1. the official line (press conf in July) was that Taliban taking over was at best a remote possibility and the administration had very strong faith in the Afghani govt/military. This was a 100% whiff.
True - and valid. However, given the amount of equipment planned to be left behind, combined with forces we have trained for the better part of a decade +, its hard to imagine that the consensus in the IC was the Taliban would still take back the country in a matter of weeks.
2. we drew down the limited military we had prior to getting civilians out. Even if you had faith in #1 you'd think you'd hold ground until the time to leave. we chose to cede ground and retreat to Kabul militarily on flawed assumptions.
This simply isn't true. It just isn't VBH. Do you really think we withdrew all military out before we withdrew all civilians? We didn't retreat to Kabul either. We handed over bases one by one to the ANA. We fell back to Kabul because that was the last base to handover and the Embassy would be the new mission. Chracterizing this as a retreat is stupid. I would bet the mortgage that 95%+ of all civilians were withdrawn prior to a month ago. I know for an absolute fact all the government civilians and contractors I worked with were withdrawn months ago as their base was closed/handed over to ANA.
This is a tired line because we had roughly a 1000 people left (depending on reports) that we withdrew the military, ceded ground, and then just left everybody without a security blanket. The people that were left up to a week ago had a specific purpose/job and couldn't leave until the last bird took off.
The valid criticism here is that we did not leave enough security forces behind. The fact that we are having to send troops back in is unacceptable. However, the line that we had no security forces left and we just gave up and left civilians there because we were retreating to Kabul is patently false.
3. the IC, military and Biden (as he told us today) have extensive experience with the Afghani government and situation on the ground. It's hard to imagine they really had faith in what they were telling us (300K soldiers with the best equipment and a solid government will hold against Taliban or at least for some significant period of time).
After 20 years they absolutely had extensive experience with the Afghani government. And I would bet both the US and Afghan governments absolutely thought this would go different. As you said before, that was a whiff, and that is valid criticism. I don't find it hard at all to imagine they really had faith this would go different, and I don't find it hard to imagine that they got that epically wrong (because that is the reality of the situation right now).
4. so given #3 the plan should have been baked around the contingency that the Taliban is going to being a real impediment to the withdrawal (a notion Biden chided us for embracing).
So it sounds like you are saying everybody should have known the country was going to fall in a matter of weeks, we should have kept a full posture there, and not given up any ground.
Then why make plans to leave in the first place? Hell, why even leave in the first place? At some point you just have to do it.
I'm not complaining about the equipment - if you want the Afghani's to defend themselves you have to leave it for them.
A lot of people are, and it goes to my larger point that everyone will find something wrong.
I am complaining about the "surprise" that conditions got bad and that instead of focusing on getting civilians out we withdrew militarily first which was the catalyst for the "surprise" condition. We set the conditions for this to happen and when people questioned it we were told to shut up because it was all under control. There are any number of ways we could have done this better.
Again, this just isn't true. The surprise was that this happened so fast and the criticism is that we didn't leave enough security forces behind and had to send guys back in. The idea that we focused on the military first and left civilians behind is simply false.
This was a failure to build a suitable contingency. We have steadily drawn down in both civilian support and military footprint for the last couple of years. FOBs have been closing in a methodical and planned way. We should have kept a larger contingent force to make sure the handover went smoothly. Of course, then the the criticism would be we are never leaving, or maybe the Taliban would have still waited until they left. There are any number of scenarios.
At the end of the day, not a single person on this board can deny the fact that we are finally out, this administration actually did it, and evidently, the end result is the way the Afghan people wanted it.
“The only thing that we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history." - Ashwin Sanghi.
