"We could have executed a plan in a way that would have led to the orderly withdrawal. We would have demanded that the Taliban actually deliver on the conditions that we laid out in the agreement - including the agreement to engage in meaningful power sharing agreement - something that we struggled to get them to do but made clear it was going to be a requirement before we completed our requirement to fully withdraw."
Said Trump's Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, quoted in "Mike Pompeo Outlines How Trump Admin Planned to Handle Afghanistan, Taliban" (Newsweek).
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Pompeo is articulate and believable because he is a straight talker. Trump-obsessed takes overlook the facts to the detriment of their arguments, such as they are. Hearing Pompeo is refreshingly bromide-free. The clarity is striking after seeing the liars Jake Sullivan and raggedy Andy Blinken stumble through their half-assed takes yesterday like “we’ve always used a helicopter to get from the [$700M Afghan embassy] to the airport.”
Trump really did want out - but wasn't going to accept losing.
Biden had no problem changing Trump policies, like on the border, so his claim that he "had" to follow the Trump May 1 target date is butt-covering nonsense.
Trump wouldn't have withdrawn while letting the Taliban win.
How to fight "fairly" with one who cheats? Remember Butch Cassidy when he's about to start the knife fight:
"First, we get the rules straight".
"There ain't no rules in a knife f..." the big guy gets kicked in his balls.
In too many movies the good guy gets hit first, then comes back and wins. In reality, the guy who hits first often wins, good or bad.
When did the US stop occupying Europe?
[... still there today...]
"The clarity is striking after seeing the liars Jake Sullivan and raggedy Andy Blinken stumble through their half-assed takes yesterday..."
Blinken strikes me as a weak and wimpy guy...no personality at all. No wonder the Chinese have already taken his measure and have dismissed him as irrelevant.
I wholeheartedly agree with MJB Wolf. Watching Jake Sullivan and Andy Blinken is like watching the face of a deer as your headlights close in. They are out there, degrees and resume in pocket, not knowing what to do in the actual arena. Like a football commentator who once played Division 3 football at a prestigious university not known for football, who is suddenly placed onto a real football field with real players and sees a group of large defensive linemen and linebackers coming at him. It's that look that Blinken had when the Chinese ambassador was insulting him and the US few months back and he just...blinked.
Trump has a lifetime of negotiating in a tough manner. Winning those negotiations or having both sides win. The Biden team has a direct genetic line to the John Kerry School of Diplomacy, a subset of the Madeline Albright School of Diplomacy. They love pronouncements almost as much as they love their champagne. They can be found dancing with dictators, or sending money to theocracies who repeatedly call for your head, or berating the American citizens for 'not getting it'. Trump would have made clear the details- the lines, so to speak. And he would have held them to it. Anybody want to doubt his resolve on such issues?
Trump was the first President in years who actually loved America with his full heart and soul. The others seem to look at America as either their inheritance or a corporate ladder on which to find their personal wealth. This is Joe Biden and his team. Of course they cannot make the right decisions for the country. They're not thinking in terms of the country. They're thinking in terms of how it makes them look.
Someone should let them know: Not good.
“The agreement to engage in meaningful power sharing agreement”
The Best and the Brightest
I'll take Pompeo over Blinken any day, but --
"meaningful power sharing agreement"
This is also BS.
"it was going to be a requirement"
Like, how?
I'll add to this that the Trump administration planned for a departure in late December, when weather precludes much military action. Not only was Biden's withdrawal poorly planned, if at all, but done precipitously, right in the middle of prime fighting season. Did no general warn them of this? Or were they warned and, as with so many other warnings they received, chose to ignore the fighting-season warning.
Pathological stupidity in either case.
This is a smart response. It leans into Biden taking responsibility for the part Biden can't avoid taking responsibility for, the withdrawal itself. Few voters would care for a chaos-ridden Afghanistan emerging over the next year after a withdrawal. But the utter lack of preparation by the Biden Administration (in charge for 8 months now) for an orderly withdrawal and a proper evacuation of the Afghans who risked their families' lives to support the U.S. effort to bring a more modern culture to their country for the past 20 years... that's all on Biden at this point. His party is the party supporting unhindered immigration, a requirement that America take in all comers, and they can't even figure out how to safely evacuate a few thousand people who have provided devoted service to American ideals?
The US military leadership have had ~18 months to prepare, and somehow we got stuck with this bungled withdrawal.
Either they fooled themselves into thinking they could talk one President or the other out of following through with the decision, or somehow 18 months wasn't enough time to plan and execute on a better withdrawal...
