Quote:
Originally Posted by spence
Why didn't Trump enforce that before drawing down troops?
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here's what honesty looks like Spence (honesty that you are incapable of)...
that's a good question (that's a statement you are incapable of making to a conservative). From what I saw, the agreement was supposed to be in place by the time we withdrew completely. Trump wasn't president when we withdrew completely.
Hindsight is always 20/20, and it's not fair to expect anyone to be clairvoyant. BUT here is what common sense tells me, they should have done.
You hold onto Bagram. It was built with defendability in mind, and they had many years to fortify it and figure out how to make it safe.
While (1) things are still stable, and (2) you are evacuating huge numbers of people, you use Kabul, as long as it's safe. But you hold onto Bagram, in case you need it. You plan for contingencies (at least, those of us not suffering from dementia plan for contingencies).
Got Stripers said many times here, that it was inevitable that things would descend into a "fall of Saigon" chaos, so if that was forseable, it follows that the Kabul airport would be impossible to function. By the time things go south, you don't have nearly as many people left to get out, and for sure you can get some of them out via Bagram.
The videos of the last days at the airport...you could look at the entirety of global military history, and not be able to find a more dangerous position to put 20 year-old E1s and E2s in. There is literally zero security, and I mean n-o-n-e. You have absolutely no idea of who is standing next to you.
i think the administration did a heck of a job getting so many out in the last month, they absolutely deserve credit for that. They also could not have done worse, preparing for, and managing, the last few days. I don't know how he could have done worse, unless Biden accidentally sat on the nuclear button and nuked the whole country.
As Got Stripers said, anyone could have seen the chaos at the end. We could not have been less prepared. The plan was "go out there and deal with the mob as best you can, and pray that no jihadists are walking among the mob". That was the best plan they could come up with.
As the liberal progressive democrat congressman Seth Moulton from Massachusetts said, it was preventable. It probably wasn't
all preventable, but it could have been planned much, much better.
And for Biden to explicitly promise we'd stay until everyone was out and then to so completely walk away from that promise...at a minimum, he has earned the loss of serious trust. That's what happens when you make a promise and then you choose to break it. That emboldens our enemies, and will obviously make anyone think twice about sticking their necks out to help us.
In 2008, there was a senate delegation on a helicopter in Afghanistan, they had to set down in unsafe area during heavy snow. A Blackwater team, along with an Afghan interpreter, walked to them and led them to safety. Senator Joe Biden was on that helicopter. The interpreter who risked his life to rescue Biden, is still there, begging to have he and his family brought out.
Some loyalty.