Great Old Man Posted August 16, 2021 #76 Share Posted August 16, 2021 It reminds me, North korea can invade Korea when american withdraws. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silver Posted August 16, 2021 #77 Share Posted August 16, 2021 6 hours ago, and then said: I think we are witnessing what it looks like when a very complex governmental system of power is being divided up into areas of authority with no clear leader at the top. Things would naturally take more time and confusion would cause mistakes. When I say that America has its first Politburo, I'm not joking. I honestly believe that our executive branch is being run by committee and I'll go to my grave believing Obama is the deciding vote. The worst aspect of this is the loss of confidence in military decision making. There is NO WAY our mid-grade commissioned officers on the ground there could not see this coming and to think they wouldn't report that concern up the chain is ridiculous. No... what we are seeing isn't incompetence from our troops, it's either a politicized Pentagon failing to act decisively or it's a strategy going to plan. If it's the latter, the MIC is so firmly in control now that our military has become a mercenary force and a cash cow. What does MIC mean in this context? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tatetopa Posted August 16, 2021 #78 Share Posted August 16, 2021 7 hours ago, and then said: The worst aspect of this is the loss of confidence in military decision making. There is NO WAY our mid-grade commissioned officers on the ground there could not see this coming and to think they wouldn't report that concern up the chain is ridiculous. No... what we are seeing isn't incompetence from our troops, it's either a politicized Pentagon failing to act decisively or it's a strategy going to plan. If it's the latter, the MIC is so firmly in control now that our military has become a mercenary force and a cash cow. What makes you think they did not know? People on the ground knew, people in the Pentagon knew, Biden knew. They may have guessed it would take a couple of weeks but they knew. We could leave today, next year or next generation and it would not change a lot. The US and Afghan negotiators were trying to get Iran and China to take a more active part. Taliban are not stupid and neither are we. They were tired of us being there. They have 60-80k men under arms, we had a tenth of that. A good portion of those 60-80k Taliban fighters are seasoned vets who have been in the field fighting somebody for the last 20 years. We could not have held off this attack without heavy US casualties and massive civilian destruction on the Afghan side. And then what? Spend more lives and money to rebuild a country where people hate us? What is the point? If they watch us leave as smart people would, they can try to run a country. If the commanders can't control their crazies and they attack us on the way out, there will be a lot more rubble to govern. As you said prayers for those that helped us, hope many make it out. Our military knew government soldiers were just doing a job and collecting a paycheck. The people running the place and the independent warlords that made up that government are not so different in philosophy from the Taliban. Fighting among tribes has been the status quo for a long time. When you look around and see that you and your buddies in uniform are being shot at by people that just blend back in with the general population, you start thinking it is time to take the uniform off and go back to your village or clan compound. 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHaYap Posted August 16, 2021 #79 Share Posted August 16, 2021 The Taliban has been preparing and waiting for this for decades... ~ 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wepwawet Posted August 16, 2021 #80 Share Posted August 16, 2021 (edited) The situation at the airport seems to now be apocalyptic. I'm not going to link to sources as they show nasty things, and I'm sure we can all search, but there are men sitting inside engine nacels to prevent take off before the aircraft is full. Worse is the video and pictures on the ground of the aftermath of men so desperate that they have clung to the landing gear of an aircraft taking off, and then fell to their deaths. Edit: Sky news is in fact showing footage of the C-17 trundling along the runway with a horde of civilians around it and these guys, half a dozen or so, on the landing gear nacel, but is not showing them falling off after take off. Edited August 16, 2021 by Wepwawet 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TigerBright19 Posted August 16, 2021 #81 Share Posted August 16, 2021 Foreign Policy on Afghanistan. Sad but true. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aztek Posted August 16, 2021 #82 Share Posted August 16, 2021 wow, that is unexpected, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RavenHawk Posted August 16, 2021 #83 Share Posted August 16, 2021 10 hours ago, The Silver Shroud said: What does MIC mean in this context? M-Eye-See... Kay-E-Y.... M-O-U-S-E. Sorry I couldn't resist. