7 ms·

Fall of Saigon

64 points by nanis 5y ago

nanis 5y ago
It is good to be aware of history. > The capture of the city was preceded by Operation Frequent Wind, the evacuation of almost all American civilian and military personnel in Saigon, along with tens of thousands of South Vietnamese civilians who had been associated with the Republic of Vietnam. A few Americans chose not to be evacuated. United States ground combat units had left South Vietnam more than two years prior to the fall of Saigon and were not available to assist with either the defense of Saigon or the evacuation. Note what did not happen in Kabul.
- Forge36 5y ago
  Did we leave the civilians behind this time?
  - nanis 5y ago
    Assuming this is a serious question. Security Alert: U.S. Embassy Kabul[1] (archived[2]). US Embassy in Kabul shelters staff at airport after evacuation[3] (archived[4]). Afghans clinging to a U.S. transport plane[5]. Afghans clinging to a U.S. transport plane falling to their deaths[6]. [1]: https://af.usembassy.gov/security-alert-u-s-embassy-kabul/ https://af.usembassy.gov/security-alert-u-s-embassy-kabul/ [2]: https://archive.is/z2NXo https://archive.is/z2NXo [3]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/08/15/us-embassy-evacuated-blinken-defends-us-withdrawal-afghanistan/8141842002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/08/15/us-e... [4]: https://archive.is/ophy2 https://archive.is/ophy2 [5]: https://twitter.com/AfghanUrdu/status/1427264029299560448 https://twitter.com/AfghanUrdu/status/1427264029299560448 [6]: https://twitter.com/Rajput_ctn/status/1427242329518141440 https://twitter.com/Rajput_ctn/status/1427242329518141440
    - Forge36 5y ago
      It was, I haven't been following closely enough to know the details. Did we leave US citizens behind as well?
      - nanis 5y ago
        When you click the first link, here's what the U.S. Embassy tells you: > Event: The security situation in Kabul continues to change quickly, including at the airport. U.S. citizens should continue to shelter in place. U.S. citizens seeking assistance to depart the country should complete this Repatriation Assistance Request for each traveler in their group. Spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens in Afghanistan who are awaiting immigrant visas should also complete this form if they wish to depart. Please do so as soon as possible. Please do so only once. So, in the absence of any better information, a reasonable deduction is that there are civilians left behind. Plus, there is Mark Frerichs[1]. [1]: https://www.wjol.com/lombard-man-is-last-known-u-s-hostage-of-taliban-in-afghanistan/ https://www.wjol.com/lombard-man-is-last-known-u-s-hostage-o...
      - huitzitziltzin 5y ago
        What I have heard (don't remember exactly where, but likely I read this in the Times or Post) is that there are an estimated 20,000 US citizens in Kabul. Many US embassies encourage US citizens abroad to register w/ the embassy whether they are visiting or traveling. I imagine that was especially encouraged in Afghanistan. I think I also read that the Germans want to evacuate something like 10,000 people, including some of their own citizens and some Afghan employees / dependents. Other Western powers likely have similar numbers.
    - SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
      The USA today article at 4 is amazing that they have gall to interview Liz Cheney, who for obvious reasons isn’t going to have an unbiased opinion here, but who finds the time to blame nearly the whole thing on Trump. There is a lot that Trump did wrong, but Trump/Pompeo negotiating a set of conditions for withdraw, making a plan regardless of how good or bad in theory, then having Biden come in, ignore all of it, withdraw our forces including Bagram overnight without telling our allied Afghan Forces, waiting for no conditions to be met, and it not being clear that if the Taliban didn’t cooperate that we’d hit back hard - is Trump’s Fault - is beyond bias. It’s straight up a perversion of reality. USA Today should be embarrassed for such an obvious partisan twist, if you’ve been paying attention it would be expected of Cheney who seems to have been broken by Trump. Bad guy who tweeted the mean things or not, this isn’t on him, it’s square on the current administration and bureaucracy. 39 days ago Biden’s own press event completely shrugged this off as even a possibility, the idea we would have another Siagon. 6 days ago the intelligence community we’re told to respect revised a potential fall of Kabul from 90 days, to 72 hours, it fell in less than 24. Also … Those poor people holding on to the plane. All dead, they were sitting on the landing gear panel, that folds under on a C-117. It’s clear how bad things really are looking at how insecure the airstrip is. It shouldn’t be possible to grab onto a military plane in any scenario.
      - ericmay 5y ago
