From "I Commanded Afghan Troops This Year. We Were Betrayed" by General Sami Sadat (NYT).
August 25, 2021
"It’s true that the Afghan Army lost its will to fight. But that’s because of the growing sense of abandonment by our American partners..."
"... and the disrespect and disloyalty reflected in Mr. Biden’s tone and words over the past few months. The Afghan Army is not without blame. It had its problems — cronyism, bureaucracy — but we ultimately stopped fighting because our partners already had.
It pains me to see Mr. Biden and Western officials are blaming the Afghan Army for collapsing without mentioning the underlying reasons that happened.... First, former President Donald Trump’s February 2020 peace deal with the Taliban in Doha doomed us. It put an expiration date on American interest in the region. Second, we lost contractor logistics and maintenance support critical to our combat operations. Third, the corruption endemic in Mr. Ghani’s government that flowed to senior military leadership and long crippled our forces on the ground irreparably hobbled us..... They could sense victory and knew it was just a matter of waiting out the Americans. Before that deal, the Taliban had not won any significant battles against the Afghan Army. After the agreement? We were losing dozens of soldiers a day. Still, we kept fighting. But then Mr. Biden confirmed in April he would stick to Mr. Trump’s plan and set the terms for the U.S. drawdown.... Our sense of abandonment and betrayal was equaled only by the frustration U.S. pilots felt and relayed to us — being forced to witness the ground war, apparently unable to help us. Overwhelmed by Taliban fire, my soldiers would hear the planes and ask why they were not providing air support. Morale was devastated. Across Afghanistan, soldiers stopped fighting."
From "I Commanded Afghan Troops This Year. We Were Betrayed" by General Sami Sadat (NYT).
From "I Commanded Afghan Troops This Year. We Were Betrayed" by General Sami Sadat (NYT).
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46 comments:
Our sense of abandonment and betrayal...
Jen Psaki is not going to like this.
I've heard other good explanations for the sudden collapse. The most important being that the strong central government model implemented allowed for far too much power in Kabul, which led to massive corruption/cronyism and the inability of Afghan army forces to act independently on a province-level.
It seems that the system that was set up by the U.S. government was severely flawed from the start and doomed to fail. But no worries, when the Afghan president left the country he reportedly took $169M with him. So it worked out well for him.
He ain’t lying…
I've said in previous threads, the rapid collapse of the ANA was easily predictable. Without US support they would not have been able to sustain operations against the Taliban. So, if they were going to lose anyways, why should the risk death so that the people abandoning them can successfully escape? The rapid and complete defeat of the ANA as the US withdrew should have the premise upon which planning for the withdrawal was based. The fact that it wasn't is a testament to our political and military leadership's lack of understanding regarding military matters.
For Godsakes, keep Biden away from “The Button”, and resist all his entreaties to convert it to teh Clapper technology!
NYT is really itching to get us back into Afghanistan again, sheesh.
Also, I recommend this. Infuriating.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/08/the-day-afghanistan-died/
The name in this deserves to be remembered -- Sohrab Azimi. Remember it when the Biden people bad mouth the Afghanis who carried the burden of this fighting for us. Betrayal is what this has been and is. Plain and simple.
According to the best estimates I've seen, the Taliban have 50-100K soldiers. The nation of Afghanistan has a population of 39 million. If the Afghani people didn't want the Taliban for a government, they could easily eject them, with or without foreign support. That the Afghani army melted as quickly as it did has nothing to do with Biden, Trump or anything else the US has done.
It's too bad the colonial stooge army didn't fight hard in a doomed effort. A hundred thousand plus casualties avoided is a real tragedy for the bloodstream media and their zombie viewers.
They were losing dozens of soldiers a day. We lost 2000 over the course of 20 years but that was too much to bear. Iran take note.
Since we stopped fighting and made peace with the Taliban, we can’t really complain that the ANA stopped fighting the Taliban too. I can’t even say that it was wrong for them to undermine the part of our plan that relied on the ANA being the rear guard for our orderly withdrawal, if it was our intelligence assessment that they were going to fall anyway in a few months or years. I would have thought the Afghan government and army would have had their own very strong reasons to fight on, but it’s looking like that was a figment of our own propaganda.
Blinken today said that there are only 500 U.S. citizens left in Afghanistan who have contacted the State Department for help getting out, and as many as 1,000 who have have not. Maybe some of those people have made their own separate peace with the Taliban allowing them to stay unmolested. We’re expecting the Iron Veil to fall over Afghanistan on September 1, but what if that is also our own propaganda? Has the Taliban ordered all westerners to leave? Do we really know what they want?
