Afghanistan in the rear view mirror...

It looks to me that the US and its Nato allies have good capacity to evacuate people from the Kabul airport. To the extent that our Afghan allies cannot get to the Airport, and I am sure there are thousands in other parts of the country, I think that is the result of the unprecedented collapse of the Afghan Army and Government. Not the fault of US and our Nato allies. As I said earlier, the collapse of the Afghan army makes the French army’s performance in World War II look like the last stand of the 300 by comparison.

So, how was this outcome avoidable? It wasn’t. There were no good possible alternatives.
 
The Free French were tenacious fighters and the women always walked around with hand grenades. They visited swift death on The Germans who had invaded their homeland whenever possible and helped pave the way for the allied invasion with channel wall intelligence and sabotage of the power grid and rail lines. I for one think that they performed admirably against a vastly superior enemy and still managed to keep up their spirits.
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So yeah, comparing the Afghan Army to the French gets me a little prickly. ;)
 
We probably have some of the same words in English. But yes probably get you banned:biggrin: Tell it to the Legion Etrangere "Marche ou Creve" Unofficial because you can't say those things officially. I know it wasn't Das Vadanya:rolleyes2: Without Air Support The Afghan Army was done the day we pulled out of Bagrahm. Who want's to bet China is in that fully operational base within months.
 
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NJROTC-CC said:
It looks to me that the US and its Nato allies have good capacity to evacuate people from the Kabul airport. To the extent that our Afghan allies cannot get to the Airport, and I am sure there are thousands in other parts of the country, I think that is the result of the unprecedented collapse of the Afghan Army and Government. Not the fault of US and our Nato allies. As I said earlier, the collapse of the Afghan army makes the French army’s performance in World War II look like the last stand of the 300 by comparison.

So, how was this outcome avoidable? It wasn’t. There were no good possible alternatives.
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This is simply not true. We have retrograde operations in our doctrine. We have skilled military planners. Our joint force is the most powerful fighting force ever assembled.

This is and was not Stalingrad.

We could have deployed sufficient forces to secure Lines of Communication and key airfields to enable passage of our citizens, allies, and finally military forces. This would have required a U.S. Army Corps HQ, a Combat Aviation Brigade, a Fires Brigade, and associated joint forces and enablers.

It simply required political will and leadership.
 
Soldiergriz said:
It simply required political will and leadership.
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EXACTLY my point. Virtually no one in the USA wanted to increase our commitment in the hope that maybe we could someday, 1 year, 5 years or 10 years from now, have a clean way to exit. The Afghan people simply to do not have the will to stand up to the Taliban. As I said in an earlier post, this was not a failure of the military, it was a political decision (that is, a decision by a majority of the American People) that "enough is enough." If the majority of Americans wanted to extend our commitment, SURE, we could have stayed and maintained order. That is not the point. I don't think there is a clean way to exit a country that has no government or military. What is to say that the government and the Army would have collapsed down the road?

The real failure is Congress and the State Department not planning to give visas to the Afghan allies and to start bringing them out sooner. That should have been done more than a year ago.

Finally, there is a point of view that it would have been in the US's interest to maintain a small force (2,500 to 5,000) in country indefinitely and that by doing so the US' security interest would be served. This is debatable. I can see both sides of that argument.
 
Political Will:thumb: When Johnson and the White House started picking targets and prohibited bombing the dams in North Vietnam because of "world perception" the war was over. If you fight based upon what other people and the media think of you the war is lost in the boardroom.
 
Would like to see more posts in this vein. When I think “American”, this is what I see. No time to d**k around.

video.foxnews.com

US Special Forces rescue high-profile Afghan officer, family | Fox News Video

U.S. Special Forces Officer Ryan Brummond, who was part of the mission, details the massive effort on ‘Fox & Friends.’
video.foxnews.com video.foxnews.com

abcnews.go.com

US special operations forces race to save former Afghan comrades in jeopardy

The current and former military members are getting people out "one at a time."
abcnews.go.com abcnews.go.com
 
AF6872 said:
Wait For It: They are now beginning to compare the current evacuation to the greatest since the Berlin Air Lift. If I remember my history correctly we were bringing in supplies to West Berlin through open air corridors (land access was closed by the Russians) and dropping candy bars. We were not trying to evacuate thousands of people from West Berlin. I don't think we gave weapons to the Taliban until last week.It’s like sinking a ship
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As I saw somewhere today after the Berlin comment, you don’t get to sink the ship and then brag about the number of lifeboats.
 
"...any attack on our forces or disruption of our operations at the airport will be met with swift and forceful response" President 8/20/21
 
AF6872 said:
"...any attack on our forces or disruption of our operations at the airport will be met with swift and forceful response" President 8/20/21
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But it is difficult to respond to a suicide bomber.

A lot of things could have been done better in hindsight. I just hope my DS doesn’t have to go back five years from now.
 
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