It sucks but it makes sense, if they took over the city, when they left the taliban would of taken over anyway, so why surge resources when you are pulling out.
I see what you mean, and I can understand the train of thought going through Biden's team about those two options. The US was in the process of fully withdrawing all of their troops, had that as a goal they were progressing towards with some momentum, before current events unfolded.
I imagine the option that sounded like 'the least amount of work, and the shortest timeframe' was probably picked pretty quickly - before anybody really gave it any hard thought.
I disagree. Vehemently.
With "control" of the city, even with the 6000 troops that Biden allocated, together with the remaining contractors and the ANSF within the city and all the government workers, and the Northerners, and the allied troops..... French, British, Canadian, Germans etc....
The pace and conditions would have been in American control. And even the final terms.
If the report is true - pending - than the situation moves from shear incompetence to criminal malfeasance.
If they had thought about it, this would have made more sense. The US was withdrawing regardless, but the 6000 US troops + coalition SOF, plus ANSF - they could have kept the city running in a way that was more or less normal. Especially if the Taliban had agreed (in secret) to stay out of the city and allow the US to maintain control for a while longer.
Politicians also care about optics. (In theory anyway, our shining star seems like a notable exception.) Deploying 6000 troops to secure the airport & immediate areas around the airport - while at the same time withdrawing troops as per the peace agreement and a big part of what he was elected on - would be confusing optics. There aren't many examples of where a country has had to deploy 6000 troops in order to withdraw the much smaller number that were present, unless in a combat situation.
The whole situation happened so quickly, and so much more swiftly than anybody thought it would - or even could - I imagine there were quite a few decisions that were made on the fly, with zero long term thought put into them. Most of those decisions probably made sense, or at least sounded like they made sense, with the information they had at the time. (Did anybody in the Biden admin know that ANA and other ANSF units had quietly been told to stand down and disappear? Did anybody have any solid intel that plenty of Taliban fighters were already in the city, waiting out their time?)
I think we are forgetting just how connected all of these events were, and how so much happened in such a short period of time. Personally, regardless of how it was handled, it seems like it was destined to be a shitshow. Especially with the information that continues to leak out, such as this.
I think we should remember though:
- Without the colossal mess that erupted around HKIA, the west probably would never have evacuated the people that we did.
(The only reason we had 2 C-17's, at least 1 C-130, and a Polaris flying people out of there was because everything went to total s**t. We've had 10 years to relocate our interpreters and their families, and our embassy staff + contractors were still in place despite the Taliban making a very public and violent comeback over a month ago.)
- The fear of the Taliban, especially when they entered the city almost magically fast, actually helped the Afghans finally get out of the country. The ones who were able to leave were very lucky, but they would still be waiting if the Taliban hadn't scared the international community into action. It's pathetic on our part, but it's been their reality as they have waited this entire time. The ones who had to stay behind, it does genuinely suck.
But - not to sound cold or harsh - we can't evacuate the entire country, and not everybody was promised a special visa or had immigrant status elsewhere. A vast majority of Afghans were going to have to stay in Afghanistan, regardless of how many planes were available.
- The airport itself was the biggest limiting factor in the number of aircraft that could be used for evacuating embassy staff + contractors, interpreters and their families, and NGO staff if that NGO was perhaps requested/contracted to be there. One runway, with how many aircraft using it to take off AND land?
- Even if US and coalition troops had spread out and occupied Kabul for a few weeks, there is no guarantee that a VBIED wouldn't have been used against us. Maybe it would have slipped through, and made it into the city? Maybe it would have detonated at a checkpoint further out from the airport, or a major entryway into the city? Maybe the VBIED had been in the city for quite some time, and this was the time it seemed to be of best use?
Whether the Taliban set up checkpoints, or us - or they controlled the city for 30 days, or us - it doesn't guarantee that VBIED (or another) wouldn't have still happened.
Where am I going with all of this? No idea. It was a world class s**tshow, no doubt about it.
