Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified Thursday that U.S. military officials did not give President Biden a “unanimous” recommendation to leave Afghanistan until 10 days after the fall of its capital city of Kabul.
This is the work of the infamous Blob, the foreign policy establishment made up of the Pentagon, Congress, think tanks, intelligence services, and private contractors. They always lobby for hawkish policies and their combined influence is all but impossible for a president to stand up to.
So it's notable that Biden did stand up to them. He knew what he wanted, and he stuck to his guns even in the face of intense contrary lobbying from both the domestic and foreign versions of the Blob. Any other president probably would have caved in—the generals are only asking for 2,500 troops!—but Biden understood the difference between zero and any other number, no matter how small. It's the difference that keeps forever wars going forever.
We're now out of Afghanistan, as we probably should have been years ago. I doubt that anyone else would have had the spine or the self confidence to get us out. Three cheers for Joe.
"Any other president probably would have caved in: that's unfair to Trump who did indeed sign a deal with the Taliban requiring a total withdrawal of the US. Now he wanted out of Syria and caved to the blob and hadn't lifted a finger to achieve his may 1st deadline making it physically impossible to achieve before he left office, but I actually think he might have gotten the US out at about the same time as Biden did.
Do you honestly think "I'm never a loser" Trump would have pulled out, knowing how inevitably awful the visual would be, just as we saw? No way. The right thing to do was to get out, and get as many of our allies within the country out as we could. But it was going to be messy. I was going to look like a humiliating retreat. That's how wars like this always end. Biden had the nerve t accept that. Trump never would. Ever.
"Do you honestly think "I'm never a loser" Trump would have pulled out, knowing how inevitably awful the visual would be, just as we saw? No way"
And you're exactly right. That's why it didn't get done. Someone would told him he'd be another Jerry Ford with helicopters on the roof of the embassy just like in Saigon and that's all that would have convinced him to hold back or not push the "blob" to keep his policy goals and I imagine that's probably why it didn't get done even though he wanted it.
Amazing, this life. It was 15 years ago, late in 2006 when I came to support Ron Paul for President in my radical salad days because he was the only politician running for that office calling for the end to "forever wars". Fifteen years later, the epitome of the epitome of the establishment, Joe Biden of all people is the one who ends them. Maybe its because he's the only person who could have gotten elected to do so. Maybe he's the only person whose got enough of a political antenna to understand one of the reasons we got Trump is that your median voter, the kind that lives in Scranton, PA where Biden is from, got tired of forever wars too and voted for the candidate who also promised to end them. Maybe as an establishment centrist he was the only one who could have stood up to the "blob" in comparison to Trump.
As someone who has become a centrist myself after seeing how both extremes work, the best than can be said about being in the middle is yes the traffic comes at you from both sides but at least you're not following their vehicles off a cliff and can't get out no matter which direction they're going. You can dodge things. And if you're smart enough to understand what the voters want and do it instead of being bogged down by all your ideology, fears and hates, maybe you can get some things done to benefit them, like ending forever wars.
Indeed three cheers for Old Joe
To be fair, Ol' Ronny Newsletter wouldn't have withdrawn from Afghanistan, either.
Trump got his peace deal headlines, and that was all he cared about.
Yup, and made sure someone else would be set up to be the fall guy. A while back I read an article about that being a major factor in understanding tRump - he is terrified of failure, but is terrible at doing just about anything requiring attention and sustained effort - so he sets things up to fail - but in a way that lets him blame someone else. Problem solved!
It worked reasonably well when he just let the organization set up by his father run on automatic. As soon as he decided he wanted to be an actual developer, he hit his glass ceiling.
Yes. Trump did get the withdrawal teed up. I give him some credit for that.
I don't. Signing a deal was never the hard part of leaving Afghanistan (particularly if you don't care what was in the deal). The hard part was actually friggin' leaving--resisting the endless pressure of the Blob, shrugging off the screaming pundits and the blaring headlines, staying the course till the job was done.
Trump had four years to do that. He didn't. You don't deserve credit for the job you *might* have done if you hadn't been fired.
PIVOT!!
Dude had four years to pull out and didn't.
Coulda, woulda, if only, maybe.
Trump had four years to get us out of Afghanistan. If it were a priority for him, and he were willing to take the PR hit, he could have made it happen on his watch. He didn't, and left it to Biden. Just as Obama could have made it happen, but left it to Trump; and Bush could have made it happen, but left it to Obama.
Biden was the one who said "No more" and actually went through with it.
