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Why Biden is pulling the US -- and NATO -- out of Afghanistan

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K1052 said:
The Pentagon lobbied him really hard to stay. When he asked ok if we do what's a plausible endgame that isn't just a status quo of us there indefinitely. They could not answer him.
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I think the real answer is that Biden has a great deal of experience with the military, which is why he made the decision he did. They would have us stay there forever before admitting defeat.
 
fskimospy said:
I would say progressives are hoping the Taliban doesn't hinder the evacuation so that it doesn't provoke a confrontation and there's less human misery/death overall. At least that's what I hope.

I doubt the Taliban will be decent to the people of Afghanistan but Biden has been remarkably clear eyed and consistent about his view of the military for more than 10 years. He views the military as a tool to fight wars, not to enforce humanitarian policy.
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I think the Taliban is going to let the foreign nationals out pretty easily once things settle a little bit. They're going to want to do business with the rest of the world and locking up everybody with a foreign passport isn't likely to accomplish that. Going to be stickier for the Afghan nationals but a reasonable argument can be made that the Taliban might not want them to remain anyway if they're looking to tamp down opposition to their rule.
 
fskimospy said:
I think the real answer is that Biden has a great deal of experience with the military, which is why he made the decision he did. They would have us stay there forever before admitting defeat.
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He spent decades on the Foreign Relations committee (even chaired it) in the Senate and he'd seen this particular movie before as VP also when the military pressed its case to Obama.
 
K1052 said:
The Pentagon lobbied him really hard to stay. When he asked ok if we do what's a plausible endgame that isn't just a status quo of us there indefinitely. They could not answer the question.
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I'm guessing the Pentagon gave Biden a percentage figure of the possibility of a complete Taliban takeover of the country among other possible outcomes of a complete U.S. withdrawal. I bet that percentage figure will never be revealed to the public for years. I don't recall U.S. officials saying what that figure was in yesterday's press briefings.
 
Kaido said:
I can't imagine being in this situation, especially trying to save your kid.
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That is the heart breaking part of it all. From a humanity aspect, I wish we could save them all 🙁 Poor girl is going to go through hell there. The Taliban needs to burn, but we've tried that for 20 years also.
 
HomerJS said:
Prediction: The Taliban will attempt to take control of the media and internet access. They will try to lay low until they can control the flow of information.
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A bit harder now with smartphones. It's not just a simple matter of setting a few fighters to the local tv station. The Taliban has to wage a PR war in the modern era.
 
K1052 said:
A bit harder now with smartphones. It's not just a simple matter of setting a few fighters to the local tv station. The Taliban has to wage a PR war in the modern era.
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North Korea disagrees with you. Though I don't disagree that they likely won't pursue that, they use fear and violence instead.
 
PlanetJosh said:
I'm guessing the Pentagon gave Biden a percentage figure of the possibility of a complete Taliban takeover of the country among other possible outcomes of a complete U.S. withdrawal. I bet that percentage figure will never be revealed to the public for years. I don't recall U.S. officials saying what that figure was in yesterday's press briefings.
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I'm guessing they tried to snow Biden like they snowed Obama and Trump and having seen the same shit before Biden told them to go pound sand.

I have to say in retrospect it's hard to come to any conclusion other than the military has at a minimum been relentlessly lying to the public for 20 years about this war, and appears to have lied to civilian leadership as well.
 
Dulanic said:
North Korea disagrees with you. Though I don't disagree that they likely won't pursue that, they use fear and violence instead.
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They want to be seen as credible rulers at least among some nations and not a total pariah state. So I think a NK model is unlikely.
 
THIS must not happen:

--------
Afghanistan Natural Resources For Grabs After The U.S. Retreats, China Rises

www.forbes.com.ico
Forbes|18 minutes ago
While the Taliban takes stock of the natural resources and US-funded infrastructure now at their disposal, strategic competitors will eye lucrative development projects that boost their regional ambitions.

---------

There must be NO trade whatsoever. NONE at all.
 
