You’re asking why our troops don’t thin out and protect a entire city vs the airport that is critical to evacuations?
seems self explanatory.
Not really. 6,000 troops more then enough to secure Kabul and provide time required to finish.
I was unaware of that, but If they actually used the money they were given properly, they would have had a chance. Still, being sidelined like that was a bad move by the US.
Again to be fair to the Americans, they clearly didn't anticipate that they would just roll over and surrender. It isn't even a case of the strength of the military, its that they didn't even bother to fight to begin with.
According to whom? Elvis?
According to me.
This has been an absolute shambles and it's self inflicted. Instead of troops defending the capital while the evacuation takes place you have nearly 6,000 of them defending an area smaller than Dublin Airport and all the chaos on the tarmac.
It's absurd.
What’s your military experience? Any tour of duty in a combat zone?
I think you greatly overestimate how many troops 6000 is. What’s the capacity of Croke Park again?
So the new Emir or President was in a Pakistani prison, until Trump got him released:
OK, the US really screwed the pooch on this one. While its still true that the previous leadership, were corrupt and stole from the country and left it with no armed forces, the US getting this guy out was probably not the best idea.
They didn't secure Kabul. There was no plan at all. They were burning documents at the U.S embassy earlier. The shredders wouldn't shred quickly enought. They were not prepared at all. Those documents would have been important. People who they would have worked with over the years. All the names of the local Afghans who would have had jobs/contracts with them and they only got around to do it today, if they even finished the job.
The plan to leave Afghanistan was correct. The implementation of it was a disaster.
I think the Taliban will be shrewd. They won't start rolling into the airport beheading foreigners. They want to have some acceptance to the outside world. They will need to get on top of the 16-20 year olds that are having the time of their lives though, before one of them does something to turn the airport into a battleground.
6,000 is a lot of troops whatever way you look at it. And they could have more if they wanted obviously.
The fact remains they should not be in this situation. The Taliban, apparently, were co-ordinating with the US military on the ground before they even reached Kabul.
Yet you'd think there was some siege going on at the airport.
6000 can’t defend a whole-ass city of 4 million against an opposing force of equal or greater size.
6000 well armed , trained and experienced US soldiers is a powerful force in Anyone's books even with limited airsupport and they have the ability to fight 24/7 the Taliban don't,
Easy to say when it’s not your life I guess.
they could fan out into the city and then the Taliban could push on the airport, and the whole situation would be FUBAR.
gonna have to go with the pentagon on this one over the message board folks, they have a firm understanding of the situation on the ground right now, and they clearly have reasons for not overextending themselves.
Really? How do you know?
To buy time of course they could. The Taliban were not in the city. They could have told them the city was being held until the evacuation of citizens was completed.
It now raises a very serious problem because those Afghans that want to flee face retribution as well. That's why so many are on the tarmac at the airport. Apparently the Taliban have already set up road blocks.
The whole thing is just a mess.
It's not my life no but it's a fact ,
6000 US troops can easily hold their own against a force multiple times bigger than them ,
it’s not a fact, nor is it being applied here.
and currently, just so we are clear, there are only 3000 troops on the ground right now, not 6000. And there are still thousands of US personnel to otherwise evacuate. So the priority is the safe and orderly operation of the airport.
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/watch-frantic-evacuations-underway-at-kabul-airport-with-thousands-of-u-s-embassy-staff-still-in-afghanistan/
You seem keen to defend this incompetence. Why?
You can be anti Trump and be outraged by this state of affairs, you know.
This is as bad as anything under Trump incidentally policy and effect wise.
Ad hominem and casting conspiratorial aspersions at other members doesn’t make for logically valid debate.
you asked why they weren’t spreading out across the entire city of Kabul. I proceeded to proffer you several reasons.
I couldn’t be more clear across my entire history on this website that I never once supported forever wars. Nor did I even oppose Trump setting us up to withdraw. This isn’t a partisan, anti-Trump issue. This war has been fought by 4 presidents now, of both major parties
I figured perhaps incorrectly for some, that it went without saying that it was a massive intelligence failure not to project that the Afghan establishment would roll over for the Taliban in exchange for bribes and such.
Pre 9/11 were the Taliban in Afghanistan not mostly portrayed as a great bunch of lads running a country on a similar level to how Saudi Arabia is run today and interacts with the world?
I agree the US should pack it in, in Afghanistan. Said it several times. The problem is a situation has been engineered by this administration whereby US troops are currently hunkered down at HK airport amid chaotic scenes because no defence at all was put up way before this point. I'm not talking about the Afghan army, i'm talking about the US military.
They could have gotten out without these scenes which are humiliating, which you know well.
I highly doubt there was ever going to be a scenario where we did not see these or similar scenes. That is at best idle speculation.
trump negotiated with the Taliban: as long as they didn’t conduct transnational terror, we were golden. They could rape all the women and kill all the locals they wanted.
We left a furnished and trained army in place that caved to the Taliban without most firing a single shot, all in trade for bribes.
No matter when, or how, Afghans were always going to be raped and murdered in this quagmire. Whether we left last year, next year or in 100 years.
This morning (today). How anyone can defend this position I can't understand. It shouldn't be like this. Spilt milk now.
This is true. Including their current leader, who was released by Pakistan, years after obama got them to apprehend him.
The religious cave men police have evidently arrived at the airport.
What a question. You're not ex-UK military by any chance are you?
They defeated the Taliban in a few months and could have defeated them with their existing weaponry and arsenal. But that would have undermined the true purpose, which is not to do the right thing, but to get the right contracts and kickbacks in place.. while appearing to do the right thing.
How awful it must feel for your own government to throw you under the bus and remove 20 years of relative freedom.
Even worse that your standing army seemed to be in on it from the minute the UK/US decided to pull out
Oh give it a rest will you. Everyone knows who the president is now and under who's watch this is happening, it's an absolute monumental fu*k up but all you are ever interested in is going on about is Trump. He's gone, this is Biden's fault.
I knew all the Biden fanboys would stream over to this thread to try and deflect and make it all about Trump.
The real life consequences of this for the entire region are staggering, millions of lives have been ruined, millions of refugees will probably stream towards Europe over the next few years destabilizing the EU once again. Thousands of ISIS and associated terrorists are now on the loose which could easily result in more attacks on European soil but hey Democrat supporters would rather keep going on about Trump to deflect.
The problem here is the people who suffer are those in the middle east and Europe. This never affects Americans, so they can still preach and lecture the world on the joys of having Biden/Democrats in power like we are supposed to be grateful for their so called "progressivism"...
While a few of the natives do seem to be trying to flee most must be happy enough with the Taliban. There appears to be zero Afghan resistance to the Taliban.
No resistance doesn't necessarily mean they're happy about it.
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