Taliban reclaims Afghanistan

[old salt]

America’s War in Afghanistan Is Over but Our Big Lies About It Live On

An opinion piece in the Daily Beast

It’s important to establish these details, because these are the things people overlook when describing what has become one of the most popular criticisms of Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan: that he allowed the military to “abandon” BAF, or that it would have been somehow more possible or feasible to carry out a deliberate evacuation from BAF than from Hamid Karzai International Airport. This is false. The number of people required to safely secure BAF and its eight-mile perimeter in 2021 would have required an entirely new troop surge numbering in the thousands. When one considers the logistics involved, and the numbers of soldiers, Marines, and airmen, the number could have easily ballooned far greater than the number readily available for the task.

The collapse of Afghanistan demonstrated that the country I imagined when I was deployed here was also a lie, just another storyline.
It also would have required taking Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) to create an outer perimeter of security. Several months ago, it would have been unimaginable to carry out a unilateral operation. These choices would have affected which ANSF units were available to provide security elsewhere. And one must also consider in retrospect that the ANSF providing security would have also probably required support from the American base logistics system.

The collapse of Afghanistan demonstrated that the country I imagined when I was deployed here was also a lie, just another storyline. It has been extraordinary to watch how in the intervening weeks, rather than facing up to the delusion that we entertained for 20 years, nearly everyone with a hand in this mess has done everything they could to shift the blame elsewhere. Certainly, some leaders were capable of and interested in considering the significance of Afghanistan’s near-instantaneous collapse. Admiral Mike Mullen, for example, didn’t shy away from reality. But the former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff didn’t have much company. Most of the other people who led the war and promoted it have indulged in rationalizing, comforting counterfactuals and even outright lies.

That's the same tired, worn out excuse for all options in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Syria -- it would have required at least 100,000 troops.

We didn't need to retake Bagram. We needed to just not leave. Had we stayed, the ASF would have stayed with us.

The ASF could have fallen back & concentrated their ground & air forces there, if necessary. If Kabul needed to be evacuated, our remaining embassy staff could have evacuated to or through Bagram. If necessary the Ghani govt could have evacuated there. Bagram & 3 other air bases (Mazir-I-Sharif, Shindand & Herat) could have been held by ASF, US & NATO forces, turned over last, & not abandoned. The ASF & the Ghani govt could have defended the northern & western provinces, temporarily ceding the Pashtun regions to the Taliban, until those populations rejected their harsh rule & a coalition govt could be negotiated.

[cradleandshoot]

90 retired Generals and Admirals call for Milley and Austin to resign immediately

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... rawal.html

https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/y ... ommission/

Clearly there is some there...there. MIght it be that these military folks are doing what they promised when they swore in.

+1, Milley and Austin both need to go. The problem with that is Biden will only choose 2 more pathetic Toadstools to replace them. Somebody needs to be accountable for the horrendous eff up in Afghanistan. Most of our military folks with any small amount of integrity left in their bodies have already filed for retirement. I don't blame them for getting the hell out while the getting is good.

[runrussellrun]

It's over!

The Republican created war of imperialistic colonialism started by traitor Bush is over at long last!

President Biden deserves the Nobel Prize for his great work.



Now, traitor Bush and his fellow Republicons should get the bill to pay for their war. Dissolve the Pentagon --- No more wars!

embarassed for you. really really am.

DEMOCRATIC senator Tom Cashle (SD ).......name is no the bill where ALL members of the US Senate voted YES.......to kill.

STOP with your unprincipled claims otherwize. STOP blaming a party, when the facts are the facts. 98 US Senators voted YES. any of them DEMOCRATS.





guess THIS is credible source. History, what is past is prologue....excepting most on this website.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/ ... stan-vote/



the TAATS (hillary, John (kerry, edwards, etc) ALL voted YES to kill people

your just gonna forget those 8 years 2009-2017

lacking principles, STOP the lies on this website.

[cradleandshoot]

America’s War in Afghanistan Is Over but Our Big Lies About It Live On

An opinion piece in the Daily Beast

It’s important to establish these details, because these are the things people overlook when describing what has become one of the most popular criticisms of Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan: that he allowed the military to “abandon” BAF, or that it would have been somehow more possible or feasible to carry out a deliberate evacuation from BAF than from Hamid Karzai International Airport. This is false. The number of people required to safely secure BAF and its eight-mile perimeter in 2021 would have required an entirely new troop surge numbering in the thousands. When one considers the logistics involved, and the numbers of soldiers, Marines, and airmen, the number could have easily ballooned far greater than the number readily available for the task.

The collapse of Afghanistan demonstrated that the country I imagined when I was deployed here was also a lie, just another storyline.
It also would have required taking Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) to create an outer perimeter of security. Several months ago, it would have been unimaginable to carry out a unilateral operation. These choices would have affected which ANSF units were available to provide security elsewhere. And one must also consider in retrospect that the ANSF providing security would have also probably required support from the American base logistics system.

The collapse of Afghanistan demonstrated that the country I imagined when I was deployed here was also a lie, just another storyline. It has been extraordinary to watch how in the intervening weeks, rather than facing up to the delusion that we entertained for 20 years, nearly everyone with a hand in this mess has done everything they could to shift the blame elsewhere. Certainly, some leaders were capable of and interested in considering the significance of Afghanistan’s near-instantaneous collapse. Admiral Mike Mullen, for example, didn’t shy away from reality. But the former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff didn’t have much company. Most of the other people who led the war and promoted it have indulged in rationalizing, comforting counterfactuals and even outright lies.

