quote:

Originally posted by Krazeehorse:
We should be finding places in the middle east and se asia for these people to relocate. Moving them to western countries is a bad idea.

quote:

Originally posted by feersum dreadnaught:
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/

THOUGHTS ON AFGHANISTAN, from a senior military officer:

I ask that you not use my name. I am a currently serving General Officer and what I have to say is highly critical of our current military leadership. But it must be said.

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
some pages back there was a post of our State Dept spokesman lecturing the Taliban

That lecture was based on a UN Security Council statement

Now our biden appointed UN ambassador picks up the ball

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Almost exactly two decades after the attacks of 11SEP01, as a nation we are covered in disgrace. A global humiliation on a national scale. Accept that. Hold it close to you. Feel it. Smell it. Know it, because it will be attached to us for at least the rest of the decade - most likely longer.

Good people can agree or disagree about staying or going from Afghanistan, but no one can defend how we did it.

Everyone here who given responsibility by the American people failed.

The President failed.

The State Department failed.

The Pentagon failed.

All our intelligence agencies failed their government and the people.

Our think tanks, the legions of foreign policy and diplomacy PhDs from all the right schools who populate the National Security State who like to tell everyone how smart they are - they all failed.

So, what do we do from here?
"If you withdraw 2,500 troops, and then you have to send 6,000 back, that's not planned. That's on its face an example of failure." - Jake Tapper

Accountability.

Even the most die hard Biden partisan should be demanding the resignation of the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and the National Security Advisor. In another age, they would have all resigned already - but we don’t live in that age.

All the Joint Chiefs of Staff need to resign as one. Either they own their collective failure because they offered this plan as a good one, or they don’t have the confidence of the President and their recommendations not to do this were ignored. Either are sufficient for resignation as honor demands.

They are imminently replaceable. We are bloated and thick with excessively credentialed General and Flag Officers who can take their place.

We can do nothing about the past, it is done.

The present is already written.

What we can do is set the condition for the future. We can try to contain the compounding damage to our national credibility.

A first step is to tell our remaining friends that the United States knows failure and rot when it sees it, and is confident enough to excise it and move forward.

We need accountability. The honorable thing to do is to resign. If not, the proper thing is for the President to fire those who advised him so horribly. If not the President, then Congress should have hearings with a pair of pliers in one hand and a blow torch in another and humiliate people in to resigning.

If neither happens, then bad on the American people for allowing a political system to function in such a way that people such as these are the ones who rise to the top of both parties.

Look again at that migraine inducing chart above. Failures such as this take more than one part of government to fail.

Let me end with what I know best, the US military. We like to tell ourselves that we are in some way apart, perhaps a bit more honorable, than the politicians we serve. We served the Constitution and the nation, not individuals.

We can make that point...unless we were just telling each other another of those little white lies that we do now and then.

quote:

Originally posted by corsair:

quote:

Originally posted by feersum dreadnaught:
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/

THOUGHTS ON AFGHANISTAN, from a senior military officer:

I ask that you not use my name. I am a currently serving General Officer and what I have to say is highly critical of our current military leadership. But it must be said.

At this point, without any names, there's little bite to this person's statement. To the best of my knowledge, only one general officer has come out with pointed criticism of how Afghanistan and the military conducts its business, BG Don Bolduc. He's named names, critised the rubber-stamping of promotions, the inflating of reports before Congress and the constant upending of strategy with new commanders, resulting in confusion and waste.

Its been said by others, that in this current Army, a private who looses their rifle is punished more severely and harshly, than a General who looses a war.

Upon our extraction out of Afghanistan (big IF), Congress needs to run a rake through the military and the intelligence apparatus, call on the carpet every CENTCOM and ISAF commander for their previous statements before committees and start busting FOGO retirements down to O-5. Privileges need to be revoked.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
...
"Achmed, what flavors did you get?"

"I got ass and camel."

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What's happening at Hamid Karzai International Airport, otherwise known as Kabul Airport, is straight out of the scenes from the 2013 horror/action flick World War Z's airport scene when Brad Pitt and others escaped on a commercial jet while zombies attempted to commandeer the plane.

For some comparison, military news and video website Funker530 released a dramatic video filmed by a US soldier in a mine-resistant ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicle that shows AH-64 Apache gunships were used to clear the runway for C-17 aircraft to evacuate Afghans as the Taliban closed in on the area.

quote:

Originally posted by Lord Vaalic:
General Milley - Are you satsfied with the low level of white supremecy in Kabul during this whole crisis?