Trump prided himself on being a great negotiator. He always seems to understand the concept of leverage. Obama/Biden never seem to understand the concept of leverage except to pay people off. Perhaps that’s because they are politicians while Trump is a businessman.
Afghanistan has two seasons, winter and fighting. The pullout could have been done in December in an orderly fashion instead of a rout. Anyone who voted for Biden has this disaster on them. Obama warned you when he said "Joe you don't need this" and "Joe can fuck anything up". So far everything the Biden Administration has touched has turned to shit. Amazing in a way.
Pompeo would have handled the withdrawal the way the border was handled. There would have been plans and arrangements and verifications. Pompeo spells it out. But Biden handled the withdrawal the way he handled the border. He simply revoked all the former rules and plans. In both cases, the result was, and is, chaos. But here's the difference. Biden left no one behind at the border whereas he has left thousands of Americans behind in Afghanistan and those Americans, many of them, belong to aid groups and NGOs. They include friends and relations of Dems and Never Trumpers and Biden voters. The Taliban are searching for Americans, will find them, will hold them hostage. So the incompetence and dementia finally matter. Too late for too many
Their “model” was to schedule the withdrawal for six months after the election they expected Trump to lose.
Tom Grey above may well be right- in the end Trump wouldn't have withdrawn or would have stopped half way through. However, I do think the Taliban were likely have waited him out instead of immediately advancing before all American and western personnel were gone if Trump had shown any pushback. The Taliban were always going to win if we, the Americans, pulled out and let the puppet government (and that is an accurate description of the government) carry the fight alone. I wrote a comment here the day Althouse first talked about the negotiations with the Taliban- that no agreement with the Taliban would be honored by them in the end, so even with an orderly withdrawal, you end up in much the same place for all intents and purposes.
And one other point not directed at anyone in particular- there is a meme going around about how we could have stayed indefinitely because the situation had stalized where there were no military casualties in the last 18 months there. Well, that was only true because we entered negotiations to leave and then agreed to do so by May of this year. In essence, there was a ceasefire between us and the Taliban for that 18 months. That would have ended if we didn't leave. If you want to continue these military engagements, you have to be honest with the American people and tell them they will be there and fighting from now on- no withdrawal ever, and no final victory either- it will be a permanent fight overseas with ground troops and support personnel.
Trump's agreement with the Taliban was always a fig leaf to give legitimacy to a rapid and total withdraw from Afghanistan, damn the consequences. It started with the release of thousands of Taliban prisoners, many known movement leaders, which energized the Taliban and made the legitimate Afghan government's job that much more difficult. Trump is now claiming that he would have done better than Biden, which is nonsense. He set the stage for this debacle when he decided to negotiate a unilateral agreement with terrorists whose aim has always been to repudiate democracy and replace it with a sharia-based Islamic state.
I feel compelled to repeat a comment I made on that statement below:
Seriously, dude? You were going to DEMAND it? How the h*ll were you going to force compliance? You haven't been able to force them to do anything for twenty years and they're stronger now than they've been for years. Oh, you were going to stay until they complied? How "credible" a threat is that?
And do you really think they were going to "engage in meaningful power sharing agreement"? Now, perhaps you could have cobbled together a power sharing agreement that wouldn't have fallen apart for a few months and would have given time for an orderly withdrawal. That would have been a lot better than what we have now. But expecting some sort of real power sharing is about as realistic as expecting Joe Biden to make Donald Trump his co-president.
Charlie: "Trump's agreement with the Taliban was always a fig leaf to give legitimacy to a rapid and total withdraw from Afghanistan, damn the consequences."
This is false from beginning to end.
But you probably knew that when you wrote it.
One has to appreciate the effort put in by Team Deflection members like Charlie.
Here's something to think about...the only reason we're being allowed to leave (relatively) peacefully is because they want us to...they are allowing it.
Maybe it's because they are being paid off.
But think about it...all they have to do is take a few hundred hostages and start killing them on livestream video, and Joe Biden would no longer be president.
To me, that means that they are relishing having this weak president in office, with a weakened America along with it.
This is the tastiest Kool Aid you’ve ever served, Meade.
@Charlie "Trump is now claiming that he would have done better than Biden, which is nonsense." Well, he certainly could not have done any worse!
Seriously, though, there are parts of the debacle that boggle anyone's mind. Forgetting about our expensive and high-tech equipment? Planes? In what world does that happen?
Why didn't Americans leave the country a while ago?