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kartikg Posted August 16, 2021 #84 Share Posted August 16, 2021 7 hours ago, Wepwawet said: The situation at the airport seems to now be apocalyptic. I'm not going to link to sources as they show nasty things, and I'm sure we can all search, but there are men sitting inside engine nacels to prevent take off before the aircraft is full. Worse is the video and pictures on the ground of the aftermath of men so desperate that they have clung to the landing gear of an aircraft taking off, and then fell to their deaths. Edit: Sky news is in fact showing footage of the C-17 trundling along the runway with a horde of civilians around it and these guys, half a dozen or so, on the landing gear nacel, but is not showing them falling off after take off. Intresting to see that they are not trying to save women and children, but only men who are trying to get out and leave their wives, children and parents, I wonder are such people worth saving and giving refuge to them. They will probably dessert their adopted country too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spartan max2 Posted August 16, 2021 #85 Share Posted August 16, 2021 3 minutes ago, kartikg said: Intresting to see that they are not trying to save women and children, but only men who are trying to get out and leave their wives, children and parents, I wonder are such people worth saving and giving refuge to them. They will probably dessert their adopted country too. Is this assumption based on anything or are you just pulling that out your butt? 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kartikg Posted August 16, 2021 #86 Share Posted August 16, 2021 1 minute ago, spartan max2 said: Is this assumption based on anything or are you just pulling that out your butt? The videos of Kabul airport show mostly men of all ages, you can check for yourself. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
F3SS Posted August 16, 2021 #87 Share Posted August 16, 2021 2 hours ago, kartikg said: The videos of Kabul airport show mostly men of all ages, you can check for yourself. You're right. I didn't really give it a thought when I seen it but definitely looks like all men. Thinking about that, it's just different over there. I really don't know what to say about that culture without crossing some lines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spartan max2 Posted August 16, 2021 #88 Share Posted August 16, 2021 6 hours ago, kartikg said: The videos of Kabul airport show mostly men of all ages, you can check for yourself. Here is a different pic You probably shouldn't make broad assumptions based on a picture 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+and-then Posted August 17, 2021 #89 Share Posted August 17, 2021 19 hours ago, The Silver Shroud said: What does MIC mean in this context? The cartel between military industrial corporations and the politicians that fund them from our taxes. Eisenhower warned us of their danger nearly 70 years ago and it seems to have finally ended us as a nation. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+and-then Posted August 17, 2021 #90 Share Posted August 17, 2021 18 hours ago, Tatetopa said: And then what? Spend more lives and money to rebuild a country where people hate us? What is the point? I'm not sure how you got that idea from my post. My point is that I believe what we are seeing was NOT inevitable and it's ridiculous and disingenuous to say that it was. Pompeo's people had designed a plan that took all this foreknowledge into account and made it very clear to the Taliban negotiators that our withdrawal would be orderly and ANY attacks or breaking of the agreement would be swiftly met with overwhelming force. That wasn't just talk, either. There were several instances during those negotiations where our air assets were employed to crush certain elements that were breaking the initial agreement that had led to negotiations. The fall of that tribal cesspool back into its own self-made hell was inevitable, but the incredible humiliation of this nation along with the damage it WILL do to our foreign policy, not to mention the slaughter of those who trusted us to keep our word, every bit of that could have been avoided had whoever is making these decisions in DC simply followed the plan that was left for them by the previous administration. They seemed so intent on removing anything that had any ties to Trump that they created this ongoing horror for those Afghans who trusted us and did so either out of incompetence or they are employing a strategy we can't understand, YET. Before I get slammed with the "Trump did the same to Obama" lie, NO, Trump did NOTHING remotely similar to this kind of outrage. He took not a single decision that would directly endanger our troops and citizens in-theatre for political motives. No, this is being called out even on CNN. We are sending in some hardcore, tip of the spear types to protect this evacuation of the airport and IF the DC crowd don't tie their hands with the kind of senseless ROIs they had in years gone by, then we're about to see the exuberance of these medieval goat herders cum warriors deflated... A LOT... Between the airborne forces and the spec ops types, it's about to become a really bad day for those celebrating their evil victory. If there was justice in the world the same thing should happen to anyone who helped this tragedy occur. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tatetopa Posted August 17, 2021 #91 Share Posted August 17, 2021 2 hours ago, and then said: I'm not sure how you got that idea from my post. My point is that I believe what we are seeing was NOT inevitable and it's ridiculous and disingenuous to say that it was. Pompeo's people had designed a plan that took all this foreknowledge into account and made it very clear to the Taliban negotiators that our withdrawal would be orderly and ANY attacks or breaking of the agreement would be swiftly met with overwhelming force. That wasn't just talk, either. There were several instances during those negotiations where our air assets were employed to crush certain elements that were breaking the initial agreement that had led to negotiations. So far, they have not attacked us, as you say, a really bad idea for them. They have rolled into the country pretty quickly and many that helped us will be caught up in that. Taliban commanders know what they can and can't get away with, but their more fervent young supporters may not. Until we get everybody out, we have hostages within easy reach and any confrontation will result in a lot of Afghanis being killed, though not many American troops. I don't agree with former president Trump much, but he was right about Afghanistan. Twenty-one years is long enough and the Afghan government was in failure mode. That is where my and then what statement comes from. There is not a good future there that we can push them into when they are unwilling. I do not think it was handled well, it is a sh**show. Maybe we were surprised by how quickly the Afghan army dispersed, we might have expected a couple of weeks before Kabul fell. Now it is a matter of how many civilians we can pull out and how quickly. It won't be as many or as fast as we should have. .As far as plans and might-have-beens, there is no guarantee that Trump and Pompeo could have done better, except for one thing. We should have stuck to the May date Trump set. He set the Taliban in motion for their expected takeover to happen in May. Did we buy anything by staying 2+ more months? Were we evacuating civilians? I don't know. Are the Afghans more deserving in Trump's eyes than the Kurds? Despite what the military said, Trump said we don't owe the Kurds sh**. Were they not citizens in theater? Would he have abandoned Afghans like he did the Kurds? I don't know the answer to that. The US did the same thing in Vietnam leaving many of our SV allies behind to their fate. Chances are Trump would have done as other presidents have done before him. In the end it has always been America First. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+and-then Posted August 17, 2021 #92 Share Posted August 17, 2021 51 minutes ago, Tatetopa said: In the end it has always been America First. Which fact only strengthens the argument that this was so badly handled that it almost doesn't seem possible. Mid-junior level officers in the country made certain that the Pentagon crew KNEW how hollow that force was, yet rather than make a stand and tell Joe that they would not be party to causing unnecessary casualties among their troops, they got in line and saluted and pulled the trigger on a true collapse in record time. I heard today that though our Embassy staff were taken out, thousands of other Americans haven't even made it to the airport yet. I assume that number reflects civilian contractors to the defense department as well as NGOs, missionary staff, and the like. Within 48 hours we're supposed to have 6 thousand "hard, pipe hittin" sorts to be standing between the goat herders and their victims. If any Americans get kidnapped I doubt the media would even report it. IMO, anyone who is capable of looking around our nation today cannot possibly doubt that something very seriously wrong is happening. Here at home we're assured by DHS that Islamic terror attacks are third down the list of likely domestic threats. Those who are unwilling to get the jab and who speak out against that and masking, THEY are number one on the list. 1/6 "deniers" are number 2, I think. Funny how each of those groups have a single link. They ALL are unhappy with and questioning the actions of our Federal government. Rather than that government getting busy working hard to explain itself on these issues, it seems fully committed to silencing dissent with actual threats against citizens who are employing their 1A rights in public. I wonder, since historically, the next step in such a Marxist attack on a nation is that after dissenters are identified, next they begin to be imprisoned, how many who agree with the plans and policies of the Democrat party will change course and call out the tyranny? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tatetopa Posted August 17, 2021 #93 Share Posted August 17, 2021 19 minutes ago, and then said: Which fact only strengthens the argument that this was so badly handled that it almost doesn't seem possible. Mid-junior level officers in the country made certain that the Pentagon crew KNEW how hollow that force was, yet rather than make a stand and tell Joe that they would not be party to causing unnecessary casualties among their troops, they got in line and saluted and pulled the trigger on a true collapse in record time. Yes. They knew. They were not party to causing unnecessary casualties among US troops. What they did was their best to get all American troops out alive. They are evacuating, not going out and looking for trouble. Our hard core is there to play rear guard, not start a new engagement. The Afghan government is collapsing as it was going to do all along. Trump knew and said so, Biden also knew the Afghan government was a failure. Should we have run faster? probably. What did you expect the end game to be? Trump released 5000 Taliban prisoners including the man who is likely to be the next Afghan president. He promised to leave the country, pull out all troops. That was Donald Trump that made that promise. In this case, I say good on him. I am not certain that old school military industrial Joe would have left if his hand was not already forced.