Before I get a chance to read the very expected: "See, it WAS all Trump's fault" posts from the usual suspects let me say that this statement from the Afghan commander demonstrates that the Afghan army was never capable of standing on its own. It was simply an auxiliary component of the US military. If having better equipment and 4 times the forces is insufficient to compete on the battle field, then there was never any hope of us to ever extricate ourselves from the morass that is Afghanistan. It is also clear, that instead of importing the best of western democracy, we seemed to instead have imported the worst: graft and corruption. But again, the question isn't should we leave, everyone agreed that it was the goal. It does not take away from the failure in how the leaving was accomplished.
Well, for what it's worth, I'm humbled after reading the General's op-ed. Plenty of blame to go around, starting most recently with Trump and the Doha agreement, and continuing with Biden. But, how does one extricate one's military from such a situation? If the end result is going to be no more US involvement, how do you reach that point while avoiding total collapse? Given the lack of a truly representative government and a cohesive society, this outcome was probably pre-ordained to failure even if the drawdown was handled much better than what Biden has put in place.
There were some groups of people that we hated more than the Taliban.
One was the people leading the Afghan army.
The other was the people leading our army from DC.
There were brave people in Afghanistan. But just like in the US the people in DC had no interest in helping people help themselves. DC promulgated the corruption. The money sent to afghanistan was sent there to be laundered back to cronies in C. Not to help the people of that country.
That is why the afghan leadership built such nice palaces. They bought all the stuff from DC.
Kinda like here in the US. The only people more corrupt than the Afghan leadership is the DC leadership.
Spreading freedom and democracy is the only goal worthy of our country.
But we can't do it with the current bunch of criminals and corrupt shitheads in DC. It needs to be culled.
While I was there the taliban were wiped out.
We had locations on the remaining leadership and were catching and releasing the same stooges over and over again.
The Taliban is taking over because the people in DC want them to.
Period.
Everything you see in the news now is garbage and theatre.
The Taliban "rules" afghanistan just like the gangs rule Chicago. With the tacit endorsement and all but open alliance with our political class.
They had 20 years to train some aircraft mechanics. Blaming the US for not maintaining their aircraft is BS. The Marine Corps sent me through bootcamp and trained me to be an aircraft mechanic in 6 months. Three months of that was bootcamp.
In the opening the guy says they gave up with they heard the US was pulling out. Who were they fighting for, the United States or Afghanistan? They wouldn't stand up and fight for thier wives and kids? Sorry, I'm not convinced. I heard the Taliban had some of their units surrounded so they surrendered. Would a Marine platoon lay down their weapons and surrender if they were surrounded. NO! They would fight to the last man.
A lot of the news out of Afghanistan is BS. It sounds like fake news to me. I think what happened there was exactly what the leadership in the US and Afghanistan wanted to happen.
"First, former President Donald Trump’s February 2020 peace deal with the Taliban in Doha doomed us."
Sure, but Biden could have withdrawn us from that peace deal. Trump canceled many of Obama's deals. Biden is doing this his way and hasty pullouts don't always have the consequences you expect.
R C Belaire said...
If the end result is going to be no more US involvement, how do you reach that point while avoiding total collapse? Given the lack of a truly representative government and a cohesive society, this outcome was probably pre-ordained to failure even if the drawdown was handled much better than what Biden has put in place.
There were 2 good options. Pull everyone and everything out in an orderly fashion or commit to a multi-generational effort to build a modern country.
In order to build a free society you need a country full of people who do the right thing with no police around.
This is impossible in a muslim nation.
Unless we were willing to ban islam and wipe out the corrupt child raping priest class there was no hope of making that country work long term.
We are clearly not willing to do what it takes. So pulling out was the right call. We need to focus on the real problem. There is an illegitimate junta in DC looting the treasury and attacking our freedom.
It's really hard to believe,
that the Afghan Army wasn't Enthusiastic about fighting for LGBTQWERTY rights
what's that deal? Are they TERFs?? (where the F stands for cigarettes?
Meanwhile...
—Ace
Kumala lays flowers at what she tells her media stenographers is a memorial to John McCain. In Vietnam
Isn't that strange? A memorial in a country to a foreign airman who bombed that country?
That is very very strange. So strange, in fact, that that's not what this memorial is.
The memorial is a war memorial, celebrating the shoot-down of John McCain.
Jen Psaki is not going to like this.
Sure, she will. "See, it was Trump's fault...!"
This is how you do comedy, people.
The money spigot was being turned off, no more reason for most Afghanis to pretend that they wanted democracy.
I suppose if blame is to be assigned, it should be assigned to George Bush. He got us into Afghanistan, first to get Bin Laden (didn't work), next to do some "nation-building" (didn't work either).
