Taliban reclaims Afghanistan

[MDlaxfan76]

THERE MAY WELL HAVE BEEN AN INTELLIGENCE FAILURE IN AFGHANISTAN

Trump's Deep State poisoned the well?

See, Flynn was right about the myopic IC.
He would not have slept while the Taliban stole a march on us.
He understood the Taliban & their appeal to the potential jihadists.

Good lord, time to resurrect Flynn???

The Taliban "won" the country when Trump announced a complete withdrawal, over the objection of allies and the local, corrupt puppet government, cutting out the Afghan military. Done deal from there as the military negotiated their own 'step aside'.

Whether this would have happened in May (Trump's deadline) or in August, it was going to happen. And no amount of insight was going to change that reality.

The only question is why we didn't execute on the exit better, getting more friendlies out, more control over important equipment, etc. But even there, we really don't know (yet -may never really know) where that execution failed, or whether doing more sooner would have just accelerated the Taliban roll through the country earlier as well.

We also don't know that we could have held on with a light footprint, low casualty rate, etc had Biden reversed the Trump commitment. That, too, might have backfired.

But from a domestic political perspective, no question in my mind that Biden will take a hit for a while. Longer term history view may reveal that he made the best of a terrible situation, but we won't have consensus on that perspective for a bit.

[Typical Lax Dad]

THERE MAY WELL HAVE BEEN AN INTELLIGENCE FAILURE IN AFGHANISTAN

Trump's Deep State poisoned the well?

See, Flynn was right about the myopic IC.
He would not have slept while the Taliban stole a march on us.
He understood the Taliban & their appeal to the potential jihadists.

Good lord, time to resurrect Flynn???

The Taliban "won" the country when Trump announced a complete withdrawal, over the objection of allies and the local, corrupt puppet government, cutting out the Afghan military. Done deal from there as the military negotiated their own 'step aside'.

Whether this would have happened in May (Trump's deadline) or in August, it was going to happen. And no amount of insight was going to change that reality.

The only question is why we didn't execute on the exit better, getting more friendlies out, more control over important equipment, etc. But even there, we really don't know (yet -may never really know) where that execution failed, or whether doing more sooner would have just accelerated the Taliban roll through the country earlier as well.

We also don't know that we could have held on with a light footprint, low casualty rate, etc had Biden reversed the Trump commitment. That, too, might have backfired.

But from a domestic political perspective, no question in my mind that Biden will take a hit for a while. Longer term history view may reveal that he made the best of a terrible situation, but we won't have consensus on that perspective for a bit.

We could have handled the withdrawal better. I would have liked to think that we had more insight regarding how quickly the government would give up the ghost. Hard to say with the drawdown, how intelligence was impacted. Could have been handled differently. Hopefully we find out if the administration was given fair warning but ignored it.

[old salt]

THERE MAY WELL HAVE BEEN AN INTELLIGENCE FAILURE IN AFGHANISTAN

Trump's Deep State poisoned the well?

See, Flynn was right about the myopic IC.
He would not have slept while the Taliban stole a march on us.
He understood the Taliban & their appeal to the potential jihadists.

Good lord, time to resurrect Flynn???

The Taliban "won" the country when Trump announced a complete withdrawal, over the objection of allies and the local, corrupt puppet government, cutting out the Afghan military. Done deal from there as the military negotiated their own 'step aside'.

Whether this would have happened in May (Trump's deadline) or in August, it was going to happen. And no amount of insight was going to change that reality.

The only question is why we didn't execute on the exit better, getting more friendlies out, more control over important equipment, etc. But even there, we really don't know (yet -may never really know) where that execution failed, or whether doing more sooner would have just accelerated the Taliban roll through the country earlier as well.

We also don't know that we could have held on with a light footprint, low casualty rate, etc had Biden reversed the Trump commitment. That, too, might have backfired.

But from a domestic political perspective, no question in my mind that Biden will take a hit for a while. Longer term history view may reveal that he made the best of a terrible situation, but we won't have consensus on that perspective for a bit.

