A friend of mine sent me Andrew Sullivan's latest essay on Afghanistan and it was about what you'd expect: The withdrawal is a clusterfuck, but President Biden deserves credit for sticking to his guns and getting us out anyway.
However, I was struck by this line, which I've seen in lots of places over the past few days:
Of course, we should have gotten our people out before the Taliban’s imminent victory — all the Americans and every single Afghan who helped us. That we didn’t is horrifying. To contemplate this betrayal is to shudder.
I'm not going to pretend that I know anything about the logistics of a large-scale evacuation under military pressure, but I do wonder if the people saying stuff like this have really thought it through.
Here's the reality: Initially, Biden had no choice except to express confidence in the Afghan government and its military. Anything else really would have been a profound betrayal. But the moment he started a panicked evacuation of American and Afghan personnel, the jig was up. That would be an unmistakable signal not just that we were serious about withdrawing, but that we no longer had any confidence in the ability of Ghani and the Afghan military to hold off the Taliban. The collapse of the country would have followed within a day or two, no matter when Biden started the evacuation.
This is meant as neither criticism nor defense of Biden. It's just the way things are. I'm not sure he had nearly as much freedom of action as people think he did.
I fear folks open mouth and wag their tongues before engaging their brains. But then, how many of the folks that blather minutia actually have critical thinking skills.... Nada.
Surprised we havn't seen the alt-left touting that BERNIE WOULDN'T HAVE BOTCHED THE AFGHANISTAN WITHDRAWAL.
More likely, BERNIE WOULD NEVER HAVE GOTTEN US BOGGED DOWN IN AFGHANISTAN!!! Sure, it's a retcon. Republicans aren't the only ones who can be delusional.
I agree. So do a number of people who have written about this. Biden really had no choice but to pretend he trusted the Afghans. This would even have been true if the assessment had been that our puppet regime in Kabul would collapse immediately.
As to that assessment itself maybe it was too influenced by wishful thinking. Maybe Biden with his experience should have spotted this. Maybe he did spot it. Even then he could not evacuate people prematurely.
On the other hand: The military had enough time to come up with a worst case scenario plan for evacuations that might come in handy now. And they clearly never did.
I think the military didn’t come up with a better plan because they naturally assumed that Biden would relent and authorize a new “surge”. And that horrific and heartbreaking photos reminiscent of the fall of Saigon, combined with Taliban massacres of Americans and afghans would force Biden’s hand so he’d be forced to re-invade.
I have read that the military under that former guy, that old retiree in Florida, just assumed that the whole "Taliban Deal" was bogus, that the US would stay in Afghanistan indefinitely, and to not sweat the preparations for a withdrawal that wouldn't happen.
I think that’s true. It’s interesting that they rolled two president even having known for more than ten years that the situation was hopeless but we’re prepared to keep the gravy train rolling indefinitely.
That was obvious when the "former guy" negotiated only with the Taliban, locking out the Afghanistan government.
It’s obviously impossible to know from the outside looking in whether an Èvian accord situation in which we are expressly permitted to evacuate Afghans who assisted us was possible. There are some press reports that the Biden administration felt constrained not by the Taliban but rather by the nativist Republican reaction to bringing, as Tucker would say, “dirty foreigners” to this country.
From what I gather, the administration was blindsided by both the treachery of the military and the astonishingly hypocritical attacks on honoring the deal that Trump negotiated and Republicans had spent months praising. If that’s the case, the Biden administration was immoral, incompetent, and downright stupid.
The Biden administration might have felt constrained by what they anticipated to be a " naturist republican reaction " to the refugees. But not by any actual such reaction as far as I can see.
I expect as in other cases of refugees from enemy " bad guys " , when it is the democrats who are perceived as causing or managing the retreat, the Republicans are the ones who are more likely to welcome the refugees. Although for Republicans they will welcome more the interpreters and others who helped the us army vs the westernized govt beurocrats.
And, for Republicans just interested in crass political considerations, hard to make political hay about any biden mistakes in evacuating them if you object to them being resettled here.
I would say the real possible deterrent here has nothing to do with conservative republican reaction . Why should biden care? Not losing any votes therr over any of this no matter as no biden votes there to lose . And same for what partisan democrats think- they are voting democratic anyway.
What matters is the few people in the middle whose votes are up for grabs. They do tend to be more politically apathetic and uninformed than partisans on either side. Both democratic and republican partisans ( whose views matter less) are more likely to support these refugees than those in the middle whose views do really matter.
For reasons that nobody outside of the beltway understands, the Democratic Party has been obsessed with the reactions and thoughts of people who would not vote for them under any circumstances. I also think that the Biden people felt like they’d be insulated from political attacks from the right because of the consistent support for Trump’s stance that the forever wars should end. Also, a strongly held way of thinking in the upper echelons of the Democratic Party.
