I struggle with the emotions of the moment. The US hasn't won a war or conflict, excepting, I suppose, the Gulf War in 75 years. We've been shoveling trillions of dollars into a bottomless hole, where defense contractors got rich but most Afghanistans outside of Kabul saw little change in their daily lives. I understand the policy of withdrawal. I understand the wretched position left by the catastrophic Trump-Pompeo deal. I understand that there was a small window for withdrawal, that Trump-Miller deliberately slowed the SIVs to a crawl. What I don't understand was the lack of planning. Why not move people out and process them later? The military performed brilliantly, but the slow-walking of initial evacuations is incomprehensible. There is a vacuum of information about the 'why' that's being filled with propaganda and nonsense on the right and grandstanding on the left. Sadly, most people will have forgotten about the Afghanistan people in light of our own meteoric plummet into Covid hell, led by power-crazed governors and an ignorant, self-absorbed faction of the population.
I've heard both that the US Government was communicating with people in Afghanistan for months urging them to leave. Also read that the Afghan government asked Biden admin NOT to evacuate en masse because it would signify the US had no faith in the Afghan government strength and accelerate a Taliban takeover.
Of course having written that, it's incomprehensible that the State Department allowed a SCHOOL GROUP to do summer trip to Afghanistan if they were urging people to leave - and now they're stuck there apparently......but maybe it goes back to intelligence failures where the estimates of how long Afghan gov would fight the Taliban ranged from weeks to months
I'm sure that much more information will surface in the weeks to come, but so many former veterans of the Afghan war were warning about the need to expedite SIVs that an intelligence failure seems unlikely. Such a tragic day in a tragic country in a tragic year...
Interesting, I've not heard anything about the US urging people to leave. It seems unlikely given that we didn't even alert our allies, much less our own media, all of whom had to scramble to find flights.
Hope, and sending all journalists a prayer, and a hug. Thanks for this. Very sobering.
Heartbreaking.
I struggle with the emotions of the moment. The US hasn't won a war or conflict, excepting, I suppose, the Gulf War in 75 years. We've been shoveling trillions of dollars into a bottomless hole, where defense contractors got rich but most Afghanistans outside of Kabul saw little change in their daily lives. I understand the policy of withdrawal. I understand the wretched position left by the catastrophic Trump-Pompeo deal. I understand that there was a small window for withdrawal, that Trump-Miller deliberately slowed the SIVs to a crawl. What I don't understand was the lack of planning. Why not move people out and process them later? The military performed brilliantly, but the slow-walking of initial evacuations is incomprehensible. There is a vacuum of information about the 'why' that's being filled with propaganda and nonsense on the right and grandstanding on the left. Sadly, most people will have forgotten about the Afghanistan people in light of our own meteoric plummet into Covid hell, led by power-crazed governors and an ignorant, self-absorbed faction of the population.
I've heard both that the US Government was communicating with people in Afghanistan for months urging them to leave. Also read that the Afghan government asked Biden admin NOT to evacuate en masse because it would signify the US had no faith in the Afghan government strength and accelerate a Taliban takeover.
Of course having written that, it's incomprehensible that the State Department allowed a SCHOOL GROUP to do summer trip to Afghanistan if they were urging people to leave - and now they're stuck there apparently......but maybe it goes back to intelligence failures where the estimates of how long Afghan gov would fight the Taliban ranged from weeks to months
I'm sure that much more information will surface in the weeks to come, but so many former veterans of the Afghan war were warning about the need to expedite SIVs that an intelligence failure seems unlikely. Such a tragic day in a tragic country in a tragic year...
Interesting, I've not heard anything about the US urging people to leave. It seems unlikely given that we didn't even alert our allies, much less our own media, all of whom had to scramble to find flights.