That's the same tired, worn out excuse for all options in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Syria -- it would have required at least 100,000 troops.

We didn't need to retake Bagram. We needed to just not leave. Had we stayed, the ASF would have stayed with us.

The ASF could have fallen back & concentrated their ground & air forces there, if necessary. If Kabul needed to be evacuated, our remaining embassy staff could have evacuated to or through Bagram. If necessary the Ghani govt could have evacuated there. Bagram & 3 other air bases (Mazir-I-Sharif, Shinband & Herat) could have been held by ASF, US & NATO forces, turned over last, & not abandoned. The ASF & the Ghani govt could have defended the northern & western provinces, temporarily ceding the Pashtun regions to the Taliban, until those populations rejected their harsh rule & a coalition govt could be negotiated.

How dare you contradict the military knowledge and savvy of Major General Dislaxxic. I'm guessing he stayed at a holiday inn express last night.

[cradleandshoot]

It's over!

The Republican created war of imperialistic colonialism started by traitor Bush is over at long last!

President Biden deserves the Nobel Prize for his great work.



Now, traitor Bush and his fellow Republicons should get the bill to pay for their war. Dissolve the Pentagon --- No more wars!

embarassed for you. really really am.

DEMOCRATIC senator Tom Cashle (SD ).......name is no the bill where ALL members of the US Senate voted YES.......to kill.

STOP with your unprincipled claims otherwize. STOP blaming a party, when the facts are the facts. 98 US Senators voted YES. any of them DEMOCRATS.





guess THIS is credible source. History, what is past is prologue....excepting most on this website.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/ ... stan-vote/



the TAATS (hillary, John (kerry, edwards, etc) ALL voted YES to kill people

your just gonna forget those 8 years 2009-2017

lacking principles, STOP the lies on this website.

And so many of the whiney little FLP beeotches on this forum gripe about trolls. They are more than comfortable living with their beloved blimp being the worst troll on this forum.

[old salt]

America’s War in Afghanistan Is Over but Our Big Lies About It Live On

An opinion piece in the Daily Beast

It’s important to establish these details, because these are the things people overlook when describing what has become one of the most popular criticisms of Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan: that he allowed the military to “abandon” BAF, or that it would have been somehow more possible or feasible to carry out a deliberate evacuation from BAF than from Hamid Karzai International Airport. This is false. The number of people required to safely secure BAF and its eight-mile perimeter in 2021 would have required an entirely new troop surge numbering in the thousands. When one considers the logistics involved, and the numbers of soldiers, Marines, and airmen, the number could have easily ballooned far greater than the number readily available for the task.

The collapse of Afghanistan demonstrated that the country I imagined when I was deployed here was also a lie, just another storyline.
It also would have required taking Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) to create an outer perimeter of security. Several months ago, it would have been unimaginable to carry out a unilateral operation. These choices would have affected which ANSF units were available to provide security elsewhere. And one must also consider in retrospect that the ANSF providing security would have also probably required support from the American base logistics system.

The collapse of Afghanistan demonstrated that the country I imagined when I was deployed here was also a lie, just another storyline. It has been extraordinary to watch how in the intervening weeks, rather than facing up to the delusion that we entertained for 20 years, nearly everyone with a hand in this mess has done everything they could to shift the blame elsewhere. Certainly, some leaders were capable of and interested in considering the significance of Afghanistan’s near-instantaneous collapse. Admiral Mike Mullen, for example, didn’t shy away from reality. But the former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff didn’t have much company. Most of the other people who led the war and promoted it have indulged in rationalizing, comforting counterfactuals and even outright lies.

That's the same tired, worn out excuse for all options in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Syria -- it would have required at least 100,000 troops.

We didn't need to retake Bagram. We needed to just not leave. Had we stayed, the ASF would have stayed with us.

The ASF could have fallen back & concentrated their ground & air forces there, if necessary. If Kabul needed to be evacuated, our remaining embassy staff could have evacuated to or through Bagram. If necessary the Ghani govt could have evacuated there. Bagram & 3 other air bases (Mazir-I-Sharif, Shinband & Herat) could have been held by ASF, US & NATO forces, turned over last, & not abandoned. The ASF & the Ghani govt could have defended the northern & western provinces, temporarily ceding the Pashtun regions to the Taliban, until those populations rejected their harsh rule & a coalition govt could be negotiated.

How dare you contradict the military knowledge and savvy of Major General Dislaxxic. I'm guessing he stayed at a holiday inn express last night.

The Taliban didn't want to have to take Kabul. They offered to let us secure the HKIA perimeter.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/jen-psaki ... iban-kabul
The Washington Post reports that the Taliban offered to stay out of Kabul & let the United States forces secure the city. We told them that we only needed the airport. Is that reporting accurate?

[cradleandshoot]

America’s War in Afghanistan Is Over but Our Big Lies About It Live On

An opinion piece in the Daily Beast

It’s important to establish these details, because these are the things people overlook when describing what has become one of the most popular criticisms of Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan: that he allowed the military to “abandon” BAF, or that it would have been somehow more possible or feasible to carry out a deliberate evacuation from BAF than from Hamid Karzai International Airport. This is false. The number of people required to safely secure BAF and its eight-mile perimeter in 2021 would have required an entirely new troop surge numbering in the thousands. When one considers the logistics involved, and the numbers of soldiers, Marines, and airmen, the number could have easily ballooned far greater than the number readily available for the task.