And the Afghanis who needed to leave because they expect retribution. We didn't need to give them asylum in the United States. All we needed to do was transport them out of the country's borders, anytime in the last couple of months.
I see people saying, No matter when or how we left it was going to look like this. In certain aspects, not in these aspects. People are being Monday-night quarterbacks, pretending that everyone knew that the collapse would be so sudden. Obviously they had no idea at all; this was an enormous surprise.
Of course “power sharing” was the linchpin. So in all likelihood we would have kept the 2500 active-duty at Bagram along with contractors and NGOs, and maintained our lavish $700M embassy, rainbow flags and all. If the Afghans were willing to keep doing their part and the official government kept going as it was we could have easily maintained order. For a far smaller footprint than we had in West Germany or South Korea we would have been at stalemate peace, which is preferable to disorder chaos and the terror taking place right now at this point in time.
How long? Forever if needed. We have assets all over the world. This was a very cheap way to keep the peace. All other scenarios lead to what we have now.
Tom Grey said,"Biden had no problem changing Trump policies, like on the border, so his claim that he "had" to follow the Trump May 1 target date is butt-covering nonsense.'
I have been making this point everywhere. Sure Trump had a policy for Afghanistan withdrawal in February 2020. Biden has been the president since January 2021. Couldn't he have made some tweaks to Trump's policy to ensure the safe removal of American citizens and Afghanis who assisted the US military before now? This situation is making me very upset and sad for those who are facing the literal threat of death at this time.
"I know precisely how we handle it and I know that we drew down 12,500 people and didn't have a single American killed by these very same Taliban butchers."
Yeah, you did that before you got all the people in harm's way out. And you did it as the Taliban essentially ceased fire, knowing what would happen when Trump bugged out.
"We had a model where we'd made clear what our red lines were..."
Let's hear about all of the red lines. In detail.
"We'd made clear the things we were prepared to do to defend them."
I want to know exactly what the defensive measures were. I want to know what force Trump would have exerted, what losses Trump was prepared to accept, and what means Trump would have employed. I really don't mind if Pompeo has a good answer to those questions. I just really want to know what Trump would have done, force-wise, and to what extent Biden blew them off. If it is even true. There will be Pentagon and State Department witnesses on that. At least there should be if what Pompeo says is true, and they had plans.
"We could have executed a plan in a way that would have led to the orderly withdrawal."
You keep saying that. I do not think it means what you think it means.
"We would have demanded that the Taliban actually deliver on the conditions that we laid out in the agreement - including the agreement to engage in meaningful power sharing agreement - something that we struggled to get them to do but made clear it was going to be a requirement before we completed our requirement to fully withdraw..."
And if the Taliban simply said, "Allahu Akhbar," then what? Remember, Trump said publicly that he wanted everything out by May. Was the Trump/Pompeo plan all set then?
"We would have gotten those conditions right. We would have held the Taliban to those limits and we would have been able to prevent, in all likelihood, precisely what you're seeing unfold today in Afghanistan."
HOW?!?! How were you going to guarantee that? That statement by Pompeo isn't where an interview should end. That is where it should START. Now is the time to make Pompeo sweat. I hope there is a Congressional hearing on this debacle. And that the leadership of the Biden and Trump State Departments are both forced to answer some really uncomfortable questions. Under oath.
Gosh just think; if everyone who so much as agreed with the handling of this debacle from both administrations were disqualified from future federal office holding, how much American foreign policy could be improved.
Witness said...
The US military leadership have had ~18 months to prepare, and somehow we got stuck with this bungled withdrawal.
You'd think that the US Military would have a set procedure by now, for abandoning allies.
We do it often enough
In this great interview, Matt Zeller talks about plans for evacuations that were made but ignored. Cofounder of Vet support group "No-one left behind"
https://notthebee.com/article/this-afghanistan-bet-just-went-nuclear-on-msnbc-live-on-air-and-its-a-must-watch
Matt notes that more Afghan army fighters died, every year (lately?), than all of the American deaths for 20 years. Matt ran for Congress from NY 29 in 2010.
As a Democrat.
https://www.americansecurityproject.org/about/staff/adjunct-fellows/matt-zeller/
Good points above about a) Trump (Afghan?) release of Taliban prisoners, as part of the "negotiations", b) the Taliban win if we pull out / stop supporting the puppet government.
Great boot-lickers are seldom good fighters, neither in Afghanistan nor America.
If Pompeo was speaking truly, that means Trump would not pull out in 2021 as Pres., because the conditions were not met - so fighting would start up again. And US deaths, fighting alongside Afghan allies.
