Is no one disappointed?

[SteveG]

propaganda fantasies abound in lieu of news

----------------------------------------------

[deckeda]

N-OS X-tasy! wrote:
[quote=Ammo]
I am also very disappointed. Biden had 2 years to figure out how to get out as safely as possible. I suspect he was the victim of horribly inept intelligence. I think I read somewhere that he was told it would be more than a year before the Taliban could take control of the country. Things sure went to hell in a hand basket quickly.

I'm confused by this. Biden has been in office for just seven months. Are you suggesting he should have started planning for a withdrawal from Afghanistan eighteen months before taking office? More than a year before being elected? Before having been selected as his party's nominee, even?
It’s not so much the timeline I’m confused about, it’s the expectation to make and execute plans based on lacking information. It’s just more noise.

[samintx]

I don’t blame our fine soldiers. Retreat is never easy but if you have a plan..and start planning well before a retreat/withdrawal....you have a better chance.

[Filliam H. Muffman]

Do you think it would have gone better if we pulled out of Afghanistan by the end of December 2020 like Cheeto originally announced? Just about everybody in the State Department with a trace of institutional memory of how bad things went in other evacuations was chased out of the service by Cheeto and his minions.

Read through RgrF's post covering Fred Reed's thoughts on how it was a repeat of the Vietnam evacuation.
https://forums.macresource.com/read.php?...sg-2663474

I am most disappointed that the Afghan army collapsed in just over a week. This is the cause of the vast majority of the confusion at the airport. No Middle East country is offering to take people fleeing the Taliban.

[GGD]

deckeda wrote:
Criticism is largely from political opponents who have now sided with the Taliban: See who’s blaming the U.S. for the ISIS-K attack, Taliban and Republicans.

I've been trying to figure out what ISIS-K's goal was in the attack. The end result will likely be the US retaliating against ISIS-K which in turn will be helping the Taliban eliminate them.

[Lux Interior]

Disappointed that this didn't happen 15 years ago.

[Numo]

deckeda wrote:
[quote=N-OS X-tasy!]
[quote=Ammo]
I am also very disappointed. Biden had 2 years to figure out how to get out as safely as possible. I suspect he was the victim of horribly inept intelligence. I think I read somewhere that he was told it would be more than a year before the Taliban could take control of the country. Things sure went to hell in a hand basket quickly.

I'm confused by this. Biden has been in office for just seven months. Are you suggesting he should have started planning for a withdrawal from Afghanistan eighteen months before taking office? More than a year before being elected? Before having been selected as his party's nominee, even?
It’s not so much the timeline I’m confused about, it’s the expectation to make and execute plans based on lacking information. It’s just more noise.
I can’t believe I claimed Biden has been in office for 2 years. I apologize for posting such inaccurate information. Maybe I should make an appointment for a neuro-psych test!

But as I said above, the problem was that Biden did not have accurate information. That’s not necessarily his fault, it’s the fault of whoever was advising him on his options for withdrawing.

[Buzz]

Two words:

National Security.


IOW, we can't talk knowledgeably about this topic until our SpecOps peeps make things right against ISIS-K and, as needed, against the Taliban in A-stan. The best thing we all can do, is keep our mouths shut and not speculate behind our military's back. Get our peeps and our allies' peeps oouta there, and give our SpecOps/BlackOps warriors a chance to do their thing.

I'm inclined to think Rammie was being too generous to Biden.... he inherited two tons of BS in a one-hundred pound sack; done so deliberately by 45. Politics should never have been allowed to get as far afield as Biden's predecessor took it. I'd say I'd hope we've learned from the last several years' worth of debacles, but the more $h!t happens, rather than learning, all that seems to be happening is that more crazies come out of their closets and bunkers. Proof positive you can't fix stoopid.
==

[Lemon Drop]

GGD wrote:
[quote=deckeda]
Criticism is largely from political opponents who have now sided with the Taliban: See who’s blaming the U.S. for the ISIS-K attack, Taliban and Republicans.

I've been trying to figure out what ISIS-K's goal was in the attack. The end result will likely be the US retaliating against ISIS-K which in turn will be helping the Taliban eliminate them.
I think they are much more opportunistic than strategic. This was an opportunity to take advantage of the less secure environment just outside the airport, and target both US soldiers and large numbers of civilians. To demoralize and disrupt the US, which is always their goal.

If they feared retaliation they wouldn't be in the terror business. They are willing and ready to die for their cause, and they have a steady stream of fresh recruits.

We can't eliminate their ideology, only try to make it less appealing.

[Lemon Drop]

samintx wrote:
I don’t blame our fine soldiers. Retreat is never easy but if you have a plan..and start planning well before a retreat/withdrawal....you have a better chance.

It's absurd to say they didn't plan. Biden had those additional troops in place in case Kabul fell more quickly than expected, which WAS the worst case scenario. Have you ever seen anybody execute a "worst case scenario" in a situation this difficult, and have it look pretty?

This is the most successful rapid evacuation of humans in history. The terror attack in the middle of it is also worst case but it was not unexpected.