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Skip the insults, please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html * * * It’s fine and dandy to ask e

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.

nate_meurer 5y ago
I can't exactly meet your challenge, but I think it's obvious that they should have kept Bagram and used it to stage the final retreat. I have yet to hear an argument of any kind to support abandoning it. Biden simply said it didn't add any value, but he didn't support that assertion in any way, and no one else has tried as far as I know. There are undoubtedly a hundred other things that a competent leadership would have done differently, but I suspect Bagram will be recorded as the biggest blunder. Tyler Rogoway expounds on this much better than I can: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/42128/what-the-u-s-militarys-options-look-like-for-extending-evacuations-from-afghanistan https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/42128/what-the-u-s-mil...
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > I can't exactly meet your challenge, but I think it's obvious that they should have kept Bagram and used it to stage the final retreat. The largest concentration of civilians that needed withdrawn were in Kabul. The biggest problem with the evacuation hasn’t been security at the evacuation site, but the problems with people who need evacuation getting to the evacuation site because of the absence of freedom/safety of Staging the evacuation out of Bagram would have made a secondary problem easier while exacerbating the primary problem.
  - nate_meurer 5y ago
    Nobody is suggesting they should have kept Bagram instead of Kabul. That would have been just as stupid. The facilities are very different, and they needed both. Here's Tyler Rogoway in the War Zone article I linked: "Beyond shuttling people from Hamid Karzai International, helicopters could be used to pick up evacuees all over the country at unpredictable locales and they could then be flown out of Bagram." Gen. Milley suggested that the only reason they gave up Bagram is lack of personnel. Biden apparently didn't want to send any extra troops, even temporarily. (Note that they were forced to send extra troops anyway after things went to shit).
trident5000 5y ago
"maybe you can point to an example that demonstrates what you or miscellaneous Marines would consider a well executed withdrawal" You dont seem to get it. 1) Thats not for me to say and with the actual combat experts who are vocal this is a matter of what not to do rather than pointlessly devising optimal plans if we had a do-over at the current state. But certainly some low hanging fruit has been mentioned like giving up Bagram, giving lists of names to the Taliban, not evacuating sensitive equipment, etc. The fact that Biden said the Afghan govt would not collapse just weeks ago and then they did in days and we are scrambling with clear repercussions shows things could have been planned differently. 2) You seem to put unnamed armchair "experts" ahead of on the ground combat professionals. Would be nice to know who those people are. 3) "now rushing to blame Biden for their own failures" When an operation is a clear cut blunder the excuses stop at the top. So yes, he is getting blamed. Few are blaming Biden for a 20 year war at this stage, hes being blamed for the current shit show. Though maybe he should be since he voted for it and his 50 year political career overlooked the entirety of it. You're criticizing legacy personnel having to do with the war while at the same time there is no better example than Biden.

nate_meurer 5y ago

I can't exactly meet your challenge, but I think it's obvious that they should have kept Bagram and used it to stage the final retreat. I have yet to hear an argument of any kind to support abandoning it. Biden simply said it didn't add any value, but he didn't support that assertion in any way, and no one else has tried as far as I know. There are undoubtedly a hundred other things that a competent leadership would have done differently, but I suspect Bagram will be recorded as the biggest blunder. Tyler Rogoway expounds on this much better than I can: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/42128/what-the-u-s-militarys-options-look-like-for-extending-evacuations-from-afghanistan https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/42128/what-the-u-s-mil...

dragonwriter 5y ago
> I can't exactly meet your challenge, but I think it's obvious that they should have kept Bagram and used it to stage the final retreat. The largest concentration of civilians that needed withdrawn were in Kabul. The biggest problem with the evacuation hasn’t been security at the evacuation site, but the problems with people who need evacuation getting to the evacuation site because of the absence of freedom/safety of Staging the evacuation out of Bagram would have made a secondary problem easier while exacerbating the primary problem.
- nate_meurer 5y ago
  Nobody is suggesting they should have kept Bagram instead of Kabul. That would have been just as stupid. The facilities are very different, and they needed both. Here's Tyler Rogoway in the War Zone article I linked: "Beyond shuttling people from Hamid Karzai International, helicopters could be used to pick up evacuees all over the country at unpredictable locales and they could then be flown out of Bagram." Gen. Milley suggested that the only reason they gave up Bagram is lack of personnel. Biden apparently didn't want to send any extra troops, even temporarily. (Note that they were forced to send extra troops anyway after things went to shit).

trident5000 5y ago

"maybe you can point to an example that demonstrates what you or miscellaneous Marines would consider a well executed withdrawal" You dont seem to get it. 1) Thats not for me to say and with the actual combat experts who are vocal this is a matter of what not to do rather than pointlessly devising optimal plans if we had a do-over at the current state. But certainly some low hanging fruit has been mentioned like giving up Bagram, giving lists of names to the Taliban, not evacuating sensitive equipment, etc. The fact that Biden said the Afghan govt would not collapse just weeks ago and then they did in days and we are scrambling with clear repercussions shows things could have been planned differently. 2) You seem to put unnamed armchair "experts" ahead of on the ground combat professionals. Would be nice to know who those people are. 3) "now rushing to blame Biden for their own failures" When an operation is a clear cut blunder the excuses stop at the top. So yes, he is getting blamed. Few are blaming Biden for a 20 year war at this stage, hes being blamed for the current shit show. Though maybe he should be since he voted for it and his 50 year political career overlooked the entirety of it. You're criticizing legacy personnel having to do with the war while at the same time there is no better example than Biden.