Seems that the Taliban bribed/ negotiated with many Afghan military leaders to surrender, quickly, rather than fight (and risk dying). Once Biden decided to run away, without even honestly admitting a "surrender", many Afghan leaders & fighters started to figure it's better to switch sides and maybe live, than fight to the death and die.
Illegal drug lord money meant the Taliban would continue having access to small guns, and money for bribes.
It would have been better to stay there, some 3000 mostly advisors & trainers, and continue supplying the Afghans with weapons as they continue to fight to the death. Reducing US combat ground operations, and increasing air training for the Afghans. And plan "final withdrawal" only for some November (Oct? Dec?) as winter starts.
A few have mentioned how the gay-hating conservative Afghan people were likely very very unenthusiastic about the US Embassy flying a Pride flag. I'd guess many uncertain Afghan men were wondering why they should fight and die for gays and transexuals. Too much change, too fast, too negative.
I don't know if this is relevant to the discussion but the recent events reminded me of this book from the 1950's. We haven't learned much.
"A piercing exposé of American incompetence and corruption in Southeast Asia, The Ugly American captivated the nation when it was first published in 1958. The book introduces readers to an unlikely hero in the titular “ugly American”—and to the ignorant politicians and arrogant ambassadors who ignore his empathetic and commonsense advice. In linked stories and vignettes set in the fictional nation of Sarkhan, William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick draw an incisive portrait of American foreign policy gone dangerously wrong—and how it might be fixed.
Eerily relevant sixty years after its initial publication, The Ugly American reminds us that “today, as the battle for hearts and minds has shifted to the Middle East, we still can’t speak Sarkhanese”
cubanbob said... "Afghanistan has two seasons, winter and fighting. The pullout could have been done in December in an orderly fashion instead of a rout. Anyone who voted for Biden has this disaster on them."
Um, Joe Biden wasn't president in December 2020. Trump's agreement with the Taliban specified a withdrawal of our forces by May 2021. If Trump's plan was to push it back to December 2021, I think maybe he could have made a bigger deal out of that during his campaign. In the real world, he and his advisors attacked Biden for delaying the withdrawal until now.
Biden's best play would have been to follow Trumps plan. If it worked he could take credit for successfully withdrawing and if it failed blame Trump. Win win for Biden. Course he would never have done that but still.........
The "the U.S. should have pulled out in the winter" strategy overlooks (ignores) the fact that come the warmer weather, the Taliban would still have taken over the country. It would still be a CF, just without all the in-the-spotlight drama.
If the mission and the country are going to crash and burn, better that it be done when everyone is watching and it is glaringly obvious.
A slow-motion, boil-the-frog-slowly result is just as bad as the instantaneous fail.
Afghans have only themselves to blame for failing to create a viable nation despite years of assistance and lots of money from the US. Good for Biden for finally getting us out of what was supposed to have been a quick in-and-out to begin with.
Simple, yet serious Questions
Is Trump the President of the United States?
Did the Senate ratify a treaty with the Taliban?
Guess what? if the answers to those questions are NO, then the whole "But Trump Said" bullsh*t
is quite Literally BULLSH*T, and All of you Life Long Liberals know it
In the world *I* live in, it is 2021, and (for better or worse), Jo Biden is President
Yancey said...
"Taliban were likely have waited him out instead of immediately advancing before all American and western personnel were gone if Trump had shown any pushback. . .
The Taliban were always going to win if we, the Americans, pulled out and let the puppet government (and that is an accurate description of the government) carry the fight alone. "
We, the americans; pulled out of Bagram Air Base, in the middle of the night, without telling Anyone
When we did that, we declared OPEN SEASON.
It wasn't Trump that did that; it was the President of the United States, Jo Biden
This is ALL ON HIM
"The Biden team has a direct genetic line to the John Kerry School of Diplomacy, a subset of the Madeline Albright School of Diplomacy."
'How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?'
- John Kerry:
Vietnam Veterans Against the War testimony
22 April 1971, Congress, Washington DC, USA
“But expecting some sort of real power sharing is about as realistic as expecting Joe Biden to make Donald Trump his co-president.“
My 5th grade teacher would often instruct us 10 year olds — Hope for the best but hope is not a plan. Best to always have hope AND a plan… and also a Plan B.
With God, all things are possible. That’s the state motto of Ohio. I try to keep it in mind because hey it sure beats the motto — with Biden, all things go to hell.
