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Serious Q: This is the worst possible scenario in terms of ending the war in Afghanistan?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
lettergram 5y ago
Yes, it wasn’t a phased withdrawal. We stranded children and likely tens of thousands of citizens and our allies. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-08-24/students-from-cajon-valley-school-district-stranded-in-afghanistan https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-08-24/students... That’s not including our Afghan allies. Who we also gave up (addresses, biometric data, etc) https://nypost.com/2021/08/27/taliban-kill-squad-hunting-afghans-with-americas-biometric-data/ https://nypost.com/2021/08/27/taliban-kill-squad-hunting-afg... Emboldened our enemies, provided tens of billions in weapons, were also flying tens of thousands of unvetted afghans to random places throughout the country. Frankly, I think we will see mass casualties in the next few days. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a few US planes with marines shot down. I hope I’m wrong. At the very least, after we leave I suspect there will be tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands killed. Many will be US citizens unless we have some agreement.
- landemva 5y ago
  USA enriched many defense contractors. After twenty years we minted a lot of millionaire white collar paper shufflers. A person could have made a two-decade career simply processing security clearance paperwork at the multitude of sub-contractors. It is shameful the American populace dutifully paid their taxes for this waste.
- thepasswordis 5y ago
  Handing over what will undoubtedly become a kill list to our sworn enemy is beyond anything i could have ever imagined.
  - lettergram 5y ago
    More than that, they’re still on the terrorist list. This is quite literally treason by definition. We literally handed over our allies, I don’t know how you recover from this. This isn’t just US citizens, it’s British, Afghan, French, etc etc... I am honestly just hoping we don’t see Ukraine and Taiwan fall within the next 60-120 days.
    - LurkingPenguin 5y ago
      China isn't capable of taking Taiwan within that timeframe, but I'm afraid it could happen a lot sooner than the "experts" in the US expect. The US still has the most fearsome military the world has ever seen, but Afghanistan has demonstrated that the people at the top are not anywhere near as smart and capable as they think they are. That's a dangerous combination.
      - thepasswordis 5y ago
        If China wants Taiwan, now is the time to take it. Americans have absolutely 0 appetite for war at the moment (certainly not if we aren't attacked directly), and the fighting force has a disdain for their leadership, whose arrogance and incompetence just saw 13 of their brothers killed in a single day.
        LurkingPenguin 5y ago
        An amphibious invasion of Taiwan will require months of build-up (that would be visible on satellite) and there are only a few windows during the year in which it could take place because of conditions in the Taiwan Strait. Such an invasion would be a binary event. If China fails, it's game over for the CCP. Not the kind of risk they're known for taking. If anything, I think Afghanistan will only increase Beijing's belief that America's decline is accelerating and it will eventually be able to get what it wants without a head-on kinetic conflict with the US. I've always thought a more likely scenario would be for China to first take Kinmen, which is trivially easy. The US is not going to risk WW3 over Kinmen and it would only be a symbolic victory, but it would put the US and Taiwan leadership in a very tough place.
Spooky23 5y ago
For the people on the ground doing the dirty work on the US’s behalf? Yes. This war went on for 20 years because nobody knew wtf victory meant, and nobody had the cohones to take the press hit for “losing”.
- aynyc 5y ago
  For US military? The recent bombing notwithstanding, almost all my friends who are still serving think this is actually the best scenario that no one really wants.
trident5000 5y ago
The Taliban has billions in American military equipment all the way up to black hawk helicopters in their possession at this point and many American servicemen and Afghan civilians have died. Many more are likely hostages or will be killed in the weeks to come. Meanwhile were seeing finger pointing and few at the top ranks taking accountability. Pretty bad scenario in terms of an exit. Its not the act of pulling out, its the execution that frankly could not have gone worse.
- s5300 5y ago
  > the execution that frankly could not have gone worse. You really think this could not have gone worse?
  - trident5000 5y ago
    Sure I could draw up some nuclear doomsday scenarios. Would you like that? Or maybe dont take a common phrase literally.
  - atatatat 5y ago
    Billions of dollars of US weapons and intelligence shit. It's like you're not understanding.
  - thepasswordis 5y ago
    How could it have gone worse?
    - jacobolus 5y ago
      The most obvious and plausible counterfactual worse result: US leaders indecisively bow to DOD/military contractor pressure and stay in Afghanistan for 20 more years of occupation, and the US continues supporting an unpopular kleptocratic puppet government, dumping more weapons into the country, lying to the US public, etc. but doesn’t make any more progress than it has in the past 20 years, a lot more Afghans and thousands more US soldiers die, another trillion dollars get diverted from more productive projects, and the eventual result – when a leader finally comes along with the courage to end the occupation – is the same.
polartx 5y ago
Pretty much. For some absurd reason, none of the time leading up to this pullout was used to extract billions of dollars of weapons and military assets (much of which was classified technology). Those weapons/assets were practically gift wrapped for the Taliban. The Taliban, in turn keeps what they want, and sells the rest to Russia, China, or just other terrorist organizations. >But it’s too expensive to exfiltrate those things Well, then dip into the thousands of pounds of explosives you’re leaving behind to render them inert. The way the Taliban dipped into those same explosives to kill 100 people this week.
vkou 5y ago
No, the worst possible scenario would have been for the war to go on for another decade or two, first.
austhrow743 5y ago
Taliban immediately takes control of Afghanistan leaving them with far more armaments than they began the war with. US faces many videos that are practically recreations of the liberation of Saigon. I mean there are always outcomes that were never on the table like invasion and occupation of the US by the Taliban followed by unconditional US surrender that you could consider "worst possible scenario" but as far as things that could have actually happened go? Complete failure to achieve objective and visual symbolic reminders of nations previous most notable defeat is right up there.
- jacobolus 5y ago
  The take-over was fast, orderly, and largely bloodless. The USA has managed to evacuate a large number of Afghans who were directly helping it. To date there has been not been any widespread campaign of executions, mass imprisonments of political opponents of the Taliban, or reprisals against the civilian population. Would a protracted civil war between the Taliban and the US-backed puppet government, ultimately leading to the former’s victory (but with more bloodshed and bad feelings) have really been a better outcome for the people of Afghanistan?
  - austhrow743 5y ago
    The people of Afghanistan didn't end the war in Afghanistan so I didn't take the question to be asking "Is this the worst possible scenario for the people of Afghanistan?" They appear to be doing quite well.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - jacobolus 5y ago
      Would a protracted civil war ending in the eventual defeat of the puppet government after many more deaths have been a better outcome for the people of the USA? Seems to me like a swift, relatively non-violent surrender and transfer of power is better for everyone, if the outcome was inevitable anyway.
bagels 5y ago
It's probably not the worst possible scenario, but it certainly is among them. I think it doesn't take a lot of imagination to think of things that could get added on to the current scenario to make it even worse.
nate_meurer 5y ago
Yes. The worst, most damaging sort of retreat is a disorderly retreat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rout The US forced itself into a disorderly retreat, where our troops are trapped in a small urban airport surrounded by the enemy. The perimeter is barely defensible, and the approaches are controlled by the Taliban, who are only marginally in control of their own fighters, let alone worse actors like ISIS. The entire airport is within mortar range, and most if not all of the landing air space is within RPG range. The strangest and most damaging move we made was to give up Bagram Air Base outside of Kabul. Bagram was home to the US military for twenty years, and as such it was already set up to facilitate any sort of withdrawal on any desired timeline. It had a defensible perimeter, and enough space to shuttle and buffer the people we needed to get out of the country. We abandoned it before even starting the withdrawal, for no good reason that I can discern. As a result, we and our European allies may now be forced to abandon hundred or thousands of our citizens, and tens or hundreds of thousands of our Afgan allies who are now prey to the Taliban. And as another commenter pointed out, both the US and the British handed the Taliban detailed lists of these Afghan allies, which may help ensure their slaughter. Biden and the military leadership put the military into a position where there are no good options. Maybe not deliberately, but the incompetence is stunning in the truest sense of the word. Note that Trump did a similar thing in Syria in 2019, and may very well have done worse if he was still President. The biggest difference is probably that he wouldn't have allowed as many of our Afghan allies into the US, as his immigration advisor Stephen Miller helpfully pointed out last week. And he certainly would have blamed the Afghans for their own plight; this again is what Trump did in 2019, saying that our Syrian Kurdish allies didn't deserve our help because they didn't help us on D-Day in World War Two, whatever that means. Beyond idiotic. So that's what the US has to offer recently in terms of foreign policy. Two vain, incompetent presidents helping to set up the next Middle East crisis.
- nomoreplease 5y ago
  > And he certainly would have blamed the Afghans for their own plight; this again is what Trump did in 2019, saying that our Syrian Kurdish allies didn't deserve our help because they didn't help us on D-Day in World War Two, whatever that means. Beyond idiotic. Biden essentially blamed them too during his recent White House speech
qrwe432 5y ago
Short answer, probably still not. Taliban isn't executing hundreds of persons as of now. You can read they're apparently targeting specific persons by now, more accurately, people with skills and motivations to keep working against them (not a reason to not go and save your allies and friends from a certain death). The situation could degrade further into the take over, but for now it doesn't go too bad as it could be.
dang 5y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28342974 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28342974.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Yes, it wasn’t a phased withdrawal. We stranded children and likely tens of thousands of citizens and our allies. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-08-24/students-from-cajon-valley-school-district-stranded-in-afghanistan https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-08-24/students... That’s not including our Afghan allies. Who we also gave up (addresses, biometric data, etc) https://nypost.com/2021/08/27/taliban-kill-squad-hunting-afghans-with-americas-biometric-data/ https://nypost.com/2021/08/27/taliban-kill-squad-hunting-afg... Emboldened our enemies, provided tens of billions in weapons, were also flying tens of thousands of unvetted afghans to random places throughout the country. Frankly, I think we will see mass casualties in the next few days. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a few US planes with marines shot down. I hope I’m wrong. At the very least, after we leave I suspect there will be tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands killed. Many will be US citizens unless we have some agreement.

