Can't believe there was no plan to get the Afghans who helped the US out of harm's way, though finally, there's something Congress can pretty much (with 16 exceptions) agree on. How they voted.
Hope it's in time to get those people out; one has already been beheaded.
-------------------------------- We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home. - Australian Aboriginal proverb
Bazootiehead-in-training
Posts: 37931 | Location: Somewhere in the middle | Registered: 19 January 2010
The Taliban has stunned even some seasoned military and national security officials in the U.S. government with the speed of its conquests over the past week, sources with direct knowledge of the developments tell Axios.
Why it matters: President Biden isn't budging — resolved to get out by Aug. 31, no matter what — people briefed on his thinking say. He may not see much of a pause between his total withdrawal from Afghanistan and the country's total collapse into a bloody civil war.
-------------------------------- We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home. - Australian Aboriginal proverb
Bazootiehead-in-training
Posts: 37931 | Location: Somewhere in the middle | Registered: 19 January 2010
Carter Malkasian is the author of The American War in Afghanistan: A History. He served as a civilian advisor in Iraq and Afghanistan and was the senior advisor to General Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, from 2015 to 2019.
-------------------------------- We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home. - Australian Aboriginal proverb
Bazootiehead-in-training
Posts: 37931 | Location: Somewhere in the middle | Registered: 19 January 2010
-------------------------------- We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home. - Australian Aboriginal proverb
Bazootiehead-in-training
Posts: 37931 | Location: Somewhere in the middle | Registered: 19 January 2010
Our embassy personnel have been taken to the airport to be evacuated.
Our flag at the embassy is down.
-------------------------------- We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home. - Australian Aboriginal proverb
Bazootiehead-in-training
Posts: 37931 | Location: Somewhere in the middle | Registered: 19 January 2010
CNN had an Arabic-speaking cameraman in the presidential palace with the Taliban who took over the palace and who were sitting at the president's desk.
The cameraman asked one of the fighters a question, in Arabic. The Taliban guy responded in English.
"I spent 8 years in Guantanamo".
-------------------------------- We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home. - Australian Aboriginal proverb
Bazootiehead-in-training
Posts: 37931 | Location: Somewhere in the middle | Registered: 19 January 2010
The US military has temporarily suspended air operations at Kabul airport while US troops try to clear Afghans who have flooded onto the airfield in a desperate rush to escape the Taliban, a US defense official told CNN.
The suspension comes amid reports of chaos at the airport, where the US has moved all its embassy personnel. Some Afghans have reportedly rushed departing planes, making frantic attempts to scramble onto and then cling to the aircraft as they took off. Gunfire has been reportedly heard around the airport as well. CNN has not been able to independently confirm these reports, but the military is now moving to clear and secure the runways. The suspension is in effect "while we make sure the airfield is secure," the US defense official told CNN.
-------------------------------- We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home. - Australian Aboriginal proverb
Bazootiehead-in-training
Posts: 37931 | Location: Somewhere in the middle | Registered: 19 January 2010
I assume he made this decision to finish the withdrawal with advice from smart advisors. But was everyone in the military and state department so oblivious as to how quickly the Taliban would take over? Or were people not listened to? Or did we not really care?
I was reading an article this morning about how for months now the Taliban has been paying off army and police throughout the country to just surrender when they are told to do so.
And Biden was just completing what TFG agreed to do… but surely none of this will stick to the teflon don.
I remember 20 years ago an expert on the history if the region said that for centuries no outside power has ever been able to control Afghanistan and that the US will fail just as every other nation has before.
The publisher of The Washington Post pleaded with the White House on Monday to have the U.S. military move to safety more than 200 journalists and related people affiliated with the Post, Wall Street Journal and New York Times who are “in danger” at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan.
Post Publisher Fred Ryan asked National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan in an “urgent request” email to have them moved from the civilian side of Hamid Karzai International Airport “to the military side where they can be safe as they await evacuation flights.”
“They are currently in danger and need the US government to get them to safety,” Ryan wrote in the email, which he said he was writing on behalf of the three newspapers.
-------------------------------- We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home. - Australian Aboriginal proverb
Bazootiehead-in-training
Posts: 37931 | Location: Somewhere in the middle | Registered: 19 January 2010
-------------------------------- We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home. - Australian Aboriginal proverb
Bazootiehead-in-training
Posts: 37931 | Location: Somewhere in the middle | Registered: 19 January 2010
Fared Zakaria: “We lost the war in Afghanistan long ago. … This withdrawal has been poorly planned and executed. But the naked truth is this: There is no elegant way to lose a war.”
Thanks for posting that, Ax. It was his "Fareed's Take" on his Sunday morning GPS show and I heard it then. It's what prompted me to find Carter Malkasian's piece that I posted up above.
Also....
quote:
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction painted a troubling picture of America’s 20 years in Afghanistan on Tuesday, concluding that the U.S. government consistently underestimated the time required to rebuild the country and misunderstood its context during America's longest war.
"If the goal was to rebuild and leave behind a country that can sustain itself and pose little threat to U.S. national security interests, the overall picture is bleak,” John Sopko, the SIGAR, wrote in the report, titled “What We Need to Learn: Lessons from Twenty Years of Afghanistan Reconstruction.”
The report was based on 13 years of oversight work, including 760 interviews with people such as current and former policymakers, military officers and experts. Though the SIGAR concluded that America’s intervention in Afghanistan had “bright spots,” including lower child mortality rates and higher literacy rates, the report also questioned whether these gains are “commensurate with the U.S. investment or sustainable after a U.S. drawdown.”
-------------------------------- We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home. - Australian Aboriginal proverb
Bazootiehead-in-training
Posts: 37931 | Location: Somewhere in the middle | Registered: 19 January 2010