The only thing difficult to understand is how Left manages to convince itself that only people who would never vote for the Democrats would have certain reactions (such as nativist anti-immigrant or reaction to Defund Police or criminal opportunism in looting around BLM [with excuse making around that]). It's rather evidently not true most particularly in "purple" districts. Of course like the Tea Partiers living in "solid red" bubbles....
Well, actually, they're already screaming about Biden bringing in hundreds of thousands of Moslem terrorists to kill us all.
Which Republicans? Yes, there have been some questioning it including some legit concerns, such as how we vet to make sure a terrorist does not sneak through ( to me, they just need to give you some American they worked with to vouch for them).
But no " screaming " and the large majority of Republicans have been supportive and basically all the leadership including trump and McConnell. Most of the skepticism had come from the gadflies and unpredictable eccentrics like Tucker.
And there has been opposition in liberal circles too, article on Brookings I just saw.
I would guess you see a good deal of opposition among blacks as they are usually anti immigration.
And note no big surprise if biden himself is quite reluctant on accepting such refugees. That is consistent with what his world view has always been. Him sticking to withdrawal is what you would have expected from biden.
This is the guy who was one of the minority strongly opposed to accepting refugees from Vietnam ( most democrats in 75 wanted out of Vietnam but were willing to accept refugees but not biden).
And this is the guy who advised Obama to not go with the operation to get bin laden.
You do not need to invent reasons of political concerns why biden would be reluctant to accept refugees. On issues like that, he is more of an America firster like trump.
There will be plenty of opposition from the ordinary American citizen less politically involved and less from the political elite of either side.
"the large majority of Republicans have been supportive and basically all the leadership including trump and McConnell"
""This plane should have been full of Americans. America First!" -- Donald Trump, 8/18/21
I generally agree with Kevin here. There is an inherent tension in trying to get everyone out and doing so in an orderly way while the govt holds on to make it possible. Trying to evacuate will itself prompt an earlier collapse.
Some on dc and in the media just do not seem to understand that obvious fact. To whoever biden to somehow evacuate everyone before the govt collapse is unrealistic.
Now there were still other things we could have done and still a screw up. We could have done some draw down quietly and In a manner that would not prompt a collapse. Like maybe not rotate replacements In , which we were still doing a month ago. And at least start preparing for the evacuation more.
But also there are two alternatives.
We could have accepted the govt collapse and just sent enough us troops to ourselves control the areas we need to evacuate . Not really as bad as you might think. You consolidate the evacuees in a limited number of cities first, which starts the govt collapse as that signals you are leaving. For real. But should be able to get that done before. Then have the us troops, not Afghan, to hold those cities without Afghan govt help for long enough to finish evacuation. Not trying to control or pacify the whole country. Just enough us troops to hold cities and airports against 75,000 taliban scattered around the country, very poorly armed compared to us and with no air support or defense. 20,000 us troops are likely enough. And that is if the taliban would try to fight us. I doubt they would. If we were conceding the country to them after a month anyway, why get huge casualties trying to disrupt our evacuation.
Another option is real dirty. Pretend us policy is to stay and help the Afghan govt survive but only hold a few cities. But with a lower profile and far less us citizens there. So beef up us troops a little like you are keeping them there and evacuate as many as are viable with that plan . Then switch gears and pullout rest fast ( i.e. above strategy but after a lot already out). So basically lie and trick the Afghan govt army into continuing to fight for longer.
On my understanding, the contemporary US way of war presented an insoluble dilemma. The military depends on civilian contractors to function; indeed there are more civilians supporting the military than there are actual soldiers. If you evacuate the civilians, the military can't fight. And if you keep them to empower the military, you can't evacuate them in a timely manner.
True to some extent.
But there were also a lot of American civilians supporting non military Afghan govt functions and people like diplomatic staff that are not needed for military. And even those like Christian missionaries that have nothing to do with either ( I sure would hate to be a missionary left behind now and most of them were outside of Kabul and many did not leave). You could have pulled out missionaries by us govt order as a " non provocation measure " without seemingly abandoning anything.
Count civilian contractors really essential for military operations as part of the military in the above analysis.
The Taliban took major cities very quickly. Kabul could possibly have been fortified by US troops -- but we really need an analysis of what the realistic military options might have been for a more orderly evacuation.
I also wonder about the role of Milley and military higher-ups on the ground. Operations like these need tight buy-in and coordination.
A lot of what is happening now may have been baked in before Biden took office.
If Biden had done what his critics now propose, it would have been a political gift to Republicans. The media would have slammed him mercilessly for being so defeatist he was to blame for the defeat.
