Kandahar just fell

[GJM]

If Trump were President for what is happening, Pelosi would be circulating articles of impeachment.

[cheby]

“Woke generals”? You mean the guys who have been in those jobs for years?

{Sigh}. I’m too old for this shit.

Yeah, the ones who lined up to support the current administration and all its ideological platforms immediately

[Joe in PNG]

Tam posted a link, and it seems appropriate:
What Just Happened?

I’ve spent most of my adult life at war, fighting for lost causes. I gave the decades of my youth to strive for that in which I generally believed, alongside men I loved and respected. I regret none of it, but days like today I do feel a bit old, tired, and discouraged.

For those who are wondering how we could have failed so catastrophically in Afghanistan, here’s the simple answer:
We weren’t in Afghanistan 20 years. We were in Afghanistan one year, 20 distinct times.

For the last two decades, units showed up for their six, nine, or 12-month long tour, and the focus of the commanders was on what local measures of performance or metrics of success they could achieve (or spin to appear to achieve) that would reflect positively on themselves and their unit. Hypothetically. If you tried to sell a commander on a brilliant initiative that would require the entire command’s focus and attention, but would actually stabilize the village/district/province three to five years down the road with a stable government and loyal populace, he’d shoot that idea down and focus on something more short term that he and his people would get credit for. There are exceptions to this, but overwhelmingly that was the case.

[eb07]

Bottom line, we can debate for years on this with all kinds of opinions, but hundreds of years of history don't lie.

The Americans in country now had over a year to GFTO and stayed due to greed or to capture the story, the afghans trying to flee should have just picked up guns and fought for their wives and daughters, after 20 years, billions spent, and blood given we owe them NOTHING in my opinion. We have our own problems at home and thousands of damaged ex-soldiers as a result of it.

Let the Chinese strip mine that place and deal with 18th century ideology. They are either going to commit mass murder at an unprecedented scale, or bog down with a bunch of corrupt cowards who are your friends to your face for a few bucks and stick it in your back the minute you turn it. Not our problem.

We should have learned from the empires before us and left that dump in 2003 and not listened to the nation building intelligence community.

[Joe in PNG]

Let the Chinese strip mine that place and deal with 18th century ideology. They are either going to commit mass murder at an unprecedented scale, or bog down with a bunch of corrupt cowards who are your friends to your face for a few bucks and stick it in your back the minute you turn it. Not our problem.

China moving in is the only ray of sunshine in this whole mess. Getting involved in the Grave of Empires, especially with the way they treat 3rd world peoples? It's going to be a very, very short honeymoon.

[cheby]

“Woke generals”? You mean the guys who have been in those jobs for years?

{Sigh}. I’m too old for this shit.

Do you think this gentleman is capable to say No to Biden?

https://www.npr.org/2021/06/23/10095...n-the-military

[VT1032]

Do you think this gentleman is capable to say No to Biden?

https://www.npr.org/2021/06/23/10095...n-the-military

He's a trump appointee so what does that tell you? His job as chairman of the jcs is not to say yes or no, it's to advise the president. What the president does with that advice is on the president.

As an aside, I don't really see anything wrong with Milley's statements about crt. He's not saying he supports it. If anything it reads more like "the better you know your enemy...". It cracks me up that about 99.9% of people who get hot and bothered by stuff like this can't even provide a coherent definition of crt, they just know that orange man says crt is the boogey man. I don't support it, but I at least know what it is, unlike most of the school board lynch mob.

[Flamingo]

I worked covering Afghanistan at the tactical level and the strategic level (sometimes at the same time) from 2007-2016. I spent a good part of that time in Afghanistan (the only year I wasn't there in that time frame was 2009).

Bush43 (or Cheney), for refusing to negotiate with the Taliban after 9/11/01 and opting for a full takeover, then trying to do everything on the cheap and tolerating massive corruption.

AQ was protected by the Pashtun's because of "Pashtunwali Code"

Nənawā́te ( ننواتې ): Asylum – Derived from the verb meaning to go in, this refers to the protection given to a person against his enemies. People are protected at all costs; even those running from the law must be given refuge until the situation can be clarified.

Our so-called allies in Pakistan, who are more enemy than friend and proved it over the last 25+ years. The Taliban was their tool, the Pakistanis have protected them from the jump.

Totally right on this, kind of. There is not a lot of difference between Afghan Pashtuns and Pakistani Pashtuns. The Durand Line only has meaning at the national level. I have a bunch of stories I can tell, but I have to wait until 2090 until I can talk about them.

There is lots of blame to go around.

The biggest blame we have is that as a nation we never had the cojones to do enough killing.

My biggest heartache over all of this are the poor little girls who will never be more than a means for their fathers to sell into a "marriage". I had hope that education that was being provided to them would help drive the change that Afghanistan needed.

[David S.]

You know who else gets some blame, every American who voted for politicians willing to fund this misadventure - myself included. The handwriting was on the wall over a decade ago, but we all chose to ignore it and kept voting for the status quo.

To be fair, Obama and Trump both outspokenly ran on ending Iraq and A-stan against very hawkish McCain and Hillary.

[cheby]

He's a trump appointee so what does that tell you? His job as chairman of the jcs is not to say yes or no, it's to advise the president. What the president does with that advice is on the president.

As an aside, I don't really see anything wrong with Milley's statements about crt. He's not saying he supports it. If anything it reads more like "the better you know your enemy...". It cracks me up that about 99.9% of people who get hot and bothered by stuff like this can't even provide a coherent definition of crt, they just know that orange man says crt is the boogey man. I don't support it, but I at least know what it is, unlike most of the school board lynch mob.

1. There are many bad ideas and we should study them, criticize, and debunk them. However, that is not what Milley was saying. In fact, he was lying. We all know that if anybody tries to criticize and question the CRT, they should forget about any promotion or their career development. Instead, they most likely would lose the job. A quite of few people on this forum could confirm that from their own experience from various areas - military, LE, academia, and corporate world. If you do not see that, then you are the one who does not know what the CRT is and what the current political environment we are in. And that brings me to my second point.

2. I really wanted to avoid this... It is quite tiresome when people who I disagree with assume that they are somewhat morally or intellectually superior. They "Sigh", call the other side "brain-dead", or accuse me of "getting hot". It always (No exceptions) follows by some bumper sticker ideas least resembling any original thought. At best it is paraphrasing of David Brooks or Thomas Friedman of NYT. You do not know me. I do not know you. Let's "assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t"