Biden got us out in the first year of his presidency. Trump got us out … when?
In the first year of Biden's presidency.
I would suggest that the way trump "negotiated" an exit ( refusing to include the governing body) meant he never intended to leave Afghanistan, unilaterally changing "the terms" as he historically always did.
El Jefe never got fitted for concrete footwear by the NY mob. The Taliban wouldn't have been able to touch him, either.
Given the theory in Q circles that joebiden is a fake president not-governing from a 2/3 scale White House replica at Tyler Perry Studios, clearly it was duly reelected President El Jefe Maximo de Maralago who ordered the complete & total withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan with nary a hitch. (The 13 dead at Hamid Karzai International were crisis actors meant to convey the disorder of a Democrat president spearheaded withdrawal. The untainted Jefe withdrawal saw not one drop of blood, nor even mild injury (like a sprained ankle), occur.)
The media continues with its narrative that this is Jimmy Carter's second term. Its reporting of Milley's evidence has been atrociously dishonest, braying that the president lied when he said nobody told him to leave 2,500 troops in Afghanistan.
Milley actually said he favored leaving "several thousand", but more tellingly, this is what the president actually said: he didn't recall anyone telling him “We should just keep 2,500 troops. It’s been a stable situation for the last several years. We can do that. We can continue to do that.”
Every report I've seen claims Biden denied being told to just keep 2,500 troops, when it's very obvious he denied being told the status quo was sustainable. Which is bleedin' obvious, because nobody with any sense ever suggested it was.
The media wants Trump back so badly, it hurts.
I don't think they want Trump back. They want the old times back when it was ok to criticize a Democratic president for being excessively dovish and praise a Republican president even when was stupidly hawkish.
But also say the GQP White House aspirant was actually the man to end the war, e.g. Nixon's secret plan to end the war in Viet Nam, & more recently, "Donald the Dove, Hillary the Hawk".
I strongly suspect that anybody telling the POTUS something that they KNEW he was not going to like used maximum weasel-wording and circumlocutions intended to provide maximum deniability.
Pres. Biden may have got the message, ignored it, and is probably too polite (usually) to tell the press: "Yeah, they pussy-footed around the troops staying, and I ignored the f'n idiots."
I doubt that anyone else would have had the spine or the self confidence to get us out.
I think also that, to quote Charlie Pierce, Joe has looked in his Big Bag of Fks and discovered he has no more to give.
Good on Joe. A president with cahonies!
That's "cojones."
I'm totally going with "cahonies."
El Pepe Maximo is a teetotaler, but if he ever finds himself at the tapas bar on Calle Princesa in Madrid with the clear glass jug labelled "licor de cojones" on a piece of masking tape, I will buy him as many shots as he could drink.
**********SEVERELY OFF TOPIC************
Since Kevin doesn't like COVID anymore
In MASS from 9/18 through 9/25 they had 11,137 NEW cases of COVID. 4,378 or 39% OF THE NEW CASES were breakthrough cases
We are 9 months out from the bulk rollout of vaccines, starting with Pfizer
IF the vaccines work and we all agree they do - then how many people had mild break through cases but never tested because they thought it was just a cold?
The press :OVES to say its only 0.08% of the 4.1M that are vaccinated but that is wrong too - we are talking CURRENT cases
Now when the vaccine strength is wearing off we are seeing more vaccinated people getting cases of COVID.
If the case of COVID is bad enough to make you want to get tested? AGAIN?
Hmmmmmmm..........
Cases are irrelevant. It's actual illness that results in medical treatment that matter. Natural immunity kill outbreaks eventually. Educate yourself.
77% of the population in Massachusetts has had at least one dose of a vaccine, and 67% is fully vaccinated. You may notice that both of those numbers are a lot higher than 39%. And only 26% of those hospitalized are vaccinated.
Aside from which, those raw numbers aren't the whole story. It's important to control them by the age of the person with covid. The older you are, the more likely you are to have symptoms, which means that you are more likely to get tested. And the older you are, the more likely you are to be hospitalized or die, even if you are vaccinated. And the older you are, the more likely you are to be vaccinated. So, that will skew the raw numbers to make it look like the vaccine is less effective than it is.
From the Mass covid dashboard:
https://www.mass.gov/doc/weekly-report-covid-19-cases-in-vaccinated-individuals-september-28-2021/download
They had, in ONE WEEK a 4000+ break through case LOAD. That accounts for a 13% rise in break throughs IN ONE WEEK !!!
