Obama and Afghanistan

[The Feral Slasher]

Exactly, get out, prevent any more American loss of life--who cares about how it looks, if they underestimated the Taliban or overestimated the Afghan army--loss of Military equipment or embassy. None of those things are of any consequence other than to lob at Biden in an effort to make him look bad (as if public speaking didn't do the job already)

It was a shit situation with no good ending.

Blame enough to go around all the way back to Operation Cyclone.

We're out, everyone's alive--let's focus on not doing this shit ever again.

Yeah the focus should be on how inept/corrupt our intellgenge/military/political system is that let this go on for 20 years. Easier to just blame Biden (and I am not a huge fan of his, although I am coming around to the idea that he is the best president of my lifetime)

[The Feral Slasher]

Very well stated.

Perhaps I read too much into the Biden comment. The complete failure of our government/military/intelligence is very clear. I guess that assumes their motives which I suspect don't align with mine and hopefully many others. Recent events should not have been a surprise. Why they apparently are is an interesting discussion I suppose.

[DMT]

The pro-war class knew it too. They just wanted to keep make money/power by continuing the fight. We could have stayed another 20 years and delayed the inevitable, but it would have ended the same. The whole point of continuing a presence in Afghanistan was so people could make money off of it.

Maybe Chance can give us a Bob Kohm response. If only we wouldn't have gotten involved in Iraq, and just focused on Afghanistan we would have won this war, lol.

Certainly some do, but I do think there is a portion of them that believe in the fantasy that America can still shape the world using our military. And there are very few anti-war talking heads on MSM. For example, most of CNN.com's coverage has been decidedly pro-war (disguised as criticism of the pull-out).

(I edited because I don't watch television news so can't confirm how their coverage has looked on TV.)

[DMT]

In part, I agree with you. The part about the Afghan army holding out against the Taliban indefinitely was fantasy. I will admit that I did expect a 300,000 strong army that was trained to last longer against the Taliban than the Egyptian army did against Israel in 1967.

Right, it did happen incredibly quickly, and as you said that is an intelligence failure of epic proportions.

[DMT]

Here are some interesting reads.

https://twitter.com/RichardHanania/status/1427228322329632777?s=09

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/afghanistan-we-never-learn?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxOTkyMTE3LCJwb3N0X2lkIjo0MDA3MzcxNCwiXyI6InBySmRxIiwiaWF0IjoxNjI5MTQzNDYxLCJleHAiOjE2MjkxNDcwNjEsImlzcyI6InB1Yi0xMDQyIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9._NyyNErnOnH1QTXZkeC-nzhVJJ3wAYUqdONS4AoL2kI

[The Feral Slasher]

It's days like these where I really miss Bob Kohm. So, alas, I'll try the Kohmian imitation, sans soju.

Both the Trump administrations and Biden administrations were right about one thing: we had to get out. That put both of them ahead of the Bush and Obama administrations, which for seven and eight years respectively, were too ignorant and/or stubborn to pull the plug on the poorly thought out Powell doctrine, which essentially summed up to "you break it, you fix it".

And, puh-leeez, stop the whining about how the Biden administration was handed a Charlie-Foxtrot on this by the Trump administration. One of the main reasons Biden was elected was, presumably, that his administration would be professional and handle major issues like this, well, professionally. The failure to execute ran through four key branches of the Biden administration: Intelligence, Military, State and PR. So let's start at the top.

The intelligence failures on this mission should result in ends of careers, though it's doubtful it will. The CIA has been bleating for years about lack of HumInt resources; if they were not fully loaded in Afghanistan, it's certainly not due to lack of funding nor should it have been inability to provide a better alternative. TechInt has made huge jumps in the twenty years we were in Afghanistan. Once again the CIA analysts failed to sort the signal from the noise; the only question that really remains is how strong the signal was. But the CIA failed at every level - politically, in understanding how quickly the Taliban could manipulate and turn leaders, militarily, in understanding the capabilities of both the Taliban and the Afghan army, and in counter-intelligence, where the Taliban had all of our systems thoroughly penetrated. It's difficult for me to even comprehend the scope of the failure here, but it's vast. The president has been very poorly served by his NSA, which is not entirely surprising given he lacks both military and intelligence background.

This isn't merely a CIA failure; the military intelligence failures run the gamut of every branch, though most concentrated in the Army. It's patently clear the training failed to produce troops that were ready for field action; it's also patently clear this message was not either understood or transmitted to leadership. The speed at which the Taliban forces could move and take locations with little armor and no air support was also grossly underestimated. Even our capability to defend Kabul was overstated and under implemented.

This rolled into the military failures. No plan was in place for an extended defense of Bagram AFB; the situation was so bad that the Air Force had to create and ready to implement a plan to put B-52s in the air with a goal of destroying the jets on the ground so they would not fall into the hands of the Taliban. That also means there was no plan for evacuation, including proper logistical support. As a result, we've landing troops in a city that's already partially to mostly overrun, to get people out via an airport that has had its own security forces abandon their posts, with a run between the embassy and airport that could at least partly be in enemy hands. Did the military not realize that Black Hawk Down was not written as a How To manual? The training failure extends for years, and through four administrations. Planning, training, execution...all complete and total failures.