        I'm usually one for "let's not blame all of the world's problems on Trump", but Trump (or his admin) negotiated a May pullout of Afghanistan with the Taliban. I'm not sure why you're asserting that Biden "ignored all of it" and "pulled out overnight". What conditions were or weren't met? In what ways did the Taliban not agree to the Doha Accord? Be specific. And what do you think telling the commander of Bagram that we were leaving was going to accomplish? First, they knew we were leaving. Obviously we're not sending them an invitation to join us. And if they didn't do anything and were "surprised" by the US pulling out... I mean did he not notice forces packing up? Incompetence. You can't fix that. Second, do you think this would have changed the entire ANA folding? No. It's a boogeyman with no consequences whatsoever. > Also … Those poor people holding on to the plane. All dead. It’s clear how bad things really are looking at how insecure the airstrip is. It shouldn’t be possible to grab onto a military plane in any scenario. Well it's either that or the US forces unleash machine gun fire on civilians. Many more would be dead. The truth is there's no scenario in which you can secure a perimeter that large without massive forces when a population decides to just storm the fence, unless of course you want to just indiscriminately kill people. Anyway. My real "enemy" here is the exact same media who has for years been complaining about Afghanistan, publishing article after article about US imperialism in Afghanistan, how it's a failed war, all of that and then when we say fine you're right, they turn right around and start talking about how pulling out is the wrong move blah blah blah. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Might as well save money. The geopolitical ramifications are overstated too. Yet again MSM working on trying to drum up war scenarios. This frees US attention from Afghanistan and the Middle East to worry about other areas. Afghanistan has no way to extract resources. There are no ports. No roads. No mines. No machines. All of this "China is going to get all the resources" stuff is just fear-mongering nonsense. We spent 20 years and $2 trillion+ trying to get Bin Laden and create a good government in Afghanistan. It didn't work. The government collapsed in a week. Spending another 10 years there would have changed nothing. Should have left earlier anyway. -edit- Re: Saigon pictures. You know what's funny? People were talking about getting those exact pictures to make the comparison before the evacuation even began. Gotta get those clicks!
hjrkflgktnr 5y ago
Only 4 days ago the US intelligence believed that Kabul would not fall for at least 3 months. Yet another complete failure of an American institution, after FAA (Boeing crashes), CDC, FDA, the Navy (military ship crashes due to lack of basic navigation skills). It seems they are so bureaucratic and risk averse that they can't handle even basic challenges anymore.
h2odragon 5y ago
"Biden Says Kabul Is No Saigon" [1] They meant that. It sounds as if the "get people out" paperwork processing started to back up last month; too. Not "oops we were rushed" but this was the plan. [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-says-kabul-is-no-saigon-11625784536 https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-says-kabul-is-no-saigon-1...
jacksonkmarley 5y ago
I'm sure I don't understand a lot of the ins and outs of the situation in Kabul, but it does seem weird that they pulled out all the military first and left over a thousand embassy staff there. And now they've sent some different military back in to get them. I mean sure, the speed of the takeover seems like it took people by surprise, but surely the civilians and non-combat military gradually leave and the combat troops are last out providing security, even if the Taliban advance is slow? Edit: Or were they planning to leave the embassy open?
- MrBuddyCasino 5y ago
  Also why did choose to evacuate from Hamid Karzai International Airport? Bagram would have been easier to defend.
  - DanTheManPR 5y ago
    Bagram is about 25miles outside of Kabul, though.
  - nanis 5y ago
    Because they abandoned Bagram in the worst way possible: > US left Bagram without telling new commander: Afghan officials > Before the Afghan army could take control of airfield, looters ransack barracks and rummage through storage tents. That there sent a strong signal to both the Taliban and the ANA. [1]: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/5/us-left-bagram-airfield-without-notice-afghan-officials-say https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/5/us-left-bagram-airfi...
  - SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
    We already left Bagram. We did so overnight and it was a surprise to the Afghan forces we trained and left in charge there. EDIT: And last month… people were pulling the wiring for copper among other savage https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/dollar800b-scrapyard-bagram-air-base-pillaged-after-us-troops-abandon-it/ss-AALQgFr https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/dollar800b-scrapyard-ba...
- saberdancer 5y ago
throwawaysea 5y ago
A month ago Biden literally said this won’t be a new Saigon and that there wouldn’t be helicopters airlifting people off embassy roofs. Guess what happened. https://www.newsweek.com/clip-biden-saying-people-wont-lifted-off-embassy-roof-afghanistan-resurfaces-just-that-happens-1619517 https://www.newsweek.com/clip-biden-saying-people-wont-lifte...
chroem- 5y ago