Their cumulative breakthrough rate is still at 0.80% - which happens to correspond to the Israeli study showing PFizers weakening protection. If we are looking at trends this should frighten the crap out of people who got the Pfizer vaccine because the dates of vaccine rollout in MASS are noted in very fine print at the bottom:
*Vaccination began December 14, 2020; the earliest date at which individuals would be considered fully vaccinated is January 19, 2021"
But if you really want to rely on this data take it with a grain of salt as well:
'Note: Identification of cases in vaccinated people relies on matching data between the system of record for cases and vaccinations. The number of cases in vaccinated people may be undercounted due to discrepancies in the names and dates of birth of individuals, resulting in an inability to match records across systems. Hospitalization data is likely also undercounted as identification and reporting of hospitalized cases relies on that information being obtainable by case investigators through patient interview"
We are still very early in this pandemic and Pfizer was the first to come out in any great numbers. I've said it before and I will say it again:
Pfizer came out first and all 4 vaccines ere designed for variants A & B.
The protection longevity was UNKNOWN at that time
Moderna and J&J re stronger vaccines
And DELTA screwed everything up
Our private health care system is great however in national outbreaks we fail miserably as data is spread across 50 states each with it's own system and within those states they have varying systems
AGain from Mass covid dashboard
https://www.mass.gov/info-details/covid-19-response-reporting#covid-19-interactive-data-dashboard-
In the last two weeks only
Age 60 and above accounted for 562 hospitalizations
Age 20 to 60 accounted for 475
The numbers are shifting right in front of our faces to a younger crowd. To ignore this is dangerous on our part
Oddly from the graph the 30 to 39 year olds have higher hospitalization number than the 40 - 49 year old age group. I'm sure this an anomaly.
DELTA is changing the game here. And we are "stuck" in Alpha and Beta mode - just like Pfizer is.
And please read the footnotes to these reports. The hospitalization reports includes ONLY those that had confirmed COVID diagnosis prior to being hospitalized. Those that tested positive while in the hospital are NOT INCLUDED
So the crowd that blithely lived their lives thinking COVID was no big deal - never gets tested - then goes to the hospital when they get sick and THEN test positive? They don't count here
Want to take world view?
The Economist:
“Although covid-19 vaccines are still scarce in poor countries, rich ones enjoy a plentiful supply. In the European Union, nearly three-quarters of adults have been fully vaccinated. In Britain the figure exceeds 80%. And as vaccination rates have climbed, deaths have fallen. In the EU, daily deaths in excess of those in normal years have tumbled by more than 90% since their peak in November. In Britain, they are down by 95% since January, to just less than one per 1 million people.”
“There is, however, one big exception to this story. America is recording nearly 2,000 covid-19 deaths a day… That is only 40% below the country’s January peak. But the true death toll is even worse. The Economist’s excess-deaths model… suggests that America is suffering 2,800 pandemic deaths per day, with a plausible range of 900 to 3,300, compared with 1,000 (150 to 3,000) in all other high-income countries, as defined by the World Bank. Adjusting for population, the death rate is now about eight times higher in America than in the rest of the rich world.”
We, as a nation are abysmal failures at this.
"Oh but it's mostly the old and infirmed Vog"
Got it.................why are we so far behind?
Vaccinations simply reduce the load on medical facilities. Nobody ever said vaccines would block all infections. The ignorant extrapolation that vaccines would eliminate infections is silly, even to me, a non-medical person. Example. To think that a flu vaccine will eliminate getting the flu is not borne by any data wahtsoever..
Even when COVID made it's appearance in the US, we knew that as many as 20% of unvaccinated humans initially would show little or no symptoms, though infected. Think it through.
I didn't say or imply vaccines eliminate the virus
The problem many have is that the more people that have ANY form of the virus (asymptomatic, mild or serious) the greater the chances of mutations happening.
Already we have seen several mutations that have come AFTER Delta. Some evade the protections provided by the vaccines. Delta itself has already spawned 12 variants that are similar to the original Delta making them Delta still but each offering a different genome.
The trick to this is to get everyone sick or vaccinated in a relatively short period of time so that MOST of the population is at peak immune protection simultaneously, or as close as can be.
That has not happened. We are 9 months out of vaccine bulk rollout with the initial one being Pfizer. British scientists noted that Pfizers protection was diminishing at 20% PER MONTH while Astrazeneca, Moderna, and J&J's protections didn't begin to weaken until 6 months, and their weakening is slower.