I'm beginning to think the Afghan government/military staged and/or planned this entire takeover. I still can't believe the Taliban rolled an entire country and not a shot was fired.

It would have been easy for the Afghans to fire at the Taliban from the air.
 
I'm fine with Biden's win in the 2020 election, but when I saw him walking away from the podium after his speech yesterday it reminded me of my dad who in his old age I had to guide him wherever he went around town. And then later in the day it was reported Biden flew back to Camp David.
 
K1052 said:
The Pentagon lobbied him really hard to stay. When he asked ok if we do what's a plausible endgame that isn't just a status quo of us there indefinitely. They could not answer the question.
Click to expand...

I agree that their recommendation would have been to stay. But......myself having actually sat in on BCT and even Division level stand-up and battle planning, I can tell you that it's a fantasy that his military staff had no evacuation plans ready. Biden chose a plan of action, and he got it wrong. We all make mistakes. The mark of intelligence is whether we learn from these mistakes. Time will tell.

For those wondering, the term for the people of Afghanistan is "Afghan" or "Afghans"
 
HomerJS said:
I'm beginning to think the Afghan government/military staged and/or planned this entire takeover. I still can't believe the Taliban rolled an entire country and not a shot was fired.

It would have been easy for the Afghans to fire at the Taliban from the air.
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Or maybe the military just gave in because the Taliban would pay them and their own government would not.
 
https://twitter.com/x/status/1427633498295357446

Would probably be good if civil service can restart. Maybe Emirates at least since they can overfly Iran and it's a short distance to the hub, Kabul airport not likely to have any fuel on hand. Foreigners holding Emirates tickets probably less likely to run into trouble getting out of the country.
 
maluckey1 said:
I agree that their recommendation would have been to stay. But......myself having actually sat in on BCT and even Division level stand-up and battle planning, I can tell you that it's a fantasy that his military staff had no evacuation plans ready. Biden chose a plan of action, and he got it wrong. We all make mistakes. The mark of intelligence is whether we learn from these mistakes. Time will tell.

For those wondering, the term for the people of Afghanistan is "Afghan" or "Afghans"
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Again, what should he have done differently? No need for super specific plans, but a general outline of a preferable plan? Also, it's very clear that they had an evacuation plan, just that the collapse of the government happened faster than they thought.

I think the military was trying to corner Biden in a similar way to how they backed Trump and Obama into a corner to keep him invested in a failed war, but because Biden had prior experience with the military doing this he saw it for what it was. Honestly, it looks like he saw it for what it was back under Obama, he was just overruled.
 
HomerJS said:
I'm beginning to think the Afghan government/military staged and/or planned this entire takeover. I still can't believe the Taliban rolled an entire country and not a shot was fired.

It would have been easy for the Afghans to fire at the Taliban from the air.
Click to expand...



Yeah, gee, I wonder how?
 
maluckey1 said:
I agree that their recommendation would have been to stay. But......myself having actually sat in on BCT and even Division level stand-up and battle planning, I can tell you that it's a fantasy that his military staff had no evacuation plans ready. Biden chose a plan of action, and he got it wrong. We all make mistakes. The mark of intelligence is whether we learn from these mistakes. Time will tell.

For those wondering, the term for the people of Afghanistan is "Afghan" or "Afghans"
Click to expand...

I certainly think there was a plan and a big chunk of it is getting executed now. Ultimately the belief that f'd everything up was that things would not happen so rapidly.
 
maluckey1 said:
I agree that their recommendation would have been to stay. But......myself having actually sat in on BCT and even Division level stand-up and battle planning, I can tell you that it's a fantasy that his military staff had no evacuation plans ready. Biden chose a plan of action, and he got it wrong. We all make mistakes. The mark of intelligence is whether we learn from these mistakes. Time will tell.

For those wondering, the term for the people of Afghanistan is "Afghan" or "Afghans"
Click to expand...

The intel got it wrong, They had a 6 month or 90 day timetable that was reduced to 3 days
 
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