Thanks for the non-political information.

Thank your dad & mom (she was right there) for their service.

"It is either incompetence, or uncaring disregard for the lives of US Citizens and Allies"

Is it safe to assume you feel the same about our Kurdish allies, that we simply abandoned/left - without even an attempt at evacuating?

Let's not get childish.

I hear one said say.........well it's because of the agreement by the prior president. When has the current president kept to anything the prior did or signed?? and if we stuck to the agreement, we would have been out by May.

Not even close. We have about 30,000 troops in South Korea. We don't even have 3.5 million active duty military.

As far as Afghanistan, wars aren't won there. They are just perpetuated. Simple fact is we got caught with our pants down. The Taliban mowed over the Afghan security forces much faster than the U.S. wanted to believe possible. Now we're paying for that mistake. Yes, it is easy to Monday morning quarterback. Hopefully we can get out the people that need to get out without any further loss of life.

Actually, it is very rare for a President to unilaterally pull out of a Treaty a previous administration had sign on behalf of the US. Well, until recently it has been rare. America's word used to be sacred around the world. Now, not so much. And this "botched" withdrawal is not helping repair the damage to our reputation.

I agree with the contents of that post. The Kurds were good fighters and good allies and we left them to die. We keep doing stunts like that and Britain, Germany, and Australia will never trust us enough to be allies again.

I question why we did NOT wait until the WINTER to start to pull out. For some reason (?) the Taliban likes to go back home (to outlying areas, I suppose) for the winter and prefers to fight in the summer. It could be because the mountain passes and roads are not functional in WINTER? I do not KNOW for sure and would like some Afghanistan veteran to straighten me out on this score.

Congrats on the thread lasting more than 5 minutes!!!


:coolsmiley:

As someone who was there I can assure you that no President deserves credit for this evacuation. That goes to the Airmen and Soliders and the untold thousands of federal employees, logisticians, DoD contractors, not the president, not by a long shot.

Germany and Japan had an HONORABLE military and governments that SIGNED a SURRENDER agreement with the US. The Afghanistan Taliban were a loose coalition of about 15 stone-age tribes that never stopped fighting because they knew that eventually, we would leave. 20 years ago no top country wanted to stay there because Afghanistan had NOTHING worth trading for. Today, it is a little different because Afghanistan has lithium. But, it is in remote mountains and roads are a problem.

lol!!

Some (?) country that doesn't like us probably put pressure on to get us out of Afghanistan. It may have been for Lithium? It could have been to prevent the US from controlling a country like Afghanistan which has a strategic location? It could be a country that wants to see the heroin trade continue?

If ANY President gets the blame whenever something goes badly, why can't that President get credit when something goes right?

Yes they all get the credit for doing all the legwork, the physical work, the strategic planning, logistics, arrangements.

But they wouldn't have done any of it if the President hadn't said "okay let's do that." He could've said no. He made the tough decision to say yes. He's being lambasted for it.

So if you want to give all those people the "credit" for doing it, then you need to accept that certain of the American citizenry are blaming Biden for all the things that went wrong - when - according to you, he didn't do anything at all. It was all those other people who did it all.

I agree... especially 1 of your threads :a040::a040:

the last plane has left and "....we are out...".

Discussion about who may still be there?

The Afghan leaders didn’t have problem getting out. So, they most had likely fly on the wall?

There is no logic

I guess you don’t understand the ( ) system of us against them?

According to a tweet there were 7 busloads of American women that were blocked from being able to access the airport and are now in taliban hands....for starters Emily Miller tweeted "We’re dealing with Kabul. There’s 7 buses of female American citizens. The CG refused to open the gate. We have a congressman with us and he had the state department reach out. MG Donahue refused. 10 minutes ago the females were taken by the Taliban. They are likely dead now."

He’s being lambasted and rightfully so. Read the WP Editorial Opinion piece from today. This isn’t about R or D. This is about the global perception of America’s incompetence.