Hawaii is at 75% fully vaccinated. That was the original level that was to trigger a relaxation in their CV restrictions. Their hospital system is straining under the increase in cases. The governor has suggested 75% is not nearly high enough and is leaving it up to individual communities to relax restrictions if they can. So far few are doing so.
So, given how many people object to masks in public. Given how many people are anti vaxx folks
How many people will line up for 3rd shots?
We are, our own worst enemy in this case. Almost 700,000 dead.
If THAT many had died in 'Nam? There'd have been a revolution here
Vog,
FYI. You are our of date re Hawaii. They did have a concerning spike of cases but have been rapidly decreasing lately . Hospitalizations and icu also dropping fast now. Not really a crisis at 72% icu. Their big spike up was scary how fast it was but it also came down real fast . Not sure why that spike in Hawaii was so steep .
What is happening in Alaska? Their cases are really really high and only looking to have maybe peaked recently. But Hospitalization and icu usage does not seem quite as bad as you would expect with those numbers. Is the high case count partially due to high testing catching a higher percentage of cases ?
I would note Alaska has most rapidly cooling weather this time of year. Plus they have a substandard vaccination rate after a good start . And also have lower than average natural immunity as they had done pretty well with prior waves. Three strikes against them for today.
Hawaii started vaccinating 12 year olds in May - May 12 to be exact.
From the Hawaii dept of health portal:
Who is currently eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine in Hawaii?
All Hawai‘i residents age 12 and above are eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine is not available for children age 11 and younger. However, more studies are underway and being reviewed to safely expand the eligibility for the vaccine.
The Hawai‘i Department of Health is following CDC recommendations in authorizing for use of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for those age 12 and older. The Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are available to those age 18 and older.
*******************************************
What is disturbing is that your use of trends "Their big spike up was scary how fast it was but it also came down real fast . Not sure why that spike in Hawaii was so steep"
But you too easily dismiss the trends in other places where the Pfizer vaccine has FAILED over time
If the UK doctors are right (along with the Israeli doctors) then Pfizer is losing its effectiveness far too quickly
lets use simple numbers. 100 being max immunity
at a loss of 20% per month you look like this
Month 1 - 100%
Month 2 = 80%
Month 3 - 64%
Month 4 -51.2%
Month 5 - 40.96%
Month 6 - 32.76%
And it was designed to work against variants A & B.
delta is 2.5 times as contagious as those 2 variants.
What we are seeing is the early vaccines wearing off far too
quickly and Pfizer was the first to roll out
As indicated in the Mass COVID portal they started administering Pfizer in Dec 2020 with the first fully vaccinated being on Jan 16 2021. THOSE FOLKS have little to no protection left against a new strain that is 2.5 times MORE contagious (DELTA) than the Alpha or Beta strains they were getting vaccinated for.
That means for all intents and purposes the Delta variant has a GROWING list of potential victims
It's no wonder the Israelis are pushing for round 3 and 4 shots already.
Vog,
If it was all vaccine slowly losing effectiveness, I think you would expect a slower increase and an even slower decrease. But you see such a sharp case spike and that is more consistent with it still bring mostly driven by those with no immunity - unvaccinated who never had covid. And this last wave delta just seems to eat up that small pool of people frighteningly fast and , once it starts running out , cases plummet.
Even with all the decrease in vaccine effectiveness, still looks like it might be good enough to leave spread rate near 1.0 with delta , with natural immunity even better and double immunity the best . So you have the only vaccinated group near neutral with spread, natural and double below 1.0, all being offset by the shrinking group with no immunity, who are just getting eaten up by delta. Once they are almost gone, as long as you have some with natural immunity, delta goes down.
And I was not saying you were outdated re Hawaii by vaccination, but in cases increasing and hospitals being overwhelmed . But Hawaii, which came into delta wave with great vaccination rates but lower natural immunity ( and favorable weather) is a decent example of your point that phizer vaccine is just not enough to stop delta. Still needs to infect enough to get a good amount of natural immunity.
And vaccines were not developed for alpha or beta , they were for original. Which makes your point there even stronger. But see little evidence delta affected the vaccine effectiveness a lot. It just is more contagious for both vaccinated and unvaccinated .
If delta is 2.5 times more infectious than prior for unvaccinated and same 2.5 times for vaccinated, effectiveness is unchanged even though chance of breakthrough case 2.5 times higher.
There is NO EVIDENCE to support your statement below that natural immunity is better. SORRY
And with vaccine effectiveness waning quickly for those that got Pfizer break through cases are surging in Mass compared to previous variants.
