"this was an exercise in futility no matter the exit date." "It was never about real training."

[orleans]

Walking around kabul. Hard stares. Mood changing. People not just sad, but angry, blaming the US for abandoning the country to war, chaos, and the Taliban

Link to tweet

The fact that they don’t blame the Afghan military for failing to stand against the Taliban pretty much confirms that this was an exercise in futility no matter the exit date.

Richard, there is something missing from this story.
It's close to unfathomable to consider having trained a foreign army to defend themselves against terrorism just to watch them fold as though they are incompetent. 300,000 incompetent personnel??
20 years?
What don't we know?

Link to tweet

2 trillion dollars to train and equip the Afghan military over the past 20 years. They fell in a week. It was never about real training. It was about military contractors and corporations raking in the profits. I am numb. I am sure everyone who spent years there feels the same!

[DURHAM D]

1. We need Bunny Greenhouse to figure out where the money went. nt

[orleans]

2. i had to google that name and

yes--we could certainly use her

(and in case her name doesn't ring a bell with others)

"Bunnatine (Bunny) H. Greenhouse is a former chief contracting officer Senior Executive Service (Principal Assistant Responsible for Contracting (PARC)) of the United States Army Corps of Engineers. On June 27, 2005, she testified to a Congressional panel, alleging specific instances of waste, fraud, and other abuses and irregularities by Halliburton with regard to its operations in Iraq since the 2003 invasion. She described one of the Halliburton contracts (secret, no-bid contracts awarded to Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR)—a subsidiary of Halliburton) as "the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunny_Greenhouse

[crickets]

3. +1000000

[dchill]

4. Somebody needs to do it. That's for sure.

[dchill]

5. Richard Engel is trying to upset the wrong applecart.

[secondwind]

7. I think he's telling it like he sees it. That's his job.

[JI7]

6. From what I'm seeing on social media, many Muslim men are happy about this

[duforsure]

8. Making this into a political issue is absurd at this point,

Whoever was in office this was going to happen, and thankfully President Biden understood this, and is taking the hit for it, but the American people should look at why it was like this. Their government was too corrupt, and their people weren't willing enough to fight for their freedom. The biggest mistake was going there to begin with, and allowing the profiteering made off of it by our politicians.