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[JustRalph]

Originally Posted by mostpost

We’ll start with the situation he was handed when he took office. There was already an agreement in place signed by Donald Trump that all US forces would be out of Afghanistan by May 1, 2021. In exchange for that, Trump had wrested one concession from the Taliban. That they would not attack US troops. They made no promises about attacking Afghan government troops; no promises about attacking coalition troops from other nations,; no promises to negotiate with Afghan government; no promises to not give safe haven to terrorists. In other words, that gave up nothing.

Even before he took office, Biden was put in an untenable position.

Even so, things would probably have gone OK were it not for the incredible corruption and incompetence of the Afghan government. And the fact that Trump completely shut the Afghan government out of his Troop withdrawal negotiations with the Taliban.

As a result, the Taliban by passed the central government and negotiated with local authorities and military leaders. Negotiated there surrender and withdrawal from the battlefield. All of this unknown to the Trump administration or the Afghan government.

Enter now Joe Biden and the new administration. Their objective is to get our troops out of Afghanistan as quickly as possible. And they have this agreement negotiated by Trump to work with. Even so, they recognize that the May 1 deadline is impossible to meet. So they extend it four months and the Taliban agrees.

The unspoken foundation for all this was that Afghan’s government was sufficiently trained and sufficiently powerful to continue holding off the Taliban. This was obviously not the case in retrospect, but it was believed by both the outgoing and the incoming administration.

Which brings us to the two major issues of the withdrawal; the loss of American military equipment and technology to the Taliban and the failure to evacuate all our Afghan allies who wished to leave.

Dealing with the military equipment etc. first. There are two categories here; Equipment and weapons possessed by US forces, and those in possession of Afghan government forces. The former were basically destroyed or evacuated. The latter were supposed to be used by the Afghan government in its fight against the Taliban. The presumption was the government was strong enough to survive without us. Reclaiming our weapons and equipment would have rendered that impossible.

Of course, that presumption was incorrect, but by then it was too late. It’s not like all the Blackhawk helicopters were sitting on the tarmac at one Air Base , or all Armored Personnel Carriers were parked at one motor pool. Ammunition and weapons were in as many different places as the Afghan troops.

Removing or destroying all that was impossible.

As for the evacuation of the Afghan interpreters, scouts and other assets, when the Taliban took control, everyone wanted to get out. But how many had even applied when they thought the government was in charge, when they thought the would be safe. People don’t easily leave their homes, their country unless under duress. Certainly they don’t do it having no job prospects and no place to live at their destination.

In spite of all that, we have evacuated more than 120,000 people in the last two weeks.

Did you write this? Or did you plagiarize it like your hero? Fess up….