followed by a full withdrawal within 14 months (i.e. by 1 May 2021) if the Taliban kept its commitments. The United States also committed to closing five military bases within 135 days"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States%E2%80%93Taliban_deal
Seems like there was plenty of time. Just what were all those engineers doing during this time, much of it during the Trump administration?
"But you demand a signed copy of the order,"
No, but I do "demand" something more than rumors and gossip.
From Korea on...... and, from my own time......famous photo comes to mind, of helicopter on top of "embassy" in Viet Nam with people franticly trying to board during the "end" of that war.
War is Hell. Don't go there unless you are directly threatened; which does not include "interests". If you HAVE to go there........don't go piecemeal. Accept that there will be casualties; get in hard, rip the bandage off quickly, cut deep and permanent; and get OUT.
Decades of lessons, all for naught.
Dont go in and fight unless your willing to fight a total war with everything your country can bring to bear might be a good way to look at things. If it's not worth that then it's not worth the fight.
The dirty secret of the Saigon bugout was that Graham Martin, our Saigon Ambassador's political weaving, cost American lives as Saigon fell to avoid the image of us evac'ing
"War is Hell."
More accurately, "war is cruelty, you cannot refine it", thank you, Tecumseh Sherman.
Every mistake in waging war since Japan's surrender on the deck of the Missouri was an attempt to refine it.
From one Afghan vet (I last left Afghanistan in August 2020) to another, well and truthfully said (then and now). The debacle didn't have to be, but it was preordained once Biden unilaterally announced the rush for the exits in March 2021 on a completely arbitrary and politically-driven timeline ("all troops out by September 11", conditions be damned). He and his corrupt cadre ensured the "abandonment" narrative--which worked against us the entire time we were in Afghanistan (whether in the minds of the Afghans who wanted a different future than the enemy offered or that fundamentally underpinned the Taliban's relentless information campaign: "the Americans will eventually leave; do not forget that we will not")--was made manifest in short order. F--ing catastrophe.
Folks like your comment. I find your partisanship disgusting. Afghanistan was an American failure; it was not Republican Trump's failure for agreeing to the 2020 Doha Agreement or Democrat Biden's failure in implementing the agreement. It was an American failure. Taking a partisan stance on a national failure is exactly the kind of bullshit that Washington and Hamilton predicted will lead to "ruins of public liberty."
We were doomed when we went in; it was dumb to invade Afghanistan after we were the victim of an attack perpetrated by Saudi Arabians. It is not possible for a nation on the American continent to invade and occupy an Asian country, and replace a feudal system run by fundamentalist religious zealots with a modern liberal democracy. Our regime change wars are doomed to fail. You can't get folks to love you by murdering them.
Biden did not move into office and sweep the DOD clean. The folks who implemented the withdrawal were all promoted into their position by Trump. The folks who paid for this war were Republicans and Democrats. Afghanistan was a bipartisan, American endeavor.
Trump was not wrong in agreeing to get us out. We were never going to "win." Afghanistan is not our nation. We had no more business there than did the USSR. Biden was not wrong in getting us out. He ripped off the bandaid. It hurt, but it had to be done. Sure, we can armchair quarterback and pick nits, but the fact of the matter is that Biden implemented Trump's agreement. Ending our involvement was the correct decision.
Afghanistan was wrong from the get-go. If you want to know exactly where it all went wrong, read "Horse Soldiers" by Doug Stanton. But, blaming Biden for two decades of American failure? Partisan bullshit.
The war was lost at West Point in Dec 2009.
Nonsense. It was lost the day we invaded.
Show me an example of a nation successfully invading, occupying and changing the culture of Afghanistan.
"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier."
Heart for Kipling. Disagree otherwise. As soon as Obama preferred a timeline with a deadline in his speech, all the Taliban had to do was wait him out.
"After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home."
That's before Xmas, right?
The Taliban were going to wait anyone and everyone out. That's what you do when you are doing God's work. There ain't no schedule. (See also history of Communism)
"It was lost the day we invaded."