The only safe political option for him was to repudiate the Trump deal and send 15,000 troops back to Afghanistan to prop Ghani up for another four years, although even that might not have worked. https://thediplomat.com/2021/08/the-myth-of-a-sustainable-stalemate-in-afghanistan/
The only safe political option for him was to repudiate the Trump deal and send 15,000 troops back to Afghanistan
I believe the politically safe course of action was to proceed as he has done. Get us out of there quickly, as far in advance of the midterms as possible. In pure Machiavellian terms, the sensible thing was to take the hit now*. I don't know if that was Biden's own calculus or not. But I suspect it was. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if many a Republican was banking on a slow, tortuous withdrawal that provided plenty of politically damaging headlines well into 2022.
And actually increasing our military footprint in Afghanistan over the next year (with a concomitant increase in causalities and expense) strikes me as far riskier than pulling out, especially in light of the fact that Trump had engineered an exit agreement (and so Republicans in that scenario could have blamed Biden for extending an unpopular war).
*The biggest political danger to Biden as I see it is the potential effect the Afghanistan situation might have on his legislative agenda. These two things obviously by rights should be completely unrelated. But in the real world, perceptions as to a president's political strength and favorability ratings might well have an effect on his ability to get legislation through Congress.
I believe if he'd said the Taliban was making no good faith efforts to join a new power-sharing government, and therefore the Trump/Pompeo deal was a non-starter, all but the Trump Republican base would have accepted his decision. The latter would have shrieked criticism whatever he did.
Anyway it's all academic now, but I'd love the White House to leak unedited transcripts of the conversations the former guy says he had with Taliban leaders.
I believe if he'd said the Taliban was making no good faith efforts to join a new power-sharing government, and therefore the Trump/Pompeo deal was a non-starter, all but the Trump Republican base would have accepted his decision.
Agreed. And Biden certainly wasn't facing any pressure in Congress from what I can see to expedite a withdrawal (or indeed to follow through on Trump's agreement).
What I'm getting at is: had Biden decided to reverse course, the Taliban would have attacked forcefully, and a major increase in the Pentagon's footprint there would have been necessary. So, eventually (spring of '22?) we'd have seen an increase in US causalities -- quite likely a fairly sharp increase. And that would likely have constituted a politically damaging turn of events. So, Biden's taking a hit now, but, longer term, I say this precipitous pullout -- as chaotic and messy as it may seem -- will end up being the politically prudent course of action (although we obviously don't have access to a parallel universe to test this).
Not to mention even if Biden had done that, and taken the political hit of continuing the War, not to mention the lives lost, it would have been for what? The Afghan State would have collapsed in 2023 or 2024 or 2025 or whenever it was exactly that US troops left. Biden would have been sending a new generation of troops to fight and die in a war he knew was already lost, Nixon style.
Thanks for the link. Very helpful article.
I think you forgot a zero. 150,000 troops. Plus assorted contractors.
If it had been started earlier (ie before we’d pulled out our troops) would it have indeed been “panicked?”
There is a special visa for those who helped our troops. Maddow reported that the Steven Miller wing of the Trump administration basically shut that processing down. People have been waiting, and dying, for years to get approval.
That process should have been expedited before the drawn down years ago.
As for anything else--so soldier wants to be the last one to die for a losing cause. And the "central gov't" was not viable. IF they had paid their soldiers, maybe it would have had some credibility.
Yes
What Kevin wrote.
People who get paid to for their takes are gonna produce their takes. The fact that not enough time has transpired to get some perspective ain't gonna stop them.
Well, my take is...what--no pay for this?....forget it then!
Kevin also said this was not meant as either a criticism or defense of biden.
That seems not very credible. Even if I accept that kevin did not intend it, of course it is a defense of biden . And imo a correct one.
The reason I have gravitated here is maybe that, unlike almost all other liberal democratic blogs, I could maybe see kevin posting the same thing if trump had pulled put just like this and was getting the same criticism.
And then a lot of the reflexive defend democrats attack republican commenters would be trashing him for doing so.
William Saletan’s take (via Digby) is a lot better than Sullivan’s:
https://digbysblog.net/2021/08/20/pompeos-surrender/
Sounds plausible.
I have always thought we should have recognized from the start that, in 2001 , we were intervening in a tribal civil war as much as an ideological one. Then the taliban base of support was mostly pashtun and the opposition mostly other tribes.
And, when we went in , we were , for good reason, intervening against the pasting in a tribal war. Yes there were "good" non taliban pashtun as there good non magic Germans in ww2. But to a great extent, the pashtun had to lose.
But, because " democracy " and pashtuns were a plurality, we pushed some to have a pashtun president like Karzai and not a minority tribe. And that marginalized the minorities from power yet again.
If this is true, and now the non pashtun minorities have swung over to the taliban in response, and we ended up converting the groups who were are allies to our enemies,
You have to really work at it to screw up that bad.