In order to do "nation-building" you have to work with people where you want to do it. Under civil war conditions, those people are called "collaborators". That's a dirty word in most parts, right up there with "traitors." Nation-building is hard work. You're fighting history (which doesn't include an Enlightenment), culture, and tradition. It doesn't help that there are people shooting at you. If nation-building seems to take too long, you tend to tire of it.
Ronald Reagan liked to say, The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.' For foreign folks fighting a civil war, the most terrifying words should be, "We're from the the United States, and we're here to help". Run as fast as you can when you hear those words. Join the other side. As odious as the other side might be, you can count on them to be there after the Americans have left.
Achilles at 3:11 nails it.
A decent upper-mid-level ANA officer asked me if "the mentors" could provide something he needed. I respected him enough to say, "Sir, there aren't always going to be mentors! What are you going to do then?" I don't know, he said. But I can't get this from us and I need it.
I'm sorry the general was in this position. He knew his army couldn't fight on without us. At least in his own telling, he seems to have tried, in an impossible situation.
I was thinking today of the end of A Bridge Too Far, when LTG Browning tells MG Urquhart, "You did all you could." Urquhart: "Yes, but did everybody else?"
We didn't import graft and corruption - that was already part and parcel of their society.
The Afghans had 20 years to build their own army that could defeat the Taliban. We gave them $billions in equipement and training.
If they fell apart without firing a shot, its not because we "Betrayed" them. One sees that the elite "Gameplan" is now guilt the USA into taking hundreds of thousands of Afghans. After all, "we owe them". Only we don't. They need to stay in their own country.
My goodness! A sensible comment at the Althouse blog! What is happening?
... Plenty of blame to go around, starting most recently with Trump and the Doha agreement, and continuing with Biden. But, how does one extricate one's military from such a situation? If the end result is going to be no more US involvement, how do you reach that point while avoiding total collapse? Given the lack of a truly representative government and a cohesive society, this outcome was probably pre-ordained to failure even if the drawdown was handled much better than what Biden has put in place...
The Afghanistan pullout was Trump’s. If you want to like Trump, then own all of this. Trump has absolutely CROWED about how he made his pullout — THIS PULLOUT— irrevocable. It isn’t about the details of the pullout. We are going to get every American out; we will get tens of thousands of Afghan allies out. Probably without any American casualties. I hope so. And think so. And when we do, what the fuck is left for TrumpWorld to bitch about?
'The Afghanistan pullout was Trump’s.'
Trump isn't president, somebody pulling Joe's strings is.
Worst pullout by a Biden since Hunter...*
*From online somewhere.
“And when we do, what the fuck is left for TrumpWorld to bitch about?“
Posts from Chuck?
Pro-marxist LLR Chuck: "It isn’t about the details of the pullout."
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
That talking point has already failed.....on a global basis. But hey, only on a global basis!
The G7 members are in full blown Criticism Of Biden for the LIES Biden told them just months ago....and for all the other military/intel lies Biden has put out there!
But hey, keep flogging that at Althouse blog little democratical laddie. It's bound to work if you and your lefty pals just keep repeating it over and over and over again.
Serenity now.....serenity now.....
The lesson here is unless we intend to stay for an indefinite period of time like have in South Korea the way we train the Afghans or the South Vietnamese to fight just doesn't work. We train them like they are American forces with American logistics and when will pull out the logistics train stops. The taliban like the North Vietnamese have backers in adjacent countries that they can flee to when needed and always have a supply line to them. We didn't need to leave and didn't need to have a large footprint and we certainly didn't need to be national building. A minimum level of advisors and a bit of aircover and we could have been there for years on end without many casualties. Now we are back to September 10th. I'm a Trump guy but he does bear part of the blame, however in the end it was Biden's call and he blew it.
I suppose it was inevitable that the most marxist of all Althouse lefty commentators, LLR Chuck, would be the one lefty at Althouse blog who can't figure out that the lie-filled narrative he was pushing last week has already been rendered inoperative by global events.
Even the doltish Howard has completely walked away from that transparently obvious nonsense.
Biden's poll numbers have crashed amongst normal Americans (republicans and independents and even some non-"LLR" democraticals) all the way down to 41% or so, and the all Allied governments and their minions have come out swinging against Dementia Boy and his moronic failures.
The European papers are trashing Biden daily, even the very left wing ones.
Biden's failures have driven Merkel, Macron and several other EU "partners" to openly and publicly solicit the support of Putin!!
Clearly, this is a reality that our viciously misogynistic and racist poster LLR Chuck is going to take quite alot of time to come to grips with.