An objectively ahistorical statement.
The war was lost April 17 2002 when G.W. Bush set an unachievable strategic goal.
Without that speech, West Point never happens, Trumps ridiculous agreement with the Taliban never happens and Bidens idiotic and domestically driven withdrawal never happens. Bush could have just said were leaving. And that would have been it.
We'll just have to agree to disagree.
"And as Commander-in-Chief, I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan. After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home. These are the resources that we need to seize the initiative, while building the Afghan capacity that can allow for a responsible transition of our forces out of Afghanistan."
This guaranteed domestic support in the moment and slow loss of support in the future. That kind of certainty was a gift to the enemy. Offering up conditional requirements rather than an arbitrary date is preferred IMO.
Again, read "Horse Soldiers." We were having tremendous success, until we invaded.
"An objectively ahistorical statement."
Perhaps not literally true, but given the "strategy" in use and the record in Iraq, substantively true.
The Hazara are Mongols who stayed. The Ghilzhai are likely Pashtunized Turks. The Uzbeks are ethic Turks. Kandahar happens to be on top of Alexandria in Aracosia and is preserved in the name.
No one has ever changed Afghanistan simply isn't true.
They changed it by moving in and becoming Afghans. The straight-line flight distance from Kabul to Detroit is approximately 6,859 miles. Should we have made it a state?
Germany was historically about a fractious as somewhere could be, until it wasn't. Did we make Germany a state? We sure did change them, and we sure haven't left yet.
Having a land footprint in central Asia might generate some useful capabilities when rolling back a certain near-peer's anti access bubble. Direct access to the lithium deposits in Helmand might be helpful, too.
Shame about the distance to Detroit, though, I guess.
The war was lost April 17 2002 when G.W. Bush set an unachievable strategic goal.
Without that speech, West Point never happens, Trumps ridiculous agreement with the Taliban never happens and Bidens idiotic and domestically driven withdrawal never happens. Bush could have just said were leaving.
Partially agree.
Partially? How can one deny that if we weren't there then the events dependent on being there can't happen?
GWOT was a legitimate. Trying to civilize an alien culture was not.
Agree to the extent that it highlighted the concept of a "war" against terror organizations and states. The best approach would have been punitive expeditions on an as-needed basis. Politically, the speech gave the President an extended credit line of political capital within his own party. It would have been much harder justifying whack-a-mole operations like Just Cause or Urgent Fury every 18 months.
Terrorism is a tactic. You can't go to war against a tactic.
"Trumps ridiculous agreement with the Taliban"
"Beggars can't be choosers". Getting loose from the Tar Baby ain't easy or dignified.
"After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home. These are the resources that we need to seize the initiative, while building the Afghan capacity that can allow for a responsible transition of our forces out of Afghanistan."
Yep. Right there. Arbitrary time table put out for domestic consumption. It's what politicans do best.
What was the alternative, stay there forever? Trump was right, as was Biden.
.Like Col. Hessler in the movie "Battle of the Bulge", staying in uniform and continuing the fight is the victory.
My "partisanship" was the product of years in uniform spent in country (and, yes, in combat), serving alongside Afghans, allies, and US troops, and with high level access and clearance to gain a pretty full understanding of the realities in Afghanistan and the region. Of course, over the years it was a 'bipartisan' effort, with all sorts of zigs and zags and, yes, errors--strategic and operational in particular. I wonder where your vehemence and certainty come from? From personal experience? From actual developed expertise about the country, the regions, the actors....from where? (You seem to be unaware that it was the Taliban that granted sanctuary to Bin Laden and AQ and it was only when the TB refused to stop their patronage and turn Bin Laden and AQ over to us that we Americans chose to invade Afghanistan. Blaming it on "Saudi Arabians" is a silly dodge). I would argue that Biden did not faithfully implement "Trump's agreement" (which, for the record, I did not agree with). You might be interested to know that "Trump's agreement" always remained a conditions-based one and that Biden chose to pull the rug out from our Afghan allies and western allies (who had more troops in country than we did in 2021) and throw away a position that might have far better served our vital national interests, especially in the region. I gather you'd rather spew diatribes and spittel at your computer screen than give any serious consideration to differing views on the subject but, hey, have at it.