The collapse of Afghanistan demonstrated that the country I imagined when I was deployed here was also a lie, just another storyline.
It also would have required taking Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) to create an outer perimeter of security. Several months ago, it would have been unimaginable to carry out a unilateral operation. These choices would have affected which ANSF units were available to provide security elsewhere. And one must also consider in retrospect that the ANSF providing security would have also probably required support from the American base logistics system.

The collapse of Afghanistan demonstrated that the country I imagined when I was deployed here was also a lie, just another storyline. It has been extraordinary to watch how in the intervening weeks, rather than facing up to the delusion that we entertained for 20 years, nearly everyone with a hand in this mess has done everything they could to shift the blame elsewhere. Certainly, some leaders were capable of and interested in considering the significance of Afghanistan’s near-instantaneous collapse. Admiral Mike Mullen, for example, didn’t shy away from reality. But the former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff didn’t have much company. Most of the other people who led the war and promoted it have indulged in rationalizing, comforting counterfactuals and even outright lies.

That's the same tired, worn out excuse for all options in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Syria -- it would have required at least 100,000 troops.

We didn't need to retake Bagram. We needed to just not leave. Had we stayed, the ASF would have stayed with us.

The ASF could have fallen back & concentrated their ground & air forces there, if necessary. If Kabul needed to be evacuated, our remaining embassy staff could have evacuated to or through Bagram. If necessary the Ghani govt could have evacuated there. Bagram & 3 other air bases (Mazir-I-Sharif, Shinband & Herat) could have been held by ASF, US & NATO forces, turned over last, & not abandoned. The ASF & the Ghani govt could have defended the northern & western provinces, temporarily ceding the Pashtun regions to the Taliban, until those populations rejected their harsh rule & a coalition govt could be negotiated.

How dare you contradict the military knowledge and savvy of Major General Dislaxxic. I'm guessing he stayed at a holiday inn express last night.

The Taliban didn't want to have to take Kabul. They offered to let us secure the HKIA perimeter.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/jen-psaki ... iban-kabul
The Washington Post reports that the Taliban offered to stay out of Kabul & let the United States forces secure the city. We told them that we only needed the airport. Is that reporting accurate?

Why the hell did the US military abandon Bagram AFB? Given the intense nature of our departure from Afghanistan it made no sense what so ever. I'm guessing Putins folks are there right now measuring for new drapes. If we had to abandon it why did we not bomb it into a useless pile of rubble? Bagram is a state of the art facility just waiting for new occupants. It would have made for a great practice run for our B52s to take out.

[RedFromMI]

Opinion
Ross Douthat

Joe Biden’s Critics Lost Afghanistan

A month ago I thought I was a cynic about our 20-year war in Afghanistan. Today, after watching our stumbling withdrawal and the swift collapse of practically everything we fought for, my main feeling is that I wasn’t cynical enough.

My cynicism consisted of the belief that the American effort to forge a decent Afghan political settlement failed definitively during Barack Obama’s first term in office, when a surge of U.S. forces blunted but did not reverse the Taliban’s recovery. This failure was then buried under a Vietnam-esque blizzard of official deceptions and bureaucratic lies, which covered over a shift in American priorities from the pursuit of victory to the management of stalemate, with the American presence insulated from casualties in the hopes that it could be sustained indefinitely.

Under this strategic vision — to use the word “strategic” generously — there would be no prospect of victory, no end to corruption among our allies and collateral damage from our airstrikes, no clear reason to be in Afghanistan, as opposed to any other failing state or potential terror haven, except for the sunk cost that we were there already. But if American casualty rates stayed low enough, the public would accept it, the Pentagon budget would pay for it, and nobody would have to preside over anything so humiliating as defeat.

In one way, my cynicism went too far. I guessed that the military and the national-security bureaucracy would be able to frustrate the desire of every incoming U.S. president to declare an endless-seeming conflict over, and I was wrong. Something like that happened with Obama and Donald Trump in their first years in office, but it didn’t happen with Joe Biden. He promised withdrawal, and — however shambolically — we have now actually withdrawn.

But in every other way the withdrawal has made the case for an even deeper cynicism — about America’s capacities as a superpower, our mission in Afghanistan and the class of generals, officials, experts and politicos who sustained its generational extension.

First the withdrawal’s shambolic quality, culminating in yesterday’s acknowledgment that between 100 and 200 Americans had not made the final flights from Kabul, displayed an incompetence in departing a country that matched our impotence at pacifying it. There were aspects of the chaos that were probably inevitable, but the Biden White House was clearly caught flat-footed by the speed of the Taliban advance, with key personnel disappearing on vacation just before the Kabul government dissolved. And the president himself has appeared exhausted, aged, overmatched — making basic promises about getting every American safely home and then seeing them overtaken by events.

At the same time, the circumstances under which the Biden withdrawal had to happen doubled as a devastating indictment of the policies pursued by his three predecessors, which together cost roughly $2,000,000,000,000 (it’s worth writing out all those zeros) and managed to build nothing in the political or military spheres that could survive for even a season without further American cash and military supervision.