The ONLY way we could tell if natural immunity was IS better is if we tested EVERYONE. We didn't.
Only those that ADMIT to having COVID in the past are counted.
WE KNOW how the vaccines work and Hawaii started vaccinated children MUCH earlier than other states did.
We do not know and even what we DO KNOW is knowingly under counting.
Interesting article here"
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/30/biden-officials-covid-boosters-disagreement-514766
sniop:
The Biden team’s deliberations have intensified in recent days, as officials scrutinize the incomplete and sometimes conflicting data on vaccines’ performance. One group, including some scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, argues that boosters aren’t capable of blocking all infection, the sources said. They think additional vaccine doses should be given only as needed to reduce cases of severe illness and death. Another group — including Biden’s chief medical adviser, ******Anthony Fauci — says the government should not rule out using boosters to help stave off even mild Covid-19 infections that can keep people out of work for weeks. ********
Snip
The growing tension among the president’s top Covid-19 advisers raises questions about whether the goals of the nation’s vaccination campaign are changing, and the degree to which******** breakthrough infections may be inevitable.*****
snip
For months, administration officials have grappled with how to interpret and respond to domestic and international data that suggest available vaccines’ effectiveness against infection, ******and in some cases hospitalization, is beginning to wane.**********
snip
especially if vaccine efficacy falls off dramatically over the next several months as it did in Israel. But federal officials do not have solid data, particularly domestic data, that spells out exactly how long boosters last and which populations would benefit. That muddies any risk-benefit calculations.
snip
Through it all, Fauci has been vocal about his thinking on boosters, saying Israeli data is clear: Vaccine efficacy against ********mild and moderate illness is decreasing,****** and boosters are the solution.
.........Without wide use of strict public health measures like frequent testing, and in light of the country’s relatively low vaccination rate, officials said they are still struggling to develop a long-term pandemic strategy.....
*****************************************************
The article really brings forth my arguments quite nicely
We didn't test enough
And still aren't
We aren't vaccine'd enough
And never will be
We are looking at another wave
Just as effacy is wearing off and it will not prevent many mild or moderate cases either
And Faucci says people could be out of work for WEEKs because of all of this
SNIP
I saw several TV news reports today showing clips of Biden and Milley back-to-back, and making it appear that Biden was simply lying through his teeth about the 2500 troops advice. I haven't seen enough of either clip to have any context on this, but it looks as if The Media wants to have a gotcha on Joe.
And Mr. Drum, I really like your take on the withdrawal. Any number other than zero troops would have kept U.S. involvement going, and it was already past forever.
My immediate reaction to the recommendation for 2,500 troops: What's the mission? How do you protect them? What's the exit strategy?
The Taliban had made it clear that it would be open season on any US troops on the ground after the agreed upon withdrawal date. We lost a dozen troops during the withdrawal to an ISIS bomber who made it past Taliban checkpoints. How was Biden supposed to answer for the dozen*s* who would have likely been killed in open firefights and suicide bombings with the Taliban had we decided to stay? What the Blob was actually asking for in that case was 2500 ground troops, plus thousands of contractors, drones, AF cover and so on to provide security in a renewed hot war with the Taliban. Biden couldn't -- and wouldn't -- do that.
The mission was embassy protection & occasional excursion to the outskirts to put out Talib fires in the hinterland.
Most embassies only require a small detachment of Marines, but in AfPak, with a battle waged so ably & committedly by Arbustillo, the situation was secure enough to require almost a whole company of Leatherbacks.
Leatherbacks? The fighting turtles?-)
Leathernecks…
So if Biden seemed uncharacteristically short-tempered and snappish and beleaguered the last couple weeks of August, which he certainly seemed to me, it was likely because he was continually getting hammered all month from all directions about how he needed to maintain just a teeny number of our people there, so few no one would hardly notice, and he was getting sick and tired of trying to persuade people and got to the part where it was just "what part of withdraw don't you understand" and "I've made my decision and we're done, dammit, that's that. It's over. Just do it."
All in all, a pretty tough cookie.
This is actually the only totally good, correct, and moral thing done by any president in my lifetime. I was born in 1979. Congrats to Biden for that. It impresses me in a way I wouldn’t have guessed he would be able to.
If somehow he gets both of these bills pushed through Congress, he will be unquestionably the most useful president of my lifetime.
He is far from perfect and there is a lot that can change, but he has the potential to be surprisingly effective. One of the first things he has going for him is fighting the so called “moderates” and actually playing ball with whatever you can call the furthest left wings of the party.
