+2 agree
I will never ever forgive James Comey for that.
Not just for reopening the case just when he did, but also for publicly announcing it.
And right on cue…
The DoD responded by… cancelling their scheduled press conference,
Reports are now that there are at least 40 dead and 120 injured, including ‘multiple’ American civilians and military personnel.
Early evidence suggests that this was ISIS-K, which has apparently reconstituted and there are hundreds of them in Kabul.
So now the thousands of Americans left have six days to make it to the airport, but if they do they are left in crowds outside a secure perimeter with terrorists shooting at them and bombing them.
There needs to be resignations when this is all over, if for no reason than to show the world that America understands what a mess they created and are holding people accountable and won’t let it happen again.
Six more days of this, at least. I suspect things are going to get worse. Americans and others are sitting ducks in a swamp of terrorists.
Thank God we’re getting out. This just shows, once again, how correct the decision was to get out. The only alternative was to greatly increase forces in the country, since our footprint was already so small and so many enemies were obviously ready to attack.
Thank God we’re leaving, and the sooner the better. 20 years of wasted lives and money for absolutely nothing.
Did Trump or Mike Pompeo resign? No? That’s what I thought.
Hey, maybe they can kill even more people and make the handling of this look even better!
The sooner we get out, the fewer Americans will die. Terrorist attacks are nothing new in Afghanistan – there have been so many over this pointless occupation.
And you’re complaining about leaving? That’s nuts. Leaving is the only rational option.
It’s not about leaving and you know it. It’s about how it’s being done. 80% of Americans supported getting out of Afghanistan, but only around 25% are okay with how it’s being done.
But keep shifting the goalpost. Because what’s going on is indefensible.
How this would be done if Trump were in charge:
You’re living in fantasy-land if you think there was some smooth, peaceful, and perfect way to leave a 20-year occupation that accomplished nothing. There was no possibility of a non-chaotic withdrawal. None. It’s amazing that it’s gone this well, and with this few American casualties so far. Hopefully these will be the last American service-people to die for this colossal waste of money and lives.
Just a cost of doing business in the Islamic world. Yet another lesson decision makers need to remember going forward. How many bombings, helicopter shoot downs, “Green on Blue” attacks have we basically just let settle into the category of “background noise” in the last 20 years? Time to be out of this place.
As I’ve said all along, the tactics of the withdrawal need to be investigated, specifically the decision to vacate Bagram prior to 8/31. But I do question how anyone would have avoided major chaos in any scenario, at any time, where the government collapses in less than 14 days.
Here are all the terror attacks in Kabul just in 2020:
This is just how it is when you occupy a big country for decades with millions who don’t want you there.
This one is all over the news because the media (and Biden’s opponents) think it’s a great way to attack the President. The media loves the forever-war, and Biden’s opponents will seize on anything, no matter the relevance, accuracy, or decency, to attack him.
The only rational choice is to leave.
Right, there’s actually a good article I saw that I’ll try to find that came out this month about how one reason our Afghanistan quagmire was handled so poorly for 20 years is partially our super rancorous partisan politics. At virtually no point in the past 20 years has there been a political consensus around figuring out America’s interests in Afghanistan and developing a unified approach. Instead it’s mostly served as a partisan attack vector.
I don’t at all want to absolve Biden of specific failures with this draw down—someone is going to have to account for the decision to close Bagram prior to 8/31. I’m also not going to foam at the mouth over what is frankly precisely the kind of attack that is common in places like Afghanistan (a country in which we’ve lost over 2,000 men, often in asymmetrical attacks like this),
I was actually astounded that zero U.S. casualties were reported so far into the withdrawal.
I do not normally hatch conspiracy theories but I was seriously considering the possibility of a media coverup. (not seriously enough to look into it ofc) Then today’s story broke.
~Max
How would having Bagram still open affect this? Or would that have been an airlift point, in which case, yeah, that was very likely a mistake (be interesting to hear the logic behind it).