landemva 5y ago
USA enriched many defense contractors. After twenty years we minted a lot of millionaire white collar paper shufflers. A person could have made a two-decade career simply processing security clearance paperwork at the multitude of sub-contractors. It is shameful the American populace dutifully paid their taxes for this waste.
thepasswordis 5y ago
Handing over what will undoubtedly become a kill list to our sworn enemy is beyond anything i could have ever imagined.
- lettergram 5y ago
  More than that, they’re still on the terrorist list. This is quite literally treason by definition. We literally handed over our allies, I don’t know how you recover from this. This isn’t just US citizens, it’s British, Afghan, French, etc etc... I am honestly just hoping we don’t see Ukraine and Taiwan fall within the next 60-120 days.
  - LurkingPenguin 5y ago
    China isn't capable of taking Taiwan within that timeframe, but I'm afraid it could happen a lot sooner than the "experts" in the US expect. The US still has the most fearsome military the world has ever seen, but Afghanistan has demonstrated that the people at the top are not anywhere near as smart and capable as they think they are. That's a dangerous combination.
    - thepasswordis 5y ago
      If China wants Taiwan, now is the time to take it. Americans have absolutely 0 appetite for war at the moment (certainly not if we aren't attacked directly), and the fighting force has a disdain for their leadership, whose arrogance and incompetence just saw 13 of their brothers killed in a single day.
      - LurkingPenguin 5y ago
        An amphibious invasion of Taiwan will require months of build-up (that would be visible on satellite) and there are only a few windows during the year in which it could take place because of conditions in the Taiwan Strait. Such an invasion would be a binary event. If China fails, it's game over for the CCP. Not the kind of risk they're known for taking. If anything, I think Afghanistan will only increase Beijing's belief that America's decline is accelerating and it will eventually be able to get what it wants without a head-on kinetic conflict with the US. I've always thought a more likely scenario would be for China to first take Kinmen, which is trivially easy. The US is not going to risk WW3 over Kinmen and it would only be a symbolic victory, but it would put the US and Taiwan leadership in a very tough place.

