Has Biden Made the Right Choice in Afghanistan?

[Maladict]

Starting to look pretty bleak out there. I fear this will turn out to be a terrible mistake, and a stain on Biden's presidency.

[Razgovory]

Starting to look pretty bleak out there. I fear this will turn out to be a terrible mistake, and a stain on Biden's presidency.

Probably. No matter what we do it seems to go badly.  It's like three shells and pea except each shell has a live grenade under it.

[alfred russel]

The rest of the brass aren't elected.

He selected Milley for Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the most important military national security security job. His qualifications were:

+ Obama fired him
+ Mattis didn't like him

Case in point: saying deliberately stupid things looking for a reaction.

Take it up with Minsky Moment; that post was a quote from him. He made it about a month ago in the context of criticism of Trump. No one challenged his factual accuracy when he made that post or said he was trolling.

I don't think the problem is that I'm a troll/intentionally provocative or make stupid arguments. The problem is lots of people here are increasingly close minded, which really mirrors society at large.

[The Minsky Moment]

Take it up with Minsky Moment; that post was a quote from him. He made it about a month ago in the context of criticism of Trump. No one challenged his factual accuracy when he made that post or said he was trolling.

Because it was in a completely different context.  In this context, it is meaningless.

Sure Trump made bad decisions.   But what does that have to do whether Biden Made the Right Choice in Afghanistan?

[OttoVonBismarck]

Mark Milley's service history while Barack Obama was President:

- Promoted to Commanding General, 10th Mountain Division - 2011
- Promoted to Commanding General, III Corps - 2012, this came with a promotion to Lieutenant General
- Promoted to Commanding General, U.S. Army Forces Command - 2014
- Promoted to Chief of Staff, U.S. Army (fwiw the highest ranking position in the Dept. of the Army) - 2015, raised to the rank of General

The idea that Trump liked him because Obama didn't, is not borne out by the evidence since Obama in fact promoted him to the Joint Chiefs and gave him basically the career goal position of most high ranking officers in the U.S. Army.

He also had 6 deployments in a command capacity to major warzones:
-Panama
-Bosnia
-Iraq
-Afghanistanx3

With additional deployments to Egypt (observational), Haiti, Somalia and Colombia.

He had experience in a command capacity of U.S. Special Forces. Has been involved in some of the most comprehensive reviews of military missteps in Iraq. He holds a bachelor's degree from Princeton and a Master's from Columbia (Poli Sci undergrad / International Relations masters.)

FWIW there's things you can criticize Milley for in his actual record, but lack of experience that would be typical of someone promoted to Chief of Chiefs isn't it.

Edit to add: I did not see Minsky's post that you're referring to as it was in a different thread and I don't read all of them, had he said Milley's only qualification to be Chief was that Obama did not like him, I would have called that out as well. Now, a different claim, that the only reason Trump hired him is because he reportedly was very good at ingratiating himself to Trump in their one on one interview, I would take little issue with. That was widely reported at the time Trump picked him, specifically because Mattis actually favored the Air Force Chief of Staff for elevation, and it's unusual for the SecDef and POTUS to have different picks for that particular promotion (unusual enough that the national press covered it.) But that doesn't mean that Milley's only qualification was that Trump liked him; you can't just hire any random kind and sensitive person off the street for that job, you promote from the service chiefs. That long list of commands I typed out for Milley? Those represent the typical "rank up" of someone in his position. At each of those ranks there is opportunity to fail, and usually at that level the failure results in you being 'retirement tracked', you don't see higher command and you're put at some book shuffling job for a few years then get to retire. We also send commanders who are moving through those ranks to the various military war colleges and etc.

This wasn't a Ben Carson for HUD type hire because we don't allow that in our military.

[The Minsky Moment]

I have no issues with Milley BTW as should have been clear from  the context of that thread.  It was Trump who soured on him as he sours on anyone who isn't a supine flunky

[Admiral Yi]

That seems meteoric Biscuit.  Is only one year with a division par for the course or wunderkind stuff?

[OttoVonBismarck]

That seems meteoric Biscuit.  Is only one year with a division par for the course or wunderkind stuff?

A lot of those postings don't go quite as long as you might think. A typical term for a divisional commander in a division like 10th Mountain is 3 years, Milley did about 1.5 years--it was actually noted at the time he was promoted he was not in his previous role as long as is normal. Although things move around more now that we've been at war for 20 straight years, deployments can govern some of the timing. For example the III Corps was slated to deploy to Afghanistan in 2013, most likely Milley was moved up to command there in 2012 so he could prepare for that deployment. Either the previous commander of III Corps was retiring or for some other reason the brass didn't want him leading that deployment (just guessing based on the timing.) In March 2014 that deployment ended and the fact Milley was promoted again around that time is an indication he was considered a success in the command of the corps during that deployment.

U.S. Army Forces Command could have been another 3ish year posting, the interesting thing about a lot of these command roles is you're getting to the tier of command where like your next command is something bigger or you're "off track" and headed for retirement, example being you will be moved to some sort of lower prestige office job in the Pentagon or some sort of caretaker assignment, guys who get up to that many stars tend to get "pushed out" gently and with a pension bump through a terminal promotion but in spite of that it is kind of a meatgrinder, you're expected to do good enough to get a higher command each rotation or your career largely is over. So while his U.S. Army Forces Command was relatively short, that Chief of Staff position is one of those things where the SecDef/President are going to pick one of the appropriately Senior Generals of their choice, and it may short circuit other timelines. Most likely there were other generals of equivalent level who were nearing the end of their expected terms in their commands, who would've been hoping for that position. When they didn't get it, unless some other high level command became available they likely would be ending their careers.

Chief of Staff is a specifically termed position (4 years), and almost always at the end of the term the person holding it ends their military career. Exceptions are when they are elevated to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Technically the President can extend Chief of Staff to a second four year term, but I don't think it's been done in like 60+ years. Part of the "up or out" ethos.

[Admiral Yi]

When you say 3 years is typical for a division like 10th Mountain, does that mean some divisions are faster track and some are slower?  What does it depend on?  Public recognition?  Sex appeal?

[OttoVonBismarck]

Divisions that are regular Army commands, there's reserve / national guard divisions that I think normally work differently, but I'm less clear on their operations.

[HisMajestyBOB]

Kabul is under a blackout and there's fighting reported in the city, according to Twitter.

[Zanza]

Are the Afghan government forces even fighting back against the Taleban? Saw pictures from Mazar-i-Sharif and it looks like the Taleban drove into the city with their Toyota pickups and that was it.

Looks like twenty years of training missions and capability building were wasted together with billions in military assets.

[The Brain]

AR, what do the bookies say?

[The Brain]

You'd think someone called A. Blinken would be able to win a civil war. But no.

[Tamas]

Are the Afghan government forces even fighting back against the Taleban? Saw pictures from Mazar-i-Sharif and it looks like the Taleban drove into the city with their Toyota pickups and that was it.

Looks like twenty years of training missions and capability building were wasted together with billions in military assets.

Jalalabad (sp?) apparently was surrendered by its governor without a fight.

As some of you guys pointed out earlier, ultimately, it quite clearly seems, most people in Afghanistan prefer Taliban rule over trying to fight them. And based on the history of Afghanistan, if those people can't be bothered to shoot at somebody, I think they must be quite ok with them.