Afghanistan

While it’s certainly convenient to depict the shock and miscalculation U.S. officials claim over Afghanistan’s tragic, rapid fall to the Taliban as an intelligence failure, the reality is far worse. It’s a convenient deflection of responsibility for decisions taken owing to political and ideological considerations and provides a scapegoat for a policy decision that’s otherwise unable to offer a persuasive defense.

As CIA’s Counterterrorism Chief for South and Southwest Asia before my 2019 retirement, I was responsible for assessments concerning Afghanistan prepared for former President Donald Trump. And as a volunteer with candidate Joe Biden’s counterterrorism working group, I consulted on these same issues. The decision Trump made, and Biden ratified, to rapidly withdraw U.S. forces came despite warnings projecting the outcome we’re now witnessing. And it was a path to which Trump and Biden allowed themselves to be held captive owing to the “ending Forever Wars” slogan they both embraced.

Interesting read, an ex-CIA guy defends the CIA and scorches the “decision makers & politicians.” Some salt may be required.

h/t HY

Twenty years ago, the military-industrial complex rushed the United States into a pair of wars that cost billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives — only to end in the abject humiliation of American power in Kabul over the past few days. Meanwhile, defense contractors, who had no financial incentive to properly train an Afghan military to operate independently of them, made off handsomely along the way.

Today, a new alliance of big government and big business seeks to profiteer from the domestic culture war. I call it the woke-industrial complex. The consequences could be even more devastating this time around, for democracy at home and for the moral standing of the United States on the global stage.

I ask that you not use my name. I am a currently serving General Officer and what I have to say is highly critical of our current military leadership. But it must be said.

I don’t blame President Biden for the catastrophe in Afghanistan. It was the right decision to leave, the proof of which is how quickly the country collapsed without US support. Twenty years of training and equipping the Afghan army and all that they were capable of was a few hours of delay in a country the size of Texas. As for his predecessor, the only blame I place on President Trump was that he didn’t withdraw sooner.

We should blame President Bush, not for the decision to attack into Afghanistan following 9-11, but for his decision to “shift the goalposts” and attempt to reform Afghanistan society. That was a fool’s errand any student of history would have recognized. And yes, we should place blame on President Obama for his decision to double down on failure when he “surged” in Afghanistan, rather than to withdraw.

Lots of blame to go round, 20 years worth of lies.

Evacuation flights out of Kabul are taking off almost empty despite tens of thousands of Afghans trying to flee the country after the Taliban formed a ring of steel around the airport and barred most people from reaching it.

One Australian Hercules C-130 aircraft with room for 120 people took off with just 26 on board today, the government has confirmed, while a German Airbus A-400M with room for 150 was carrying just seven people when it departed yesterday.

That is despite there being around 50,000 Afghans gathered at the airport who have been promised sanctuary by western nations. One particularly harrowing piece of footage showed women pleading with US troops that ‘the Taliban are coming for me’.

Justin needs to speak to the Taliban on turning this into a She-Covery.

President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan had to admit that a lot of US weapons intended for the Afghan army are now in the hands of the Taliban, brushing off questions of how the US intends to deal with it.

“We don’t have a complete picture obviously of where every article of defense materials has gone, but certainly a fair amount of it has fallen into the hands of the Taliban,” Sullivan said on Tuesday, briefing reporters at the White House as press secretary Jen Psaki looked on.