US strikes deal w/ Taliban to remove troops from Afghanistan (4 Viewers)

[Heathen]

Surprised I didn't see it posted anywhere. And to preface -- I know there are too many contextual complexities to name regarding this.

Props to this administration for pushing to get this done. Endless war shouldn't be what American citizens view as 'normal'.

This would be a huge win for Americans and Afghanis if this works out as planned:

Afghan conflict: US and Taliban sign deal to end 18-year war

President Trump says it is "time after all these years to bring our people back home".

www.bbc.com

The US and Nato allies have agreed to withdraw all troops within 14 months if the militants uphold the deal.

President Trump said it had been a "long and hard journey" in Afghanistan. "It's time after all these years to bring our people back home," he said.

Talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban are due to follow.

Under the agreement, the militants also agreed not to allow al-Qaeda or any other extremist group to operate in the areas they control.

 

[J-DONK]

I think the best you can do as the U.S. is demand the Taliban constantly allow people who want to leave, a way out. The problem is you can't really know what's going throughout the country as there are no doubt thousands of acts of brutality that won't be accounted for.

At least for now they have no reason to stop it. The American military is leaving, and they are taking dissenters with them. It's a win/win for the Taliban.

I'm very interested in what's going to happen in Pakistan after this. It's not a given that Pakistan, and the Taliban are friendly.

 

[MT15]

Trivia: How many Muslims have received a Nobel prize in science?

Good question, I had no idea. Looks like 3 for science and 9 for peace.

 

[samiam5211]

Trivia: How many Muslims have received a Nobel prize in science?

3 according to Wikipedia.

Why do you ask?

 

[Lapaz]

correct and the remaining "afghan forces" werent exactly "all in"

So there is my point- there was no real "sacrifice" as a whole country. They knew it was inevitable to fight this fight. At some point when in Rome...

Our mere "presence" was not going to keep them in the fight. We would have had to had a MASSIVE presence there...not sporadic forces and contractors. Massive amounts of equipment, troops and other logistics to just maintain their morale. Thats not even factoring in the "re-education" part for corruption in every part of the govt, the citizens etc. When you tally all that up, it was a money pit. For what? Trying to bring them into 21st century?

Im all for supporting US involvement when atrocities take place. Im NOT for nation building when its done half arse. You cannot half arse it and HOPE that it will take. Thats not logical. Thats fantasy.

I don't understand how you've made your point. I posted an excerpt of reports from the New York Times which states that they were still fighting and dying as recently as a couple of weeks ago, even though we started withdrawing and cities were falling all over the country. The remaining soldiers knew it was a lost cause without our support. They were either going to be martyrs, or stop fighting. A few kept fighting, but most knew it was suicide, and they weren't willing to commit suicide. All of the information shows they were fighting until we decided we were leaving, and even then many kept fighting until it was blatantly obvious that it was a lost cause. There is nothing that proves that we would've had to have a massive presence. Everything pointed to us needing to continue to support them for them to maintain the morale to fight.

 

[Lapaz]

It should be said that nobody "trust" the Taliban. Nor does it appear to me that the administration is "hoping" the Taliban keeps its word. All indication is that they're dealing with and managing the situation as it occurs. Taliban seems more concerned at the moment with establishing control than getting into fighting with Americans or impeding our departure. That can change at any minute, and any number of things can change the situation on the ground. But with a troop surge of 6,000 I believe (maybe naively given what we've seen) they will be able to finish the withdrawal of all US and NATO personal and most of the Afgan nationals that are applying for visas. The military is very good at short, extremely focused, clearly defined missions. This is clearly that now.

The only reason that I don't say all the Afgan nationals is because it's unclear (and even doubtful) that the US would be able to get all eligible Afgans out. Those that aren't in Kabul will be especially difficult to extract.

I don't know how we're going to get the Afghans that helped us out in parts of the country far from Kabul, such as Kandahar that is about 250 miles away, because I don't think the Taliban are allowing people to move around freely. The 31 AUG artificial deadline to get people out has to be extended. We've screwed this up enough, but compounding it with an artificial deadline is dumb. We should insist on access to the other major cities to allow all to exit. Also, we need to lift our immigrant limit of 65k. We need to take in as many Afghans as are willing to leave, even if we need to take in a million Afghans. Then we need to plan to train those Afghans to become productive members of the U.S. Since we're no longer spending money to help in their region, we can at least show the world that we are worthwhile allies. All of the sacrifices will not be in vain if we do that. It might get us a lot of good will from other neighbors in the region that will otherwise be flooded with refugees and many of them will become terrorists out of anger with our abandonment.

