Wait – the Taliban Offered Control of Kabul to US Forces...And We Turned Them Down?

[Slavister]

What has be done that you believe deserves kudos?

Great distribution of covid vaccines and public messaging on covid consistent with science

Reinstating a lot of green energy related programs, agreements, goals, etc.

Infrastructure bill

... but anyway, I don't think we need to hijack this thread

 

[Deuce]

The Taliban wanted us to have the responsibility of securing the city from the Taliban? Sure, sounds legit.

 

[Rawley]

Great distribution of covid vaccines and public messaging on covid consistent with science

Reinstating a lot of green energy related programs, agreements, goals, etc.

Infrastructure bill

... but anyway, I don't think we need to hijack this thread

Trust me, we won't. He will be forever condemned for ****ing up this withdrawal for political optics.

 

[Razoo]

THERE is much confusion on this table........trusting the taliban and their suicide bombers does seem like suicide.

 

[Rawley]

Wrong. Clearly a LOT MORE kids would be dead if US suddenly had to move in a bunch of troops to try for fight off all the gangs that were sprawling around the city

I choose my words carefully. Those 13 kids, guarding the gates at the airport, would not have been killed.

 

[Razoo]

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mediabiasfactcheck.com

The story is fake. The Taliban never offered America control of Kabul.






.

I can subscribe to this thinking ......

 

[eohrnberger]

Great distribution of covid vaccines and public messaging on covid consistent with science

The Biden administration has had more inconsistent messaging on COVID, some not based on science, so that'd be a no.

Reinstating a lot of green energy related programs, agreements, goals, etc.

Opinions will differ, but no, no kudos for the Biden administration from me on these.

Infrastructure bill

Hard to call it an 'Infrastructure bill' when on 23% (?) of it is spending that could be called 'Infrastructure' in any real or serious terms, so that'd be a no also.

... but anyway, I don't think we need to hijack this thread

Yeah, this stuff's been litigated in other threads.

 

[Slavister]

I choose my words carefully. Those 13 kids, guarding the gates at the airport, would not have been killed.

So what's your point? You rather many more other kids be killed? (And no, we don't know if THESE kids would have been among those killed or not, so you cannot really even make that statement as well.)

 

[Lutherf]

It's kind of like saying - did US have opportunity to just take over whole Afghanistan by force? Well yes they did but that would involve costs and risks that noone would be interested in taking.

So, yes, I think US DID have opportunity to do this WITH or WITHOUT a Taliban offer. But what would that mean exactly logistically? What kind of operation would that entail and risks for US troops? And was that a full offer as presented in that 1 quote by WaPo or there were other conditions imposed as well risks involved for Americans if they were to take that up?

Control of Kabul fell apart when Ghani beat feet for the UAE. Afghanistan as a whole broke wide open for the Taliban after Biden ordered the military to abandon Bagram in the middle of the night. Yep, there would have been challenges to getting Kabul under control but we managed to pull off the biggest, best most amazing airlift ever at the drop of a hat so what makes you think we'd have been unable to control Kabul in a similar time frame? What makes you think that a little US leadership in that situation wouldn't have encouraged local ANSF to have participated in controlling Kabul?

 

[Rawley]

So what's your point? You rather many more other kids be killed? (And no, we don't know if THESE kids would have been among those killed or not, so you cannot really even make that statement as well.)

I'd rather Biden accepted their offer and this withdrawal was not operated like a Chinese fire drill cluster****, again, solely for political optics. That's my point

 

[roguenuke]

I choose my words carefully. Those 13 kids, guarding the gates at the airport, would not have been killed.

And you cannot have any evidence of this since we have no idea how things would have gone down even with our troops having a different form of control there. That is nothing but wild speculation that cannot at all be proven. It is quite possible we would have had more dead.

 

[Rawley]

And you cannot have any evidence of this since we have no idea how things would have gone down even with our troops having a different form of control there. That is nothing but wild speculation that cannot at all be proven. It is quite possible we would have had more dead.

Perhaps. But the fact that we didn't lose a single soldier in the past 18 months fighting the Taliban. What makes you think it would be any worse after they offered a truce?

 

[Bok Tuklo]

Perhaps. But the fact that we didn't lose a single soldier in the past 18 months fighting the Taliban. What makes you think it would be any worse after they offered a truce?

Were we fighting the Taliban in those 18 months?

 

[roguenuke]

Perhaps. But the fact that we didn't lose a single soldier in the past 18 months fighting the Taliban. What makes you think it would be any worse after they offered a truce?

Because the last 18 months has not been this dynamic. And they, Afghanistan, has been dealing with the same pandemic as the rest of the world too. And, over the last year, we have also had less troops, less military personnel there than we do now. That generally equates to less risk during a pretty static situation. The situation became dynamic and very hostile very recently.

They, the Taliban, also cannot control all those groups that are against them, including ISIS K who is the group said to have done the bombings.

The reasoning you put forth does not make sense. It attempts to compare situations that are not similar.

 

[Jredbaron96]

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattv...-to-us-forcesand-we-turned-them-down-n2594951



I realize that the link is from Townhall and that a lot of users will ignore this merely because of THIS source but the WaPo article that broke this story is behind a paywall so you have to take what you can get. If someone has access to the WaPo piece and wants to post more context I'd love to see it but what's here is...disturbing.

Yeah, I don't blame CENTCOM for not believing they could secure a city of 4 million people with just a few thousand troops, especially given the chaos in Kabul after Ghani fled.

 

[Jredbaron96]

This weekend on Meet the Press, they were interviewing Mitt Romney. It’s very rare that I agree with anything he says, but he was saying some things that were making some sense.

