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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

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.
hoten 5y ago
The equipment left behind is at worst bad optics. The Taliban effectively controls trillions of wealth in the country now. Millions (or is it billions? Doesn't matter) in old equipment is just a drop. A journalist (Beau of the Fifth Column) I trust on topics such as this covers that, and other common questions regarding the last couple weeks. The equipment being left behind is the first couple minutes: https://youtu.be/KUMomGe4fjY https://youtu.be/KUMomGe4fjY
- trident5000 5y ago
  Who cares how much wealth they have as the new government, you're not importing black hawk helicopters, missiles, thermal weapons from first world nations or even Russia/China and equivalents easily. Just because there are weapons markets doesnt mean you're getting access to high tech stuff. And even if they do eventually, why make it easy for them. The point is every amount matters and this screams of incompetence when all you needed to do was at least strap some C4 to the big stuff. On top of this, them parading around in US gear makes us look like even bigger clowns. Aside from the gear, the loss of life is a glaring failure.
  - polartx 5y ago
    The US armed forces are extremely well versed with destructive decommissioning of equipment (blowing up stuff you don’t want to manage). The fact that everything was present to ensure that no advanced or classified weapon technology would be left behind, but nothing was done, smacks of corruption.
    - unclebucknasty 5y ago
      >smacks of corruption. No. It doesn't. Your assertion that it was "left behind" is incorrect. The U.S. provided this equipment to the Afghan military as part of our long effort to prepare the Afghan government to defend itself. Now, one can argue as to whether we should have entrusted such equipment to them in the first place. But, that entrustment was just one of many costly decisions made over our decades-long presence in Afghanistan that led up to this moment.
landemva 5y ago
In two years this will be forgotten during the re-elect Joe show. Prove me wrong.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
dragonwriter 5y ago
> Its not the act of pulling out, its the execution that frankly could not have gone worse. Everyone who says this us deluded about the depth of failure that led to the withdrawal and the constraints that placed on the execution of the withdrawal. We couldn't make the Afghan government forces not collapse instantly, nor could we (productively, at least) reinvade to replace them and provide the capacity to operate more broadly during the withdrawal.
- trident5000 5y ago
  Seems like a good portion of ex-marines etc are saying exactly this (that the execution was a failure) publicly.
  - jacobolus 5y ago
    After being directly involved with an organization that has systematically failed for 20 years, why do they have more credibility in this conversation than anyone else? You might as well ask petroleum engineers about climate change and the transition to renewable energy. You’d get much better insight from asking historians or the like.
    - trident5000 5y ago
      Why do mouth breathing nerds on HN get any say? I think an ex-marine understands mission failure more than most people on this forum including yourself or myself. And to assume the mistakes of top end planners means on the ground professionals cant identify operational blunders is asinine.
      - jacobolus 5y ago
        Skip the insults, please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html * * * It’s fine and dandy to ask ex-marines for their opinions, but there are plenty of credible experts who don’t have a direct stake in the same way, and those I have read have mostly suggested that a broadly similar result was predictable and inevitable at whatever point the US decided to withdraw, whether now or a decade later. Unfortunately, few if any of them have been given much air time by US media in the past few weeks, which has instead been dominated by self-serving claptrap from people who created and perpetuated this mess, and are now rushing to blame Biden for their own failures. * * * To be more concrete: maybe you can point to an example that demonstrates what you or miscellaneous Marines would consider a well executed withdrawal of a hostile occupying army from a country after decades of unsuccessful occupation? It’s pretty easy to say “this didn’t go perfectly as planned”, but quite a lot harder to predict which counterfactual alternative plans would have led to a better result.
unclebucknasty 5y ago
You have to remember that the equipment wasn't just "left behind" as if by accident in some disorganized retreat. It was operated by the Afghan Air Force and was an integral part of their defense. It wasn't the U.S. retreat that turned these over to the Taliban. It was the unexpected, near-immediate dissolution of the Afghan military that did.

