Afghanistan Was Not a Logistical Success

Gen Milley under oath testified yesterday that the Afghanistan evacuation was a "logistical success but a strategic failure."

While evacuating 120K people in a chaotic situation was probably done as well as possible under the circumstances, I would not characterize leaving behind many, many Afghan collaborators and some Americans as a logistical success.

Once again as in 2021, Gen Milley and McKenzie confirmed that Biden was advised to leave behind 2500 troops.

Biden said when asked about this in 2021 by George Stephanopoulos,"No.No one said that to me that I can recall." So either Biden's memory is indeed faulty or he lied. I'll go with the former which is just as troubling as a lie.

Once again as in past administrations, failure to listen to the military and allow them to control the process led to disaster.

It still appears unclear where the buck stops. Many errors regarding Afghanistan belong to other administrations including Trump's, but this botched withdrawal is Biden's and I seriously doubt the families of the fallen 13 troops would view the withdrawal as a "logistical success."

the word success cannot be used in any way to describe what happened in

tabbyplague®

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I understand the line of thought on listening to our Military and I personally

Mar 21, 2024, 9:18 AM

think some of the 4 Stars should have thrown their stars on the table when the decision was made to give up Bagram Airbase before executing the complete/total evacuation of Afghanistan. If there was ever a moment in a military officers career where they must take a stand and tell the civilian leadership "this is a mistake and I will resign before carrying it out" this was it. But our 4 Star community consists of a whole lot of "go-along-to-get-along" people that don't want to rock the boat because it might affect their ability to stay in "the club" which directly impacts their "after the military" careers.

I'm still a bit unclear on "who" decided to close Bagram Airbase but from what I can tell it was the Sate Dept/NSA and the President signed off on it followed by a "yes sir" from Sec Def Austin and every 4 Star in the Afghanistan Chain (Milley, McKenzie, and Miller). These 4 Stars aren't stupid (well - perhaps Miller is but that is another story for another time) and they very well knew closing Bagram Airbase before the total evacuation was a huge tactical and strategic mistake. If they didn't then they are totally incompetent.

To be clear - my problem is not with the USA leaving Afghanistan (I personally think we should have left Afghanistan a few months after killing Bin Laden in 2011) as I was all for it. But when the military leadership "acquiesced" the timing, method and means of leaving Afghanistan to the likes of the State Dept and other Civilian "expert" advisors - they were absolutely derelict in their duty. They have a duty to not only speak "ugly" truth to the civilian leadership but to provide them with sound, militarily principled alternatives/methods to accomplish what the Civilian leadership has directed them to do. Sometimes they have to fight for those sound military principled alternatives/methods and I have yet to see that ever occurred in this Afghanistan evacuation.

I served with Milley when he was a senior Lieutenant Colonel and I was a "baby" Major. He was the epitome of what I call the intelligent "grunt knuckle dragger" that was a tremendously skilled war-fighter and a very effective combat leader. He was definitely not a political guy back then. Unfortunately the LTC Milley I served with has very little resemblance to the General Milley that I see today. To say that I've been utterly disappointed in him and his performance as the CJCS is an understatement.

PS...One last thought... Don't give the military leadership a pass on Afghanistan. For YEARS the Flag Officers had to know the Afghanistan military we were training was a hollow shell. If friends of mine doing the actual Afghan training knew it (and said so to their leadership) the Flag Officers in the leadership had to know as well. Yet for over a decade, the Flag Officers kept stringing Congress and multiple Administrations along with the "we are making steady progress" BS testimony making chicken shid sound like chicken salad.

None of these former Flag Officers have been held to account for their decades of misleading characterizations of the Afghan forces. They've never been forced to give a thorough explanation of how their characterizations were so wrong as to see the US trained and equipped Afghan forces totally collapse in less than 2 weeks of standing on their own. Twenty years of equipping and training to see it all collapse in 2 weeks to an Army of relatively untrained and lightly armed goat-herders is beyond ridiculous. This is a tremendous part of the problem we have in the military - no real accountability for the top ranks when they fail missions...

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Afghanistan Was Not a Logistical Success

Re: Afghanistan Was Not a Logistical Success

Re: Afghanistan Was Not a Logistical Success

Re: Afghanistan Was Not a Logistical Success

Well, we still managed to do better than the Russians when they tried

the word success cannot be used in any way to describe what happened in

Re: Afghanistan Was Not a Logistical Success

Trump negotiated the Doha Accord in Feb 2020 that called for full withdrawal

I understand the line of thought on listening to our Military and I personally

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