Here’s the article inThe NY Times. They were students at the American University. Most were women.

American University of Kabul Students Trying to Flee Were Sent Home - The New York Times

Thank you and your family for your service🙏🏻💙💙🙏🏻

So much easier said than done. Once we began to withdraw our military and Afghan employees, the “government” we set up and the army we equipped and claimed we had trained began to quickly collapse as the result. Withdrawing before every single person who wanted to be removed from the country was impossible as soon as we lost control of the country and those desiring to leave couldn’t safely gain access to the airport.

The Taliban essentially won the conflict when the terms of our surrender were documented in the Doha Agreement agreed to by president Trump in 2020, then worsened when president Biden announced the specific date when we would leave.

Once our political leaders made those mistakes, the sequence of withdrawal you suggest became impossible. It was amazing that we were able to get as many people safely out of the country as we did. But our failure to fulfill the promises we made to the Afghans who were loyal to us for years won’t be forgotten by those with whom we attempt to make future agreements. Afghanistan will be another important reason why the reliability and consistency of U.S. foreign policy is mistrusted.

The Time to leave was the day after we killed Bin Laden.

OVER 300 Americans stranded, left behind. But, we got over a hundred thousand potential terrorists out.

Total incompetence! What rational person would pull out of a fortress like Bachram. With 2 runways & aircraft in middle of night, before evacuating people?

ditto!!!!

Not being a wise guy, but could you link me to that plan that was avoided ?

Maybe the 5000 extra terrorists released screwed up the plan.

There is no way this retreat could have happened without the perils.

Thank you. Well said. There are also medical workers and charity workers who believe they are crucial to saving lives and decide to risk their own lives to save others. (Sort of like the military, but with differences.) There are a few who have developed local ties, perhaps through marriage, and decided they won’t leave until they can get their families our at the same time. There are a few who are running engineering projects that will fall to pieces if they leave.

I’ve been listening to Shelby Foote’s three volumes on the Civil War for the second time (100 hours). One thing those books make clear is that whatever plans were made, on either side, could be foiled by muddy roads, a river rising, tired horses, sick troops, not arriving somewhere on time, misunderstanding orders, or failure to carry out orders. A couple minutes one way or another could win or lose a battle. Plans could be leaked or intercepted. Lucky shots could change the course of battles. Information failures and logistics problems could be fatal. (In a way it’s a bit like how there are so many things on football fields that can change the course of events.)

I think that after a horrible muddle caused by the unexpected happening, our country—government, Pentagon, and those around the world working on this—did a pretty wonderful job ramping up the effort in just a few days to taking out thousands a day to somewhere else. I’m reminded of Dunkirk, and what a muddle that was, and how much less certain of success it seemed at the time, and how close it came to not working, and how many didn’t make it home, and how it was a desperate retreat recast as a victory, and how even civilians pitched in to help save lives.

Logic
 

Billions of equipment left behind, thousands of terrorists released from prison, names and addresses of our contractors released, people falling from planes trying to escape.....
Glad we left, but GEEZZZ

The right answer.

We left a busload of Americans there that wanted out. Decision of our president AND Joint Chief of Staff. If that bus had 50 marines would they have made the same decision to leave them there?

You mean the "Afghan Government" that cut and ran?????

Isn't it amazing how many arm chair quarterbacks there are. All knowing... Must have been privy to so much classified information.

There is no doubt. that it wasn't incompetence. It was the situation overtaking all reasonable contingency planning.

Because an American family was trying to get out when we left and now has to be smuggled out!!!! According to a senator

There is no logic to it. A result of a poorly executed evacuation delayed from May to August for a 9/11 photo op.

Sacrifice more young men and women in an in winnable situation? I would make this decision and go back or use leverage to get Americans out. Let’s not forget what we did accomplish 125,000 out that is remarkable. Biden got out period sometimes that exit isn’t pretty.

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