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.

hoten 5y ago

The equipment left behind is at worst bad optics. The Taliban effectively controls trillions of wealth in the country now. Millions (or is it billions? Doesn't matter) in old equipment is just a drop. A journalist (Beau of the Fifth Column) I trust on topics such as this covers that, and other common questions regarding the last couple weeks. The equipment being left behind is the first couple minutes: https://youtu.be/KUMomGe4fjY https://youtu.be/KUMomGe4fjY

trident5000 5y ago
Who cares how much wealth they have as the new government, you're not importing black hawk helicopters, missiles, thermal weapons from first world nations or even Russia/China and equivalents easily. Just because there are weapons markets doesnt mean you're getting access to high tech stuff. And even if they do eventually, why make it easy for them. The point is every amount matters and this screams of incompetence when all you needed to do was at least strap some C4 to the big stuff. On top of this, them parading around in US gear makes us look like even bigger clowns. Aside from the gear, the loss of life is a glaring failure.
- polartx 5y ago
  The US armed forces are extremely well versed with destructive decommissioning of equipment (blowing up stuff you don’t want to manage). The fact that everything was present to ensure that no advanced or classified weapon technology would be left behind, but nothing was done, smacks of corruption.
  - unclebucknasty 5y ago
    >smacks of corruption. No. It doesn't. Your assertion that it was "left behind" is incorrect. The U.S. provided this equipment to the Afghan military as part of our long effort to prepare the Afghan government to defend itself. Now, one can argue as to whether we should have entrusted such equipment to them in the first place. But, that entrustment was just one of many costly decisions made over our decades-long presence in Afghanistan that led up to this moment.

landemva 5y ago

In two years this will be forgotten during the re-elect Joe show. Prove me wrong.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

dragonwriter 5y ago

> Its not the act of pulling out, its the execution that frankly could not have gone worse. Everyone who says this us deluded about the depth of failure that led to the withdrawal and the constraints that placed on the execution of the withdrawal. We couldn't make the Afghan government forces not collapse instantly, nor could we (productively, at least) reinvade to replace them and provide the capacity to operate more broadly during the withdrawal.

trident5000 5y ago
Seems like a good portion of ex-marines etc are saying exactly this (that the execution was a failure) publicly.
- jacobolus 5y ago
  After being directly involved with an organization that has systematically failed for 20 years, why do they have more credibility in this conversation than anyone else? You might as well ask petroleum engineers about climate change and the transition to renewable energy. You’d get much better insight from asking historians or the like.
  - trident5000 5y ago
    Why do mouth breathing nerds on HN get any say? I think an ex-marine understands mission failure more than most people on this forum including yourself or myself. And to assume the mistakes of top end planners means on the ground professionals cant identify operational blunders is asinine.
    - jacobolus 5y ago
      Skip the insults, please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html * * * It’s fine and dandy to ask ex-marines for their opinions, but there are plenty of credible experts who don’t have a direct stake in the same way, and those I have read have mostly suggested that a broadly similar result was predictable and inevitable at whatever point the US decided to withdraw, whether now or a decade later. Unfortunately, few if any of them have been given much air time by US media in the past few weeks, which has instead been dominated by self-serving claptrap from people who created and perpetuated this mess, and are now rushing to blame Biden for their own failures. * * * To be more concrete: maybe you can point to an example that demonstrates what you or miscellaneous Marines would consider a well executed withdrawal of a hostile occupying army from a country after decades of unsuccessful occupation? It’s pretty easy to say “this didn’t go perfectly as planned”, but quite a lot harder to predict which counterfactual alternative plans would have led to a better result.

unclebucknasty 5y ago

You have to remember that the equipment wasn't just "left behind" as if by accident in some disorganized retreat. It was operated by the Afghan Air Force and was an integral part of their defense. It wasn't the U.S. retreat that turned these over to the Taliban. It was the unexpected, near-immediate dissolution of the Afghan military that did.