Spooky23 5y ago

For the people on the ground doing the dirty work on the US’s behalf? Yes. This war went on for 20 years because nobody knew wtf victory meant, and nobody had the cohones to take the press hit for “losing”.

aynyc 5y ago
For US military? The recent bombing notwithstanding, almost all my friends who are still serving think this is actually the best scenario that no one really wants.

trident5000 5y ago

The Taliban has billions in American military equipment all the way up to black hawk helicopters in their possession at this point and many American servicemen and Afghan civilians have died. Many more are likely hostages or will be killed in the weeks to come. Meanwhile were seeing finger pointing and few at the top ranks taking accountability. Pretty bad scenario in terms of an exit. Its not the act of pulling out, its the execution that frankly could not have gone worse.

s5300 5y ago
> the execution that frankly could not have gone worse. You really think this could not have gone worse?
- trident5000 5y ago
  Sure I could draw up some nuclear doomsday scenarios. Would you like that? Or maybe dont take a common phrase literally.
- atatatat 5y ago
  Billions of dollars of US weapons and intelligence shit. It's like you're not understanding.
- thepasswordis 5y ago
  How could it have gone worse?
  - jacobolus 5y ago
    The most obvious and plausible counterfactual worse result: US leaders indecisively bow to DOD/military contractor pressure and stay in Afghanistan for 20 more years of occupation, and the US continues supporting an unpopular kleptocratic puppet government, dumping more weapons into the country, lying to the US public, etc. but doesn’t make any more progress than it has in the past 20 years, a lot more Afghans and thousands more US soldiers die, another trillion dollars get diverted from more productive projects, and the eventual result – when a leader finally comes along with the courage to end the occupation – is the same.