Nor has State shined in their execution, though their failure level is different than Intelligence and Military. They certainly contributed nothing to counteract the missed information and misinformation coming from Intelligence. They failed in having an embassy ready to evacuate in 48 hours, a requirement since the debacle in Iran in 1979. They failed to leverage early work by Hillary Clinton in the Obama administration to improve relations with neighboring countries. It's possible SecState Blinken has given the president better advice about the speed at which Afghanistan would deteriorate, but if so, he was drowned out, which is a different kind of failure.

And PR....geez, what a catastrophe.

reading over your post I'm trying comprehend why recent events and posts have me so triggered, lol. if it was all incompetence I guess I'd feel better. But I'm just a loser on a baseball message board and I knew this was the endgame. It's not incompetence, it was policy to milk this for as much as they could. And it went on for 20 years. An ugly ending I suppose but damn the gravy train was good while it lasted.

[The Feral Slasher]

Certainly some do, but I do think there is a portion of them that believe in the fantasy that America can still shape the world using our military. And there are very few anti-war talking heads on MSM. For example, most of CNN.com's coverage has been decidedly pro-war (disguised as criticism of the pull-out).

(I edited because I don't watch television news so can't confirm how their coverage has looked on TV.)

yeah, hard to figure out what is self interest and what is just people buying in to a delusional culture.

[The Feral Slasher]

Here are some interesting reads.

https://twitter.com/RichardHanania/status/1427228322329632777?s=09

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/afghan...YUqdONS4AoL2kI

good stuff. Richard Hanania had me at his first post.


Richard Hanania
@RichardHanania
·
12h
There needs to be a thread on the Afghanistan withdrawal. People who support withdrawal but don't like how it's done have no better option, and it's this attitude that leads to forever war. They expect competence when the entire lesson of the war is the US is not competent! 1/n

[The Feral Slasher]

good stuff. Richard Hanania had me at his first post.


Richard Hanania
@RichardHanania
·
12h
There needs to be a thread on the Afghanistan withdrawal. People who support withdrawal but don't like how it's done have no better option, and it's this attitude that leads to forever war. They expect competence when the entire lesson of the war is the US is not competent! 1/n

Comment from Edward Snowden in the first link - "There has been one constant across twenty years of occupation: the government lying to the people."

[chancellor]

Exactly, get out, prevent any more American loss of life--who cares about how it looks, if they underestimated the Taliban or overestimated the Afghan army--loss of Military equipment or embassy. None of those things are of any consequence other than to lob at Biden in an effort to make him look bad (as if public speaking didn't do the job already)

It was a shit situation with no good ending.

I definitely agree with getting out. I also agree there would be no good ending. What I do disagree with is an ending that is this catastrophically bad. What is compounding my concern was a point DMT raised (also referenced by Matt Taibbi) that it certainly appears the Biden administration actually believed the assessments that indicated the Afghan army would last some significant period of time.

[The Feral Slasher]

I definitely agree with getting out. I also agree there would be no good ending. What I do disagree with is an ending that is this catastrophically bad. What is compounding my concern was a point DMT raised (also referenced by Matt Taibbi) that it certainly appears the Biden administration actually believed the assessments that indicated the Afghan army would last some significant period of time.

Is that any worse than the administrations for the last 20 years believing that the Afghan government could hold on ? Wasn't it all a fantasy ? Is Biden any worse than Bush, Obama, Trump ?

[GwynnInTheHall]

I definitely agree with getting out. I also agree there would be no good ending. What I do disagree with is an ending that is this catastrophically bad. What is compounding my concern was a point DMT raised (also referenced by Matt Taibbi) that it certainly appears the Biden administration actually believed the assessments that indicated the Afghan army would last some significant period of time.

Maybe I'm missing the Catastrophe...walk me through why it #1 a catastrophic ending and #2 why it's bad for a President to listen to advisors. And again--I'm sure you can list multiple instances when the US Military and the associated administration where wrong, mistaken or generally F8cked things up

[Kevin Seitzer]

Yeah, it seems weird to focus energy on whether the amputation took five saw strokes or eight saw strokes instead of why the limb had gangrene and needed to be amputated in the first place. And the doctor said it would only take three saw strokes, so isn't he an idiot.

[Kevin Seitzer]

It's one of Obama's failures that he didn't get us to this point, and kudos to Biden for having the political courage to do so, even though it will cost him a lot of criticism.

(Needless to say, one of Trump's failures, too, and a failure of Bush not to have a good exit strategy before going in.)

[chancellor]

Maybe I'm missing the Catastrophe...walk me through why it #1 a catastrophic ending and #2 why it's bad for a President to listen to advisors. And again--I'm sure you can list multiple instances when the US Military and the associated administration where wrong, mistaken or generally F8cked things up

#1 - Well, let's list the easiest catastrophes in order:

- Our intelligence services are fully exposed as incapable of successfully working in this area of the world.
- Our military was proven to be incapable of training an army with superior numbers and firepower to defend their country.
- We have hundreds of staff and thousands of Afghan supporters stranded in a country where we hold only the airport.

The first two led to these longer term ramifications:

- The Taliban has been gifted a treasure trove of military material. We don't even know exactly what and how much, but we're talking high-level material - Blackhawks to high-tech armor to drones to gazillions of trucks, personnel carriers and the like. How that'll be used and sold... who knows?
- The lack of self-awareness to understand and plan for a worst-case outcome means we'll likely repeat the same error.

Per #2, I've perhaps not made my point clear. It's not that the President shouldn't listen to his advisors, but it's that every single advisor has failed in their duty and doesn't even appear to realize they've hosed up. His NSA failed him. His leading military advisors failed him. State failed him.