Afghanistan Withdrawal

The simple answer is we couldn't leave the Afghan Army with nothing to fight with. The reality is we placed too much faith in the Afghan Army to continue the fight. Of course we should have known better given the history of Afghanistan.

I do agree we left Afghanistan in shambles and provided weapons of war for the Taliban which was not a good thing to do. It was a damned if we do and damned if we don't situation. I could only imagine the headlines that would have been printed through out the world if we had destroyed all of the weapons. It's bad enough we left without fulfilling the mission of converting Afghanistan to a democratic state. It would have been worse reading headlines throughout the middle east and Europe claiming the US is a traitor.

 

I've been told by someone that would know that pretty much anything left behind will become useless relatively quickly. And we took anything that was worth a damn

 

$7.2 billion is worth it to get out. We spent $8 trillion and 20 years trying to build them up and they folded faster than we could withdraw.

 

I recall when it happened I was really disgusted with the Biden administration - it was such an epic failure. While it is still an obvious failure, upon reflection it is much more complicated

It is kind of ironic that Biden gets blamed for this. He has been consistently against ramping up operations there. When he was VP, while Gates and others wanted to “surge”, Biden wanted to decrease presence. Obama split the baby and went with surge-lite.

It was one of the few areas where Trump and Biden agreed. Neither wanted to still be there. Trump pushed very hard to get out, and basically set in motion our exit with a negotiated agreement.

It is hard to imagine a Goldilocks scenario given we were there 20 years and as soon as we leave it all folds like a house of cards. Perhaps we could have waited a few more months and the exit would not have been as ugly, but the end result would surely be the same.

Perhaps we leave a few thousand troops there and occupy it forever. Breaking the agreement would have escalated the conflict, and we would have probably lost a “modest” number of troops going forward, and many more afghans would have been killed in the ongoing conflict. Would that be worth it? That’s a judgement call, and you have to weigh the quality of life of many Afghans vs the loss of life of American troops.

You look at Ukraine and the way they are fighting a much more formidable opponent. Clearly some people value freedom more than others. It isn’t apparent that freedom is an overriding value in most Muslim countries. From that perspective the whole thing, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Arab Spring were all doomed to fail at some level.

 

There is a kernel of truth here, but it’s no where near close to an accurate statement.

Much of the equipment will become useless unless the required maintenance is done and software is updated. But this is not immediate and a lot of damage can be done in the mean time. Also in the mean time, black market work arounds will be found for parts and software.

Value is what it will cost us to replace. While much of that equipment was paid for with supplemental spending over the last 20 years it still had massive value if for nothing more than a spares pool to support our inventory.

Bottom line is that our plan of withdrawal was severely flawed in that it didn’t have contingency plans for things that went south. A plan should have been there to deal with compromised Afghan units that folded up like cheap tents. The withdrawal plan was developed with one single objective: to be able to say we were out by a certain date. Anything or anyone not out by that date was toast.

And we did need to leave the afghans the equipment to maintain order and peace, but we also need contingencies to deal with units that couldn’t/wouldn’t.

 

7.2 Billion in government money is basically a couple toilets, a jeep (soft top) and a DeWalt skill saw.

 

The floodgates broke with the agreement. The Taliban knew we were leaving, and the people who opposed the Taliban knew they'd soon lose their big stick backup and, perhaps more importantly, the US cash that (for most) provided the only reason to fight.

The end was inevitable at that point.

Maybe Biden could have predicted the mass surrender/desertion of the ANA and surged in some troops to hold onto Kabul a bit longer and facilitate a withdrawal. But to what end? Do we start shooting the Taliban who attempt to enter the city? An evacuation in the middle of a military engagement would have all but guaranteed a much worse outcome for almost all civilians involved.

And that's before talking about the fact that we eventually have to get the troops out too. They'd have to cover their own retreat while being shot at from all sides by the Taliban. It would have been an absolute disaster.

IMO we made the best of a really bad situation by engaging with the Taliban and negotiating a peaceful exit. There was a lot of concern back then, justifiably so, that the Taliban wouldn't let our folks leave without a fight, taking hostages, etc. But it turns out they largely honored their word and the citizens who wanted to leave ultimately got out.

That's a win and everyone involved in making it happen should enjoy a ton of credit, even if they won't get it for political reasons.

 

From a political perspective, Biden was smart to do this at the beginning of his term. Americans have short attention spans.

 

That's true of the stuff here too! Gotta keep the defense sector employed.

 

Biggest beef is giving up BAF. Does anyone think the Chinese would give up a state of the art airbase with 12,000’ runway not much farther than Cabo. That’s how close BAF is to the Chinese border.

 

Only the stupid ones.

 

Trump sold out the Afghan government, military and people in 2020. It was quite a feat to get out with just the damage caused by one suicide bomber.

 

I agree, but I do wonder: which is worse, a traitor or an apostate?

 

One less Blackhawk. Supposedly 3 left.

 

The prime example.
WSJ News Exclusive | Taliban Commander Who Led Attack on Afghan City Was Released From Prison Last Year, Officials Say
Taliban talks: US peace envoy 'not happy about' release of prisoners
Defying Peace Deal, Freed Taliban Return to Battlefield
Yes, the Trump administration in 2020 agreed to the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners | 10tv.com

 

Thanks to Biden's predecessor there weren't a sufficient number of US troops remaining in Afghanistan to both hold Bagram Air Force Base and hold Kabul during the US withdrawal from the country. In fact, there weren't even enough for just the latter.
US general says Afghanistan collapse rooted in Trump-Taliban deal
Trump 'to order further troop withdrawal' from Afghanistan and Iraq
Top US general says Afghan collapse can be traced to Trump-Taliban deal

 

After this brief interlude, we’re all free to resume disparaging Russia for underachieving militarily.