 

[SystemShock]

I think it's the criteria.

It was working, in the sense that the government, etc., in place was relatively stable, like in the sense someone on life support is being kept alive.

It wasn't working, in the sense that putting them on life support is supposed to keep them alive and get them to the point where they can keep themselves alive without the support.

So what you are saying, it wasn't working.

The Afghan government wasn't "relatively stable". The only semblance of stability from the West's perspective was the U.S. military. Again, the country doesn't get run over in 2 days after 20 years of occupation if things within the Afghan government were stable, or without general support from the population.

 

[Lapaz]

My nephew who is a loadmaster on the large Air Force transports sent me a picture like this a couple days ago. Said the normal max load for them was about 350 people but the plane in his picture had about 800. A lot of great people helped get them out safely.

A C5 can carry a lot more. They are designed to carry 281,000 lbs, so unless the average person on that plane weighs 350 lbs, they had plenty of capacity. They are designed to carry multiple tanks, but you don't normally want to pack people in based on human factors. I assure you that place got very smelly if that ride lasted longer than an hour.

 

[V Chip]

A C5 can carry a lot more. They are designed to carry 281,000 lbs, so unless the average person on that plane weighs 350 lbs, they had plenty of capacity. They are designed to carry multiple tanks, but you don't normally want to pack people in based on human factors. I assure you that place got very smelly if that ride lasted longer than an hour.

Weight wise, I’m sure it can handle more weight. But are you telling me my loadmaster nephew doesn’t know the maximum number of people they are supposed to load in a floor-sitting situation?

 

[Lapaz]

I keep seeing on TV and reading that this was "an intelligence failure". I disagree. I think it was well-known in the U.S. intelligence community that the Afghan government and military would rapidly collapse. Maybe many people in the intel community thought it would happen in a few weeks instead of a few days, but that is not an intelligence failure.

This was a "wishful thinking" failure by the Biden Administration -- they hoped that the collapse of the Afghan government would not occur as quickly as it did, but they were wrong.

Correct. The Biden administration should've been planning for a much worse scenario, even if not necessarily planning for the worst. Instead they were optimistic (naively so) and planned for a more unlikely scenario that would give them more time. I get you don't always plan for the worst in every situation, but you certainly plan for a bad scenario.

 

[Lapaz]

I don't think we've see any ISIS style murdering and pillaging at this point. Yes, the Taliban is taking over, but it doesn't seem like they are getting much resistance from most people. Maybe i have just missed the stories of mass beheadings.

I am not saying that the Taliban deserves the benefit of the doubt, but so far it just looks like the Taliban is taking control over the government structures that were already in place, they aren't trying to burn it all to the ground.

I doubt they are going to establish a Malala scholarship for girls or anything, but it seems to me that people's fear of the Taliban is what is causing most of the panic, rather than the actions of the Taliban during their return to power.

Sharia is going to be the law of the land, and while terrible, it isn't something far removed from the will of the people of Afganistan.

The Taliban aren't Isis nor Al Qaeda, but they sympathize with them. The Taliban will implement Sharia law, and I believe that will entail beheadings and amputations, but they probably won't do it indiscriminately. They'll do it to those they deem to have violated their repressive laws. That's what people fear, plus the support they'll provide to organizations that will be more indiscriminate.

 

[Lapaz]

Weight wise, I’m sure it can handle more weight. But are you telling me my loadmaster nephew doesn’t know the maximum number of people they are supposed to load in a floor-sitting situation?

I'm sure the loadmaster knows what the maximum number should be, but those max's are based on human factors, not airworthiness safety.

 

[GrandAdmiral]

I gotta ask, since I've never been on a plane of this sort. Where's the bathroom?

 

[V Chip]

I'm sure the loadmaster knows what the maximum number should be, but those max's are based on human factors, not airworthiness safety.

I’m just confused as to why you would bring this up. Human factors amounts to safety factors during transport. Yeah the plane’s not gonna crash because of the weight but they don’t come up with a maximum for only reasons of comfort.

 

[Lapaz]

I’m just confused as to why you would bring this up. Human factors amounts to safety factors during transport. Yeah the plane’s not gonna crash because of the weight but they don’t come up with a maximum for only reasons of comfort.

Human factors is more than just comfort. It is also for the safety of the people. I bring it up because some people don't realize that those limits are not related to the likelihood of the plane not being safe to fly. Those limits are for normal conditions, so the loadmaster or pilot obviously deemed it worthwhile taking the risks of packing the plane, considering the likelihood of a safety problem from the packing is less of a concern than the likelihood of those people facing safety issues from remaining in the country.

