The “positive” of the American people knowing this should outweigh any “negatives” that this could be exploited by others (especially since it probably already was widely suspected by foreign adversaries and thus they could have already been exploiting it). Now we might actually be able to fix the problem within our leadership – if we refused to accept it, we couldn’t.
Seems damn unlikely to me. More likely it’ll get brushed under the carpet and everything will continue as before.
Some chance is better than zero chance. Getting out of a dumb war is better than staying forever.
IMO Afghanistan was a moral failure from the beginning. Impossible to leave without it becoming a disaster.
The one thing we could have done, and should have done, was to allow more Afghan refugees to come to the US. A lot more.
There were two options for Afghanistan. Colonize them and profit from our guarding them including bringing US citizens in to start business and take over the country culturally or withdraw and leave them to take care of themselves. We gave them plenty of time, money, tools and training for the second to work and considering how much people would have bitched about the first option I think withdrawal was the best idea.
For the colonization model to work we’d have to treat Afghanistan similarly to how the French and UK treated Canada from 1608-1982. Of course, the taliban would have to play the part of the indigenous peoples and it would certainly help if the neighboring countries were treating the indigenous people as poorly as the US did rather than giving them sanctuary. How the colonization would play out would be an interesting parallel thread but we’d be looking at a long term 400+ year process.
I think very few people are criticizing the withdrawal itself; rather, the criticism is how the withdrawal is being done.
Lots are criticizing the withdrawal, AFAICT – at least in the media and politics. Perhaps just a few Dopers. But the “how” is a lazy criticism, IMO… I think it was always going to be a “disaster” in the short term from Afghan-status-quo perspective. Maybe we could have done a better job getting out the translators and such, I’m not sure. But the collapse was imminent no matter what, by every indicator out there.
There should be a very detailed after-action investigation, including (likely) Congressional hearings. We should find out the details about the withdrawal, and perhaps more importantly, why military leadership misled the political leadership and the public for over a decade.
I don’t feel any other withdrawal would be producing different results. When American troops leave, the Taliban would be waiting to take over. Other Afghani factions have failed, in twenty years, in establishing themselves as a force that can prevent the Taliban from taking over.
Would the people who are saying we are failing the Afghanis who supported us be in favor of allowing a couple million Afghani refugees to resettle in America? I doubt it.
I’m not sure the bulk of the blame for the failure we’re seeing now can be laid at the feet of military leadership. It’s also hard for me to believe that they were able to pull the proverbial wool over the eyes of congress and various administrations so effectively and for such a long time. This was a collaborative failure of American foreign policy and diplomacy. I suspect the senior military leadership was complicit to some extent for reasons unlikely to be revealed in any public hearings.
Hopefully we’ll find out.
Taliban takeover was inevitable, sure. But -
The thousands of interpreters who braved death to help America deserved evacuation. Instead, we prioritized even military dogs over getting the interpreters out. And now thousands may be tortured and killed.
A withdrawal in winter might have worked better, given that the Taliban’s seasonal offensives typically took place in summer and not winter.
Hard to believe Afghan President Ghani met with Biden just a few weeks ago.
I suspect he already knew his days in office were numbered. It must of been beyond bizarre hearing Bidens glib assurance that it would be OK.
Nearly everything said at this meeting was incorrect.
I’m sure another round of diversity and inclusion seminars will fix things right up.
I’m honestly withholding judgment on Biden at least until I hear his speech, maybe longer. In my mind, he can absolutely explain himself out of this situation, if his explanation is good enough, and particularly if he has some sort of “plan” to assist refugees.
Because if the only real surprise (to any of us) is that various Afghan army and other defense forces put up essentially NO FIGHT AT ALL, rather than fighting it out over several months before finally collapsing, then I am not sure I’d call what we are seeing now in the alternative a worse outcome. The only people who might have benefitted from a series of bloody delaying actions would be those looking to flee, but it’s by no means clear that more people would be allowed to flee than would die in fighting for the delay.
Here’s something very interesting.
According to this article, in 2018-19, the Taliban were willing to make a deal with Ghani. They offered to form an interim government of national unity in which Ghani would have a 70% share. He refused their offer.
By the end of 2020, the Taliban were making gains, and they made Ghani another offer. 50-50 power sharing in government. He refused their offer.
Biden put pressure on him to accept. He continued to refuse.
So the Taliban made him an offer he couldn’t refuse… 0% of power. 
Why are you assuming people would die in a bunch of fighting over a delay? The original deal with the Taliban was to be out on May 1. That didn’t happen, and no fighting broke out.
The administration could have been quietly extricating at-risk people like translators and advisors for months before leaving. They could have flown out their attack aircraft weeks ago. They could have set up a secure perimeter at the airport and managed the evacuation better. The day they knew they were going for sure they should have begun securing assets. Apparently, none of that happened.
My guess as to why they didn’t do it is that Biden had been publicly claiming that the Afghan army would likely hold and the country wouldn’t fall. If they started an exodus of people, it would put lie to Biden’s claim.
Or maybe they are all just a bunch of incompetants. The military has been getting hollowed out of ‘fighting generals’ for some time in favor of political ass-kissers and yes-men. Remember there was a force-wide stand-down a few months ago until everyone had received diversity training. The military has taken its eye off the ball for some time now. See also the miserable state of the Navy.
Lt Col. Jackson thought, on two occasions, that they were making good progress. I wonder what the grunts, Sergeants and Lieutenants thought. I’m not saying it is the case here but it seems many times that the further up the chain you go, the rosier the picture gets. Everyone wants to please their boss. Right up to the President saying “Mission accomplished”.
I feel really bad for those Afghans that chose to help us. They are walking targets. If the Taliban chooses to behead them in public, there’s not anything we can do.
The US has to accept that, over the long term, we’re not in a position to determine which regime rules a country that’s 8000 miles from our shores. There are going to be regimes that we just don’t like very much, but we should still be open to negotiating with them to the extent possible. We negotiated with the Taliban when the Taliban had more leverage, and they knew it.
The next time you whine about the level of discourse around here, remember this post of yours.
He took his money and ran.
I want to be clear in saying that the Taliban are still the Taliban - life under their rule is going to be harsh. But they might want more geopolitical legitimacy, and if they do, then perhaps they might be willing to keep their swords sheathed a little more this time.
I still think life is going to suck for anyone who worked with the Americans and gets left behind.