The Taliban won the country by making deals with provincial leaders (under the noses of our clueless IC), beginning shortly after Biden announced we'd be out by 9-11. We could/should have quietly started flying our allies out of every intl airport in the country, as soon as Biden announced our "out" date. We should have pulled back our forces to Bagram & NATO forces to the German base at the airport in Mazir-i-Sharif, making them the last out, & retaining combat power until the very end. We should invite the UNHCR into Kabul, with UN peacekeepers, to keep the airport open & process refugees after we depart.

The political damage to Biden will be limited if we get all our troops out & enough of our allies out to make it look like we didn't desert them.
...& how severe/reported the Taliban reprisals are.

[old salt]

Thanks Stripes, for a way around the WP paywall :

https://www.stripes.com/theaters/middle ... 62995.html

Afghanistan’s military collapse: Illicit deals and mass desertions

The spectacular collapse of Afghanistan's military that has allowed Taliban fighters to reach the gates of Kabul on Sunday despite 20 years of training and billions of dollars in American aid began with a series of deals brokered in rural villages between the militant group and some of the Afghan government's lowest ranking officials.

The deals, initially offered early last year, were often described by Afghan officials as cease-fires, but Taliban leaders were in fact offering money in exchange for government forces to hand over their weapons, according to an Afghan officer and U.S. official.

Over the next year and a half, the meetings advanced to the district level and then rapidly on to provincial capitals, culminating in a breathtaking series of negotiated surrenders by government forces, according to interviews with over a dozen Afghan officers, police, Special Operations troops and other soldiers.

During just the past week, more than a dozen provincial capitals have fallen to Taliban forces with little or no resistance. Early Sunday morning, the government-held city of Jalalabad surrendered to the militants without a shot fired, and security forces in the districts ringing Kabul simply melted away. Within hours, Taliban forces reached the Afghan capital's four main entrances unopposed.

The pace of the military collapse has stunned many American officials and other foreign observers, forcing the U.S. government to dramatically accelerate efforts to remove personnel from its Kabul embassy.

The Taliban capitalized on the uncertainty caused by the February 2020 agreement reached in Doha, Qatar, between the militant group and the United States calling for a full American withdrawal from Afghanistan. Some Afghan forces realized they would soon no longer be able to count on American air power and other crucial battlefield support and grew receptive to the Taliban's approaches.

"Some just wanted the money," an Afghan Special Forces officer said of those who first agreed to meet with the Taliban. But others saw the U.S. commitment to a full withdrawal as an "assurance" the militants would return to power in Afghanistan and wanted to secure their place on the winning side, he said. The officer spoke on the condition of anonymity because he, like others in this report, were not authorized to disclose information to the press.

The Doha agreement, designed to bring an end to the war in Afghanistan, instead left many Afghan forces demoralized, bringing into stark relief the corrupt impulses of many Afghan officials and their tenuous loyalty to the country's central government. Some police officers complained that they had not been paid in six months or more.

"They saw that document as the end," the officer said referring to the majority of Afghans aligned with the government. "The day the deal was signed we saw the change. Everyone was just looking out for himself. It was like (the United States) left us to fail."

The negotiated surrenders to the Taliban slowly gained pace in the months following the Doha deal, according to a U.S. official and an Afghan officer. Then, after President Joe Biden announced in April that U.S. forces would withdraw from Afghanistan this summer without conditions, the capitulations began to snowball.

As the militants expanded their control, government-held districts increasingly fell without a fight. Kunduz, the first key city overrun by the militants, was captured a week ago. Days of negotiations mediated by tribal elders resulted in a surrender deal that handed over the last government-controlled base to the Taliban.

Soon after, negotiations in the western province of Herat yielded the resignation of the governor, top interior ministry and intelligence officials and hundreds of troops. The deal was concluded in a single night.

"I was so ashamed," said a Kabul-based interior ministry officer, referring to the surrender of senior interior ministry official Abdul Rahman Rahman in Herat. "I'm just a small person, I'm not that big. If he does that, what should I do?"