I expect this will be unpopular with many HN readers, but it needs to be said: US presidential elections are often ugly, but they're an important vetting process to make sure that whoever wins the election is highly competent. Tech companies went to great lengths to scrub content that was critical of Joe Biden during the last election, and now shockingly, he and his political appointments are demonstrating gross incompetence. This isn't a political left or right issue: we skipped an important step during the 2020 election.
- prestigious 5y ago
  Nobody wants to hear it. Everybody wants to believe Trump was the “worst president ever” but this one event is worse than anything trump did or had happen during his administration.
  - VictorPath 5y ago
    > this one event is worse than anything trump did or had happen during his administration The US spent 20 years in Afghanistan, supposedly building up institutions that $2 trillion were poured into as 2300 Americans were killed. That the US would continue funding and arming Afghanistan, but would remove US troops was announced in mid-April. Within four months, the Taliban completely took over the country, a month before the final US withdrawal date scheduled for next month. It shows how much support these American-built initiatives had. This is not one event, it is 20 years of failure. I commend Biden for cutting US losses even if it invites criticism, 20 years is enough. This is the first good, tough decision Biden has made in my opinion.
  - DarknessFalls 5y ago
    No, sorry. Trump owns the pandemic. He could have been sane, followed scientific advise and acted more quickly. Instead, try snorting bleach. Get some UV light inside the body. Hundreds of thousands dead and a good amount of that toll could have been avoided.
    - zozbot234 5y ago
prestigious 5y ago
Good thing Biden did this rather than trump so the press can smooth it over for him. If Trump was president they probably would have said this is an unmitigated disaster!
- jeromegv 5y ago
  You might have missed the headlines, everybody is calling it a Biden disaster.
- commandlinefan 5y ago
  As far as I can tell, they are saying that it is an unmitigated disaster, but entirely Trump's fault and not Biden's at all.
- DarknessFalls 5y ago
  We're still too busy choking on Covid over here in the U.S. to give Trump a pass of any kind. Hundreds of thousands dead, unnecessarily.
wonderwonder 5y ago
I voted for Biden very willingly and if pressed would do it again over the other option at the time. With that said, this is a colossal failure. How do you not evacuate US staff and the afghan workers who helped them before pulling out the troops. Intelligence expected the Taliban to win, just for it to take 3+ months for it to happen. If this was publicly available information and you are an Afghan soldier why the heck would you fight? Just surrender and join the Taliban, why die fighting the inevitable? Of course the Taliban swept through with very limited resistance. To risk US lives because you did not want to insult the current doomed afghan regime is insane. Absolut failure and a monumental loss to US standing in the world as well as the morale of US troops. I would call for the resignation of all intelligence leaders involved in this assessment. I might go so far as to call for Biden's resignation.
- willis936 5y ago
  I'm under the impression that this administration was largely just following through the plan that the previous administration set in motion. The Biden admin is flushing when they should have plunged.
  - wonderwonder 5y ago
    Biden has been president for 7 months now. His administration has had ample to time to review plans and make change. He absolutely owns this.
  - throwawaysea 5y ago
    Apart from the fact that Biden is president and has ownership over his orders, we should also remember this was NOT the Trump plan. The Trump plan had a phased withdrawal that was contingent on commitments being met by the Taliban and the Afghan government. It was also left very open ended to allow the US to define its exit conditions. The plan was definitely not to just pull out wholesale and let an entire country fall to chaos and lose its democratic process. One of the chief conditions was that the Taliban would several all times with terrorist groups, and work to monitor and eliminate them. A UN report earlier this year confirmed the Taliban still is closely tied to Al Qaeda (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/taliban-has-kept-close-ties-al-qaeda-despite-promises-trump-n1221281 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/taliban-has-kept-close-ti...), which would have blocked the Trump plan from being enacted.
tuan 5y ago
Saigon then, Kabul now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6FZ6aFbNvY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6FZ6aFbNvY
wamburu 5y ago
A good watch in regard to this is 'The Weight of Memory' (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5734330/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5734330/) episode from 'The Vietnam War' documentary.(https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1877514 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1877514)
andyxor 5y ago
Biden will be remembered as the worst US president ever
war_is_cool 5y ago
Good morning american war apologist hackers. What are we hackin on today…?