Thoughts and prayers for him in these trying times.
Thoughts and prayers.
US nationals at HKIA are being ordered by State Dept. to leave the airport immediately.
The Costanza Principle has been supplanted by The Biden Rule:
There will quite often be times when the best action one can take is the exact opposite of the one that is being taken.
Chuck said...
The Afghanistan pullout was Trump’s. If you want to like Trump, then own all of this. Trump has absolutely CROWED about how he made his pullout — THIS PULLOUT— irrevocable. It isn’t about the details of the pullout. We are going to get every American out; we will get tens of thousands of Afghan allies out. Probably without any American casualties. I hope so. And think so. And when we do, what the fuck is left for TrumpWorld to bitch about?
This is a perfect example of a bad faith argument.
This is how stupid people hide from their dishonesty and failure.
Nobody is ever going to listen to Conservative Inc. again.
Biden has said numerous times he agrees fully with the decision, so he bears at least equal responsibility for the underlying decision, and full responsibility for the way it was carried out
A response to the opinions posted on this subject by those who continue to allow Trump to live rent-free in their heads:
NY Post Aug 19
Kash Patel
"...I’m intimately familiar with former President Donald Trump’s Afghanistan strategy. In November 2020, I was named chief of staff at the Pentagon, where one of my primary responsibilities was to wind down the forever war in Afghanistan.
Trump instructed me to arrange a conditions-based, methodical exit plan that would preserve the national interest. The plan ended up being fairly simple: The Afghan government and the Taliban were both told they would face the full force of the US military if they caused any harm to Americans or American interests in Afghanistan.
Next, both parties would negotiate to create an interim-joint government, and both sides had to repudiate al Qaeda. Lastly, a small special-operations force would be stationed in the country to take direct action against any terrorist threats that arose. When all those conditions were met — along with other cascading conditions — then a withdrawal could, and did, begin.
We successfully executed this plan until Jan. 20, 2021. During this interval — when there were no US casualties in Afghanistan — President Ashraf Ghani and the Taliban conducted multiple rounds of negotiations, and al Qaeda was sidelined. The result was a successful drawdown of US forces in Afghanistan to 2,500, the lowest count since the dawn of the War on Terror.
We handed our entire plan to the incoming Biden administration during the lengthy transition. The new team simply wasn’t interested.
Everything changed when the new commander in chief declared that US forces would leave Afghanistan by Sept. 11, 2021, pushing back the Trump administration’s timetable by four months.
***Crucially, he didn’t condition the withdrawal on continued adherence to the agreed-upon stipulations***.
It would be an unconditional pullout with an arbitrary date based on pure symbolism — and set in stone.
At that point, the Taliban sat back and waited for the date to draw near, then launched a countrywide offensive, knowing they had no reason to fear any reprisals from this administration. The ongoing chaos — not least the stranding of US personnel and allies — was the natural result of the Biden administration’s decision to eschew a conditions-based plan..."
https://nypost.com/2021/08/19/i-ran-trumps-afghan-withdrawal-bidens-attempt-to-blame-us-is-sad/
Achilles: "Nobody is ever going to listen to Conservative Inc. again."
You mean we arent going to be turning to Sun Tzu-like guru and the military strategy savant "stylings" of George "Walrus Sans Tusks" Conway?!
I wonder how many soldiers he was paid to have, and how many he really had and really paid; it's alleged that the paymasters took quite a large cut (at least after striking deals to not fight the Taliban).
99% of Afghanis want Sharia law. So they're going to get it, good and hard.
The ANA needed an inspirational commander. General Sadat just admitted he was not the inspirational commander they needed.
"It isn’t about the details of the pullout."
I used to think that Chuck was at least serious, if misled by the Svengalis over at War Incorporated, hey, a lot of us have been there.
The statement that "I trained to be an aircraft mechanic in six months," seems very smug and likely simplistic as to the infrastructure we removed, in the dead of night, in early July at Bagram as we absconded into the night, literally shutting of the lights as we left. The Afghan forces had already long been made aware we were going to abandon them, by Trump and Biden both, and so perfectly rationally, had likely made their deals anyway already as of this summer. But by destroying a central component of the entire way that army functioned, we neutered them -- BETRAYED them -- entirely. It is truly dismaying the contempt people feel entitled to dump on the people who supported us, however poorly, in doing what was, and is, and will be seen to have been, central to our own security.
Twenty years and vast amounts of blood and treasure, but we "betrayed" them.
Sure.
The good news is that the homicidal Islamist lunatics seem to be fighting each other now in Afghanistan; Taliban vs. ISIS-K. We should arm both sides just enough that they cripple each other.
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