Afghanistan

[kenberg]

Yes, Biden ordered the withdrawal. It was always going to be ugly. How ugly? No one knows. All else is speculation.

 

You have accurately summarized the Biden defense in three short sentences.

 

Speculate? I speculate that this defense will not sit well with many people of varied political views.

[Winstonm]

You have accurately summarized the Biden defense in three short sentences.

 

Speculate? I speculate that this defense will not sit well with many people of varied political views.

 

I noticed the media was quick to put John Bolton on air to criticize the failure to continue the war. Is that the solution?

 

Seriously, though, Biden gave what is probably the most honest speech ever by a politician. The collapse surprised the intelligence and the army it seems, and you are only as good as your advisors.

 

Still, the problems of this collapse always go back to starting a war with no end game plan in mind. Because of that, it had to be messy.

 

I strongly recommend reading Andrew Bacevich to get an idea of the limits of American military power and our misguided insistence that we can nation build our way to worldwide capitalism in our own image.

[hrothgar]

Here's the real Biden defense

 

1. Two months ago no one (or almost no one) had a clue that the Afghan army would collapse in a matter of weeks.

2. All of our time tables were predicted on having 12 - 18 months to wind down in Afghanistan

3. Implementing contingency plans based on the assumption that the Afghan government would have collapsed in August would have accelerated the very changes that we wanted to avoid.

 

All you smart guys and girls pissing and moaning about what happened...

Show me what you were doing / saying two months back.

 

Let's start with you Mike Pompeo, because we have plenty of clips from you back in June complaining that the US wasn't pulling its troops out quickly enough.

 

FWIW, I'm thinking back to where my head was at in the late Spring / early Summer.

I didn't believe Biden's claims that the Afghan government was going to be able to hold out against the Taliban. (For that matter, I'm not sure whether Biden believed those claims). However, I sure the hell never expected that things would move this quickly. And I don't think that anyone else did either.

 

So, personally, while I am sorry that Biden didn't get this right, I'm sure as hell not going to get that worked up about it.

[mycroft]

We knew it was going to be horrible. We knew in particular that for people who "collaborated with the Occupation", it was going to be horrible.

 

We also knew it needed to be done. Not doing it was just lower-grade horrible for longer.

 

The question should be, what are we doing to make it less horrible, for everyone if possible, but definitely for the people that helped the U.S./Canada/U.K./...?

 

I notice that we're in Election Season up here as of Sunday. Given that all parties, but especially the Liberals and the Conservatives, were responsible for creating some of this problem, we need to hear from them how they are planning on paying it back. Given that there are about 20 days in each cycle where the U.S. isn't in Election Season, I think it's an appropriate question there too.

[Gilithin]

Earlier in this thread there was a percentage assessment of responsibility in which Biden was given 10% of the blame. I, and from what I am seeing many others from across the political spectrum, look at it differently. For the first 19 of the 20 years Biden has little or no responsibility. He was Veep for 8 years but Veep is the dictionary example of a nobody.

People always pay far too much attention to the current administration and not enough to what came before. The most common example of that is in the economy but it can also apply to foreign policy in some circumstances. Afghanistan is one such example.

 

I already explained why the withdrawal was pre-programmed to be a disaster as soon as the secret negotiations started, and even more so after Doha. There is only so much that can be done once an avalanche starts. To take your 19:1 maths and turn it into bridge terms, let's say Opener starts with a strong 1♣ and Responder makes 19 false relay bids, completely misdescribing their hand. At the end of the auction Opener places the contract badly and it goes down for a huge minus. What would be your ATB scores?

 

I actually think that 10% for Biden is, if anything, too high and Bush's 60% too low, but I will stand by them as nice round numbers. Those with a short attention span, or with a predisposition not to see fault in Republican decisions, will no doubt give Biden 100% of the blame. But I would like to think that the majority of posters here are informed enough to understand the realities of the last 30 or so years and therefore able to go beyond "it happened in 2021 so Biden owns it". There is plenty of blame to go around but it is absolutely clear that the vast majority of it should go to the GOP. But you are right, many Americans across the political spectrum will see it differently - sheep are sheep.

[kenberg]

Here's the real Biden defense

 

1. Two months ago no one (or almost no one) had a clue that the Afghan army would collapse in a matter of weeks.

2. All of our time tables were predicted on having 12 - 18 months to wind down in Afghanistan

3. Implementing contingency plans based on the assumption that the Afghan government would have collapsed in August would have accelerated the very changes that we wanted to avoid.