64 points by nanis 5y ago

It is good to be aware of history. > The capture of the city was preceded by Operation Frequent Wind, the evacuation of almost all American civilian and military personnel in Saigon, along with tens of thousands of South Vietnamese civilians who had been associated with the Republic of Vietnam. A few Americans chose not to be evacuated. United States ground combat units had left South Vietnam more than two years prior to the fall of Saigon and were not available to assist with either the defense of Saigon or the evacuation. Note what did not happen in Kabul.

Forge36 5y ago
Did we leave the civilians behind this time?
- nanis 5y ago
  Assuming this is a serious question. Security Alert: U.S. Embassy Kabul[1] (archived[2]). US Embassy in Kabul shelters staff at airport after evacuation[3] (archived[4]). Afghans clinging to a U.S. transport plane[5]. Afghans clinging to a U.S. transport plane falling to their deaths[6]. [1]: https://af.usembassy.gov/security-alert-u-s-embassy-kabul/ https://af.usembassy.gov/security-alert-u-s-embassy-kabul/ [2]: https://archive.is/z2NXo https://archive.is/z2NXo [3]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/08/15/us-embassy-evacuated-blinken-defends-us-withdrawal-afghanistan/8141842002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/08/15/us-e... [4]: https://archive.is/ophy2 https://archive.is/ophy2 [5]: https://twitter.com/AfghanUrdu/status/1427264029299560448 https://twitter.com/AfghanUrdu/status/1427264029299560448 [6]: https://twitter.com/Rajput_ctn/status/1427242329518141440 https://twitter.com/Rajput_ctn/status/1427242329518141440
  - Forge36 5y ago
    It was, I haven't been following closely enough to know the details. Did we leave US citizens behind as well?
    - nanis 5y ago
      When you click the first link, here's what the U.S. Embassy tells you: > Event: The security situation in Kabul continues to change quickly, including at the airport. U.S. citizens should continue to shelter in place. U.S. citizens seeking assistance to depart the country should complete this Repatriation Assistance Request for each traveler in their group. Spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens in Afghanistan who are awaiting immigrant visas should also complete this form if they wish to depart. Please do so as soon as possible. Please do so only once. So, in the absence of any better information, a reasonable deduction is that there are civilians left behind. Plus, there is Mark Frerichs[1]. [1]: https://www.wjol.com/lombard-man-is-last-known-u-s-hostage-of-taliban-in-afghanistan/ https://www.wjol.com/lombard-man-is-last-known-u-s-hostage-o...
    - huitzitziltzin 5y ago
      What I have heard (don't remember exactly where, but likely I read this in the Times or Post) is that there are an estimated 20,000 US citizens in Kabul. Many US embassies encourage US citizens abroad to register w/ the embassy whether they are visiting or traveling. I imagine that was especially encouraged in Afghanistan. I think I also read that the Germans want to evacuate something like 10,000 people, including some of their own citizens and some Afghan employees / dependents. Other Western powers likely have similar numbers.
  - SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
    The USA today article at 4 is amazing that they have gall to interview Liz Cheney, who for obvious reasons isn’t going to have an unbiased opinion here, but who finds the time to blame nearly the whole thing on Trump. There is a lot that Trump did wrong, but Trump/Pompeo negotiating a set of conditions for withdraw, making a plan regardless of how good or bad in theory, then having Biden come in, ignore all of it, withdraw our forces including Bagram overnight without telling our allied Afghan Forces, waiting for no conditions to be met, and it not being clear that if the Taliban didn’t cooperate that we’d hit back hard - is Trump’s Fault - is beyond bias. It’s straight up a perversion of reality. USA Today should be embarrassed for such an obvious partisan twist, if you’ve been paying attention it would be expected of Cheney who seems to have been broken by Trump. Bad guy who tweeted the mean things or not, this isn’t on him, it’s square on the current administration and bureaucracy. 39 days ago Biden’s own press event completely shrugged this off as even a possibility, the idea we would have another Siagon. 6 days ago the intelligence community we’re told to respect revised a potential fall of Kabul from 90 days, to 72 hours, it fell in less than 24. Also … Those poor people holding on to the plane. All dead, they were sitting on the landing gear panel, that folds under on a C-117. It’s clear how bad things really are looking at how insecure the airstrip is. It shouldn’t be possible to grab onto a military plane in any scenario.
    - ericmay 5y ago
      I'm usually one for "let's not blame all of the world's problems on Trump", but Trump (or his admin) negotiated a May pullout of Afghanistan with the Taliban. I'm not sure why you're asserting that Biden "ignored all of it" and "pulled out overnight". What conditions were or weren't met? In what ways did the Taliban not agree to the Doha Accord? Be specific. And what do you think telling the commander of Bagram that we were leaving was going to accomplish? First, they knew we were leaving. Obviously we're not sending them an invitation to join us. And if they didn't do anything and were "surprised" by the US pulling out... I mean did he not notice forces packing up? Incompetence. You can't fix that. Second, do you think this would have changed the entire ANA folding? No. It's a boogeyman with no consequences whatsoever. > Also … Those poor people holding on to the plane. All dead. It’s clear how bad things really are looking at how insecure the airstrip is. It shouldn’t be possible to grab onto a military plane in any scenario. Well it's either that or the US forces unleash machine gun fire on civilians. Many more would be dead. The truth is there's no scenario in which you can secure a perimeter that large without massive forces when a population decides to just storm the fence, unless of course you want to just indiscriminately kill people. Anyway. My real "enemy" here is the exact same media who has for years been complaining about Afghanistan, publishing article after article about US imperialism in Afghanistan, how it's a failed war, all of that and then when we say fine you're right, they turn right around and start talking about how pulling out is the wrong move blah blah blah. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Might as well save money. The geopolitical ramifications are overstated too. Yet again MSM working on trying to drum up war scenarios. This frees US attention from Afghanistan and the Middle East to worry about other areas. Afghanistan has no way to extract resources. There are no ports. No roads. No mines. No machines. All of this "China is going to get all the resources" stuff is just fear-mongering nonsense. We spent 20 years and $2 trillion+ trying to get Bin Laden and create a good government in Afghanistan. It didn't work. The government collapsed in a week. Spending another 10 years there would have changed nothing. Should have left earlier anyway. -edit- Re: Saigon pictures. You know what's funny? People were talking about getting those exact pictures to make the comparison before the evacuation even began. Gotta get those clicks!

