If it becomes necessary, we need to have a plan to evacuate the Afghan Air Force pilots, flight crews, maintainers, their families & aircraft.The fate of Afghanistan is up to the Afghan people, President Joe Biden said repeatedly Thursday, as American troops continued their withdrawal and Taliban forces swept through the country. "It's up to the people of Afghanistan to decide on what government they want, not us to impose the government on them," he said during an address at the White House, Defense One's Jacqueline Felscher reports.
Biden also rejected calls that the U.S. military drawdown should slow or stop because security in Afghanistan is degrading so fast. He said it is "not inevitable" that Afghanistan will fall to the Taliban, citing the 300,000 trained members of the Afghan National Security and Defense Forces and their ability to defend against an estimated 75,000 Taliban fighters.
But he also said it is "highly unlikely" that the country will have one unified government, and that it's not America's job to ensure that happens."
For what it's worth: This week we learned "77% of Americans said they approved of the U.S. removing its troops from Afghanistan," which CBS News reported Thursday "was majority approval across the political spectrum." (That's from a survey conducted in April.)
SecDef Lloyd Austin called up his Turkish counterpart for the second time in two days, the Pentagon announced Thursday evening, saying the two "continue[d] discussions over the ongoing drawdown in Afghanistan" and "agreed to stay engaged with respect to arrangements at the Hamid Karzai International Airport."
A Taliban delegation traveled to Russia on Thursday to say the group controls 85% of Afghanistan, and that it would try hard to keep ISIS and other terrorist groups out, Reuters reports from Moscow.
The Pentagon insists the U.S. isn't abandoning the Afghan Air Force. "It's not like we're clapping our hands and walking away," spokesman John Kirby said Thursday. "We're going to continue to work on improving their Air Force. The [Defense] Secretary just recently agreed to help them to deliver two—this month—UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, with another 35 to come. We're going to help manage an overhaul process for some of their MI-17 helicopters. And we are going to purchase another three Super Tucano … A-29 aircraft. So we're committed in very tangible ways to improving their Air Force capabilities."
The Taliban have allegedly assassinated at least seven Afghan Air Force pilots over the past several months, according to a special report this week from Reuters. And this is especially concerning because it seems to "illustrate what U.S. and Afghan officials believe is a deliberate Taliban effort to destroy one of Afghanistan's most valuable military assets: its corps of U.S.- and NATO-trained military pilots," Reuters writes. "In so doing, the Taliban—who have no air force—are looking to level the playing field as they press major ground offensives."
The Taliban say they are indeed behind the killings, with a spokesman telling Reuters the pilots were "targeted and eliminated because all of them do bombardment against their people." Read on, here.
The Taliban are killing government workers across the country, too, which is "part of the Taliban's broader strategy of trying to rebrand themselves as capable governors while they press a ruthless, land-grabbing offensive," the New York Times reported Tuesday.
Meanwhile next door, "panic is spreading through Pakistan's halls of power," the Wall Street Journal reports from Islamabad, where "After years of publicly railing against American strategy in Afghanistan and saying there is no military solution, Pakistani officials now complain that the U.S. exited Afghanistan too quickly."
Like the U.S. in Afghanistan, the French military has a drawdown dilemma of its own in the African Sahel, the Associated Press reported Thursday from Mali.
Background: "In June, French President Emmanuel Macron announced the end of Operation Barkhane, France's seven-year effort fighting extremists linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State in Africa's Sahel region. France's more than 5,000 troops will be reduced in the coming months, although no timeframe has been given. Instead, France will participate in a special forces unit with other European countries and African countries will be responsible for patrolling the Sahel."
BTW: France's Defense Minister Florence Parly dropped by the Pentagon this morning to meet with SecDef Austin.
I'd delay sending any more H-60's & A-29's until we see if the govt will hold on & for how long.
Dems and Independents support the plan to leave Afghanistan by margins of at least 2.8 to 1. Republicans by less than 1 to 1. Can't imagine why they changed their minds.
Palau's president is dropping by the Pentagon today to meet with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. President Surangel Whipps Jr. will be met with an honor cordon ceremony at about 1:30 p.m. ET. 