Over the past month, the southern province of Helmand also witnessed a mass surrender. And as Taliban fighters closed in on the southeastern province of Ghazni, its governor fled under Taliban protection only to be arrested by the Afghan government on his way back to Kabul.

The Afghan military's fight against the Taliban has involved several capable and motivated elite units. But they were often dispatched to provide backup for less well-trained army and police units that have repeatedly folded under Taliban pressure.

An Afghan Special Forces officer stationed in Kandahar who had been assigned to protect a critical border crossing recalled being ordered by a commander to surrender. "We want to fight! If we surrender, the Taliban will kill us," the Special Forces officer said.

"Don't fire a single shot," the commander told them as the Taliban swarmed the area, the officer later recounted. The border police surrendered immediately, leaving the Special Forces unit on its own. A second officer confirmed his colleague's recollection of the events.

Unwilling to surrender or fight outmatched, the unit put down their weapons, changed into civilian clothing and fled their post.

"I feel ashamed of what I've done," said the first officer. But he said if he hadn't fled, "I would have been sold to the Taliban by my own government."

When an Afghan police officer was asked about his force's apparent lack of motivation, he explained that they haven't been getting their salaries. Several Afghan police on the front lines in Kandahar before the city fell said they hadn't been paid in six to nine months. Taliban payoffs have become ever more enticing.

"Without the United States, there was no fear of being caught for corruption. It brought out the traitors from within our military," said an Afghan police officer.

Several officers with the Kandahar police force said corruption was more to blame for the collapse than incompetence. "Honestly I don't think it can be fixed. I think they need something completely new," said Ahmadullah Kandahari, an officer in Kandahar's police force.

In the days leading up to Kandahar's capture earlier this month, the toll on the police had become visible. Bacha, a 34-year-old police commander, had been steadily retreating for more than three months. He had grown hunched and his attire more ragged. In an interview, he said the repeated retreats had bruised his pride — but it was going without pay that made him feel desperate.

"Last time I saw you, the Taliban was offering $150 for anyone from the government to surrender and join them," he told a reporter as the interview drew to a close. "Do you know, what is the price now?"
He didn't laugh and several his men leaned forward, eager to hear the answer.

[Brooklyn]

Point fingers and lay blame, analyze and dissect, ultimately what you end up with is yet another group of GIs dead and buried, and countless others maimed struggling with day to day life. You knew this was going to happen when you went in but you went in anyway. We don't learn from our mistakes, I've seen this movie before and it had the same ending. Only question that remains is where we'll send our young GIs to die in vain next. So very sad.

The problem is that this was not a "mistake". It was all done on purpose just like Vietnam and Iraq. Wars created for one purpose only: to enrich the wealthy. This is precisely what was accomplished in all three wars. Trillions in dollars lost, the nation's debt increased, thousands dead, hundreds of thousands wounded, vast resources wasted, wealthy elites laughing all the way to the bank, and everybody blaming the Democrats for the problems created by Republicans.

Within the next 2 years there will be another war with the same scenario repeated as above. Again, it will not be a "mistake". It will be done on purpose because people stupidly refuse that all this is the truth.

[MDlaxfan76]

THERE MAY WELL HAVE BEEN AN INTELLIGENCE FAILURE IN AFGHANISTAN

Trump's Deep State poisoned the well?

See, Flynn was right about the myopic IC.
He would not have slept while the Taliban stole a march on us.
He understood the Taliban & their appeal to the potential jihadists.

Good lord, time to resurrect Flynn???

The Taliban "won" the country when Trump announced a complete withdrawal, over the objection of allies and the local, corrupt puppet government, cutting out the Afghan military. Done deal from there as the military negotiated their own 'step aside'.

Whether this would have happened in May (Trump's deadline) or in August, it was going to happen. And no amount of insight was going to change that reality.

The only question is why we didn't execute on the exit better, getting more friendlies out, more control over important equipment, etc. But even there, we really don't know (yet -may never really know) where that execution failed, or whether doing more sooner would have just accelerated the Taliban roll through the country earlier as well.