hjrkflgktnr 5y ago

Only 4 days ago the US intelligence believed that Kabul would not fall for at least 3 months. Yet another complete failure of an American institution, after FAA (Boeing crashes), CDC, FDA, the Navy (military ship crashes due to lack of basic navigation skills). It seems they are so bureaucratic and risk averse that they can't handle even basic challenges anymore.

h2odragon 5y ago

"Biden Says Kabul Is No Saigon" [1] They meant that. It sounds as if the "get people out" paperwork processing started to back up last month; too. Not "oops we were rushed" but this was the plan. [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-says-kabul-is-no-saigon-11625784536 https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-says-kabul-is-no-saigon-1...

jacksonkmarley 5y ago

I'm sure I don't understand a lot of the ins and outs of the situation in Kabul, but it does seem weird that they pulled out all the military first and left over a thousand embassy staff there. And now they've sent some different military back in to get them. I mean sure, the speed of the takeover seems like it took people by surprise, but surely the civilians and non-combat military gradually leave and the combat troops are last out providing security, even if the Taliban advance is slow? Edit: Or were they planning to leave the embassy open?

MrBuddyCasino 5y ago
Also why did choose to evacuate from Hamid Karzai International Airport? Bagram would have been easier to defend.
- DanTheManPR 5y ago
  Bagram is about 25miles outside of Kabul, though.
- nanis 5y ago
  Because they abandoned Bagram in the worst way possible: > US left Bagram without telling new commander: Afghan officials > Before the Afghan army could take control of airfield, looters ransack barracks and rummage through storage tents. That there sent a strong signal to both the Taliban and the ANA. [1]: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/5/us-left-bagram-airfield-without-notice-afghan-officials-say https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/5/us-left-bagram-airfi...
- SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
  We already left Bagram. We did so overnight and it was a surprise to the Afghan forces we trained and left in charge there. EDIT: And last month… people were pulling the wiring for copper among other savage https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/dollar800b-scrapyard-bagram-air-base-pillaged-after-us-troops-abandon-it/ss-AALQgFr https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/dollar800b-scrapyard-ba...
saberdancer 5y ago

throwawaysea 5y ago

A month ago Biden literally said this won’t be a new Saigon and that there wouldn’t be helicopters airlifting people off embassy roofs. Guess what happened. https://www.newsweek.com/clip-biden-saying-people-wont-lifted-off-embassy-roof-afghanistan-resurfaces-just-that-happens-1619517 https://www.newsweek.com/clip-biden-saying-people-wont-lifte...