Only recently the view that without U.S. troops the American-backed government in Kabul would be doomed to the same fate as the Soviet-backed government some 30 years ago seemed like hardheaded realism. Now such “realism” has been proven to be wildly over-optimistic. Without Soviet troops, the Moscow-backed government actually held out for several years before the mujihadeen reached Kabul. Whereas our $2,000,000,000,000 built a regime that fell to the Taliban before American troops could even finish their retreat.

Before this summer, in other words, it was possible to read all the grim inspector general reports and document dumps on Afghanistan, count yourself a cynic about the war effort and still imagine that America got something for all that spending, no matter how much was spent on Potemkin installations or siphoned off by pederast warlords or recirculated to Northern Virginia contractors.

Now, though, we know that in terms of actual staying power, all our nation-building efforts couldn’t even match what the Soviet Union managed in its dotage.

Yet that knowledge has not prevented a revival of the spirit that led us to this sorry pass. I don’t mean the straightforward criticisms of the Biden administration’s handling of the withdrawal. I mean the way that in both the media coverage and the political reaction, reasonable tactical critiques have often been woven together with anti-withdrawal arguments that are self-deceiving, dubious or risible.

The argument, for instance, that the situation in Afghanistan was reasonably stable and the war’s death toll negligible before the Trump administration started moving toward withdrawal: In fact, only U.S. casualties were low, while Afghan military and civilian casualties were nearing 15,000 annually, and the Taliban were clearly gaining ground — suggesting that we would have needed periodic surges of U.S. forces, and periodic spikes in U.S. deaths, to prevent a slow-motion version of what’s happened quickly as we’ve left.

Or the argument that an indefinite occupation was morally necessary to nurture the shoots of Afghan liberalism: If after 20 years of effort and $2,000,000,000,000, the theocratic alternative to liberalism actually takes over a country faster than in its initial conquest, that’s a sign that our moral achievements were outweighed by the moral costs of corruption, incompetence and drone campaigns.

Or the argument that a permanent mission in Afghanistan would could come to resemble in some way our long-term presence in Germany or South Korea — a delusional historical analogy before the collapse of the Kabul government and a completely ludicrous one now.

All these arguments are connected to a set of moods that flourished after 9/11: a mix of cable-news-encouraged overconfidence in American military capacities, naïve World War II nostalgia and crusading humanitarianism in its liberal and neoconservative forms. Like most Americans, I shared in those moods once; after so many years of failure, I cannot imagine indulging in them now. But it’s clear from the past few weeks that they retain an intense subterranean appeal in the American elite, waiting only for the right circumstances to resurface.

Thus you have generals and grand strategists who presided over quagmire, folly and defeat fanning out across the television networks and opinion pages to champion another 20 years in Afghanistan. You have the return of the media’s liberal hawks and centrist Pentagon stenographers, unchastened by their own credulous contributions to the retreat of American power over the past 20 years. And you have Republicans who postured as cold-eyed realists in the Trump presidency suddenly turning back into eager crusaders, excited to own the Biden Democrats and relive the brief post-9/11 period when the mainstream media treated their party with deference rather than contempt.

Again, Biden deserves plenty of criticism. But like the Trump administration in its wiser moments, he is trying to disentangle America from a set of failed policies that many of his loudest critics long supported.

Our botched withdrawal is the punctuation mark on a general catastrophe, a failure so broad that it should demand purges in the Pentagon, the shamed retirement of innumerable hawkish talking heads, the razing of various NGOs and international-studies programs and the dissolution of countless consultancies and military contractors.

Small wonder, then, that making Biden the singular scapegoat seems like a more attractive path. But if the only aspect of this catastrophe that our leaders remember is what went wrong in August 2021, then we’ll have learned nothing except to always double down on failure, and the next disaster will be worse.

[runrussellrun]

Pretty cool, now we will have to replace all those vehicles, weapons, aircraft.

suddenly, we are worried about "waste"

[jhu72]

Opinion
Ross Douthat

Joe Biden’s Critics Lost Afghanistan

A month ago I thought I was a cynic about our 20-year war in Afghanistan. Today, after watching our stumbling withdrawal and the swift collapse of practically everything we fought for, my main feeling is that I wasn’t cynical enough.

My cynicism consisted of the belief that the American effort to forge a decent Afghan political settlement failed definitively during Barack Obama’s first term in office, when a surge of U.S. forces blunted but did not reverse the Taliban’s recovery. This failure was then buried under a Vietnam-esque blizzard of official deceptions and bureaucratic lies, which covered over a shift in American priorities from the pursuit of victory to the management of stalemate, with the American presence insulated from casualties in the hopes that it could be sustained indefinitely.

Under this strategic vision — to use the word “strategic” generously — there would be no prospect of victory, no end to corruption among our allies and collateral damage from our airstrikes, no clear reason to be in Afghanistan, as opposed to any other failing state or potential terror haven, except for the sunk cost that we were there already. But if American casualty rates stayed low enough, the public would accept it, the Pentagon budget would pay for it, and nobody would have to preside over anything so humiliating as defeat.

In one way, my cynicism went too far. I guessed that the military and the national-security bureaucracy would be able to frustrate the desire of every incoming U.S. president to declare an endless-seeming conflict over, and I was wrong. Something like that happened with Obama and Donald Trump in their first years in office, but it didn’t happen with Joe Biden. He promised withdrawal, and — however shambolically — we have now actually withdrawn.