We also don't know that we could have held on with a light footprint, low casualty rate, etc had Biden reversed the Trump commitment. That, too, might have backfired.

But from a domestic political perspective, no question in my mind that Biden will take a hit for a while. Longer term history view may reveal that he made the best of a terrible situation, but we won't have consensus on that perspective for a bit.

The Taliban won the country by making deals with provincial leaders (under the noses of our clueless IC), beginning shortly after Biden announced we'd be out by 9-11. We could/should have quietly started flying our allies out of every intl airport in the country, as soon as Biden announced our "out" date. We should have pulled back our forces to Bagram & NATO forces to the German base at the airport in Mazir-i-Sharif, making them the last out, & retaining combat power until the very end. We should invite the UNHCR into Kabul, with UN peacekeepers, to keep the airport open & process refugees after we depart.

The political damage to Biden will be limited if we get all our troops out & enough of our allies out to make it look like we didn't desert them.
...& how severe/reported the Taliban reprisals are.

I agree with your last paragraph, but call BS on the attempt to say the deals didn't begin when Trump announced his definitive timeline, especially as he ignored the Afghan military and gov't. Handwriting was on the wall and of course the deal making started then. I do agree that it was confirmed when Biden was clear that he was going to fulfill that commitment, albeit a few months later. Taliban timed their move to when the drawdown was very close to 100% complete. Would have happened in May if Trump had still been President and was fulfilling his commitment to his voters.

I also doubt our IC was "clueless" about this potential reality. It will be interesting to learn over time who was predicting what and when, but I'd bet some analysts were predicting this outcome...certainly there were lots of people in the Admin who were pushing Biden to change course, presumably for this very reason. My own hunch is that Biden simply had decided that he was going to bite the bullet on this one, get it done now, and let the chips fall where they may...rather than dawdle and bleed out more slowly, both literally and figuratively (politically).

It may also be interesting to learn whether any of the decisions made by Biden were believed to have not been as firm as they actually were and so execution of some key aspects were slow walked, most particularly getting visas approved for friendlies, etc.Was there friction from pro stay folks that prevented this being done as well as it should have been done?

But let's be clear, the Afghan military was not willing to fight for themselves and their government against the Taliban. Huge sums as well as lives wasted on preparing them to do so.

[jhu72]

Point fingers and lay blame, analyze and dissect, ultimately what you end up with is yet another group of GIs dead and buried, and countless others maimed struggling with day to day life. You knew this was going to happen when you went in but you went in anyway. We don't learn from our mistakes, I've seen this movie before and it had the same ending. Only question that remains is where we'll send our young GIs to die in vain next. So very sad.

+1

... the people who need to learn the lesson of history, never learn. We were done 19+ years ago, everything since then has been one mistake after another.

[DMac]

Too many veterans feeling this way for 50+ years now.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ve ... d=msedgntp

[ardilla secreta]

Point fingers and lay blame, analyze and dissect, ultimately what you end up with is yet another group of GIs dead and buried, and countless others maimed struggling with day to day life. You knew this was going to happen when you went in but you went in anyway. We don't learn from our mistakes, I've seen this movie before and it had the same ending. Only question that remains is where we'll send our young GIs to die in vain next. So very sad.

Sad indeed. After Vietnam, I would not have expected or at least hoped for another experience like we got in Afghanistan.

Where will the next one be?

[jhu72]

Too many veterans feeling this way for 50+ years now.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ve ... d=msedgntp

You can't help but feel for these guys. It's not their fault. Hopefully the guys that need to learn the lesson will get it this time. There is so much similarity between what happened in Vietnam and this mess.

Supporting corrupt foreign government - check
Indigenous folks not supporting that government - check
Politicians not wanting to look weak, not wanting to look like they are losing - check
Military brass over-promising - check
No one wanting to tell the truth - check
Everyone covering their ass - check
Media playing the inside game - check
Citizenry blood and gold pis*ed down the toilet - check

We need to stop giving Presidents blank checks that are good forever.

