August 19, 2021 satellite imagery of Kabul, Afghanistan including the Hamid Karzai International Airport. Large crowds of people and cars can be seen gathered at multiple entrances and approaches to the airport.
Hot Take: Biden Betrayal
The advance of the Taliban across Afghanistan represents a betrayal and catastrophic failure by the US, UK and Nato, says Rory Stewart, a former UK International Development Secretary.
He told BBC World News that Western involvement in Afghanistan had involved around 2,500 troops supporting Afghan forces and air support. That support had confined the Taliban to the south for the country and the withdrawal of that support was “a betrayal”.
He said: “This is totally heart-breaking and totally unnecessary and there was no reason for us to do this, and by doing this we’ve broken Afghanistan in a matter of weeks.”
Taliban militants have continued their rapid offensive in the country seizing more territory and capturing key cities. The group now controls more than a third of its provincial capitals and most of northern Afghanistan.
Idiot: Why did we give away Bagram?
The entire Afghanistan situation is political and strategic malpractice, and it is curious if the J4 and loggies at CENTCOM/TRANSCOM were ever consulted at all.
Why is the situation in Kabul is so bad? Mainly, a single runway Kabul international airport sits in the middle of a city of 5 million.
Bagram Air Base (which was closed a month ago) sits 25 miles to the north, in an easily defensible area, multiple runways, secure perimeter. There is zero infrastructure to deal with the tens of thousands of refugees rushing Kabul International Airport.
The US left Bagram in the middle of the night. Up and disappeared. That was a voluntary choice, and it means the plan included evacuating tens of thousands out of a single runway airfield in the middle of a city.
The above images show Bagram. It’s surrounded by nothing. Flat ground. Fields. Bagram is an easy base to reinforce and from which to launch both rescue and punitive missions. The image in the upper right tile is Kabul.
Road distance between Charikar and Bagram is 20 km.
Also, if an enemy attacks the airport, they’re going to be attacking from the city. Urban warfare is the worst type of warfare. Incredibly hard to utilize air support, massive collateral damage.
History Note: 200 yrs ago the Poles explained to Napoleon why he should not go straight to Moscow. Ex Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs, who fought with Mujahedin against the Soviets, explained to the Americans why they should keep Bagram.
But who cares about ‘clever’ advice from eastern Europe?
Intelligence Warned of Afghan Military Collapse
WASHINGTON — Classified assessments by American spy agencies over the summer painted an increasingly grim picture of the prospect of a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and warned of the rapid collapse of the Afghan military, even as President Biden and his advisers said publicly that was unlikely to happen as quickly, according to current and former American government officials.
By July, many intelligence reports grew more pessimistic, questioning whether any Afghan security forces would muster serious resistance and whether the government could hold on in Kabul, the capital. President Biden said on July 8 that the Afghan government was unlikely to fall and that there would be no chaotic evacuations of Americans similar to the end of the Vietnam War.
Those who complained about Donald J. Trump going to Mar-a-Lago are awfully quiet on Joe Biden’s 18+ trips to Delaware.
The drumbeat of warnings over the summer raise questions about why Biden administration officials, and military planners in Afghanistan, seemed ill-prepared to deal with the Taliban’s final push into Kabul, including a failure to ensure security at the main airport and rushing thousands more troops back to the country to protect the United States’ final exit.
One report in July — as dozens of Afghan districts were falling and Taliban fighters were laying siege to several major cities — laid out the growing risks to Kabul, noting that the Afghan government was unprepared for a Taliban assault, according to a person familiar with the intelligence.
Intelligence agencies predicted that should the Taliban seize cities, a cascading collapse could happen rapidly and the Afghan security forces were at high risk of falling apart. It is unclear whether other reports during this period presented a more optimistic picture about the ability of the Afghan military and the government in Kabul to withstand the insurgents.
A historical analysis provided to Congress concluded that the Taliban had learned lessons from their takeover of the country in the 1990s. This time, the report said, the militant group would first secure border crossings, commandeer provincial capitals and seize swaths of the country’s north before moving in on Kabul, a prediction that proved accurate.
But key American decisions were made long before July, when the consensus among intelligence agencies was that the Afghan government could hang on for as long as two years, which would have left ample time for an orderly exit. On April 27, when the State Department ordered the departure of nonessential personnel from the embassy in Kabul, the overall intelligence assessment was still that a Taliban takeover was at least 18 months away, according to administration officials.
One senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the classified intelligence reports, said that even by July, as the situation grew more volatile, intelligence agencies never offered a clear prediction of an imminent Taliban takeover. The official said their assessments were also not given a “high confidence” judgment, the agencies’ highest level of certainty.
As late as a week before Kabul’s fall, the overall intelligence analysis was that a Taliban takeover was not yet inevitable, the official said.
The Taliban takes US military aircraft
WASHINGTON AP — Once the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan’s airfield in Kandahar on Friday, it didn’t take long for photos to appear on social media showing Taliban fighters posing with military helicopters such as U.S.-made Black Hawks and Soviet-made Mi-17s.