But in every other way the withdrawal has made the case for an even deeper cynicism — about America’s capacities as a superpower, our mission in Afghanistan and the class of generals, officials, experts and politicos who sustained its generational extension.

First the withdrawal’s shambolic quality, culminating in yesterday’s acknowledgment that between 100 and 200 Americans had not made the final flights from Kabul, displayed an incompetence in departing a country that matched our impotence at pacifying it. There were aspects of the chaos that were probably inevitable, but the Biden White House was clearly caught flat-footed by the speed of the Taliban advance, with key personnel disappearing on vacation just before the Kabul government dissolved. And the president himself has appeared exhausted, aged, overmatched — making basic promises about getting every American safely home and then seeing them overtaken by events.

At the same time, the circumstances under which the Biden withdrawal had to happen doubled as a devastating indictment of the policies pursued by his three predecessors, which together cost roughly $2,000,000,000,000 (it’s worth writing out all those zeros) and managed to build nothing in the political or military spheres that could survive for even a season without further American cash and military supervision.

Only recently the view that without U.S. troops the American-backed government in Kabul would be doomed to the same fate as the Soviet-backed government some 30 years ago seemed like hardheaded realism. Now such “realism” has been proven to be wildly over-optimistic. Without Soviet troops, the Moscow-backed government actually held out for several years before the mujihadeen reached Kabul. Whereas our $2,000,000,000,000 built a regime that fell to the Taliban before American troops could even finish their retreat.

Before this summer, in other words, it was possible to read all the grim inspector general reports and document dumps on Afghanistan, count yourself a cynic about the war effort and still imagine that America got something for all that spending, no matter how much was spent on Potemkin installations or siphoned off by pederast warlords or recirculated to Northern Virginia contractors.

Now, though, we know that in terms of actual staying power, all our nation-building efforts couldn’t even match what the Soviet Union managed in its dotage.

Yet that knowledge has not prevented a revival of the spirit that led us to this sorry pass. I don’t mean the straightforward criticisms of the Biden administration’s handling of the withdrawal. I mean the way that in both the media coverage and the political reaction, reasonable tactical critiques have often been woven together with anti-withdrawal arguments that are self-deceiving, dubious or risible.

The argument, for instance, that the situation in Afghanistan was reasonably stable and the war’s death toll negligible before the Trump administration started moving toward withdrawal: In fact, only U.S. casualties were low, while Afghan military and civilian casualties were nearing 15,000 annually, and the Taliban were clearly gaining ground — suggesting that we would have needed periodic surges of U.S. forces, and periodic spikes in U.S. deaths, to prevent a slow-motion version of what’s happened quickly as we’ve left.

Or the argument that an indefinite occupation was morally necessary to nurture the shoots of Afghan liberalism: If after 20 years of effort and $2,000,000,000,000, the theocratic alternative to liberalism actually takes over a country faster than in its initial conquest, that’s a sign that our moral achievements were outweighed by the moral costs of corruption, incompetence and drone campaigns.

Or the argument that a permanent mission in Afghanistan would could come to resemble in some way our long-term presence in Germany or South Korea — a delusional historical analogy before the collapse of the Kabul government and a completely ludicrous one now.

All these arguments are connected to a set of moods that flourished after 9/11: a mix of cable-news-encouraged overconfidence in American military capacities, naïve World War II nostalgia and crusading humanitarianism in its liberal and neoconservative forms. Like most Americans, I shared in those moods once; after so many years of failure, I cannot imagine indulging in them now. But it’s clear from the past few weeks that they retain an intense subterranean appeal in the American elite, waiting only for the right circumstances to resurface.

Thus you have generals and grand strategists who presided over quagmire, folly and defeat fanning out across the television networks and opinion pages to champion another 20 years in Afghanistan. You have the return of the media’s liberal hawks and centrist Pentagon stenographers, unchastened by their own credulous contributions to the retreat of American power over the past 20 years. And you have Republicans who postured as cold-eyed realists in the Trump presidency suddenly turning back into eager crusaders, excited to own the Biden Democrats and relive the brief post-9/11 period when the mainstream media treated their party with deference rather than contempt.

Again, Biden deserves plenty of criticism. But like the Trump administration in its wiser moments, he is trying to disentangle America from a set of failed policies that many of his loudest critics long supported.

Our botched withdrawal is the punctuation mark on a general catastrophe, a failure so broad that it should demand purges in the Pentagon, the shamed retirement of innumerable hawkish talking heads, the razing of various NGOs and international-studies programs and the dissolution of countless consultancies and military contractors.

Small wonder, then, that making Biden the singular scapegoat seems like a more attractive path. But if the only aspect of this catastrophe that our leaders remember is what went wrong in August 2021, then we’ll have learned nothing except to always double down on failure, and the next disaster will be worse.

+1

... all the forever warriors are now coming out of the woodwork trying to save their reputations by blaming Biden.

FACT - of the 4 US presidents to preside over this cluster-fu*k, Biden has incurred the smallest number of US troop casualties!

Enough of the bullsh*t about we could keep a small foot print and maintain the country. The idiots that make this argument, then tell us we needed to evacuate 300,000 people -- HOW IN THE HELL IS THAT A SMALL FOOT PRINT?? It is whatever bullsh*t spin the forever warriors can pull out of their ass to try to keep the war going -- same as always!