Blaming one party, or one person, for 20 years of a quagmire is wrong. Afghanistan was an American decision, an American tragedy. We are all to blame. Our representatives voted for it. I think in the long run the decision will be found to be wrong, but, it is what it is.
But, staying the course was not the answer. The rug needed to be pulled. The straight-line distance from Detroit, Michigan, to Kabul, Afghanistan, is approximately 6,859 miles. Why were we there telling those folks what to do? "Why quit our own to stand on foreign ground?"
"We are all to blame."
Speak for yourself. I accept no blame for that clusterfarkle . Or Iraq, or the current "situation" with Iran.
"Blaming it [9/11] on "Saudi Arabians" is a silly dodge)"
Actually, blaming it on A'stan is the "silly dodge".
" They hailed from four countries: 15 of them were citizens of Saudi Arabia, two were from the United Arab Emirates, one was from Egypt, and one from Lebanon"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijackers_in_the_September_11_attacks
Not one from A'stan, and they all spent more time in Germany and the US than they did in A'stan.
" Biden chose to pull the rug out from our Afghan allies and western allies (who had more troops in country than we did in 2021)..."
I think by then everyone knew the US was on its way out, only the final deadline TBD.
The only bullshit being shoveled is you ignoring what Biden actually said and actually did. How we left mattered. That failed military operation concluding another failed military operation is the subject…put lipstick on it, run for historical cover, do your typical biased dance…but Biden wanted to showboat for a 9/11 exit and got people killed. A discussion of misguided military adventures in general does not change that.
We left because it was not our country. After twenty years of failure, it was time to get up and go. How much blood and treasure must we waste on an unwinnable Asian land war? How many times to we have to send our best and brightest young men to Asia to get their legs blown off?
Biden is not a military man. Trump ran the Department of Defense for four full years before Biden took office. Biden took advice from the military professionals, most of whom had been promoted to their position by Donald J. Trump. Maybe you could devise a better plan that the Trump/Biden plan, but you were not there.
All this partisan nitpicking adds nothing. Maybe we should have done it your way, but there is no guarantee that more Marines would not have gotten killed. How many killed and wounded would we have had waiting for the metrics to be met? Folks were going to die either way. Biden's choices were; risk kids getting killed while we push to Trump's metrics, or risk kids getting killed bugging out. I'm glad we are out, and horrified at the prospect of sending another generation of kids to Iran to get shot and killed in another Asian land war.
Straw man. Not a word was said about the wisdom of leaving or better yet never going. You know that. Biden took the framework, then executed poorly. The military “professionals” do not support your weird version of whataboutism. It’s always “nitpicking” from you and your partisans. You channel Hillary’s Benghazi “What does it matter?” perfectly. It matters.
That's it, logic is gone. "Benghazi" is the cry of the worst of the partisan Trumpanistas, and Gym Jorden. You folks are killing this country.
Chris Stevens was a brave man, who proposed a dangerous mission to his chain of command and was allowed to proceed. It went bad. Leaders make decisions, sometimes they are the wrong decision. Stevens made the wrong call and paid for his decision with his life. He died a hero.
Right backatcha.
Stevens was flung wilfully under the bus by the craven dog's-mother then presiding as Secretary of State, who watched the Live-Feed of his killers dragging his body through the Benghazi street from her cozy chair in D.C., and then blamed his death on an irrelevant YouTube video.
"Biden took the framework, then executed poorly."
All by himself, eh? That's what I call micromanagement. And all while suffering from senile dementia. What a mensch!
Swing and a miss. If you want to extend this discussion into who was actually President, feel free. But yes, the Biden administration executed poorly. By himself? You don’t strike me as being dense, but whatever.
