US strikes deal w/ Taliban to remove troops from Afghanistan (3 Viewers)

DaveXA said:

Intel changes the outcome for Americans currently still stuck in Afghanistan. The pictures coming out of Kabul right now, I'm worried about those still there getting out alive. Were the intel good, they would have gotten out weeks ago. I mean, the plan to send 3k more troops to help with the withdrawal was too little too late. Good Intel would have had all of our assets out of there a month ago.

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Maybe. I think a collapse this swift would have been difficult for anybody to predict, regardless of intel. Once we started taking people out of the country, the end was inevitable. To me, we either stayed there in perpetuity (which I think would have been a bigger mistake) or we bite the bullet like Biden is doing and get out while suffering/admitting the embarrassing end to our longest war.

I know everybody is Monday Morning Quarterbacking this outcome, only natural. But I haven't heard or seen anything that has yet to convince me that this was the wrong decision.

GrandAdmiral said:

As botched as this was, to Biden's credit, he's always been against going into Afghanistan. He even challenged Obama on the idea of keeping troops there.

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I've long wanted out of Afghanistan, but this isn't what I imagined the exit looking like. The pictures coming out of Kabul and the airport are straight disturbing.

What bothers me about this is why we weren't out of there a month ago. How could they not see this coming?

I honestly believe that we had a pretty good idea that this would happen, just not this quickly. Biden tried to talk up the government army, but it sounded more like wishes than a true belief.

I agreed with Trump that we needed to pull out. I still agree with it. No matter when we finally pulled out, it was going to look like this. We cannot remain in Afghanistan indefinitely. Honestly, they just don’t want us there. The Taliban is motivated, and the government army could not care less.

I would like to see us get as many of those people at the airport out of the country. Beyond that, get the hell out. I don’t see a need to place blame on anyone, either Trump or Biden. This was the inevitable outcome.

coldseat said:

Maybe. I think a collapse this swift would have been difficult for anybody to predict, regardless of intel. Once we started taking people out of the country, the end was inevitable. To me, we either stayed there in perpetuity (which I think would have been a bigger mistake) or we bite the bullet like Biden is doing and get out while suffering/admitting the embarrassing end to our longest war.

I know everybody is Monday Morning Quarterbacking this outcome, only natural. But I haven't heard or seen anything that has yet to convince me that this was the wrong decision.

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Getting out wasn't the wrong decision. It should have happened years ago. I think we tipped our hand too soon. They should have just up and left overnight so as to avoid putting our assets at risk when attempting to leave.

Sandman said:

I honestly believe that we had a pretty good idea that this would happen, just not this quickly. Biden tried to talk up the government army, but it sounded more like wishes than a true belief.

I agreed with Trump that we needed to pull out. I still agree with it. No matter when we finally pulled out, it was going to look like this. We cannot remain in Afghanistan indefinitely. Honestly, they just don’t want us there. The Taliban is motivated, and the government army could not care less.

I would like to see us get as many of those people at the airport out of the country. Beyond that, get the hell out. I don’t see a need to place blame on anyone, either Trump or Biden. This was the inevitable outcome.

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Yeah, I don't blame Biden, but I do blame the intel. They botched this badly.

DaveXA said:

I've long wanted out of Afghanistan, but this isn't what I imagined the exit looking like. The pictures coming out of Kabul and the airport are straight disturbing.

What bothers me about this is why we weren't out of there a month ago. How could they not see this coming?

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What is the alternative?

This one is really challenging but the fact remains that 70 percent of Americans wanted out of Afghanistan. Trump ran on getting out and made it US policy. Biden supported getting out and endorsed the pullout that began under Trump.

People seem to think that we could have just buffered it better but in this kind of asymmetric defense against a well organized and patient insurrection, there is no incremental withdrawal that doesn't eventually get to this position.

The execution appears to be really messy, unfortunate, and even shameful. I just think it's really hard to have it both ways in this kind of deployment.

SaulGoodmanEsq said:

I mean... jeez...

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Don't want to make a comparison but I've seen a similar image before.

BTW, this wasn't an complete intelligence failure. The intelligence told us months ago that this was the likely outcome for Afghanistan. They just didn't accurately predict the speed at which this total collapse would happen. That's the part that I think would have been hard for anybody to predict. Nobody was contemplating a week for the Taliban to basically take over the whole country.

superchuck500 said:

What is the alternative?

This one is really challenging but the fact remains that 70 percent of Americans wanted out of Afghanistan. Trump ran on getting out and made it US policy. Biden supported getting out and endorsed the pullout that began under Trump.