[DocBarrister]

THERE MAY WELL HAVE BEEN AN INTELLIGENCE FAILURE IN AFGHANISTAN

Trump's Deep State poisoned the well?

See, Flynn was right about the myopic IC.
He would not have slept while the Taliban stole a march on us.
He understood the Taliban & their appeal to the potential jihadists.

Good lord, time to resurrect Flynn???

The Taliban "won" the country when Trump announced a complete withdrawal, over the objection of allies and the local, corrupt puppet government, cutting out the Afghan military. Done deal from there as the military negotiated their own 'step aside'.

Whether this would have happened in May (Trump's deadline) or in August, it was going to happen. And no amount of insight was going to change that reality.

The only question is why we didn't execute on the exit better, getting more friendlies out, more control over important equipment, etc. But even there, we really don't know (yet -may never really know) where that execution failed, or whether doing more sooner would have just accelerated the Taliban roll through the country earlier as well.

We also don't know that we could have held on with a light footprint, low casualty rate, etc had Biden reversed the Trump commitment. That, too, might have backfired.

But from a domestic political perspective, no question in my mind that Biden will take a hit for a while. Longer term history view may reveal that he made the best of a terrible situation, but we won't have consensus on that perspective for a bit.

The Taliban won the country by making deals with provincial leaders (under the noses of our clueless IC), beginning shortly after Biden announced we'd be out by 9-11. We could/should have quietly started flying our allies out of every intl airport in the country, as soon as Biden announced our "out" date. We should have pulled back our forces to Bagram & NATO forces to the German base at the airport in Mazir-i-Sharif, making them the last out, & retaining combat power until the very end. We should invite the UNHCR into Kabul, with UN peacekeepers, to keep the airport open & process refugees after we depart.

The political damage to Biden will be limited if we get all our troops out & enough of our allies out to make it look like we didn't desert them.
...& how severe/reported the Taliban reprisals are.

Nonsense.

The pullout of Afghan allies should have begun on February 29, 2020, when former President Donald “Accused Rapist and Proven Racist” Trump signed his agreement with the Taliban.

https://www.state.gov/wp-content/upload ... .29.20.pdf

What is the excuse for the Trump administration doing nothing for 11 months to get those allies out?

History will mark Aug. 15, 2021, as the date that the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban retook control over this troubled and war-torn country. But the real date that the Taliban's victory was assured is Feb. 29, 2020, the day the Trump administration signed what it characterized as a "peace" deal with the Taliban. Once this agreement was signed - the tragic collapse we witnessed this weekend was inevitable.

Of course, the agreement was not, and could not possibly have been, a "peace" deal since one of the parties currently at war - the Afghan government - was not a signatory. Rather, this was a "withdrawal" agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban that set the terms for the complete departure of American troops from Afghanistan by May 2021.

What did the United States gain in exchange for this withdrawal, for which the Taliban had been fighting for 20 years? Nothing but vague, unenforceable promises that the Taliban would not engage in hostilities against the departing U.S. troops and would "send a clear message" to al Qaeda that it "had no place" in Afghanistan. So eager Trump was to withdraw, we did not even hold out for a clear, firm commitment that the Taliban would not provide aid, safe harbor or weaponry to al Qaeda and like-minded groups. The agreement contained no enforcement mechanisms and included no penalties on the Taliban for failing to comply with its terms.

https://thehill.com/opinion/national-se ... n-collapse

The “agreement” signed by the Trump administration is pathetic. I have seen settlement and release agreements for ordinary civil litigation cases that are more detailed and comprehensive.

President Biden’s ending of the U.S. war in Afghanistan is just the latest example of the Democrats cleaning up a Republican mess.

Anyway, the U.S. evacuation of Afghan allies and U.S. citizens is still ongoing and will not conclude until August 31.

DocBarrister

[DocBarrister]

Point fingers and lay blame, analyze and dissect, ultimately what you end up with is yet another group of GIs dead and buried, and countless others maimed struggling with day to day life. You knew this was going to happen when you went in but you went in anyway. We don't learn from our mistakes, I've seen this movie before and it had the same ending. Only question that remains is where we'll send our young GIs to die in vain next. So very sad.