The scene is Bad Stadium Security X 10000
Taliban suck at crowd control
They have little experience & not enough people for the task.
They probably don't have contacts on their rolodex who could help them manage the crowd. Taliban should have recruited civilians to manage the crowd.
The US opened the venue (airport) without a process in place. No advance tickets. Not enough people to hand out the tickets or personnel to try to organize the rush at the gate. Neither the US nor the Taliban have enough crowd management personnel on site.
Panic at any venue is dangerous. Better prearrival management of refugees would help.
Situation improves when people are not panicked
In the end, most all who want to leave will depart in relative safety. There will be a few casualties mostly due to the panic overwhelming the process
"I'm not going to pretend that I know anything about the logistics of a large-scale evacuation under military pressure"
Every opinion piece on the withdrawal should begin with this sentence. If you read books about other military actions, especially retreats, you begin to have some appreciation for the complexity of the task.
People don't voluntarily leave their homes and countries until it is absolutely necessary, whatever the type of danger. There would have been a last-minute rush from the capitol, in particular, whenever the troops were withdrawn. You can't force people to leave whatever your military plans.
"This is meant as neither criticism nor defense of Biden. It's just the way things are. I'm not sure he had nearly as much freedom of action as people think he did."
No he didn't. Preversely, the Afghan army collapsing as it did and the leadership flee the country even with naive hope the government could hold out for three months at the least (so many said or wished) bolsters this argument. Any early, organized evacuation attempt would have to been done in secret and it's doubtful that could have been accomplished unnoticed. It would have simply ended in recriminations with charges of betrayal from Ghani and others in the government. Imagine you're a Afghan government soldier in the front lines and your buddy the translator for the Americans leaves for his free flight to the States with his family in tow. Would that have motivated you to fight harder against the Taliban? No but it would have been the perfect excuse to bug out because everyone else was, including the U.S.
The way it actually unfolded however, no matter than it made many look stupid with all their peppy talk about the Afghan government resisting for months, at least no one can say they were looking for early exits because everyone's claiming how the Administration procrastinated on this matter of refugees. In the short run it may look bad but the evac mission is successful, then its not going to matter how chaotic it was initially.
To put it another way, I think a simpler one, the tenuous and problematical status quo of recent years depended for its stability on the premise that the U.S. would be there indefinitely. Anything that seriously undercut that premise would quickly undercut that status quo. There was no real "move slower" option.
This I disagree with.
1. We could have surged US troops so that even if 2 thirds of the country fell the US could hold 1/3rd for a more orderly evacuation. Note: The country fell because as you said everyone knew once we left it was a house of cards.
We recommended the government do that (give ground, reconsolidate) but they refused. If we are the ones holding it, a number of Afghan forces would rally to us because holding a stable chunk while we evacuate leads to THEM evacuating too.
2. Related to that the government refused to arm and coordinate with the war lords so they all struck deals with the Taliban. If instead of leaving our gear we gave it to the warlords, say Massoud's kid who just retook a town or maybe even a five alarm basrard like Hekmatyar, they would have a better chance of holding a chunk of territory.
In short if we admitted publically what everyone knew already we could have taken steps to make the defeat less chaotic.
IF we'd started planning about 4 years ago, maybe. But TFG don't do plan, and as the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction stated in his latest report (Talking Points Memo reported on it), basically, the US has proposed and tried to implement unrealistic plans for 20 years with unrealistic goals, and unrealistic timetables, with very predictable results - failure. For 20 years they've failed to learn from that consistent record of failures, and there is no sign that they have any plans to learn.
The default for 20 years has been "kick the can down the road", do something else stupid, kick the can again.
When TFG and Pompeo went in negotiated an absolute and total surrender with no input from our supposed Afghan allies, that was the end. Signed and sealed in Feb 2020. It just had a time delay - "If you stop shooting at us we'll start removing people, and will have all Americans out by May 2021. BTW - TFG made no provision for evacuating Afghans who worked for the US. And they'd been blocking Visas for quite a while - and continued to do so after Feb 2020.
The Taliban had already retaken a lot of ground by 2020 - they just avoided cities. They had already started making deals with local groups to surrender or join. After the TFG/Pompeo surrender, that accelerated. By the time collapse of all the cities started - the Taliban had arranged pretty much all the details. And the former Afghan government and military are now meeting with the Taliban very comfortably - very nice pictures for the press too. President Ghani is reported to be negotiating his return with the Taliban.
All the Afghans knew the house of cards was going to fall - it was the senior US military who was in total denial and trying to say "just a little bit longer", "just a few more troops". President Biden made the right choice, and the chaos is on TFG, Pompeo, Stephen Miller, and especially our top brass. It was their duty to advise the president and present REALISTIC options. They failed. Miserably.
President Biden, as with the messed up vaccine distribution under TFG, is slowly cleaning up.