 

All you smart guys and girls pissing and moaning about what happened...

Show me what you were doing / saying two months back.

 

Let's start with you Mike Pompeo, because we have plenty of clips from you back in June complaining that the US wasn't pulling its troops out quickly enough.

 

FWIW, I'm thinking back to where my head was at in the late Spring / early Summer.

I didn't believe Biden's claims that the Afghan government was going to be able to hold out against the Taliban. (For that matter, I'm not sure whether Biden believed those claims). However, I sure the hell never expected that things would move this quickly. And I don't think that anyone else did either.

 

So, personally, while I am sorry that Biden didn't get this right, I'm sure as hell not going to get that worked up about it.

 

I agree that this is a fuller presentation of Biden's defense.

How worked up will people get? I want to approach that differently.

 

Your points 1, and 2 largely coalesce.

If the thinking was that it would take 12-16 months for the Taliban to do what they have now done then someone made a mistake. Ghani made a mistake but he is not part of the Biden administration.

If the thinking was "Well, we have a year before anything substantive will happen" then to me this seems naive but never mind about me. We need to know just who in the administration took this rosy view. JB did not call me for advice and I am fine with that.

 

I would think that if the Afghan military was just holding on, and really not even doing that in a steady-state, with US support then when we withdraw that support the collapse might be rather rapid. In looking at what happened, I might start there. Just how, when they are losing ground with our support, do we expect them to hold out for another year w/o our support? I am not suggesting we put me in this debate. But there are people who are supposed to be good at analysis and who have been involved in our plans for 20 years. I would like to hear just how they got this so wrong.

 

I also wonder if anyone in the high-level discussions, at any time, said something akin to "I understand you are thinking 12-16 months but I am thinking maybe we should prepare for the possibility that maybe, just maybe, your estimate is optimistic. Maybe very optimistic".

 

 

Right now as others here and elsewhere have said, we have to do our very best to get those who have been with us in action out of Afghanistan and to some anonymous spot like they do with the Witness Protection Program. That's first on the agenda. But it's not the only thing that we need to do.

 

Just as an aside, but to me a big deal. I want Jane Ferguson on the next plane out of Kabul. For those who don't watch PBS, she is an incredibly courageous reporter. Where the action is, Jane Ferguson is. I was watching PBS Newshour last night and as I was listening to her I was ready to shout "Jane, get on the ******* plane. Now"

[Gilithin]

If the thinking was that it would take 12-16 months for the Taliban to do what they have now done then someone made a mistake. Ghani made a mistake but he is not part of the Biden administration.

I am not sure where your 12-16 months comes from. The original US estimate was 6-12 months with a worst-case scenario of 3 months. US planning seems to have been based off of this timetable. The bigger question mark to me is why less than a week ago the estimate was still 1-3 months despite the Afghan military simply melting away pretty much everywhere. Despite the accusations and blame aimed at them, one can hardly blame them as most had not been paid for months and some not even provided with food. There certainly seems to be a disconnect here between the military planners and the actual state on the ground. Ideally there would now be a review of how that process went so wrong and how to improve it. Sadly for the US, it's political system suggests it is much more likely that any review will revolve around trying to stick, or deflect, blame onto/from Biden and his administration.

[Winstonm]

One of the problems is our media - whether Fox or MSNBC - painting the picture of a 12-16 month expected collapse when the reality is that it was down to 1 month to 90 days.

 

One official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the issue’s sensitivity, said Tuesday that the U.S. military now assesses a collapse could occur within 90 days. Others said it could happen within a month. Some officials said that although they were not authorized to discuss the assessment, they see the situation in Afghanistan as more dire than it was in June, when intelligence officials assessed a fall could come as soon as six months after the withdrawal of the U.S. military.

And the slow motion to overnight collapse came after months of Taliban buying off government forces in a "cease fire".

 

The spectacular collapse of Afghanistan’s military that allowed Taliban fighters to walk into the Afghan capital Sunday despite 20 years of training and billions of dollars in American aid began with a series of deals brokered in rural villages between the militant group and some of the Afghan government’s lowest-ranking officials.

 

The deals, initially offered early last year, were often described by Afghan officials as cease-fires, but Taliban leaders were in fact offering money in exchange for government forces to hand over their weapons, according to an Afghan officer and a U.S. official.

