Horrible miscalculation that is going to cost us. What kind of advisers does he have? Dream on… Everybody knows that the Afghan army is not loyal and is afraid of the Taliban. The more then hundred Humvees, never used, captured by the Taliban at the airport is a bonus and small change.
One Scan Eagle drone costs $4.000.000. Western technology now in hands of Iran. Planned retreat? Why did the retreating troops leave the drones behind? They could at least have destroyed these drones. I sincerely hope this is all fake news.
This is no big deal & all apart of the cycle. We spent a trillion dollars to blow up what little infrastructure Afghanistan had, then another trillion to rebuild it all back plus some improvements. The bombs we have in stock now will expire if we don’t use them & our military industrial complex needs another influx of money so we need to pull out of Afghanistan so we can go back in a couple of years to blow it all again so we can rebuild it. It’s how us Americans stay free, spread democracy, blah, blah, blah & all that jazz.
Scan Eagles are not high technology. Those are disposable assets. A ship deploys with stacks of them with the expectation they will be lost. We had a bunch stacked up on the weather decks. When one didn’t come home we’d open another crate.
Those things litter the forests, mountains and sea floors like old paint brushes.
Great story from one of the Scan Eagle guys. He was active duty in Afghanistan when an Afghani civilian came in and told them they found a crashed drone. They went out and found the drone tied to a tree. He asked the Afghani why it was tied up and was told they tied it down so the mice wouldn’t fly it away. (He thought trained mice were piloting the drones.)
Biden made a little mistake - The title of your thread suggests that the man paraded in front of the public can unscramble his brain long enough to make responsible decisions. I’m skeptical. Some clever puppeteers are working overtime.
American B-52H bombers are understood to be conducting an attack on the largest Afghan air force base in order to destroy the aircraft based there.
The aircraft are reportedly heading towards toward Mazar-e-Sharif.
It is highly possible that they bomb the second largest air base of Afghanistan National Air Force now in hands of Taliban. They don’t want A-29B & AC-208B attack aircraft remain in hands of Taliban. With the fall of Mazar-i-Sharif into the hands of Taliban, they have now captured a large number of aircraft & helicopters of Afghanistan Air Force. At-least 20 Mi-17V-5s, UH-60A+ BlackHawks, MD-530F(G) helicopters as well as Cessna 208Bs, AC-208Bs & A-29B S Tucanos!
Dramatic retreat of Afghan forces, more of a flight. Most capitals taken without a shot!
Taliban executives are presently in the Presidential Palace.
Helicopters are evacuating American embassy staff at Kabul. That reminds me of, yes, Saigon. Another war lost. U.S. completely pulling out of embassy in the next 72 hours. Well, that’s the idea now.
Correct Dutchie., I was a teenager about to get drafted during Nam. How we make the same bad decisions is beyond comprehension. Glad we are out of there, but feel bad for the citizens who are loyal to nobody. Only as long as the dollars flow. Bad policy
Dozens of U.S. and Afghan officials told interviewers that many of the U.S. policies and initiatives — from training Afghan forces to fighting the thriving opium trade — were destined to fail because they were based on flawed assumptions about a country they didn’t understand.
A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.
@Dutchie - Not just Biden and not a little mistake.
It was meant as an euphemistic remark. Nobody in the government seems to have a clue how things work in Afghanistan. It were a golden 20 years for the military industrial complex. Now they have to figure out the next war to keep the weapons flowing.
China. Russia. Far more palatable and sustainable boogeymen. Huge money can be spent on defending against them and the best part? No deaths. It’s a three way circle-jerk. Everyone spends money defending against everyone else without the public becoming enraged about the horrible parade of flag draped coffins. Win-win!
Good idea. The creation of a virtual rogue state, frighten the inhabitants of a nation with nuclear weapons and monstrous kill all viruses. I am going to develop a computer game on these notes.
Scenes of Afghanistan’s military fleeing to Iran with equipment, likely supplied by US. Iran’s defense industries will want to get their hands on some of that equipment.