I think Martin_Hyde meant as an airlift point for evacuations. It’s only 40km from KBL but I’m not sure if the bottleneck in evacuations would be alleviated by keeping two airfields open.
~Max
Two fold–one, Bagram is a highly defensible, modern day fortress. It has been designed over many years to make it extremely hard for irregulars to attack it with car-bombs or suicide bombs. It is a true military staging ground. If we had kept a force in Bagram sufficient to keep the base operating, we could have rapidly deployed troops to it the moment it was obvious Kabul was going to fall. They would be staging out of a military base, with support facilities, logistical facilities, and more airfields than the Kabul airport itself has.
Bagram was for many years the C-n-C center for the “on the ground” commander in Afghanistan for U.S. forces, a temporary HQ could be setup. Having command on the ground, instead of being ran from General McKenzie’s office at CENTCOM HQ would be a massive improvement. It would allow much more localized and rapid decision making.
We would be able to operate large numbers of helicopters out of Bagram which would significantly aide our tactical and strategic options compared to what we are doing now. With Bagram we could realistically establish either a short airlift hop from surrounding areas to Bagram for evacuation of refugees, or we could actually secure the road from Kabul to Bagram itself. With Bagram as a staging ground that is actually entirely feasible, without it, it is simply too much–because our rapidly deployed troops were basically dropped into an indefensible civilian airport that they basically had to erect temporary barriers around and serve as well-guards day and night just to try to maintain some semblance of order. Nothing at Bagram would function that way, its perimeter is specifically designed for military defense and can be for more efficiently manned.
Being able to divert troops to keeping a road link between Kabul and Bagram means we could have been ferrying mass numbers of people from Kabul to Bagram. The helicopters would could run out of Bagram would let us spend specialized teams to far flung regions of Afghanistan to evac people in immediate need. Bagram itself can house tens of thousands of refugees while they wait and are processing. And further, the Taliban can’t put forth an implicit threat there. Kabul’s airport in the current state is only usable and quasi-defensible because the Taliban is helping us. They could just as easily turn on us if they decided to, especially if we needed days after 8/31. Our soldiers there are in great enough number they would destroy any Taliban force, but the battle would make the airport completely unusable for evacuation. The Taliban has no mechanism like that to threaten Bagram. Meaning if the evacuation had to go after the deadline, it could be safely conducted with limited ability for a direct Taliban reprisal. Additionally if the Taliban did commit a reprisal, with Bagram as a staging ground we could inflict serious punitive losses on them in response.
The second major aspect beside the tactical/strategic is just the multiple runways at Bagram airfield, including one that can service the largest of aircraft, it would basically have been like having a second Kabul Airport, except one from which we could lead troops, deploy to control roads, house tens of thousands of refugees, stage thousands of helicopter sorties etc etc.
You are clearly more knowledgeable about this than I. What do you think might have been the reason behind closing Bagram?
I was thinking political considerations, closing the military base sends a strong signal to the Taliban that we are actually getting out.
But I keep reading how botched the withdrawal even from Bagram was, apparently we just left without even telling the Afghani forces, which noticed we were suddenly gone hours after the fact and had to arrest looters that walked right onto an empty military base. Looters!
Before the Afghan army could take control of the airfield about an hour’s drive from the Afghan capital Kabul, it was invaded by a small army of looters, who ransacked barrack after barrack and rummaged through giant storage tents before being evicted, according to Afghan military officials.
~Max
How could we have secured the road to Bagram? That sounds very difficult - dozens of miles to cover, with who knows how many intersections and connections, plus the surrounding area in whatever terrain…
Doesn’t sound at all easy.
I have yet to hear a suggestion of ‘what Biden should have done’ that doesn’t involve a massive deployment of US troops.
Or I should say, a suggestion that doesn’t involve a huge influx of troops plus an Alternative Reality. (For example, all the ‘Biden should have started the withdrawal earlier’ suggestions seem to assume a Taliban that would have had NO reaction of any kind to an earlier start of flights out of Afghanistan.)