 

Over the next year and a half, the meetings advanced to the district level and then rapidly on to provincial capitals, culminating in a breathtaking series of negotiated surrenders by government forces, according to interviews with more than a dozen Afghan officers, police, special operations troops and other soldiers.

 

 

 

Whether these facts were known and presented to Biden is unknown.

[hrothgar]

One of the problems is our media - whether Fox or MSNBC - painting the picture of a 12-16 month expected collapse when the reality is that it was down to 1 month to 90 days.

 

 

 

Its really easy to find a small number of people who will claim most anything.

 

The fact that someone exists (and they happened to be right) doesn't mean that much...

[kenberg]

I am not sure where your 12-16 months comes from. The original US estimate was 6-12 months with a worst-case scenario of 3 months. US planning seems to have been based off of this timetable. The bigger question mark to me is why less than a week ago the estimate was still 1-3 months despite the Afghan military simply melting away pretty much everywhere. Despite the accusations and blame aimed at them, one can hardly blame them as most has not been paid for months and some not even provided with food. There certainly seems to be a disconnect here between the military planners and the actual state on the ground. Ideally there would now be a review of how that process went so wrong and how to improve it. Sadly for the US, it's political system suggests it is much more likely that any review will revolve around trying to stick, or deflect, blame onto/from Biden and his administration.

 

I used the 12-16 from Richard's post that I was responding to. I am very willing to believe the estimate was once 12-16, then shorter, then shorter still. The incredible shrinking time span. I did not want to get bogged down with whatever interval was being postulated at any particular time. The Biden defense has been "No one thought it would be this fast" and that's what I want to get at as something we should be asking.

 

I have not followed this closely enough to have a clear idea of what was being predicted when but what you say above can be seen as reasonable grounds for skepticism about a long gap between our withdrawal and a Talinab takeover.

 

The withdrawal was hugely important. Ultimately, I am saying that if nobody predicted the rapid collapse, we need to ask how this could be. Successful policy needs accurate prediction of consequences.

"Nobody could have foreseen this" is not adequate.

 

 

I realize, or at least I believe, that much of what you are saying goes along fine with what I am saying and in fact it could be part of the eventual accounting. We pay people a lot of money and we give them power and prestige. In return, they are supposed to get things right. If they do not, it is fair to ask what happened.

[Winstonm]

I used the 12-16 from Richard's post that I was responding to. I am very willing to believe the estimate was once 12-16, then shorter, then shorter still. The incredible shrinking time span. I did not want to get bogged down with whatever interval was being postulated at any particular time. The Biden defense has been "No one thought it would be this fast" and that's what I want to get at as something we should be asking.

 

I have not followed this closely enough to have a clear idea of what was being predicted when but what you say above can be seen as reasonable grounds for skepticism about a long gap between our withdrawal and a Talinab takeover.

 

The withdrawal was hugely important. Ultimately, I am saying that if nobody predicted the rapid collapse, we need to ask how this could be. Successful policy needs accurate prediction of consequences.

"Nobody could have foreseen this" is not adequate.

 

 

I realize, or at least I believe, that much of what you are saying goes along fine with what I am saying and in fact it could be part of the eventual accounting. We pay people a lot of money and we give them power and prestige. In return, they are supposed to get things right. If they do not, it is fair to ask what happened.

 

I think perhaps the most fair question of all is why were we there for 20 years?

[Gilithin]

I used the 12-16 from Richard's post that I was responding to. I am very willing to believe the estimate was once 12-16, then shorter, then shorter still. The incredible shrinking time span. I did not want to get bogged down with whatever interval was being postulated at any particular time. The Biden defense has been "No one thought it would be this fast" and that's what I want to get at as something we should be asking.

 

I have not followed this closely enough to have a clear idea of what was being predicted when but what you say above can be seen as reasonable grounds for skepticism about a long gap between our withdrawal and a Talinab takeover.

 

The withdrawal was hugely important. Ultimately, I am saying that if nobody predicted the rapid collapse, we need to ask how this could be. Successful policy needs accurate prediction of consequences.

"Nobody could have foreseen this" is not adequate.

 

 

I realize, or at least I believe, that much of what you are saying goes along fine with what I am saying and in fact it could be part of the eventual accounting. We pay people a lot of money and we give them power and prestige. In return, they are supposed to get things right. If they do not, it is fair to ask what happened.