If you want to expand the conversation into the hyper political military professionals who threw Biden and his State Department under the bus in testimony (Milley/McKenzie), go for it. I will never get in your way crapping on Milley and Co.
"How we left mattered."
There is no graceful or dignified way to leave a losing situation.
"Biden wanted to showboat..."
He wasn't the only one.
Several years ago there was a discussion on this site about exiting Afghanistan. I, for one, suggested the commander of the last troops to leave drew the short straw. I also advocated supplying copies of Xenophon's "Anabasis" to all concerned. I further suggested that the final exit emulate (more successfully, of course) Operation Eagle Claw, i.e. operate from a remote, secret airfield as quickly as possible. I think I also pointed out that the first thing to do in a successful withdrawal is to BREAK CONTACT WITH THE ENEMY, which does not mean set up an indefensible perimeter in the middle of four million possible suicide bombers.
If a brokedick former enlisted grunt can figure this out before the fact, why can't graduates of the various War Colleges and Staff Colleges?
Grace and dignity are not the issues…neither was possible. The rest of your comment on a well planned and executed withdrawal is exactly the point. Yes…how we left mattered. Meaning tactics and execution.
As soon as Biden's stooge Austin was in as SecDef, the whole focus of the DoD swung to ourging "right wing extremism" within the ranks, and the forward deployments were left with nothing but a timeline to get home by, and no support nor rational plan for getting it done.
Biden's close-out of the GWOT made the fall of Saigon look like an ordered withdrawal led by Joining himself, nearly.
I would probably phrase it differently but, shockingly, I mostly agree.
Thanks fornthis hard true
"Biden unilaterally announced the rush for the exits in March 2021 "
I believe that was about three months later than Trump's scheduled "rush for the exits".
Any exit was at least a decade overdue.
Lord have mercy,
Thank you.....
As Joe Biden impatiently looks at his watch…
In his condition he was probably trying to figure out what that thing on his wrist was.
https://instapundit.com/819323/
We tried to turn a 3rd world country of 3rd world people into a 1st world country. A impossible mission 3rd world people make 3rd world countries failing to understand that is folly
Flying the Gay Pride Flag at our Kabul Embassy demonstrates that our betters have NFC how to win those hearts and minds in A-stan. It was all about virtue signalling
You took the wrong measures. Instead of taking direct control and enforcing such things as infrastructure building (like USSR done), you just funneled a lot of money into the pocket of local leadership, not caring mhch about what are they doing with it.
WsJ produced Doc Yesterday (fairly balanced)
https://youtu.be/8wwzv_B9x-k?is=1eEAkH8f7IfbA--4
From Hamid Karzai to Al Udeid 🛫
Best account of the events and decisions leading up to the total debacle I have seen or heard. Should be required viewing by every American, especially those in government and the foreign/national security policy "blob". The incompetence and mendaciousness of Biden and his so-called "national security" are laid bare.
Personally heartbreaking for our family.
I'm sorry for your loss.
My condolence
It just didn't have to be a total cluster foxtrot but that's just how sleepy Joe and his cadre rolled..
Yeah, too bad they didn't have any trained and experienced military experts around to help and advise them.
CDFR Sal, as usual you remind me to look back to avoid future disaster. Quotes from your post: "The world's self-described superpower selected the wrong people for the wrong reasons using the wrong selection criteria, through a culture with the wrong priorities. This cannot be argued. The evidence is right there to be seen by all. "We failed these young men and women in detail; we failed our nation and our friends at large." One could write volumes about this specific failure, but the systemic failure of how we select senior leadership cannot be ignored or underestimated. We had a two star (at the time) kick AMCITS off a flight to bring back a war souvenir vehicle after "staging" a "last boot on the ground" video...multiple times. We had a USMC General who now claims he was "responsible" who did not do the honorable thing and resign over the horrific decisions of the "political" class. (He was not alone, BTW). This was ALWAYS going to be a terrible withdrawal. Unlike the Russians, who had the Taliban nipping at their heels every step of the way, they had a land bridge. We only had an air option, and that would have been nightmarish to plan, coordinate and execute. Plenty of bi-partisan blame across multiple administrations exists. This was unplanned, uncoordinated, and only salvaged the results it did by the field and enlisted excellence who paid in blood and lives for the career advancing incompetence of their leaders selected by a rotten incentive system.