He was saying that the primary reason the Afghan army fell so quickly was the lack of air support. It would not of been hard to keep behind a small Air Force presence, and may be 5000 troops. With that, the Taliban would’ve had no chance to gain as much ground as they did.

Air power is not, nor has it ever been, a magic "I win" button.

 

[Lutherf]

Yeah, I don't blame CENTCOM for not believing they could secure a city of 4 million people with just a few thousand troops, especially given the chaos in Kabul after Ghani fled.

Do you think McKenzie made the decision on his own or do you think he ran it by Biden for consideration?

 

[Mycroft]

Really? Have you ever given Biden kudos for a job well done with anything yet? Please point me to an example just so I know you are capable...

I would...if he ever had a job well done.

 

[Slavister]

I'd rather Biden accepted their offer and this withdrawal was not operated like a Chinese fire drill cluster****, again, solely for political optics. That's my point

You have no idea what's involved in "accepting" the offer. For one thing, clearly it would involve more dead Americans as they would all be sitting ducks trying to secure a huge city full of armed lawless people right after their whole government and security forced disappeared into thin air.

It is quite possible we would have had more dead.

I'd say it's almost 100% certainty. They had to face armed gangs and lawlessness sprawling around the city, and mind you, city where most citizens have seen war their whole lives.

 

[Jredbaron96]

Do you think McKenzie made the decision on his own or do you think he ran it by Biden for consideration?

I don't know. Given that Biden is not a military veteran, it's unlikely he would know off hand the troop disposition and frontage needed to cover Kabul. If he was asked, he probably agreed to whatever McKenzie suggested.

Given how quickly the Taliban were able to secure control of Kabul, we might later discover that the troops CENTCOM had on hand might have been enough to control the city and put an end to the chaos. But that's a big IF, and I'm not going to Monday Morning Quarterback a situation that would have been incredibly daunting at the moment.

 

[Mycroft]

This weekend on Meet the Press, they were interviewing Mitt Romney. It’s very rare that I agree with anything he says, but he was saying some things that were making some sense.

He was saying that the primary reason the Afghan army fell so quickly was the lack of air support. It would not of been hard to keep behind a small Air Force presence, and may be 5000 troops. With that, the Taliban would’ve had no chance to gain as much ground as they did.

I am no military strategist and do not know all the details of what all went into the decision to withdraw completely. But I don’t see what would’ve been wrong with keeping a nominal troop presence in Afghanistan indefinitely, like we do with Germany or South Korea. It can make all the difference.

There is truth in what Romney said.

However, your last contention...about "keeping a nominal troop presence in Afghanistan indefinitely. That's a no-go.

1. The Taliban won't tolerate it. They would destroy that nominal presence.
2. In Germany and S Korea, those countries WANT us to be there. In fact, they pay some money for us to be there. Again...the Taliban won't tolerate it.

We either go big...or go home. The American people are sick and tired of going big in that country.

 

[Mycroft]

How do you know? Is this something floating around in your head of fairy tales?

Now do I know what?

 

[US&THEM]

This weekend on Meet the Press, they were interviewing Mitt Romney. It’s very rare that I agree with anything he says, but he was saying some things that were making some sense.

He was saying that the primary reason the Afghan army fell so quickly was the lack of air support. It would not of been hard to keep behind a small Air Force presence, and may be 5000 troops. With that, the Taliban would’ve had no chance to gain as much ground as they did.

I am no military strategist and do not know all the details of what all went into the decision to withdraw completely. But I don’t see what would’ve been wrong with keeping a nominal troop presence in Afghanistan indefinitely, like we do with Germany or South Korea. It can make all the difference.

The day Biden was sworn in there were 2500 troops in Afghanistan. One air base left.

 

[roguenuke]

This weekend on Meet the Press, they were interviewing Mitt Romney. It’s very rare that I agree with anything he says, but he was saying some things that were making some sense.

He was saying that the primary reason the Afghan army fell so quickly was the lack of air support. It would not of been hard to keep behind a small Air Force presence, and may be 5000 troops. With that, the Taliban would’ve had no chance to gain as much ground as they did.

I am no military strategist and do not know all the details of what all went into the decision to withdraw completely. But I don’t see what would’ve been wrong with keeping a nominal troop presence in Afghanistan indefinitely, like we do with Germany or South Korea. It can make all the difference.

So perhaps they should have had some air support from the second largest air force in the world then, if the first largest wasn't available at that particular time?

What 'Top Gun' Didn’t Tell You About Naval Aviation

As the second-largest air force in the world, United States naval aviation is a force to be reckoned with – and has been for decades. Here are six facts about U.S. Navy aviation and Navy pilots.

www.uso.org

USS Ronald Reagan’s Super Hornets providing air support over Kabul

Pentagon officials said Thursday that U.S. jets had been providing overwatch throughout the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and called recent reports of low passes over Kabul "erroneous."

www.navytimes.com

How much air support was needed? What exact type? Where should they have concentrated their support?

 

[notquiteright]

Well, one might consider that an offer to control Kabul isn't exactly a "negotiation". If the story is accurate and the US had the opportunity to control Kabul as a whole until the withdrawal could be completed we may not have had this mass crush at HKIA.

So how many US Troops would be needed to control Kabul??? I doubt we ever controlled Kabul before the collapse with a Functional Government and Security Forces. I can't imagine how our troops could hope to do so without native law enforcement.

I'd say the Taliban offered the USofA a chance to be responsible for the lawlessness, chaos, death, and terror attacks once the ANSF fell apart, nothing more...