General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGen. Milley: "nothing that I or anyone else saw that indicated the collapse of...this government"
Link to tweet
Is he really this dense?
BeyondGeography
(39,390 posts)Lifetime tenure is a wonderful thing.
RANDYWILDMAN
(2,678 posts)oh wait it's your job to know, idiot !
A put this on my what could happen in Afghanistan if we left, how did he miss it ????
HubertHeaver
(2,522 posts)Calista241
(5,586 posts)And Milley is making sure it's not the military. What he said was probably true, and the intelligence agencies were incorrect in guessing the pace of the collapse.
BlueLucy
(1,609 posts)AkFemDem
(1,836 posts)Maybe thats one practice Biden should consider copying.
Dream Girl
(5,111 posts)Cha
(297,890 posts)Ohio Joe
(21,771 posts)Nor does a search pull anything up
Irish_Dem
(47,597 posts)Pathetic news conference.
Ohio Joe
(21,771 posts)Again... I can't find anyone who thought this would happen in such a short period or even had a hint of it.
Irish_Dem
(47,597 posts)My aunt Fannie knows more than they do just reading the local newspaper.
If the DOD/CIA knew nothing about what would happen, they are either lying or seriously incompetent.
Only so many ways to slice it.
Sgt Joe Army in the Kabul motor pool probably knew more than the pathetic DOD officials we just saw in this press conference.
Ohio Joe
(21,771 posts)Which local paper predicted this?
BlueLucy
(1,609 posts)I went back and read news reports from 2018-2020... It was there. The writing was on the wall.
BeyondGeography
(39,390 posts)It began with individual outposts in rural areas where starving and ammunition-depleted soldiers and police units were surrounded by Taliban fighters and promised safe passage if they surrendered and left behind their equipment, slowly giving the insurgents more and more control of roads, then entire districts. As positions collapsed, the complaint was almost always the same: There was no air support or they had run out of supplies and food.
But even before that, the systemic weaknesses of the Afghan security forces which on paper numbered somewhere around 300,000 people, but in recent days have totaled around just one-sixth of that, according to U.S. officials were apparent. These shortfalls can be traced to numerous issues that sprung from the Wests insistence on building a fully modern military with all the logistical and supply complexities one requires, and which has proved unsustainable without the United States and its NATO allies.
Soldiers and police officers have expressed ever-deeper resentment of the Afghan leadership. Officials often turned a blind eye to what was happening, knowing full well that the Afghan forces real manpower count was far lower than what was on the books, skewed by corruption and secrecy that they quietly accepted
Ohio Joe
(21,771 posts)I think that would justify Milley saying weeks or months for it to fall... And he did... but I'm still not seeing anyone predicting it to occur in days, before it happened.
BeyondGeography
(39,390 posts)Try reading the whole article. Problems had been apparent for months. Theres no way our President should have been touting a meaningless manpower advantage on July 8.
Ohio Joe
(21,771 posts)But... Still not a single person claiming it would fall in days before it did?
Kaleva
(36,372 posts)Despite billions spent by the US on training and equipping the Iraqi Army, it fled. Leaving behind large quantities of US supplied arms and equipment. If the US and other western nations hadn't intervened, it's highly possible ISIS would have taken the whole country. At on point, they were just 50 miles from Baghdad.
Ohio Joe
(21,771 posts)Did that happen in days?
Kaleva
(36,372 posts)Even though one may not have thought that the Taliban would have won in a matter of days, it should have been considered that without considerable direct US support, the Afghan govt and military would very likely have collapsed in time.
Ohio Joe
(21,771 posts)So did many, many others. In fact Milley says exactly that right at the start of the video in the OP. My questioning goes to the OP calling Milley "dense" because he did not know the collapse would happen in days. I see many in this thread find Milley at fault for somehow not knowing it would be days. There are many things to fault many people for this 20 year debacle... I just don't see this as one of them.
Kaleva
(36,372 posts)I do think there ought to be an internal review to determine why our intel was so wrong and take corrective action if needed.
During WWII, Gen Eisenhower choose not to believe the intel that the Germans were planning an attack late 1944. As a result, thousands of American soldiers died or were wounded in the Battle of the Bulge. The intel was there. Ike did not believe it. I don't know if that's the case with Afghanistan but it's possible.
bluedevil4
(305 posts)they say "God Bless America". I must be overly involved. This is unhealthy for anyone to try and understand. Is anyone else appalled? Is it me overreacting!?
Irish_Dem
(47,597 posts)vanlassie
(5,693 posts)Ninga
(8,281 posts)A MUST watch!
bluedevil4
(305 posts)and I remember the Vietnam conflict very well. I was very young but it hit everybodys family back then. Seems we all new somebodys son, brother cousin who died
I know there are similarities and definite embarrassment. I dont recall it being as tense and long as this. Could it have be my black and white TV with rabbit ears, could it have been the lack of cell phones/ communication back then or my young age? Maybe someone else can help us understand
vanlassie
(5,693 posts)RockRaven
(15,051 posts)It's got to be one or the other.
GoCubsGo
(32,099 posts)Like Biden, he was probably rat-fucked by Trump's and Pompeo's secret dealings with the Taliban. There was a lot of stuff Biden was not informed about during the transition, so it's not surprising he was caught off guard. And, Milley was probably also left out of the loop, being on Trump's shit list. There are still a number of Trump toadies in positions where they can cause problems. Don't be surprised if we find out that some of their grubby fingers were involved in this, too
crickets
(25,988 posts)trump fired a lot of the staff and replaced it with toadies back in Nov/Dec 2020. There's no telling how much has fallen through the cracks because people who knew what they were doing were fired. Even if the more obvious sycophants are gone, it's likely that at least some of those replacements are left around to conduct quiet sabotage.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/04/politics/pentagon-biden-transition-intelligence/index.html
Cohen-Watnick gained notoriety in March 2017 for his alleged involvement in providing intelligence materials to then-House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, a California Republican who went on to claim that US intelligence officials improperly surveilled Trump associates.
Since firing Defense Secretary Mark Esper by tweet November 9, the President has ousted at least three other top officials and replaced them with perceived loyalists. Trump has also replaced the members on two advisory boards, installing his former campaign manager on one of them.
samsingh
(17,602 posts)who are all these morons that never seem to see anything
Thomas Hurt
(13,903 posts)and could not foresee possible consequences of it? This is why I am scratching my head. Everyone knew Trump was incompetent at the very least.
moondust
(20,018 posts)Hoyt
(54,770 posts)LakeArenal
(28,863 posts)Chants to find Pelosi and kill her.
🐵🙉🙈🙊
PortTack
(32,813 posts)If you werent there you dont know what youre talking about so STFU!!
I agree with the vets..its not up to us the uninformed to hash this over this way...NOR THE MSM!!
jalan48
(13,906 posts)Thrill
(19,178 posts)In a few days. Maybe a few months but damn, they didnt even fight a week. Crazy
PortTack
(32,813 posts)But even early last week there were reports of fairly pitched battles in some towns, and some precincts shifted hands from Taliban-controlled to government-controlled.
Meaning, in other words, that some didn't. There is no unified "they".
Kaleva
(36,372 posts)Kingofalldems
(38,501 posts)Klaralven
(7,510 posts)Raine
(30,541 posts)Skittles
(153,254 posts)absolutely NONE