Has Biden Made the Right Choice in Afghanistan?

[Tamas]

Is it Saigon yet?



Apparently US troops had to fire warning shots to keep people away from planes meant for American diplomats and staff, but somebody reported 5 bodies carried away after the stampede so who knows how start warning shots those were.

[Syt]

Meanwhile, Germany is still discussing whether any Afghans who worked for German military or institutions (embassy, development office ...) should be offered refuge in Germany. German media have written an open letter urging to help people without whom they wouldn't have been able to report from Afghanistan (translators, etc.).

[garbon]

What's the benefit/point of comparisons to Saigon?

[The Brain]

The US and allies having lost a land war in Asia to an enemy who had a plan and a vision.

[Sheilbh]

Kabul airport's been overrun with people trying to get out. Reports of people literally trying to cling on to airplane wheels as they take off

Apparently the UK is evacuating up to 1,000 people a day (and have sent an extra troops 600 to help secure the airport) who are mainly British citizens or Afghans employed by the British. The ambassador was meant to leave yesterday but has apparently stayed in the hotel at the airport where he is just processing/signing visa applications for Afghans - how helpful this will be given that the Taliban control the roads to the airport is unclear. From what I've read the plans were in place to get everyone out by the end of August, but obviously events have overtaken that plan.

The Defence Secretary appeared very emotional this morning on some news. He has said the priority is to evacuate (I think 4,000) British citizens and "Afghans we have obligations to" (I suspect that's too limited a category), but some will probably not get out and be left behind. From what I can tell he's about the only person in the UK government left dealing with this - and has taken a different, far more critical line than Johnson - because the PM is on holiday in the West Country and Dominic Raab who is Foreign Minister and basically deputy PM was on holiday in Cyprus.

And for all the effectiveness of the Taliban's rebel governance and the way they have kept trying to reassure people - there are reports of them doing door-to-door searches in cities they've taken over. I imagine anyone they associate with the Western mission will be a target - translators, civilian employees, aid workers, journalists etc.

[alfred russel]

Going back to the quality of the military...from a July 8 press conference held by Biden on the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Good afternoon. Earlier today, I was briefed by our senior military and national security leaders on the status of the drawdown of U.S. forces and allied forces in Afghanistan.

...

Q    Mr. President — do you trust the Taliban, Mr. President?

Q    Is a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan now inevitable?

THE PRESIDENT:  No, it is not.

Q    Why?

THE PRESIDENT:  Because you — the Afghan troops have 300,000 well-equipped — as well-equipped as any army in the world — and an air force against something like 75,000 Taliban.  It is not inevitable.
...

Q    Mr. President, will you amplify that question, please?  Will you amplify your answer, please — why you don't trust the Taliban?

THE PRESIDENT:  It's a — it's a silly question.  Do I trust the Taliban?  No.  But I trust the capacity of the Afghan military, who is better trained, better equipped, and more re- — more competent in terms of conducting war.

....

Q    Mr. President, thank you very much.  Your own intelligence community has assessed that the Afghan government will likely collapse.

THE PRESIDENT:  That is not true.

...

Q    Mr. President, some Vietnamese veterans see echoes of their experience in this withdrawal in Afghanistan.  Do you see any parallels between this withdrawal and what happened in Vietnam, with some people feeling —

THE PRESIDENT:  None whatsoever.  Zero.  What you had is — you had entire brigades breaking through the gates of our embassy — six, if I'm not mistaken.

The Taliban is not the south — the North Vietnamese army. They're not — they're not remotely comparable in terms of capability.  There's going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of a embassy in the — of the United States from Afghanistan.  It is not at all comparable.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/07/08/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-drawdown-of-u-s-forces-in-afghanistan/

Either "our senior military and national security leaders" gave the president a phenomenally incorrect view of the situation or Biden just lied his ass off about the information he was receiving.

[Sheilbh]

But from what I saw literally no-one predicted this and everyone has been shocked at how quickly the Taliban have moved.

There were experts saying they might manage to take over in a few months but I think the consensus was probably a year or two of struggle.

So I think it's a fair guess that your senior military and national security leaders had phenomenally incorrect view of the situation - because every expert seemed to. I don't think anyone thought the Taliban would go from not occupying any of the 34 provincial capitals to taking Kabul in a fortnight. There's maybe lessons to be learned there.

I think the US official estimates from last week that Kabul would fall within 30-90 days is probably more one that can be criticised as ignoring the reality that was emerging.

Edit: Incidentally, I wonder what they are thinking in Beijing because my understanding is that there are Uyghurs fighting with the Taliban. That's a different prospect, I'd guess, for China if there's going to be a civil war in Afghanistan for a year or two. They may now present more of an immediate risk. Though the Taliban promise they won't let Afghanistan be a base for any violence in Xinjiang.

But Russia and China are keeping their embassies in place - and it does look likely Russia will recognise the Taliban this week. Weirdly the Saudis are evacuating their embassy.

[The Brain]

Steiner's attack will stabilize the situation.

[alfred russel]

But from what I saw literally no-one predicted this and everyone has been shocked at how quickly the Taliban have moved.

There were experts saying they might manage to take over in a few months but I think the consensus was probably a year or two of struggle.

