The truth about the US withdrawal from Afghanistan is that Trump loves dictators and set it up for them to win.

[lees1975]

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2024/08/the-truth-about-us-exit-from.html

The war in Afghanistan, a disastrous misadventure left over from the Bush Administration's incompetence, which cost the United States 2,459 lives, and 20,769 wounded service men and women, should have never happened. One of several demonstrations of the unbelievable incompetence of George W. Bush in foreign policy, part of his "nation building strategy" that failed miserably, the initial attack on Afghanistan was for the purpose of finding and getting rid of Osama Bin Laden.

The practice of Republican "kicking the can down the road" when it came to these disastrous, expensive, futile efforts at nation building was classic Bush. And so, the job of extracting the United States from a costly and deadly occupation in Iraq fell to President Obama, as did the task of holding back the Taliban in Afghanistan in order to pursue Bin Laden. Of course, President Obama being a far more competent leader, succeeded in bringing Bin Laden to justice, where Bush failed.

At that point, from my own perspective, I wish President Obama had followed the advice of his Vice President and removed the US presence from Afghanistan, as he did from Iraq. I understand his desire to make the effort to continue to prop up the flailing, corrupt Afghan government, and give democracy there a chance, but the Afghan army was not capable, and perhaps not very willing, either, to hold off the advance of the Taliban. Democracy in such an anarchic and radically Islamic country never stood a chance. It was never going to work, and President Obama should have pulled the plug.

Trump, naturally and eagerly threw himself at the Taliban dictatorship. These were his kind of people and he relished the thought of being able to undermine the democratically elected government and hand the country over to the Taliban. Of course, he needed to delay long enough to see if there was some way for him to extract money out of the situation before pulling the rug out from underneath the elected government and giving the country back to a cruel dictatorship and he wasn't capable of understanding the military realities and logistics involved in evacuating literally hundreds of thousands of people from the certain death and execution that would be visited on them if they were caught and left behind. His withdrawal plan was a disaster and a failure.

[Hekate]

1. KnR

[lees1975]

2. Actually, I don't think Trump ever intended to evacuate any Afghans after selling them out to the Taliban.

I think he was aiming just to get Americans out. His big show and attempt to push this over on Biden is failing miserably.

[orthoclad]

3. Ironically,

Afghanistan had a secular govt with women's rights until the US armed the mullahs in order to annoy the Soviets - thus creating the Taliban.

[planetc]

4. The writer of this essay thinks that T's incompetence was the only causal factor in the lead-up to the withdrawal ...

but I think another motive is possible: the desire to hand Pres. Biden a hornet's nest. I may not have the exact sequence of events correct here, so anybody who can correct this account, please do. Okay--T. is CIC, and influences the rate at which US troops are withdrawn. As that number gets lower, he also negotiates with the Afghan government and the Taliban. In rapid succession, American troops hand over Kabul to the Afghan government. They fold their tents and leave in one day, instead of the expected six months. Simultaneously, 5000 Taliban are released from Afghan prisons, and immediately take over Kabul This is the precise moment when US forces are beginning to fly out an estimated 70,000 people. I don't know how many US troops remained in Kabul, or Afghanistan, but if the number was 2,500, then they were outnumbered by the Taliban. So the first few days of the evacuation are chaotic. But the operation goes on for over a week, and more than 100,000 people are safely evacuated. But the optics are terrible. The American press holds Pres. Biden responsible for everything that goes wrong, and will never again refer to the withdrawal as anything but "chaotic."

We know T. was seeking dirt on Biden before the election. Why not create a mess for Biden after the election? I have been wondering if this scenario might be possible.

[lees1975]

5. That is possible.

Kicking the can down the road. It wasn't the only chaotic mess he left for Biden to clean up.

But then, when you think about the evacuation of over 100,000 people, in the teeth of that, it was a remarkable achievement.