Merkel Says U.S. Not Alone In Misjudging Afghans

[applegrove]

Merkel Says U.S. Not Alone In Misjudging Afghans

August 16, 2021 at 3:38 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 60 Comments

https://politicalwire.com/2021/08/16/merkel-says-u-s-not-alone-in-misjudging-afghans/

"SNIP......

German Chancellor Angela Merkel acknowledged that she and other global leaders had “misjudged” the Afghan government’s ability to withstand attacks from the Taliban, DW News reports.

Said Merkel: “This is an extremely bitter development. Bitter, dramatic and terrifying.”

She added: “It is a terrible development for the millions of Afghans who want a more liberal society.”

......SNIP"

[Rustyeye77]

1. A dollar short and a week late.

Angela, what about the young girls and women?

[applegrove]

2. When Trump decided to leave, that young girls and women would be

in peril was baked into the cake.

[Rustyeye77]

5. And you support Trump's decision ?

That young girls and women perilous fate is just part of the deal ?

Girls are already being forcibly taken against their will and made into sex slaves.

Oh we may not see many, but don’t think it’s not happening.

[TheRealNorth]

18. If you are so concerned....

Buy yourself a plane ticket and an AR-15 and go fight.

[Rustyeye77]

19. Same old,same old..

Fortunately we have an excellent military that had everything under control.

And how many troops did it take? Not 150,000, not 100,000, not 75000...only 2500 troops.

And do you know how many of the US forces died in the past 18 months in Afghanistan ? huh?

ZERO, NADA,NONE.

[applegrove]

21. So now you are for the Doha deal? Are we square dancing here... Dos si dos.

[Rustyeye77]

22. No way.

Biden should have ripped that into pieces and thrown it into their faces.

We had only 2500 took and things were stable.

And there no US deaths in 18 months.

[applegrove]

25. But that is why there were so few US soldiers there and why no Americans

killed. Doha.

[BannonsLiver]

24. 2,500 troops?

In perpetuity?

How long do you think 2,500 troops are going to hold out the moment the Taliban decides they don’t want them there anymore? Have you seen Blackhawk Down? The Alamo?

I’m not interested in sending 2,500 US troops into a situation where they could be slaughtered at the whim of the Taliban so we can all sit over here and feel better about our image around the world.

[Rustyeye77]

30. They were doing pretty good between 3500 and 2500 for several years.

the taliban hasnt been a threat for several years while US was there in theater.

Absolutely no US deaths for 18 months. Period.

[BannonsLiver]

33. Yes, because they wanted us out and stuck to the terms of Trump's surrender decree

Do you honestly think they would tolerate our presence there a year from now? How about six months? How about 6 weeks? In what world would that occur? They’re just going to hand over the airport complex to us in perpetuity? They just won a war.

[LanternWaste]

28. Which US trooper should be the last to die in an unwinnable conflict? Please name him/her.

"that had everything under control." Obviously not... had everything been under control, the US withdrawal would be an orderly, peaceful transition; for example, US finishes Occupation duties of Tokyo in 1952, and Berlin in 1956. Those were "everything under control". This is not.

But I get it... make assertions, and avoid any evidence or data to support them. Same old, same old, indeed.

Will he tea.

[Rustyeye77]

31. Go look it up.

[LanternWaste]

34. Avoidance of answer is not a good look.

Every answer is a response. Not every response is an answer.

Yours was merely another response.

[Rustyeye77]

36. Fine.its not a good look.

[LanternWaste]

37. And yet.. still no answer, merely unsupported assertions.

Is not asking others to find evidence to support a premise we ourselves make intellectual laziness?

Will he tea.

[applegrove]

20. I think it is awful. Trump messed up leaving by giving the Taliban a year

to make deals with afghan military units not to fight. Women and children are in grave danger. I hope once people are evacuated pressure can be brought to bare on the Taliban. But with the Chinese and the Russians devoluting their human rights they will likely prop up the Taliban to give themselves a scapegoat on the human rights issue and will use the human rights of women and children being abused by the Taliban as an asset for their own damn selves and to make themselves look better. Just sick.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

4. They (and the US) misjudged the situation ... the idea was to protect women, we spent

a trillion bucks, 2000+ lives, and 20 years trying to create a better country for them.

There's women and girls (and men and boys) suffering from crappy leadership situations all over the world. It's not much better in Saudi Arabia or Iran either for example.

We can't fix everything, esp. if the people don't want it fixed badly enough

[Rustyeye77]

6. You are right..we can't fix everything.

But we shouldn’t have left them like this. We could have fixed that.

Those poor girls went from relatively normal to a life of sheer terror.

Now imagine it was a relative of yours.

[Elessar Zappa]

7. No, we couldn't have fixed the situation regarding women.

Whenever we left, the Taliban would gain control. No point putting it off. It’s easy to Monday morning quarterback. I trust Biden and his administration.

[Rustyeye77]

8. And the young girls and women trusted the US would be there.

[Elessar Zappa]

9. Well, we won't be.

It’s no longer our fight.

[tavernier]

17. But not their own husbands, fathers,

brothers and sons? Those are the people who should be protecting their women, yet they have declined to do that at every step of the way.

[LanternWaste]

32. Precisely how, at what cost, and for how long?

"We could have fixed that."
Precisely how, at what cost and for how long?

Failure to answer those questions denies any real credibility and validity to your premise, and appears to illustrate it as just another unsupported assertion. Will he tea.

[paleotn]

42. Easy to say for those without skin in the game.

ie. risking YOUR life in what's been a failed state since the Soviet invasion.

[Rustyeye77]

43. Riiiight ...failed state.

Believe what you will.