So I think it's a fair guess that your senior military and national security leaders had phenomenally incorrect view of the situation - because every expert seemed to. I don't think anyone thought the Taliban would go from not occupying any of the 34 provincial capitals to taking Kabul in a fortnight. There's maybe lessons to be learned there.

This isn't a situation where the Taliban achieved an unexpected result on the battlefield and took over on an unexpected timeframe. This is a situation where the Afghan Army disintegrated without a fight.

Bigger picture we spent two decades and hundreds of billions, maybe even a trillion, trying to build the Afghan Army into a force that could defend the national government, and that force has been revealed to be an utter nullity. The enterprise was just a giant conveyer belt of money from US taxpayers to defense contractors and elite Afghans, and the grifters couldn't even give us a half assed battle as a return on our investment. The emperor had no clothes. We were in the country for 20 years working with these guys on a day by day basis: there isn't an excuse for not knowing.

[Tamas]

Steiner's attack will stabilize the situation.

[Solmyr]

I am very sorry for this woman just as I am for all those women who were crushed by the Islamic revolution in Iran.

But polling data is clear that the overwhelming majority of women in Afghanistan are more aligned with the Taliban than her. That is a fact no American occupation can change. Afghanistan can only be changed by the people of Afghanistan. If she wants to leave the country I hope somebody will help her. If she stays I wish her all the best.

How reliable is polling data from women in Afghanistan?

[Sheilbh]

This isn't a situation where the Taliban achieved an unexpected result on the battlefield and took over on an unexpected timeframe. This is a situation where the Afghan Army disintegrated without a fight.

Bigger picture we spent two decades and hundreds of billions, maybe even a trillion, trying to build the Afghan Army into a force that could defend the national government, and that force has been revealed to be an utter nullity. The enterprise was just a giant conveyer belt of money from US taxpayers to defense contractors and elite Afghans, and the grifters couldn't even give us a half assed battle as a return on our investment. The emperor had no clothes. We were in the country for 20 years working with these guys on a day by day basis: there isn't an excuse for not knowing.

Agreed - and I think the bigger criticism of Biden isn't that he was lying to people when he said he had faith in the Afghan but his role in America's foreign policy for the last 20 years. For the first 7 years of this conflict he was, from my understanding, a Senator who focused on foreign affairs. He was then VP who was fairly involved on internal debates on foreign policy. Though I would note that I think in 2009/10 when Obama was considering whether to go for an Afghan "surge" or start to reduce troop numbers, Biden was in favour of reducing numbers.

I think this line from the Atlantic piece by a former soldier is probably where I'd focus criticism of Biden (and others) given the roles he's played for at least 15 of the last 20 years:

We were overly optimistic and largely made things up as we went along. We didn't like oversight or tough questions from Washington, and no one really bothered to hold us accountable anyway. We had no capacity or experience with some of our tasks, and we stumbled.

[Legbiter]

There were experts saying they might manage to take over in a few months but I think the consensus was probably a year or two of struggle.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I think Biden actually just lied about a lot of it. For one, that 300,000 troops number was known to not be true the moment he said it, so either he "misspoke" or he was deliberately deceiving.

The other big thing is, the Washington Post was able to talk to a number of Afghan police and military leaders who had agreed to lay down their arms and they were talking pretty candidly about accepting cash from the Taliban to switch sides. As far as I can tell the Washington Post's reporters were able to get this information in a couple of days end of last week. That suggests this wasn't exactly happening in secret. As they reported, local and district "cease fires" that were being signed, were actually surrender agreements in which the local Afghan leadership was taking money to basically switch over to the Taliban.

I just think it's not possible we didn't know this was going on, from an intelligence perspective. It was too widespread and apparently wasn't really being done covertly. So in the sense that Afghanistan was long term viable and able to resist long term, I 100% think Biden had intelligence telling him otherwise, and simply chose not to be honest about it. I understand his reasons--if the paradigm is you have to stay in Afghanistan until the local government is secure, that endlessly continues to extend your withdrawal date. Biden wanted a withdrawal regardless of the conditions on the ground, so it was not politically expedient to reveal that he knew the Afghan National Government had no long term viability.

Now, I can 100% believe that in spite of knowing of all these local defections, our intelligence may have assumed the provincial and military officials in and around Kabul would be inclined to fight it out. Even that alone would have likely meant 3+ months of fighting before a collapse, because of the large number of troops entrenched in and around the Kabul area. Them also just agreeing to surrender without a fight probably is the element that caught us by surprise. But I suspect Biden knew back when he did that press conference that the national government was in its entirety a sham, and unlikely to last much beyond 90 days. So his saying that it wouldn't collapse--a lie. Now do I think we knew it'd collapse in 14 days? No, I think the reporting that our intelligence analysts thought 90 days, is probably what they actually thought, likely banking on armed resistance from the core of the military around Kabul. Remember it took like a year to dislodge ISIS from Mosul and the Afghan National Army was actually better positioned to defend Kabul, so I can see our intelligence assuming there would be a prolonged period of fighting outside Kabul before we got to this point.

[DGuller]

Afghanistan or not, I wonder how many people would opt to make a desperate last stand where they're expected to last for a couple of months before their enemy achieves total victory?