After the group took over Mazar-i-Sharif airport this weekend, more photos followed, this time of Taliban members standing next to an A-29 attack plane and MD-530 utility helicopter.
Now, with Afghanistan under Taliban control, the question is no longer whether the organization will gain access to the Afghan air force’s inventory of U.S.-provided planes and helicopters, but what it plans to do with them — and what the U.S. military can do in response.
The Afghan air force operated a total of 211 aircraft, with about 167 planes and helicopters available for use as of June 30, according to a July report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.
So far, the Defense Department has not confirmed how many of those aircraft have been captured by the Taliban, how many of that sum are still operable and how many aircraft have been safely flown by Afghan air force pilots to relative safety in neighboring countries.
During a briefing at the Pentagon on Monday, Maj. Gen. Hank Taylor, the Joint Staff deputy director for regional operations, said he had no information about whether the U.S. military would take steps to prevent aircraft or other military equipment from being captured or used by the Taliban.
US Citizens in Danger–told to avoid Kabul Airport
U.S. Embassy Kabul: “Because of potential security threats outside the gates at Kabul airport, we’re advising U.S. citizens to avoid traveling to the airport and to avoid airport gates at this time unless you receive individual instructions from a U.S. government rep to do so.”
Biden refused to listen to the advice of his top military officials
President Joe Biden is quickly proving that he is not only a threat to the safety of Americans, but he is also a threat to people throughout the world.
According to a bombshell report, Biden refused to listen to the advice of his top military officials and decided to move ahead with the disastrous US pullout in Afghanistan.
Biden allegedly overruled his generals who advised that he should keep 2,500 servicemen on the ground in Afghanistan to help with negotiations between Afghanistan and the Taliban. Instead, Biden decided to conduct a complete withdraw which led to a quick Taliban takeover who now control many US assets including weaponry, helicopters and other vehicles.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
In contrast to the numerous Trump policies he reversed, he opted to carry out Mr. Trump’s deal with the Taliban instead of trying to renegotiate it. In so doing, he overruled his top military commanders: Gen. Frank McKenzie, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East; Gen. Austin Scott Miller, who led NATO forces in Afghanistan; and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Citing the risks of removing American forces to Afghan security and the U.S. Embassy, they recommended that the U.S. keep 2,500 troops in Afghanistan while stepping up diplomacy to try to cement a peace agreement.
On Monday, the ongoing disaster in Afghanistan took a turn for the worse after U.S. troops shot and killed two armed men at Kabul’s Karzai International Airport as the evacuation took a screeching halt.
“U.S. troops shot and killed two armed men at Kabul’s international airport, according to a U.S. official. The armed men, who numbered at least two, approached U.S. troops deployed to the airport to provide security and assist Americans and other individuals in a safe departure from Afghanistan, the official said. Few details were available about how things transpired between the U.S. troops and the armed men, who weren’t identified,” The Wall Street Journal reported.
“The US military has suspended air operations at the Kabul airport while troops try to clear the airfield of Afghans who flooded the tarmac, per [CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr]. Biden’s national security advisers have made clear this a.m. they don’t consider the airport secure right now,” CNN’s Kaitlan Collins reported on Monday morning.
The Daily Wire reports on the crumbling situation in Afghanistan:
The Taliban took control of Bagram Air Base on Sunday, a former American airbase that the U.S turned over to the Afghanistan government last month.
The Taliban have reportedly released thousands of prisoners that were held at Bagram, including members of al Qaeda, the terror group that carried out the 9-11 attacks and prompted the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Bagram was under control of the U.S. military for roughly two decades before leaving it in control of the Afghan military in July as the U.S. pulled out of Afghanistan.
“The Taliban claims it overran Bagram Air Base and freed prisoners. Many high-value detainees were located there, including members of Al Qaeda. This will reverberate for years to come,” said Bill Roggio, Long War Journal editor, and terror analyst.
…
Along with its embassy personnel and diplomatic officials, the United States is also working to extract American citizens in Afghanistan and thousands of refugee visa holders. The Department of Defense is preparing to house up to 30,000 Afghan refugees at military bases in the U.S.
…
Sen. Tom Cotton’s (R-AK) office told New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman that his office is receiving calls from United States citizens trapped behind Taliban checkpoints, even as the U.S. State Department is demanding the Taliban allow foreign nationals to leave the country.
Cotton’s office opened its phone lines to citizens in Kabul who need help, according to a tweet the Senator sent out earlier Sunday, asking anyone in need to make contact. Haberman tweeted Sunday night that Cotton’s office received calls from “multiple U.S. citizens” requiring help.
International Allies Mock “Buffoon” Biden
In what is being described as worse than America’s humiliating evacuation from Saigon in 1975, the haphazard Afghanistan withdrawal is eroding the confidence of international allies that his administration is capable of fulfilling his foreign policy promises.
British MP Tobias Ellwood, chairman of the Defense Committee in the British Parliament, mocked Biden’s “America is back” foreign policy.
“Whatever happened to ‘America is back’?” Ellwood told the Washington Post.