You are trying to have it both ways here. Your point that this "was ALWAYS going to be a terrible withdrawal," is accurate. Perhaps we should consider how much worse out retrograde maneuver could have been.
Knowing what the Biden administration knew or should have known about the state of the Afghan government and military, anyone on this forum could have come up with a better plan with a free evening, a pen, and some table napkins.
A worse retrograde maneuver was theoretically possible, but would have required active malice rather than simple incompetence.
Heartbreaking and infuriating. But I respectfully disagree that the "fault, shame and humiliation are all ours." Like the thirteen young folks who were sacrificed by the likes of Biden, Milley, and Austin, et. al., there were thousands of other "red, white, and blue" American servicemen and women, just like these thirteen who never made it home (or, if they did, returned terribly disfigured -- both mentally and physically -- from their wounds). And to what end? Decades ago, Robert McNamara and his ilk belatedly sought forgiveness for the same sort of incompetence in Vietnam. A black granite wall in DC attests to the colossal failures of "The Best & the Brightest." What a tragedy.
I remember the last helicopters out of Saigon complete with the Vietnamese allies of ours clinging to the skids. And McNamara's penance was going to the World Bank where he could screw up the whole world.
Amen
And the lessons learned?
I support Trump, but I watched a 2-hour program on French TV examining the more recent war with Iran. In one scene the Commander-in-Chief says to a 'journalist'; 'Tell them we are ready, locked and loaded and we are ready to support the people in throwing out this regime ...." Apparently, the MEFs had loaded blank ammunition - and missile stocks have been depleted to critical levels. They are still cruising up and down while 40,000+(?) Iranians who rose up yearning for freedom, but instead they received no help and have been hanged. The video of the 16-year-old girl who took 46-minutes to die is available - if you have the stomach to watch.
As President Thieu said as he left South Vietnam in 1975: "The USA is a bad enemy to have, but a worse friend".
French TV. LOL 😂🤣😂
Dien Bien Phooey . . .
"And the lessons learned?"
Oh, you optimist you.
Stolen elections have very bad consequences be it 1960 or 2020.
I'd been through that gate as a contractor. The whole "plan" made no sense. The perimeter should have been pushed out, heavily armed detachments of paratroopers and Marines sent out into the city to get our people. Why send the 82nd and then order them to stand down??!! AND Leaving Bagram made no sense. PERIOD. WE SHOULD STILL BE THERE. The teams were getting good intel and killing good targets. The Afghan Army was doing fine with our intel and tactical air support. We have Spec Ops in 140 countries, and the only place we should be in, we are no longer there - right in the middle of Jihad Central. Afghanistan - Pakistan - Iran. How would Bagram have helped our Iran ops? Immeasurably!!
Amen . We just pissed it all away.
Amen. Amen.
The Afg. effort cost 2.3 trillion dollars. That is the cost of 92 complete carrier battle groups. Which would help more with Iran, Bagram Airbase in a land locked country requiring permission from all the adjacent countries to fly into and to transport fuel to ,all of whom trade with Iran, or 380 acres of sovereign US steel sailing in the Arabian sea, Red Sea, Mediterranean Gulf of Aiden and West Pac?
"The Afghan Army was doing fine"
Which explains why it fell apart even while we were withdrawing. Some parts of the Afghan Army may have been doing fine, most of them not so much.
Kunduz 2015, etc.
"WE SHOULD STILL BE THERE"
Pure insanity.
Yes, they collapsed when we left. Because we were not there.
Understand? That was bad.
The point of our being there was to help establish a government and army that could support and defend itself *without* our presence. Obviously we failed.
"Yes, they collapsed when we left"
But you call that "doing fine".
Thank you for reminding me of the great sacrifice made in service to freedom. And FJB!