The withdrawal was ordered in April. The 6-12 month estimate comes from a review in June following a Taliban offensive. Prior to this there was no official estimate for a Taliban takeover. Also in June were widespread reports of government forces being paid off to go home and leave their military equipment behind, with most of those forces not having been paid for several months. It is likely that these conditions were widely known, and perhaps in some quarters reported, before June but the Taliban offensive and US review are what caused them to be so widely reported by MSM.

 

As per the previous post, I agree that the immediate lessons to come from this lie in the origins and methods behind this false planning intelligence, but you are still focusing exclusively on the here and now. To properly apportion blame you really need to look at Afghan history from at least 1989. But just looking at 2001, a year that is surely etched into every American's memory - what were the goals of the war in Afghanistan? Was it to defeat Al Qaeda? Well that goal was accomplished after 6 months - more of less the entire organisation had fled the country by then. Or was it nation-building? Bush did almost nothing for that. Defeating the Taliban? After the initial surge, Bush (and Rumsfeld) pretty much only wanted to defend those gains. Something else? Just after the war Bush stated the objective to be: "This particular battle front will last as long as it takes to bring Al Qaeda to justice". Later on though it all got a little nebulous with noone seeming to be able to give any clear answers.

 

The point here is that the time to leave Afghanistan was 6-12 months after going there and the only person that could have ordered that was W. But the war was popular - voters were still angry about 9/11 and leaving without OBL having been caught would have been unpopular. So the US found excuses to stay. And thus the US did precisely what Bush had said clearly would not happen - "

." And this is why not giving majority blame to #43 is just wrong and why the biggest lessons to be learnt from Afghanistan (as well as Iraq for that matter) are in terms of planning specific military goals before a campaign and understanding what conditions need to be met before withdrawing. This is how the USA will avoid similar events occurring in the future.

[Winstonm]

.... the biggest lessons to be learnt from Afghanistan (as well as Iraq for that matter) are in terms of planning specific military goals before a campaign and understanding what conditions need to be met before withdrawing. This is how the USA will avoid similar events occurring in the future.

 

I cut you down to this section to emphasize how similar are your comments to the entire thrust of the book by Andrew Bacevich, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism

[cherdano]

You have accurately summarized the Biden defense in three short sentences.

 

Speculate? I speculate that this defense will not sit well with many people of varied political views.

It certainly won't go well with pundits on cable news. I bet you can hear all about that day-in day-out if you make the mistake of watching it.

But regular voters? I think within a few months, most of them will just be happy that the withdrawal happened.

 

Personally, I find it a devastating outcome for Afghans. And I feel ashamed how little help many Western countries (including, and perhaps especially the UK) have given those endangered by the Taliban to escape. But otherwise I doubt a withdrawal planned by someone with better foresight could have achieved much better results. Once you plan to leave, what is the goal?

[Chas_P]

It certainly won't go well with pundits on cable news. I bet you can hear all about that day-in day-out if you make the mistake of watching it.

I agree. Casting aspersions does nothing to relieve suffering.

[thepossum]

... the book by Andrew Bacevich, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism

 

I haven't read it but I am sure a few earlier empires could have advised. But seemingly every generation of anything needs to relearn from their own mistakes. Sadly some can be devastating to others

 

I could also add that my new country of Australia could learn too what happens attaching themselves to imperial struggles around the world. Slow learners too

[Gilithin]

I cut you down to this section to emphasize how similar are your comments to the entire thrust of the book by Andrew Bacevich, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism

I think I might have heard the name in passing but have certainly not read it. Is it worth adding to my future reading list?

[Winstonm]

I think I might have heard the name in passing but have certainly not read it. Is it worth adding to my future reading list?

I think so. Bacevich is quite a thoughtful individual so what he argues and explains is never emotive rant.

[kenberg]

I cut you down to this section to emphasize how similar are your comments to the entire thrust of the book by Andrew Bacevich, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism

 

Another of a long list of books I should read but haven't. I vaguely recall the book's first appearance some years back.

 

Motivated by your post, I did read a review by Jonathan Tepperman:

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/books/review/Tepperman-t.html

 

 

Sample

Andrew J. Bacevich thinks our political system is busted. In “The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism,” he argues that the country’s founding principle — freedom — has become confused with appetite, turning America’s traditional quest for liberty into an obsession with consumption, the never-ending search for more. To accommodate this hunger, pandering politicians have created an informal empire of supply, maintaining it through constant brush-fire wars. Yet the foreign-policy apparatus meant to manage that empire has grown hideously bloated and has led the nation into one disaster after another. The latest is Iraq: in Bacevich’s mind, the crystallization of all that’s gone wrong with the American system.