President Biden has seen this before, too.

To his credit, now that he is the Commander-in-Chief, he made the difficult call to get out.

History will prove him right.

DocBarrister

[old salt]

...call BS on the attempt to say the deals didn't begin when Trump announced his definitive timeline...

From the WP report quoted above :
The negotiated surrenders to the Taliban slowly gained pace in the months following the Doha deal, according to a U.S. official and an Afghan officer. Then, after President Joe Biden announced in April that U.S. forces would withdraw from Afghanistan this summer without conditions, the capitulations began to snowball.

The Taliban were already talking & making deals with Afghan local leaders, well before the Doha Agreement was made.

[PizzaSnake]

If this is the reality of the situation, these clowns are lucky the Marines didn't cap them. F 'em. I can't abide child-molesters.

[Brooklyn]

+1

... the people who need to learn the lesson of history, never learn. We were done 19+ years ago, everything since then has been one mistake after another.

Not so much on this forum but in others all you see are an endless array of anti Biden posts. Despite the fact that the war was lost from Day One and the fact that tRump declared he would have accelerated the withdrawal, every delusional right winger and their mother is posting attack after attack on Biden and blaming him for the loss of the stupid war. As usual, the Democrats sit by passively and are too timid to reply with the truth. Can't do very much about it as this timidity is a problem the Dems will have to correct by themselves.

[youthathletics]

+1

... the people who need to learn the lesson of history, never learn. We were done 19+ years ago, everything since then has been one mistake after another.

Not so much on this forum but in others all you see are an endless array of anti Biden posts. Despite the fact that the war was lost from Day One and the fact that tRump declared he would have accelerated the withdrawal, every delusional right winger and their mother is posting attack after attack on Biden and blaming him for the loss of the stupid war. As usual, the Democrats sit by passively and are too timid to reply with the truth. Can't do very much about it as this timidity is a problem the Dems will have to correct by themselves.

[old salt]

If this is the reality of the situation, these clowns are lucky the Marines didn't cap them. F 'em. I can't abide child-molesters.

8 year old story, resurrected now to rationalize deserting all our ASF allies who are not child-molesters, as the Taliban seize their 12 year old child brides.

[old salt]

*

[DMac]

Point fingers and lay blame, analyze and dissect, ultimately what you end up with is yet another group of GIs dead and buried, and countless others maimed struggling with day to day life. You knew this was going to happen when you went in but you went in anyway. We don't learn from our mistakes, I've seen this movie before and it had the same ending. Only question that remains is where we'll send our young GIs to die in vain next. So very sad.

President Biden has seen this before, too.

To his credit, now that he is the Commander-in-Chief, he made the difficult call to get out.

History will prove him right.

DocBarrister

History proved him right 50+ years ago but our hubris blinds us to the lessons that lie in those years, and our willingness, insistence might be a better word here, to get involved in others' wars is some sort of mental illness. My heart hurts for those who went and are watching their country come limping back with its tail tucked. They'll always take personal pride in what they did but they'll also always view it as all for naught, and those who buried their children will forever see it as in vain. It's pretty sad all in all.

[Brooklyn]

+1

... the people who need to learn the lesson of history, never learn. We were done 19+ years ago, everything since then has been one mistake after another.

Not so much on this forum but in others all you see are an endless array of anti Biden posts. Despite the fact that the war was lost from Day One and the fact that tRump declared he would have accelerated the withdrawal, every delusional right winger and their mother is posting attack after attack on Biden and blaming him for the loss of the stupid war. As usual, the Democrats sit by passively and are too timid to reply with the truth. Can't do very much about it as this timidity is a problem the Dems will have to correct by themselves.

Funny how certain right wingers here recently accused me of trolling for not making a substantive reply to a post and even suggested that I be given a slight leave of absence for my reply. Now let's see the forum right wingers do the same here.

I'll wait ...