People seem to think that we could have just buffered it better but in this kind of asymmetric defense against a well organized and patient insurrection, there is no incremental withdrawal that doesn't eventually get to this position.

The execution appears to be really messy, unfortunate, and even shameful. I just think it's really hard to have it both ways in this kind of deployment.

Afghanistan Is Your Fault

The American public now has what it wanted.

www.theatlantic.com

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I think a complete, total withdrawal under cover of darkness was the way to do it so that they get out before the Taliban gained control of Kabul. We've known for months that we were getting out. And the Taliban knew this as well and took advantage of the situation. How did we not see this coming? This isn't some sort of new phenomenon.

coldseat said:

BTW, this wasn't an complete intelligence failure. The intelligence told us months ago that this was the likely outcome for Afghanistan. They just didn't accurately predict the speed at which this total collapse would happen. That's the part that I think would have been hard for anybody to predict. Nobody was contemplating a week for the Taliban to basically take over the whole country.

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and we shouldn't blame the Afgan military for not choosing to be a speed bump in the inevitable return of the Taliban.

If there were free and fair elections in Afghanistan, the Taliban would hold a majority.

coldseat said:

BTW, this wasn't an complete intelligence failure. The intelligence told us months ago that this was the likely outcome for Afghanistan. They just didn't accurately predict the speed at which this total collapse would happen. That's the part that I think would have been hard for anybody to predict. Nobody was contemplating a week for the Taliban to basically take over the whole country.

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Also, Vietnam 1975.

The same thing happened. It's right in the damn wiki page "The rapidity with which the South Vietnamese position collapsed in 1975 was surprising to most American and South Vietnamese observers."

Lapaz said:

Why did we need to get out?

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What were we accomplishing that we didn't already accomplish a decade ago?

It has never been our job to occupy another country indefinitely. Obama wanted to pull out but didn't, Trump wanted to pull out but didn't, Biden finally pulled the trigger. We haven't made any progress there in well over a decade, as evidenced by how quickly it went south when we left. We should have had a better exit strategy, but leaving has been the right decision for years.

coldseat said:

BTW, this wasn't an complete intelligence failure. The intelligence told us months ago that this was the likely outcome for Afghanistan. They just didn't accurately predict the speed at which this total collapse would happen. That's the part that I think would have been hard for anybody to predict. Nobody was contemplating a week for the Taliban to basically take over the whole country.

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Actually, while a week might seem fast, and it is, is it really that surprising? We already knew there was corruption in the Afghan government and their troops were basically living on borrowed time. We should not have announced we were leaving, and just up and left in order to avoid exactly what's happening now.

superchuck500 said:

Also, Vietnam 1975.

The same thing happened. It's right in the damn wiki page "The rapidity with which the South Vietnamese position collapsed in 1975 was surprising to most American and South Vietnamese observers."

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Precisely, history repeating itself. Will we never learn from our mistakes?

superchuck500 said:

Also, Vietnam 1975.

The same thing happened. It's right in the damn wiki page "The rapidity with which the South Vietnamese position collapsed in 1975 was surprising to most American and South Vietnamese observers."

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Being that we've now suffered that fate twice and didn't learn that lesson the first time, hopefully we won't be getting into prolonged nation building wars any longer.

coldseat said:

Being that we've now suffered that fate twice and didn't learn that lesson the first time, hopefully we won't be getting into prolonged nation building wars any longer.

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Indeed.

DaveXA said:

Actually, while a week might seem fast, and it is, is it really that surprising? We already knew there was corruption in the Afghan government and their troops were basically living on borrowed time. We should not have announced we were leaving, and just up and left in order to avoid exactly what's happening now.

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I don't know that it is really feasable to do something like that overnight or in the cover of darkness.

brandon said:

What were we accomplishing that we didn't already accomplish a decade ago?

It has never been our job to occupy another country indefinitely. Obama wanted to pull out but didn't, Trump wanted to pull out but didn't, Biden finally pulled the trigger. We haven't made any progress there in well over a decade, as evidenced by how quickly it went south when we left. We should have had a better exit strategy, but leaving has been the right decision for years.

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Are you in the camp that we should leave South Korea, Europe, Syria, and Iraq? If so, then that would be consistent. I think we provide stability. It would've taken generations, like it did in Korea, to establish the culture of democracy. We needed a couple of generations of educated women, hiring and voting them into government, and the maturation of their governing institutions to give them a better chance to survive.