 

[superchuck500]

Read this:

CIA’s Former Counterterrorism Chief for the Region: Afghanistan, Not An Intelligence Failure — Something Much Worse

"While it’s certainly convenient to depict the shock and miscalculation U.S. officials claim over Afghanistan’s tragic, rapid fall to the Taliban as an intelligence failure, the reality is far worse."

www.justsecurity.org

 

[coldseat]

Read this:

CIA’s Former Counterterrorism Chief for the Region: Afghanistan, Not An Intelligence Failure — Something Much Worse

"While it’s certainly convenient to depict the shock and miscalculation U.S. officials claim over Afghanistan’s tragic, rapid fall to the Taliban as an intelligence failure, the reality is far worse."

www.justsecurity.org

This paragraph is key:

Because intelligence is an imprecise science with which to crystal ball given that the conditions upon which any assessment is made will likely change, projections and confidence levels varied based on the U.S. military presence, internal Afghan dynamics, and the credibility of the Taliban’s pledge to good faith negotiations. Scenarios for an orderly withdrawal ranged from those in which the United States retained roughly 5,000 troops and most of the existing forward military and intelligence operating bases, to what was determined to be the minimum presence of around 2,500 troops maintaining the larger bases in greater Kabul, Bagram, Jalalabad and Khost, as well as the infrastructure to support the bases we would turn over to Afghan partners. The larger of these two options was judged more likely to prevent Afghanistan’s collapse for 1-2 years and still provide for a degree of continued U.S. counterterrorism pressure; the smaller footprint was more difficult to assess but allowed flexibility for the United States to increase or further reduce its presence should circumstances rapidly deteriorate. (It would be valuable if commentators and news coverage included a greater appreciation of how such contingency-based assessments work rather than conflating assessments.)

So even if we had kept 5,000 troops in Afghanistan, at most it would have prolonged this same outcome for 1-2 more years. When Biden took office, there were only 2,500 troops in country, so he would have had to double the troop presence to basically kick the can down the road for a year or two with the same outcome.

He made the right decision no matter how ugly it looks. All of these defense and counterterrorism experts just can't bring themselves to admit that we lost this war long ago, largely on their advice and rose colored glasses outcomes.

 

[Lapaz]

Read this:

CIA’s Former Counterterrorism Chief for the Region: Afghanistan, Not An Intelligence Failure — Something Much Worse

"While it’s certainly convenient to depict the shock and miscalculation U.S. officials claim over Afghanistan’s tragic, rapid fall to the Taliban as an intelligence failure, the reality is far worse."

www.justsecurity.org

That's an excellent article by the former Trump CIA Southwest Asia counterterrorism chief and Biden advisor. He makes the case that we needed to make changes to the way we were supporting Afghanistan, but that we should've kept a presence there. He explained about a lot of the problems, but that ultimately the decision to leave was political and not based on the intelligence guidance, and that the intelligence included scenarios for a collapse in days, precisely following the approach we took.

 

[Lapaz]

This paragraph is key:



So even if we had kept 5,000 troops in Afghanistan, at most it would have prolonged this same outcome for 1-2 more years. When Biden took office, there were only 2,500 troops in country, so he would have had to double the troop presence to basically kick the can down the road for a year or two with the same outcome.

He made the right decision no matter how ugly it looks. All of these defense and counterterrorism experts just can't bring themselves to admit that we lost this war long ago, largely on their advice and rose colored glasses outcomes.

Well, the article later stated that we should've maintained a presence:

"As the CIA’s former regional counterterrorism chief, and then a private citizen, I advocated the need for the United States to remain in Afghanistan with a small, focused, counterterrorist presence but to adopt a dramatically different approach that did not require us being in the line of fire between rival national forces whose conflicts predated our intervention and will persist long after we’re gone. And while I have criticized the CIA and the intelligence community for various ills that require reform and contributed to the current circumstances, not least of which was a counterterrorism strategy that was arguably more damaging than the ill it sought to address, there was no intelligence failure by the agency in warning either Trump or Biden as to how events would play out. Operating in the shadows and “supporting the White House” will prevent the intelligence community from publicly defending itself. But the failure was not due to any lack of warning, but rather the hubris and political risk calculus of decision makers whose choices are too often made in their personal and political interest or with pre-committed policy choices, rather than influenced by (sometimes inconvenient) intelligence assessments and the full interests of the country."

It may not have been the status quo of troops, but it also wasn't what we're doing now.