[old salt]

The idiots that make this argument, then tell us we needed to evacuate 300,000 people -- HOW IN THE HELL IS THAT A SMALL FOOT PRINT??

That's a drop in the bucket, compared to our open southern border. They wouldn't be rushing for the exits if we'd left a modest residual force of 5k or less until there was an alternative govt other than the Taliban. They wouldn't want to leave if they had an alternative to Taliban rule.

The small footprint was the number of US forces.

[dislaxxic]

America’s War in Afghanistan Is Over but Our Big Lies About It Live On

An opinion piece in the Daily Beast

It’s important to establish these details, because these are the things people overlook when describing what has become one of the most popular criticisms of Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan: that he allowed the military to “abandon” BAF, or that it would have been somehow more possible or feasible to carry out a deliberate evacuation from BAF than from Hamid Karzai International Airport. This is false. The number of people required to safely secure BAF and its eight-mile perimeter in 2021 would have required an entirely new troop surge numbering in the thousands. When one considers the logistics involved, and the numbers of soldiers, Marines, and airmen, the number could have easily ballooned far greater than the number readily available for the task.

The collapse of Afghanistan demonstrated that the country I imagined when I was deployed here was also a lie, just another storyline.
It also would have required taking Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) to create an outer perimeter of security. Several months ago, it would have been unimaginable to carry out a unilateral operation. These choices would have affected which ANSF units were available to provide security elsewhere. And one must also consider in retrospect that the ANSF providing security would have also probably required support from the American base logistics system.

The collapse of Afghanistan demonstrated that the country I imagined when I was deployed here was also a lie, just another storyline. It has been extraordinary to watch how in the intervening weeks, rather than facing up to the delusion that we entertained for 20 years, nearly everyone with a hand in this mess has done everything they could to shift the blame elsewhere. Certainly, some leaders were capable of and interested in considering the significance of Afghanistan’s near-instantaneous collapse. Admiral Mike Mullen, for example, didn’t shy away from reality. But the former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff didn’t have much company. Most of the other people who led the war and promoted it have indulged in rationalizing, comforting counterfactuals and even outright lies.

That's the same tired, worn out excuse for all options in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Syria -- it would have required at least 100,000 troops.

We didn't need to retake Bagram. We needed to just not leave. Had we stayed, the ASF would have stayed with us.

The ASF could have fallen back & concentrated their ground & air forces there, if necessary. If Kabul needed to be evacuated, our remaining embassy staff could have evacuated to or through Bagram. If necessary the Ghani govt could have evacuated there. Bagram & 3 other air bases (Mazir-I-Sharif, Shindand & Herat) could have been held by ASF, US & NATO forces, turned over last, & not abandoned. The ASF & the Ghani govt could have defended the northern & western provinces, temporarily ceding the Pashtun regions to the Taliban, until those populations rejected their harsh rule & a coalition govt could be negotiated.

Don't believe the author talks about a "retaking" of Bagram. Keeping an outpost there, ala Guantanamo, was judged BY OUR MILITARY LEADERSHIP to be untenable and just a bad, bad idea.

Salty, you're talking about extending...perpetuating... "empire" and that was just never an option in Joey's mind. He's right to feel that way. The military-industrial complex and it's attitude about this Cash Cow has managed to muddy up the waters over this withdrawal by yanking on everyone's heartstrings about "all those we leave behind".

The last administration got this withdrawal ball seriously rolling. Steven Miller (and others??) reportedly poisoned the SIV process to keep the filthy towel-heads out of our clean, white country. The moves you're discussing would have bought us, what? another year? So what? How many more soldiers would've been lost in that effort? The vaunted "training of the ASF" was a miserable failure and wasn't going to be fixed with one more year. No one in the military-industrial complex would have come clean about the 20 years of lies and mistakes made in that theater. That's the REAL betrayal of our ground forces, our enlisted men and women that were there being used to fatten contractor's wallets.

..

[Brooklyn]

embarassed for you. really really am.
DEMOCRATIC senator Tom Cashle (SD ).......name is no the bill where ALL members of the US Senate voted YES.......to kill.
STOP with your unprincipled claims otherwize. STOP blaming a party, when the facts are the facts. 98 US Senators voted YES. any of them DEMOCRATS.
guess THIS is credible source. History, what is past is prologue....excepting most on this website.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/ ... stan-vote/
the TAATS (hillary, John (kerry, edwards, etc) ALL voted YES to kill people

your just gonna forget those 8 years 2009-2017

lacking principles, STOP the lies on this website.

If your hero Bush hadn't lied about it all there would not have been a war. He exploited the situation caused by al-Qaeda and blamed Afghanistan which had nothing to do with 9/11. The result ~ a disastrous war of colonialist occupation that was lost just like Vietnam. Who is going to pay for it, now?

2009-2017? When Obama tried to withdraw you right wingers called him a "surrender monkey". Remember?

The USA surrendered because as in Vietnam it could not get support from the majority of the population as it remained loyal to the Taliban, its rightful government. Thankfully, the Taliban was kind enough to allow our forces to retreat without getting shot at unlike what Bush, Sr did in "Highway of Death" where he unmercifully murdered soldiers who were trying to retreat.

That's the truth and it is the way history will show it from here till the end of time whether you like it or not.