[paleotn]

47. It's easy to believe reality

[UTUSN]

3. K&R

Last edited Tue Aug 17, 2021, 01:31 PM - Edit history (2)

[Irish_Dem]

10. I don't understand how there could be such a global, massive intelligence failure.

I am not sure I am buying it.

[DFW]

12. I'm not sure it was an intelligence failure

I'm sure the more objective analysts saw this coming and said so to the ones that were willing to listen. What they did with the information and how they spoke in public about it--that is a different matter entirely.

There are plenty of stories still circulating that FDR knew about the impending attack on Pearl Harbor well before it happened, just deemed it politically expedient to wait until it caused horrific damage in order to convince a reluctant America that it was time to get involved in World War II before Japan and Germany consolidated too many of their territorial gains.

[Irish_Dem]

14. The press is stating "miscalculations." Other leaders saying they "misjudged the situation."

Right, we don't know if this is CYA or if the intelligence community failed.

We don't know if the intelligence agencies or American leadership chose to let the military industrial complex have a lucrative boondoggle.

[DFW]

23. I doubt the MIC likes this

The Taliban won't be buying any $50 million fighter bombers from them, and the kind of weapons they DO prefer can be supplied by willing sellers in Russia--right next door, and without cumbersome invoices or sales records.

[Irish_Dem]

27. Exactly my point.

The gravy train is over. And the intelligence community and/ or US leadership lied about the situation on the ground in Afghanistan for 20 yrs to keep the taxpayer dollars flowing. Now everyone is pretending to be shocked at how quickly things fell apart on the ground.

[meadowlander]

26. If it rains two hours earlier than the weatherman said it would, that isn't a "massive weather

failure".

It's not a realistic standard to expect even the best analysts to predict the future with perfect certainty.

I'm sure the intelligence analysts knew that the Afghan force would crumble. They probably thought it wouldn't be immediately and there would be more time to get assets out.

It's pretty clear that everyone involved in the situation knew, and has known for years, that the Taliban would take over again as soon as we left. The decision was made to rip the bandaid off now and not next year when more people have died, more money has been wasted and the political fallout will impact the midterms.

It was a political calculation, not an intelligence failure.

[Skittles]

13. I find it utterly preposterous

something ain't right

[Irish_Dem]

15. Right, things not adding up.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

29. Denial and hubris, IMO.

[paleotn]

46. Bingo.

[applegrove]

39. A Russian psyops to hurt Biden? They are cozy with the Taliban and have

already paid the insurgents to kill American soldiers. Why not do the deals between afghan army units and the Taliban to not fight on the down low and spread false intelligence it would take a month if Kabul fell at all? Germany did not know either. This was like a controlled explosion of a large building with all the local deals that happened where afghan army units promised the Taliban they would not fight, deals on the quiet and together acting like small charges coirdinated to speed up the fall.

The Chinese certainly saw something good in a very bad end to US time in Afghanistan:

"SNIP......

https://politicalwire.com/2021/08/16/china-sends-ominous-message-to-taiwan/

China Sends Ominous Message to Taiwan

August 16, 2021 at 5:40 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 80 Comments

Chinese state media published an editorial with an ominous message to Taiwan that the outcome of the Afghanistan was shows that the U.S. won’t be around to help when the island needs it most, The Week reports.

The piece argues that Taiwan’s political leaders “need to a keep a sober head, and the secessionist forces should reserve the ability to wake up from their dreams. From what happened in Afghanistan, they should perceive that once a war breaks out in the Straits, the island’s defense will collapse within hours and the U.S. military won’t come to help.”


.....SNIP"

[Irish_Dem]

40. Yes I agree, this is quite possible. But the situation with the Afghan military was so very bad,

not sure even Putin could cover it up. But maybe Putin and China were a part of the misinformation.

[paleotn]

45. Not an intelligence failure. A conscious effort by many to ignore what was actually going on.

And the more money we poured in and the more lives we lost, the easier it became to believe the lie and the harder it became to come clean and admit it was all for nothing.

[Irish_Dem]

50. Yes, this is the other explanation.

They had accurate intelligence information. But kept doubling down on a bad gamble.
And certain groups were becoming vastly rich.

[Skittles]

11. WTF

did they ever speak to ANY OF THE SOLDIERS WHO WERE TASKED WITH TRAINING THEM? I remember one soldier told me their soldiers didn't care to learn how to AIM a gun because they said ALLAH would find their target

[Irish_Dem]

16. A junior intelligence officer could figure out this stuff in a week.

The NCO's doing the training probably saw it in two hours.

[The Unmitigated Gall]

48. I suspect we may find that the reports of

The trainers with their boots on the ground, if truthful, were suppressed and replaced with shinier reports of Afghan Army soldiers demonstrating “initiative” and “self-reliance” and some-such in the reports sent up the chain by the brass. I’ve read accounts of such glowing assessments by our commanders and fold that in with other observations that Afghanistan has been great for obtaining the combat chops necessary for moving up the command ladder, not to mention the gigantic war profiteering opportunities, leading the generals to whisper behind their hands “Ixnay on the Afghan incompetence-nay!”

[Shermann]

35. Ashraf Ghani jumped off that sinking ship faster than Francesco "Captain Coward" Schettino nt

Last edited Mon Aug 16, 2021, 07:53 PM - Edit history (1)

[The Unmitigated Gall]

44. My thought trail...

“Oh great, now I gotta look up someone els....Oh right, that guy!”

[Shermann]

49. Fixed!

[BlueCheeseAgain]

38. She's right, of course.

It's not like any other country pulled their staff out earlier. They're all scrambling right now too.

[bluedevil4]

41. Well

Canada pulled their people out in 2014 France pulled out between 2013-2015

The issue isn’t pulling out it’s how we pulled out. We had 2500 troops to pull out, now we have 6000 troops because we didn’t take our diplomats out first. It boggles my mind ,