polartx 5y ago

Pretty much. For some absurd reason, none of the time leading up to this pullout was used to extract billions of dollars of weapons and military assets (much of which was classified technology). Those weapons/assets were practically gift wrapped for the Taliban. The Taliban, in turn keeps what they want, and sells the rest to Russia, China, or just other terrorist organizations. >But it’s too expensive to exfiltrate those things Well, then dip into the thousands of pounds of explosives you’re leaving behind to render them inert. The way the Taliban dipped into those same explosives to kill 100 people this week.

vkou 5y ago

No, the worst possible scenario would have been for the war to go on for another decade or two, first.

austhrow743 5y ago

Taliban immediately takes control of Afghanistan leaving them with far more armaments than they began the war with. US faces many videos that are practically recreations of the liberation of Saigon. I mean there are always outcomes that were never on the table like invasion and occupation of the US by the Taliban followed by unconditional US surrender that you could consider "worst possible scenario" but as far as things that could have actually happened go? Complete failure to achieve objective and visual symbolic reminders of nations previous most notable defeat is right up there.

jacobolus 5y ago
The take-over was fast, orderly, and largely bloodless. The USA has managed to evacuate a large number of Afghans who were directly helping it. To date there has been not been any widespread campaign of executions, mass imprisonments of political opponents of the Taliban, or reprisals against the civilian population. Would a protracted civil war between the Taliban and the US-backed puppet government, ultimately leading to the former’s victory (but with more bloodshed and bad feelings) have really been a better outcome for the people of Afghanistan?
- austhrow743 5y ago
  The people of Afghanistan didn't end the war in Afghanistan so I didn't take the question to be asking "Is this the worst possible scenario for the people of Afghanistan?" They appear to be doing quite well.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - jacobolus 5y ago
    Would a protracted civil war ending in the eventual defeat of the puppet government after many more deaths have been a better outcome for the people of the USA? Seems to me like a swift, relatively non-violent surrender and transfer of power is better for everyone, if the outcome was inevitable anyway.

bagels 5y ago

It's probably not the worst possible scenario, but it certainly is among them. I think it doesn't take a lot of imagination to think of things that could get added on to the current scenario to make it even worse.

nate_meurer 5y ago

Yes. The worst, most damaging sort of retreat is a disorderly retreat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rout The US forced itself into a disorderly retreat, where our troops are trapped in a small urban airport surrounded by the enemy. The perimeter is barely defensible, and the approaches are controlled by the Taliban, who are only marginally in control of their own fighters, let alone worse actors like ISIS. The entire airport is within mortar range, and most if not all of the landing air space is within RPG range. The strangest and most damaging move we made was to give up Bagram Air Base outside of Kabul. Bagram was home to the US military for twenty years, and as such it was already set up to facilitate any sort of withdrawal on any desired timeline. It had a defensible perimeter, and enough space to shuttle and buffer the people we needed to get out of the country. We abandoned it before even starting the withdrawal, for no good reason that I can discern. As a result, we and our European allies may now be forced to abandon hundred or thousands of our citizens, and tens or hundreds of thousands of our Afgan allies who are now prey to the Taliban. And as another commenter pointed out, both the US and the British handed the Taliban detailed lists of these Afghan allies, which may help ensure their slaughter. Biden and the military leadership put the military into a position where there are no good options. Maybe not deliberately, but the incompetence is stunning in the truest sense of the word. Note that Trump did a similar thing in Syria in 2019, and may very well have done worse if he was still President. The biggest difference is probably that he wouldn't have allowed as many of our Afghan allies into the US, as his immigration advisor Stephen Miller helpfully pointed out last week. And he certainly would have blamed the Afghans for their own plight; this again is what Trump did in 2019, saying that our Syrian Kurdish allies didn't deserve our help because they didn't help us on D-Day in World War Two, whatever that means. Beyond idiotic. So that's what the US has to offer recently in terms of foreign policy. Two vain, incompetent presidents helping to set up the next Middle East crisis.

nomoreplease 5y ago
> And he certainly would have blamed the Afghans for their own plight; this again is what Trump did in 2019, saying that our Syrian Kurdish allies didn't deserve our help because they didn't help us on D-Day in World War Two, whatever that means. Beyond idiotic. Biden essentially blamed them too during his recent White House speech

qrwe432 5y ago

Short answer, probably still not. Taliban isn't executing hundreds of persons as of now. You can read they're apparently targeting specific persons by now, more accurately, people with skills and motivations to keep working against them (not a reason to not go and save your allies and friends from a certain death). The situation could degrade further into the take over, but for now it doesn't go too bad as it could be.

dang 5y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28342974 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28342974.