“People are bewildered that after two decades of this big, high-tech power intervening, they are withdrawing and effectively handing the country back to the people we went in to defeat,” Ellwood added. “This is the irony. How can you say America is back when we’re being defeated by an insurgency armed with no more than [rocket-propelled grenades], land mines and AK-47s?”
Riad Kahwaji, whom the Post described as “the Inegma security consultancy in the United Arab Emirates, which hosts one of the biggest American military contingents in the Middle East,” told the newspaper that Biden’s withdrawal “is raising alarm bells everywhere.”
“The U.S.’s credibility as an ally has been in question for a while,” Kahwaji said. “We see Russia fighting all the way to protect the Assad regime [in Syria], and now the Americans are pulling out and leaving a big chaos in Afghanistan.”
Meanwhile, Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook, director of the German Council on Foreign Relations, told the Post that German lawmakers are furious with the decision of Biden’s administration.
“The Biden administration came to office promising an open exchange, a transparent exchange with its allies. They said the transatlantic relationship would be pivotal,” Clüver Ashbrook said. “As it is, they’re playing lip service to the transatlantic relationship and still believe European allies should fall into line with U.S. priorities.”
Anything else?
Biden has attempted to defect blame for the disastrous withdrawal on his predecessor, former President Donald Trump. But those attempts ring hallow.
While it is true that Trump initiated the Afghanistan withdrawal, the withdrawal strategy falls squarely on Biden’s shoulders. In fact, Biden was confidently telling reporters just last month the Taliban would not retake control of Afghanistan, denying comparisons to Vietnam.
However, as the Wall Street Journal editorial board pointed out, Biden has overturned countless Trump-era policies. Why is Biden’s administration now claiming that Trump’s May 1 withdrawal deadline is one they could not overturn, too?
From the WSJ:
Note that Mr. Biden is more critical of his predecessor than he is of the Taliban. The President has spent seven months ostentatiously overturning one Trump policy after another on foreign and domestic policy. Yet he now claims Afghanistan policy is the one he could do nothing about. This is a pathetic denial of his own agency, and it’s also a false choice. It’s as if Winston Churchill, with his troops surrounded at Dunkirk, had declared that Neville Chamberlain got him into this mess and the British had already fought too many wars on the Continent.
Biden, in fact, reportedly ignored top military commanders, who recommended retaining a nominal American force in Afghanistan to help maintain security and facilitate a transfer of security responsibilities.
Instead being motivating by the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Biden approved the immediate full withdrawal of U.S. forces, a disastrous plan whose consequences are being laid bare as the world watches.
U.S. military equipment captured by the Taliban
The Taliban have captured U.S. military equipment originally supplied to Afghan security forces, but the U.S. doesn’t know exactly how much.
Photos published by the Associated Press and circulated on social media show militant fighters touting M4 and M16 rifles, M24 sniper rifle systems, and M2 .50 caliber machine guns. Other footage showed night vision goggles, radios, and magazine pouches apparently seized from Afghan outposts during the Taliban offensive, which also saw militants seize military vehicles like Humvees and MRAPs.
The Taliban now possess more UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters than 165 other countries in the world. While some have said that they are unsustainable due to a lack of training, and logistics required to fly them, that expertise and access to black market parts could be supplied by Iran.
Joe Biden’s State Department moved to cancel a critical program aimed at providing swift and safe evacuations of Americans out of crisis zones
The “Contingency and Crisis Response Bureau” – which was designed to handle medical, diplomatic, and logistical support concerning Americans overseas was paused by Anthony Blinken’s State Department earlier this year. Notification was officially signed just months before the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan.
Joe Biden’s State Department moved to cancel a critical State Department program aimed at providing swift and safe evacuations of Americans out of crisis zones just months prior to the fall of Kabul, The National Pulse can exclusively reveal.
The document is dated June 11, 2021, though The National Pulse understands the decision to pause the program may have come as early as February, both undermining the original Trump-era date for the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, and certainly giving the Taliban time to threaten American assets and lives on the run up to Joe Biden’s September 11th date of withdrawal.
The subject line reads: “(SBU) Contingency and Crisis Response Bureau,” and the body of the document recommends:
“That you direct the discontinuation of the establishment, and termination of, the Contingency and Crisis Response Bureau (CCR), and direct a further review of certain associated Department requirements and capabilities.”
It goes on:
“That you direct the discontinuation of the establishment, and termination of, CCR, consistent with the applicable legal requirements, necessary stakeholder engagement, and any applicable changes to the Foreign Affairs Manual and other requirements.”
The document reveals the recommendations were approved on June 11th 2021.
Speaking exclusively to The National Pulse, former President Donald J. Trump blasted Biden’s irresponsible move:
“My Administration prioritized keeping Americans safe, Biden leaves them behind. Canceling this successful Trump Administration program before the withdrawal that would have helped tens of thousands Americans reach home is beyond disgraceful. Our withdrawal was conditions-based and perfect, it would have been flawlessly executed and nobody would have even known we left. The Biden execution and withdrawal is perhaps the greatest embarrassment to our Country in History, both as a military and humanitarian operation.”
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