Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin — said that the US cannot help left-behind Americans get to Kabul airport to escape — how's that for US military competence?

20 August 2021

Defense Secretary Austin's statement

From Axios:

The Pentagon on Wednesday acknowledged that it does not currently have the capability to safely escort Americans in Kabul to the airport for evacuation as the Taliban consolidate control in Afghanistan’s capital.

The Defense secretary’s admission comes after the U.S. Embassy in Kabul issued a dire warning to U.S. citizens there stating that it “cannot ensure safe passage” to the airport.

The U.S. is relying on an agreement with the Taliban to guarantee the safe passage of Americans.

The Pentagon chief said the U.S. is coordinating with the Taliban to create passageways for people to get to the airfield.

In other words

No one planned for this.

No one thought to accumulate the military mass that would might be necessary to rescue the reportedly 15,000 Americans, who were foolishly allowed to stay behind during the previous withdrawal.

Why are so many Americans still there?

According to Diario AS:

When speaking to critique that the US should have evacuated the embassy and Afghan allies who risked their lives to support the US invasion earlier, [National Security Advisor Jake] Sullivan said that the “Afghan government and its supporters, including many of the people now seeking to leave, made a passionate case that we should not conduct a mass evacuation." This plea came from the fear that a mass exodus of US forces and personal would "trigger a loss of confidence in the government.”

Now, with many of the highest-ranking officials, including President Ashraf Ghani, having fled the country, it is clear to President Biden and his team that “signaling support for the government obviously did not save the government."

Sullivan argued that while the US was not able to maintain the government's authority, President Biden worked with military officials to conduct military drills “over the course of months” to prepare forces for “a range of scenarios, including dire scenarios.”

National Security Advisor's statement interpreted

The US did not plan for the exceedingly obvious eventuality that the Taliban would run rampant over the money-swilling governmental, military and police corruption — as viewed from an American cultural perspective — that the US had diligently fed, during its twenty year invading tenure in the country.

With regard to forecasting the result of its feeding of the figurative Puppet Hog, American leadership believed — or pretended to believe — its own propaganda about having created a mildly viable, 'westernized' Afghanistan.

Also pertinent

As YouTube's Beau of the Fifth Column said a couple of days ago, the United States keeps its client states, like Afghanistan, weak by Imperial design.

No one in US authority would want a satrapy to escape American influence, via the process of being allowed to develop genuine strength of its own.

See:

Beau of the Fifth Column, Let's talk about the Saigon analogy, YouTube (18 August 2021)

Meanwhile, back at home

With the illuminating example of flaccid evacuation brainlessness on full international display at the Kabul airport — the United States' civilian Secretary of the Air Force, Frank Kendall III, recently said that he wants America to "scare" China.

I suspect that the only people, whom the mighty United States is scaring are Americans stuck in Afghanistan.

And perhaps those of us at home, who wonder where the once-capable United States is hiding.

The moral? — Why are we paying the fools at United States' helm?

Cynical though I am about our culture's addictive combination of Avaricious Nitwitism and Oligarchy, even I am surprised at this level of unshyly displayed national incompetence.

The American Imperium is not only in decline. It is irrevocably squashed under prophesying Cassandra's mighty boot.

PeteFree.com

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin — said that the US cannot help left-behind Americans get to Kabul airport to escape — how's that for US military competence?