[old salt]

America’s War in Afghanistan Is Over but Our Big Lies About It Live On

An opinion piece in the Daily Beast

It’s important to establish these details, because these are the things people overlook when describing what has become one of the most popular criticisms of Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan: that he allowed the military to “abandon” BAF, or that it would have been somehow more possible or feasible to carry out a deliberate evacuation from BAF than from Hamid Karzai International Airport. This is false. The number of people required to safely secure BAF and its eight-mile perimeter in 2021 would have required an entirely new troop surge numbering in the thousands. When one considers the logistics involved, and the numbers of soldiers, Marines, and airmen, the number could have easily ballooned far greater than the number readily available for the task.

The collapse of Afghanistan demonstrated that the country I imagined when I was deployed here was also a lie, just another storyline.
It also would have required taking Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) to create an outer perimeter of security. Several months ago, it would have been unimaginable to carry out a unilateral operation. These choices would have affected which ANSF units were available to provide security elsewhere. And one must also consider in retrospect that the ANSF providing security would have also probably required support from the American base logistics system.

The collapse of Afghanistan demonstrated that the country I imagined when I was deployed here was also a lie, just another storyline. It has been extraordinary to watch how in the intervening weeks, rather than facing up to the delusion that we entertained for 20 years, nearly everyone with a hand in this mess has done everything they could to shift the blame elsewhere. Certainly, some leaders were capable of and interested in considering the significance of Afghanistan’s near-instantaneous collapse. Admiral Mike Mullen, for example, didn’t shy away from reality. But the former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff didn’t have much company. Most of the other people who led the war and promoted it have indulged in rationalizing, comforting counterfactuals and even outright lies.

That's the same tired, worn out excuse for all options in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Syria -- it would have required at least 100,000 troops.

We didn't need to retake Bagram. We needed to just not leave. Had we stayed, the ASF would have stayed with us.

The ASF could have fallen back & concentrated their ground & air forces there, if necessary. If Kabul needed to be evacuated, our remaining embassy staff could have evacuated to or through Bagram. If necessary the Ghani govt could have evacuated there. Bagram & 3 other air bases (Mazir-I-Sharif, Shindand & Herat) could have been held by ASF, US & NATO forces, turned over last, & not abandoned. The ASF & the Ghani govt could have defended the northern & western provinces, temporarily ceding the Pashtun regions to the Taliban, until those populations rejected their harsh rule & a coalition govt could be negotiated.

Don't believe the author talks about a "retaking" of Bagram. Keeping an outpost there, ala Guantanamo, was judged BY OUR MILITARY LEADERSHIP to be untenable and just a bad, bad idea.

Salty, you're talking about extending...perpetuating... "empire" and that was just never an option in Joey's mind. He's right to feel that way. The military-industrial complex and it's attitude about this Cash Cow has managed to muddy up the waters over this withdrawal by yanking on everyone's heartstrings about "all those we leave behind".

The last administration got this withdrawal ball seriously rolling. Steven Miller (and others??) reportedly poisoned the SIV process to keep the filthy towel-heads out of our clean, white country. The moves you're discussing would have bought us, what? another year? So what? How many more soldiers would've been lost in that effort? The vaunted "training of the ASF" was a miserable failure and wasn't going to be fixed with one more year. No one in the military-industrial complex would have come clean about the 20 years of lies and mistakes made in that theater. That's the REAL betrayal of our ground forces, our enlisted men and women that were there being used to fatten contractor's wallets.

Until this week, we hadn't lost anyone in the past year & a half. Very few, comparatively, in the past 5 years. The ASF fought & died, so long as they knew we were their to back them up with intell, targeting, air support & logistics. They had even developed a functioning air force capable of providing most of their air support.

Both parties pandered to the public with their "endless war" trope. It was no longer our war. It had not been for 5 years.
20 years of sacrifice, thrown away on a whim.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/1 ... ban-505165
Support for the American military withdrawal from Afghanistan dropped 20 percentage points from April to August as the Taliban takeover of the country accelerated,
38 percent said the U.S. should still withdraw if the Taliban regains control of most of Afghanistan. Forty-five percent of voters said the U.S. should probably or definitely not withdraw, a larger share than those who generally opposed the decision to withdraw.
...& that was before the fall of Kabul, the evac debacle & the KIA's @ HKIA.

[jhu72]

The idiots that make this argument, then tell us we needed to evacuate 300,000 people -- HOW IN THE HELL IS THAT A SMALL FOOT PRINT??

That's a drop in the bucket, compared to our open southern border. They wouldn't be rushing for the exits if we'd left a modest residual force of 5k or less until there was an alternative govt other than the Taliban. They wouldn't want to leave if they had an alternative to Taliban rule.

The small footprint was the number of US forces.

You are delusional. 5K would not have been enough with the Taliban surging. ISIS-K threat growing, two front war.

Sorry, if you have to evacuate 300,000, that is not a small foot print. That is a trap that we fell into!

[PizzaSnake]

90 retired Generals and Admirals call for Milley and Austin to resign immediately

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... rawal.html

https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/y ... ommission/

Clearly there is some there...there. MIght it be that these military folks are doing what they promised when they swore in.

Yeah, he's touched in the head. Threatening his superiors? Lucky if he doesn't get some time (3 years or so) in the brig.

