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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/202

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.
      - scottLobster 5y ago
        Taiwan has semiconductors and is an actual ally against China. Afghanistan was a politically toxic occupation without a purpose. If China thinks America looks at Taiwan the same as Afghanistan they've got another thing coming. Granted strategic incompetence seems to be the flavor of the moment, so who knows?
      - 5y ago
- qrwe432 5y ago
  I can't imagine this as anything else than a military intelligence operation to delay / complicate an otherwise probably faster dangerous approach to local supporters of US. Like salting passwords. https://cyberhoot.com/cybrary/password-salting/ https://cyberhoot.com/cybrary/password-salting/ Taliban has a lot of experience, and by now they are probably sure they got lots of disinformation in their hands, and they can't act on it without triple-checks, case-by-case. This is a working example of 4th. gen warfare, and it looks like US+NATO folks there are running the ops flawlessly, bad guys can't go faster.

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.
    - scottLobster 5y ago
      Taiwan has semiconductors and is an actual ally against China. Afghanistan was a politically toxic occupation without a purpose. If China thinks America looks at Taiwan the same as Afghanistan they've got another thing coming. Granted strategic incompetence seems to be the flavor of the moment, so who knows?
    - 5y ago
qrwe432 5y ago
I can't imagine this as anything else than a military intelligence operation to delay / complicate an otherwise probably faster dangerous approach to local supporters of US. Like salting passwords. https://cyberhoot.com/cybrary/password-salting/ https://cyberhoot.com/cybrary/password-salting/ Taliban has a lot of experience, and by now they are probably sure they got lots of disinformation in their hands, and they can't act on it without triple-checks, case-by-case. This is a working example of 4th. gen warfare, and it looks like US+NATO folks there are running the ops flawlessly, bad guys can't go faster.