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kartikg Posted August 17, 2021 #94 Share Posted August 17, 2021 8 hours ago, spartan max2 said: Here is a different pic You probably shouldn't make broad assumptions based on a picture Even in your pic we hardly see women apart from those in the front, I enlarged it and just glanced over it, there are very few women. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RAyMO Posted August 17, 2021 #95 Share Posted August 17, 2021 (edited) The US and the West had to get out - the population of the US wanted their army out. what happened in the last few days would have happened if they had stayed 10 20 or 40 years. The real failure was not the getting out - the real failure was the Intelligence communities in both the US and the UK believing that the take over by the Taliban would take up to 6 months. The real failure was believing that the Afghan military would, with western equipment and western training and numerical advantage, put up a fight - if only token. Afghanistan should be left to sort itself out, will the Taliban have learnt from their previous rule? There are signs both ways. If they are smart they will have learnt. The likely new leader is a man the western intelligence (for what it is worth) believed would be more open to western norms, hence they released him from prison to take part in negotiations. While on one level what we are seeing is embarrassing on another it should be been expected - that it wasn't is, I repeat a failure of intelligence. Will it be better this time round for women, I hope so, and I think it may well do. The leader of a women's group in Afghanistan has stated she would not leave the country but would try to bring about pro women reform from within. Her view was that this leadership was not the leadership of 20 years ago and will be more open to a modern Islamic state. I hope she achieves her goals. Edited August 17, 2021 by RAyMO 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DieChecker Posted August 18, 2021 #96 Share Posted August 18, 2021 Fox News: White House admits 'fair amount' of US equipment in Afghanistan in Taliban hands. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/white-house-fair-amount-us-equipment-afghanistan-taliban-hands?cmpid=prn_newsstand Quote National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Tuesday that a "fair amount" of U.S. weaponry had fallen into the hands of the Taliban since the hard-line Islamic militant group's rapid takeover Afghanistan in recent days. During a White House press briefing, Sullivan was ask what will happen with the billions of dollars in equipment, including guns, ammunition, helicopters, and more, given to the Afghanistan government in the two decades before its collapse. Helicopters? Why were there no pics if helicopters shooting up Taliban pick up trucks? This is sad. Just sad. On the Biden Administrations expense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DieChecker Posted August 18, 2021 #97 Share Posted August 18, 2021 (edited) The New York Times: Intelligence Warned of Afghanistan Military Collapse, Despite Biden’s Assurances. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/17/us/politics/afghanistan-biden-administration.html If you dont have sub, paste into incognito mode. Quote WASHINGTON — Classified assessments by American spy agencies over the summer painted an increasingly grim picture of the prospect of a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and warned of the rapid collapse of the Afghan military, even as President Biden and his advisers said publicly that was unlikely to happen as quickly, according to current and former American government officials. By July, many intelligence reports grew more pessimistic, questioning whether any Afghan security forces would muster serious resistance and whether the government could hold on in Kabul, Again... This is sad. Just sad. On the Biden Administrations expense. Edited August 18, 2021 by DieChecker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DieChecker Posted August 18, 2021 #98 Share Posted August 18, 2021 Fox News: Pollster: Biden receives F grade from independents for Afghanistan speech. https://www.foxnews.com/media/biden-f-grade-independents-afghanistan-speech-lee-carter 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
F3SS Posted August 18, 2021 #99 Share Posted August 18, 2021 I'm wondering, do our choppers and hummers have a kill switch like they can be shut down remotely? Seems like pretty basic tech these days. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tatetopa Posted August 18, 2021 #100 Share Posted August 18, 2021 (edited) 22 minutes ago, F3SS said: I'm wondering, do our choppers and hummers have a kill switch like they can be shut down remotely? Seems like pretty basic tech these days. Good idea. Probably most of the Taliban could drive a hummer. I doubt any could fly. We could leave the airframe intact if we destroyed all of the spare parts, nobody will be able to fly them is 6 months or a year. Unless we sell them parts or the Chinese bootleg them. Edited August 18, 2021 by Tatetopa spelling error Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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