American troops pay with their lives — for Pentagon's botched Afghanistan withdrawal

26 August 2021

Infuriated yet?

From Yahoo News:

A “complex attack” involving at least two explosions outside the airport in Kabul on Thursday killed 12 U.S. service members and injured at least fifteen others, the Pentagon said.

An Afghan official told Associated Press that at least 60 Afghans were killed and 143 others were injured in the attack.

“Let me be clear, while we're saddened by the loss of life, both U.S. and Afghan [lives], we’re continuing to execute the mission," Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, commander of the U.S. Central Command, said at a press briefing on Thursday.

McKenzie confirmed earlier reports that a suicide bomb exploded outside one of the main gates at Hamid Karzai International Airport. He said another bomb went off in the vicinity of the Baron Hotel, which is near the airport and is often frequented by Americans in Kabul.

McKenzie also confirmed that ISIS-K, an affiliate of the ISIS State terrorist group in Afghanistan, is believed to be responsible for the attacks. He said U.S. officials believe it is the group’s "desire to continue those attacks and we expect those attacks to continue." ISIS-K is also an enemy of the Taliban.

Asked whether the U.S. would take military action against those responsible, McKenzie said, "Yes. If we can find who is associated with this, we will go after them.”

So let's see, General . . .

. . . y'all Fat Cat Equivalents did not plan or execute an efficient withdrawal, while American troops were still established in Afghanistan.

Instead, you withdrew our muscle — leaving thousands of Americans and friendly Afghanis behind — and watched the Taliban predictably overrun most of the country — before you chaotically and ineffectually went back for the rest of our people.

It is not as if former President Trump had not let everyone know, even in 2016, that he wanted us to get out of Afghanistan.

President Biden made his withdrawal thinking clear, as well.

Therefore — 'no time to plan and organize' — (as an excuse) is not going to cut it.

Naturally . . .

. . . hardcore terrorists were watching this display of American tactical and strategic incompetence.

They apparently swooped in — in probably low numbers, given their previous comparative absence in Afghanistan — to kill some of us — during the Chaos that resulted from the US having to come back to finish — what should have been completed in one properly protected, no-nonsense, initial stroke at the time of the first withdrawal.

In short

American military leadership — and presumably specifically General Mckenzie, who has headed Central Command since 28 March 2019 — provided the heretofore quiescent, reportedly 'ISIS' element in Afghanistan an opportunity to attack us — when (and where) we were disorganized and weak by American leadership's own design.

But what if the Taliban's quick victory was not foreseeable?

Military contingency planning should take catastrophic possibilities into account.

The excuse that Aghanistan's puppet government did not stand as long as Americans thought it would, seems weak to me.

If the corruption that did the puppet government in — including people's understandable and suddenly sensible perspective that maybe living with the Taliban was better than being killed by it — was missed by American leaders — exactly what had they been learning in Afghanistan for the past 20 years?

How the Afghan warlord culture works was historically documented under both the Soviet and the initial American occupations. In Afghanistan, people buy each other off. Weaker forces surrender to stronger forces. And, for the most part, most folks survive to see another day.

Why would American military planners not plan for the possibility of a sudden reversion to this pattern?

Why would we assume that we had so Americanized the US-supported government that a return to culturally engrained survival behavior was beyond possibility?

I'm not buying it.

Once again, American leadership's inability — and unwillingness — to properly read foreign cultures has bitten us in the behind.

Will anyone of rank pay for this murderous display of arguable idiocy?

Probably not.

The moral? — If US leadership can screw something up with deadly results, it will

And our lower-ranking people, and their families, will pay the price.

To say that I am angry, understates my perspective. But, as usual, Fat Cats and Four Stars will skate from accountability.

In fact, it is probably safe to predict that those same responsibility-dodgers will be back — asking for more money and more clout — so as to take on the enemies that they invent — and then motivate to hate us — at every Imperial turn.

Self-fulfilling prophecy is the American game.

We kill our own children with it.

PeteFree.com

American troops pay with their lives — for Pentagon's botched Afghanistan withdrawal