Never lose hope for a better America. It’s almost as bad as hoping America just plain loses.
Biden is the president who lost the 20 year American war in Afghanistan, a war he authorized. It’s imperative that we remove him from office as soon as possible.
And thank God — even that IS possible.
Chaos and confusion is better than combat. I don't see any reports on excessive or widespread violence as Kabul falls otherwise it would be infinitely looped on Fox News.
Hysterical reactions during this fog of war phase is unseemly.
Chaos and confusion is better than combat.
Behold the forthcoming hostage situation!!
“This is the tastiest Kool Aid you’ve ever served, Meade.”
Have another glass. Might put some hair on your chest.
Do you think Michelle is still proud of us?
Did nobody think to do a controlled demolition of our beautiful $700M embassy before leaving, along with flattening the airport and putting huge craters in the runways?
If they're going to steal the infrastructure we paid for (that's you and me), then at least make them work for it.
I'm a little dubious about what Pompeo is saying here since he's saying it after he has the benefit of watching Biden and Blinken fuck it up in humiliating fashion. It's easy to say "well, I wouldn't have done that." But -- notwithstanding self-serving leaks from the intelligence community of which I am also rather dubious -- Biden seems to have been relying on national security bureaucrats' assessment that it would take months for the Taliban to capture Kabul. Obviously, whoever was coming up with that assessment was completely wrong. Something slipped. And while Trump and Pompeo might not have screwed up as badly as Biden and Blinken, they would still be formulating their plans based on the same bad data from the same national security establishment. Garbage in, garbage out. I think it would not have gone smoothly.
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2021/08/17/obama-released-taliban-leader-from-guantanamo-in-swap-for-deserter-bergdahl-n1470220
Obama released 5 Taliban leaders to get deserter Bergdahl back.
In 2014.
One of those leaders are among the Taliban conquering Kabul, expelling the foreigners.
Howard: "Hysterical reactions during this fog of war phase is unseemly."
Note: Howard spent weeks weeping and lamenting the death of Soleimani
“Hope for the best, expect and plan for the worst”
How about we take all the males who want to leave, send them through boot camp, send the ones that do well to some NCO and officer training, some others to artillery training, then send them all back at once?
There are apparently enough of them who want to leave who if they had been willing to face the Taliban could have killed them- which is the only way to defeat them.
Ah, Balfegor, what makes you think President Trump was listening to the the National Security and Foreign service types? Or would listen to them on what to do? Evidence is, he made decisions based on what he felt was the thing to do.
Find me a state department professional who SUPPORTED moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem for example. IIRC, he bypassed the professionals in setting up a meeting with Kim Jong-un, in North Korea itself. Apparently the diplomatic recognition of Israel by the Gulf countries caught our national security apparatus and foreign service professionals by surprise. Orchestrated by President Trump.
Seems he understood that the professionals in the areas of foreign policy and national security seemed to be looking out for something other than the best interests of the United States.
LOL, Meade served Chuck a glass of piss.
LLR Chuck continues his desperate spin to salvage what he can for beloved dems. But thats to be expected from a slug who strongly endorsed the openly marxist Warnock and is fully supportive of AOC amd her open borders policies.
Interestingly enough, it was a Meade / LLR Chuck 30 minute back and forth that completely exposed Chuck as the open borders moron that he really is.
Well done Meade. It remains a classic in the Annals Of Exposed FakeCons.
I've missed you too, Drago.
Howard: "I've missed you too, Drago."
You miss Soleimani much, much more.
And you were quite put out over the possibility that Trump removing 50 troops from Syria would lead to an "abandonment of the Kurds" (Fake News, no one was "abandoned") as well as a slaughter of the Kurds (Fake News, never happened) and you went on and on and on about that for weeks and weeks.
And it was all lies.
But here, in the real world, your boy is giving us the wholesale slaughter of thousands of American supporters and translators and the child sexual abuse and enslavement of their children and your response?
Meh. No big deal. It will be forgotten in 60 days I believe you wrote just a day or so ago.
How many Americans are still in Afghanistan Howard? 10,000 to 12,000, and naturally, Biden is not prioritizing Americans for repatriation. America Last, again.
Will you continue to laugh as gleefully as you have already when these Americans find themselves in implicit and explicit hostage situations?
You and LLR Chuck were made for each other.
"A slow-motion, boil-the-frog-slowly result is just as bad as the instantaneous fail."
A slow-motion boil would have given us time to get everyone out in a calm orderly manner. Not this mad dash, burn the flags, people parts in the wheel wells thing.
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