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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 a

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 The largest concentration of civilians that needed withdrawn were in Kabul.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).

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 The largest concentration of civilians that needed withdrawn were in Kabul.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).