Tepperman later expresses some skepticism about the argument. Not having read the book, I'll leave it be.

I also looked up Bacevich on Wikipedia. Interesting enough.

 

 

 

[Winstonm]

Another of a long list of books I should read but haven't. I vaguely recall the book's first appearance some years back.

 

Motivated by your post, I did read a review by Jonathan Tepperman:

 

https://www.nytimes....epperman-t.html

 

 

Sample

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Tepperman later expresses some skepticism about the argument. Not having read the book, I'll leave it be.

I also looked up Bacevich on Wikipedia. Interesting enough.

 

 

 

 

Oddly - or perhaps not so oddly - I did not get the same thing from the book that your reviewer did. The parts that intrigued me was his criticisms and explanations of the coordination of politics and the military, how this coordination has been disrupted with the advent of a professional standing army and the disconnect of values between civilians and the armed forces.

[Winstonm]

Was getting this right part of his job?

 

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley insisted at a Wednesday press conference that U.S. intelligence did not predict the collapse of the Afghan government in less than two weeks. "There was nothing that I or anyone else saw that indicated a collapse of this army in this government in 11 days," he said, adding they were told the country could fall to the Taliban in weeks or even years.

Is it time to say adieu? Or, as I read somewhere: Lieutenant is a military rank; General is political.

[barmar]

I think Biden was in a no-win situation.

 

And as for the failure of intelligence, I can merely quote the great philosopher Yogi Bera:

It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.

 

The real failure was 20 years ago not heeding the advice of Vizzini:

You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia,"

[kenberg]

I think Biden was in a no-win situation.

 

And as for the failure of intelligence, I can merely quote the great philosopher Yogi Bera:

 

 

The real failure was 20 years ago not heeding the advice of Vizzini:

 

 

I think that Biden was definitely in a no-win situation. I also think that is not all that there is to say. Of course I don't know what can and cannot be done, but I found this article of interest.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/17/bidens-presidency-us-foreign-policy-now-hinge-pulling-off-one-greatest-airlifts-history/

 

It's one thing to say that the situation is awful. And, in very large part, not created by JB. But that's not the same as saying that there are not better ways and worse ways of proceeding.

 

I strongly hope that we get this as right as possible for the Afghans, for us, for the world. Part of how to do it, I think, is to acknowledge a screw-up when we see it. And then fix it as best we can. I hope that is what we are doing.

[Gilithin]

It's one thing to say that the situation is awful. And, in very large part, not created by JB. But that's not the same as saying that there are not better ways and worse ways of proceeding.

 

I strongly hope that we get this as right as possible for the Afghans, for us, for the world. Part of how to do it, I think, is to acknowledge a screw-up when we see it. And then fix it as best we can. I hope that is what we are doing.

Something else to ponder - the withdrawal may well not be the only part of the fallout from Afghanistan where DJT tied JB's hands. A few years back there was a refugee crisis from the Middle East and North Africa. Europe took the brunt of that and the US reaction was "America First!" Now I see that the UK has already agreed to take 5000 Afghans. My guess is that BJ sees that as a down payment on the creation of a trade deal and he would be more than happy to take more if he gets the trade deal he wants. But when it comes to Canada, Germany, France, et al, just what is the US willing to offer for them to take their share? Because if I were the leader of one of these countries, that is what I would be asking. "You want our help? Best get your chequebook out."

[thepossum]

I feel an Al Jazeera perspective may be apt (and likely highly locally informed). Some stuff not mentioned so far. I learnt a few new things anyway

 

"

In 2011, the Obama administration allowed a group of Taliban officials to move to Qatar, where they would be charged with laying the groundwork for face-to-face negotiations with the government of then-President Karzai.

 

In 2013, the Taliban’s Doha office was formally opened. In 2018, the Trump administration began formal, direct talks with the group. The Afghan government was not invited.

 

The head of the Taliban political office in Doha, Abdul Ghani Baradar, signed an agreement with the US on February 29, 2020, that paved way for the withdrawal of the US and other foreign forces. The Taliban promised not to attack US-led foreign forces.

 

The agreement also launched peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan leadership in the Qatari capital. But the Taliban continued its military offensive on the ground while participating in the talks. Last Sunday, they entered the presidential palace, retaking Afghanistan 20 years after they were driven out of power."

 

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/8/18/this-history-of-the-taliban