"because when I am done with what I'm about to do, you all are going to need the jobs and the security"

So what is it that he is going to do that will necessitate them (you all) need[ing] the jobs and security? Is he out of his mind? Sounds like he means to initiate actions which will challenge the "good order and discipline" of the military.

In any case, you know he's on some watch lists now -- the new Timothy McVeigh.

"Scheller wrote an update on his LinkedIn page Monday afternoon, “When I went into work this morning, I was ordered by my commanding officer to go to the Hospital for a mental health screening. I was evaluated by the mental health specialists and then sent on my way. My CO is a standup guy, and I understand why he did it,” he wrote."

This is how it works. When you are in service, you shut your mouth. If you want to complain, leave, then speak.

"60. Article 134—General article
a. Text of statute.
Though not specifically mentioned in this chapter, all disorders and neglects to the prejudice of
good order and discipline in the armed forces, all
conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the
armed forces, and crimes and offenses not capital, of which persons subject to this chapter may
be guilty, shall be taken cognizance of by a general, special, or summary court-martial, according
to the nature and degree of the offense, and shall
be punished at the discretion of that court."

"(2) That, under the circumstances, the accused’s
conduct was to the prejudice of good order and
discipline in the armed forces or was of a nature to
bring discredit upon the armed forces. "

https://www.sapr.mil/public/docs/ucmj/U ... rticle.pdf

[dislaxxic]

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/1 ... ban-505165
Support for the American military withdrawal from Afghanistan dropped 20 percentage points from April to August as the Taliban takeover of the country accelerated,
38 percent said the U.S. should still withdraw if the Taliban regains control of most of Afghanistan. Forty-five percent of voters said the U.S. should probably or definitely not withdraw, a larger share than those who generally opposed the decision to withdraw.
...& that was before the fall of Kabul, the evac debacle & the KIA's @ HKIA.

The American public has been lied to about this "war", this occupation, for 20 years, their opinions about it totally misinformed. The training of an Afghan force had been underway for 10 years at least. THAT'S the major failure here, the failure of the trainers and facilitators that threw money at the issue for years without a CLUE about the dynamics, the culture, of the country. The "government" installed there was hopelessly corrupt and fully intertwined with the American military-industrial complex that has been feeding at the trough of slush provided by the American Taxpayer for decades.

..

[Brooklyn]

.. gotta love the forever warriors. They are now all spun up over the fact that the Wikipedia article on the Afghanistan War declares the Taliban as the victors. Children with guns, the morons that got us into the war.

Taliban celebrate their victory over the colonialist occupiers:



https://i2.wp.com/www.chronicle.ng/wp-c ... C512&ssl=1


There is good reason for their celebration as per wiki:

According to the Costs of War project at Brown University, the war killed 51,613 Afghan civilians in Afghanistan. However, the death toll is possibly higher due to unaccounted deaths by "disease, loss of access to food, water, infrastructure, and/or other indirect consequences of the war". A report titled Body Count put together by Physicians for Social Responsibility, Physicians for Global Survival and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) concluded that 106,000–170,000 civilians have been killed as a result of the fighting in Afghanistan at the hands of all parties to the conflict.


Over 100,000 innocents killed because of the needless imperialistic war caused by traitor Bush. Sad that so many on the far right cry over the loss and retreat from the war that was killing so many people. Just imagine how you would feel if members of your family were killed by a foreign occupier. It would motivate everyone to get revenge on the invaders. Thankfully, the Taliban showed great mercy in allowing Americans to retreat without shooting at them or without shooting at the traitors who betrayed their country and sided with the invaders.

[Brooklyn]

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/1 ... ban-505165
Support for the American military withdrawal from Afghanistan dropped 20 percentage points from April to August as the Taliban takeover of the country accelerated,
38 percent said the U.S. should still withdraw if the Taliban regains control of most of Afghanistan. Forty-five percent of voters said the U.S. should probably or definitely not withdraw, a larger share than those who generally opposed the decision to withdraw.
...& that was before the fall of Kabul, the evac debacle & the KIA's @ HKIA.

The American public has been lied to about this "war", this occupation, for 20 years, their opinions about it totally misinformed. The training of an Afghan force had been underway for 10 years at least. THAT'S the major failure here, the failure of the trainers and facilitators that threw money at the issue for years without a CLUE about the dynamics, the culture, of the country. The "government" installed there was hopelessly corrupt and fully intertwined with the American military-industrial complex that has been feeding at the trough of slush provided by the American Taxpayer for decades.

..

+ 1,000

[Brooklyn]

The idiots that make this argument, then tell us we needed to evacuate 300,000 people -- HOW IN THE HELL IS THAT A SMALL FOOT PRINT??

That's a drop in the bucket, compared to our open southern border. They wouldn't be rushing for the exits if we'd left a modest residual force of 5k or less until there was an alternative govt other than the Taliban. They wouldn't want to leave if they had an alternative to Taliban rule.

The small footprint was the number of US forces.

more right wing delusionalism:


The borders have been closed since March 20, 2020. People from outside the U.S. are permitted to fly in from abroad. President Joe Biden vowed to resume normal border operations early in 2021, but he has not done so despite releasing into the U.S. tens of thousands of migrants who illegally crossed the southern border since he took office.


https://www.bing.com/search?q=US+southe ... A1&PC=EE04



once again, the TRUTH easily defeats the right wing lies