"This is the work of the infamous Blob, the foreign policy establishment made
up of the Pentagon, Congress, think tanks, intelligence services, and private
contractors. They always lobby for hawkish policies and their combined
influence is all but impossible for a president to stand up to."
I heard a few "wonks" make this argument but it was always vacuous and vague. As if, somehow, terrorists had no other place, in the entire world except Afghanistan, to become terrorists, and our leaving meant the world would now be overrun with terrorist's.
It was, arguably, more frustrating than listening to R's talk about the national debt.
Sorry for the formatting. We could use some HTML commenting functions here.
You can use basic markup: etc.
Good luck asking for comment enhancements, though.
Haha. Tried to display a few HTML tags, but since they weren't closed, they didn't appear at all.
I think it was Eisenhower who mentioned the MIC, now seemingly called the BLOB. "The more things change, the more they remain the same."
Malcolm Moos wrote the speech in which Eisenhower made that comment. An article I read mentioned that originally the statement was "the military, industrial, CONGRESSIONAL, complex.
So instead of being snookered:
https://jabberwocking.com/was-president-biden-snookered-over-afghanistan/ He was standing up to the Blob? And presumably just had a touch of forgetfulness when saying no one was suggesting remaining? https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/28/top-generals-afghanistan-withdrawal-congress-hearing-514491
I haven’t watched the interview either, but on MSNBC just now they showed biden press secretary giving larger context to the few words you put in quotes. Maybe it’s worth reviewing the entire interview.
Well, actually there isn’t a contradiction in the general saying that he voiced his opinion, and Biden saying he doesn’t recall hearing it. McKenzie said he was “ confident that the president heard all the recommendations and listened to them very thoughtfully”. I doubt he has direct access to Biden’s mental processes, however, and human memory I’d imperfect. This is all beside the point anyway; a majority agrees with Biden that it is well past time to leave. Meaning we think the generals were wrong and the President was correct on the substance. Frankly, from his Vice Presidency into his current Presidency, he probably stopped listening to the generals on Afghanistan some time ago.
Yeah, only 2,500 troops...
What contractors???
No, we wouldn't need another surge as the Taliban started to attack us again for not leaving...
The "deal" was done by trump and did not include the government (including the Afghan military) of Afghanistan. Any pullout was set to fail by trump. I'd say President Biden handled it pretty well.
El Jefe Maximo is a troublestarter, punkin' instigator...
I’m So glad that US troops are out of Afghanistan. It’s a shame that democrats can’t admit how much the endless wars limit their ability to fund programs to support actual Americans. When manchin complains about debt… when the debt ceiling foolishness threaten the economy… Democrats still can’t bring themselves to cut defense spending even a little bit. I don’t get it.
The reason for leaving 2500 troops in Afghanistan was so the Taliban would attack them giving reason for sending more troops.
dd-
Maybe that is it
But then again there was no way to get out of Afghanistan UNLESS we did it the way we did
Tactically speaking the only way to get out of a land locked country is to
EASY WAY - retreat across a border which couldn't happen
or
HARD WAY - fly out
You save as much equipment as you can move when you simply cross a border OR put ships in a port to take out entire armored brigades at one time. That option was not available to us here. We had it in 'Nam and we had an ally that knew how to use the equipment we left behind. They fought for 2 years after our military left.
In Afghanistan the military didn't fight at all and the president of the country left before the last U.S. soldier did.
President Trump was right while he was in office. He was NOT In favor of never ending wars with a supposed ally that he clearly did not trust. Our supply lines were too long and even though we had control of the airspace our activities were monitored by Taliban favored neighboring countries. I am surprised we lost so few lives during the evac. The soldiers there KNEW what could happen and they did their job admirably.
The problem we are seeing now is that the lives lost are more useful as political tools than accepted as fine soldiers who died serving their country.
THAT is what changed from 'Nam going forward. AFter the MacArthur debacle in Korea where the military over rode the citizen control and then got China involved, the civilian leadership has proven inadequate in handling military affairs. They wanted to play nice in Vietnam to avoid another Korean debacle. We could not chase NVA soldiers into Laos. We did not want to bomb anything that might impact civilians like power stations, water stations etc. Heck we debated bombing and mining Haiphong harbor for forever it seemed.
The civilian control over the military is tenuous but needed.
Afghanistan was, and remains, a mistaken military incursion
We were "lucky" to have so few casualties