chroem- 5y ago

I expect this will be unpopular with many HN readers, but it needs to be said: US presidential elections are often ugly, but they're an important vetting process to make sure that whoever wins the election is highly competent. Tech companies went to great lengths to scrub content that was critical of Joe Biden during the last election, and now shockingly, he and his political appointments are demonstrating gross incompetence. This isn't a political left or right issue: we skipped an important step during the 2020 election.

prestigious 5y ago
Nobody wants to hear it. Everybody wants to believe Trump was the “worst president ever” but this one event is worse than anything trump did or had happen during his administration.
- VictorPath 5y ago
  > this one event is worse than anything trump did or had happen during his administration The US spent 20 years in Afghanistan, supposedly building up institutions that $2 trillion were poured into as 2300 Americans were killed. That the US would continue funding and arming Afghanistan, but would remove US troops was announced in mid-April. Within four months, the Taliban completely took over the country, a month before the final US withdrawal date scheduled for next month. It shows how much support these American-built initiatives had. This is not one event, it is 20 years of failure. I commend Biden for cutting US losses even if it invites criticism, 20 years is enough. This is the first good, tough decision Biden has made in my opinion.
- DarknessFalls 5y ago
  No, sorry. Trump owns the pandemic. He could have been sane, followed scientific advise and acted more quickly. Instead, try snorting bleach. Get some UV light inside the body. Hundreds of thousands dead and a good amount of that toll could have been avoided.
  - zozbot234 5y ago

prestigious 5y ago

Good thing Biden did this rather than trump so the press can smooth it over for him. If Trump was president they probably would have said this is an unmitigated disaster!

jeromegv 5y ago
You might have missed the headlines, everybody is calling it a Biden disaster.
commandlinefan 5y ago
As far as I can tell, they are saying that it is an unmitigated disaster, but entirely Trump's fault and not Biden's at all.
DarknessFalls 5y ago
We're still too busy choking on Covid over here in the U.S. to give Trump a pass of any kind. Hundreds of thousands dead, unnecessarily.

wonderwonder 5y ago

I voted for Biden very willingly and if pressed would do it again over the other option at the time. With that said, this is a colossal failure. How do you not evacuate US staff and the afghan workers who helped them before pulling out the troops. Intelligence expected the Taliban to win, just for it to take 3+ months for it to happen. If this was publicly available information and you are an Afghan soldier why the heck would you fight? Just surrender and join the Taliban, why die fighting the inevitable? Of course the Taliban swept through with very limited resistance. To risk US lives because you did not want to insult the current doomed afghan regime is insane. Absolut failure and a monumental loss to US standing in the world as well as the morale of US troops. I would call for the resignation of all intelligence leaders involved in this assessment. I might go so far as to call for Biden's resignation.

willis936 5y ago
I'm under the impression that this administration was largely just following through the plan that the previous administration set in motion. The Biden admin is flushing when they should have plunged.
- wonderwonder 5y ago
  Biden has been president for 7 months now. His administration has had ample to time to review plans and make change. He absolutely owns this.
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  Apart from the fact that Biden is president and has ownership over his orders, we should also remember this was NOT the Trump plan. The Trump plan had a phased withdrawal that was contingent on commitments being met by the Taliban and the Afghan government. It was also left very open ended to allow the US to define its exit conditions. The plan was definitely not to just pull out wholesale and let an entire country fall to chaos and lose its democratic process. One of the chief conditions was that the Taliban would several all times with terrorist groups, and work to monitor and eliminate them. A UN report earlier this year confirmed the Taliban still is closely tied to Al Qaeda (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/taliban-has-kept-close-ties-al-qaeda-despite-promises-trump-n1221281 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/taliban-has-kept-close-ti...), which would have blocked the Trump plan from being enacted.

tuan 5y ago

Saigon then, Kabul now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6FZ6aFbNvY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6FZ6aFbNvY

wamburu 5y ago

A good watch in regard to this is 'The Weight of Memory' (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5734330/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5734330/) episode from 'The Vietnam War' documentary.(https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1877514 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1877514)

andyxor 5y ago

Biden will be remembered as the worst US president ever

war_is_cool 5y ago

Good morning american war apologist hackers. What are we hackin on today…?