There is a saying I learned in the military, it’s called the 6 Ps, “Prior planning prevents piss poor performance.” And what we witnessed over the past few days in Afghanistan is as piss poor a performance as you could imagine. This administration should have seen the warning signs; a rapidly advancing Taliban, a rapidly dissolving Afghan Army, willing to drop weapons and run when offered. I think the Afghan Army just gave the French a relief from all the jokes about being “surrender monkeys”.
This was a complete failure of leadership and intelligence, both military and civilian. There were no apparent plans to gracefully exit the country. One airbase should have been a defensive nightmare to try to penetrate. Foxholes, overlapping field of fire, indirect fire kill zones, etc… Then once it was apparent there was an imminent collapse of internal security in the country, as was apparent about 2 to 3 weeks ago, ALL AMERIFCAN citizens and Afghan nationals we were going to evac from the country should have been rallied to that secure airbase and the evacuations begun. Any attempt to attack the airfield, aircraft or the evacuees should have been met with instant and overwhelming lethal force.
You will see lots of blame being tossed around and there is plenty to go around; Bush for starting the war in the first place with no apparent exit strategy. Obama for not developing an exit strategy over his EIGHT years in office. Trump, same blame as Obama, though he only had one term worth of planning he could have done. Now Trump is catching it for even trying to negotiate peace with the Taliban, but at some point, if you want to leave a country you invaded, you must negotiate a peace. As Tyrion said in Game of Thrones “We make peace with our enemies, not our friends.” A good peace deal might have worked, even if it meant a Taliban presence in the Afghan government. Then there is the current president, Biden, well it happened under his watch so naturally he should bear a good measure as well. Not to mention he was VP for Obama for those EIGHT years. Sat in on all the same meetings. Had the same access to intel. He promised us he had plans upon plans for dealing with everything Trump had messed up. What happened here Mr. President? Where are your plans? Those contingencies for contingencies that you should have had waiting? The Pentagon planners are supposed to prepare for every possible contingency. The fact none could see this complete collapse of internal security shows it may be time to clean house in the intel and planning departments of the US Government, military and civilian. And I say this, because many talking heads on TV and radio were warning of this possibility even as Trump was negotiating a deal with the Taliban remnants to withdraw our forces in late 2019 and early 2020. They warned that if the deal was not solid and workable, a Saigon moment was in the making.
Congress needs to come together and call for an investigation into what happened. With a special focus on why so much military gear was left behind. The fact Blackhawk helicopters were left on the ground with high end drones still in carrying containers and an arsenal of firearms, among other things, shows a failure of military leadership. A complete serial number inventory needs to be conducted to determine exactly what was left behind. I’ve seen people loose rank over misplacing a gas mask. But I guess dropping a few functional Blackhawk helicopters to enemy hands or multimillion dollar drones or enough weapons to arm a small army is no big deal, right? Every field or flag grade officer that signed off on leaving all that gear behind without scuttling or rending it inoperable should be booted from the military regardless of how many bars, oak leaf clusters, eagles and stars are tossed out. Even if that includes people on the Joint Chiefs or some of the Service Secretaries. There is no excuse for leaving all that gear behind, gear that could eventually be used against America or its allies in some future attack. How many times did we see officials from the military and current administration clearly say we would not see another Saigon, or that the Taliban taking over the country was not foreseeable? All these people need to be held accountable for their lack of imagination. But Congress will circle the wagons, as they usually do, when the president is of the same party as the Speaker of the House.
I suspect, had this collapse happened under Trump, the House Managers for a new impeachment would have already been chosen and the clown walk to the Senate with the Articles in the cedar box would have already been done. More souvenir pens from Pelosi commemorating the “very serious affair” third impeachment would have been passed out after the obligatory photo op.