Right we keep sending more American troops over there... Where are the other countries at to help with our retreat? Where are the French, Belgium, Germans, etc... This was a pure cluster... there was no winning situation, but as I stated before I love that all my brothers and sisters are coming home... T_Man
To follow on my previous posts this is just a layman's and a history buff's understanding so am not claiming to be definitive. My understanding of things like this and what we're seeing at the Kabul airport is as you prepare to retreat you send in more armed forces to control the routes of retreat so that you don't find yourself cut off. In the case of Afghanistan where there are still many US and NATO civilians there along with the Afghans who helped you guard them as they retreat. Once those people are out then you pull the armed forces out. While those troops are at risk and very well could take fire but they can return fire and defend themselves unlike the civilians. From what I'm seeing on the news the US has been able to evacuate most Americans because they are going through the part of the airport secured by the added forces. If it wasn't for those forces American civilians would be stuck in the same crush that we see on the news in the part of the airport not secured.
I saw that one, was some bull shet, needed better pitching I was talking about the other game, did we get Bin Laden and the alcadi yet?
Outside of Kabul, we didn't necessarily control provinces. Mainly bribed warlords to look the other way when we went in and did our special forces thing. They all saw times up and apparently the true believers of our nation building didn't want to stay long after we pulled out
I respect you relying on history... So you're saying send in more troops and put them in risk... I really like judoka.. but why would you want to put more people in harms way??? It's just amazing how people think when they're lives are not at risk... We have been training Afghans for years and at some point they knew our troops were going to leave... T_Man
This is the problem with this egocentric view , and why the war has failed. the afghanis never asked to be displaced as part of a war torn country. youbkeep saying more soldiers would be lost….and they will. the locals providing interpretation, intelligence etc are part of our team and did what they did with the potential of detriment to themselves. locals have harbored and aided, sometiems nursing US troops knowing they would be slaughtered. betraying them is a bigger defeat because it proves we lost our morals.
Art history dropouts should go out there so they can work on the street drawing Caricatures of the Taliban or their bros
The blame game is on. But do people honestly believe a more orderly or a delayed withdrawal could have made a difference? 20 years and a trillion dollar, that's more than enough to train generations of army, not to mention a special force. No shot was fired - a complete surrender without any resistance. So it's not about training or capability to defend themselves. The Afghanis didn't want to fight against Taliban. It may be hard for us to comprehend, but the reality is that average Afghanis prefers Taliban than US occupation. Yes, we can always find supporters/translators, but we have to stop lying to ourselves. Intelligence community, media, army commanders, and politicians, I don't believe for a second that none of them saw it coming. But you don't hear voice of objection or doubt, that worries me the most, coz it bounds to repeat again. Everyone says things "general public" want to hear. Domestically, both sides won't agree on anything and argue for the sake of opposing. Internationally, everyone is in agreement at directions. Is that normal and even possible? Public has been fed with complete lies for years. News reports all become op-ed pieces, to enforce certain narratives. Once Osama Bin Laden was killed, mission was accomplished. We should have pulled out immediately, not to mention to start another war in Iraq with made-up intel. There really should have been consequences for misjudgment and false intel. Only then, powerful people would think twice to start another war, and truly make war the last resort. After every mass shooting or tragedy, in this case, WAR, we send prayers, as if making us feel better is such a noble cause that everything else can be forgotten.
Marine? Would be easier to just beam over some of our special force troopers from our Taiwan virtual space force.
Yes lives are at risk but we ended up putting 6,000 more troops at risk just to keep the Kabul airport from being overrun. If we had done this earlier it could've been handled with less risk. To use another historical reference, "Skirmishes are won by tactics, battles by strategy and wars by logistics" Napolean. We had to get out of Afghanistan but how we did so was important. As such you know that nothing in war can be done without risk. It's a matter of minimizing risk and saving as many lives as you can. Sometimes that takes putting more force in and we're seeing that reality at the Kabul airport. Also it sounds like you were a soldier and I get the feeling that others are asking people like you to risk your lives for a lost cause. I wasn't a soldier but I understand what it is like to risk your life. Soldier's lives shouldn't be thrown away or used cavalierly. What we're seeing with Afghanistan is that the country is lost and we should've known that a long time ago. What matters is how we get our people out and Afghans that helped us. The best way to do that is to secure ahead of time the routes to get them out (airports and border crossing) that's a lesson that we should've known and as we see it does take soldiers and force to do that.
You are one of the few that I've seen apply critical and independent thought to a wide range of issues on here.
I have read in a few places that the taliban have formed a barrier around the airport. I cant find official confirmation at this point.
