It’s one of the biggest Western fuck ups I can remember in my lifetime.
the only alternative besides dozens of dead innocents was to retain troops there, even in smaller numbers, in my opinion.
I read that America still has thousands in South Korea.
But if withdrawing was the best option he was advised, and it needed to be done, what’s happened is a horror show and it’s the fact he didn’t seem arsed when quizzed about those poor souls falling off the planes.
If by fuck up, you mean invading Afghanistan and staying there for twenty years and achieving nothing of substance, then yes it is.
Invading Iraq was also a fuck up. At least the US had some rationale for invading Afghanistan.
Add Vietnam to the list and that is three major fuck ups spanning decades.
So, in the context of these almighty fuck ups, withdrawing from Afghanistan and evacuating 115,000 people isn’t even scratching the surface. The US agreed to withdraw by May of this year. They signed a peace deal in exchange for a ceasefire. Keep troops there and guess what? The conflict starts again, which means more troops and more casualties and to achieve what?
The mistakes have been baked in for years. Failure to leave any viable Govt in place, failure to leave any viable Afghan defence force in place. Half the country has been in Taliban hands for months, so what option is left other than honour the deal and get the troops out? The error is not getting people at risk out sooner. The US and everyone else has had months to arrange this. That I can't get my head round. How was the intelligence such a failure? The US, the UK and all the allied nations misread the situation. That is the failure. Biden carries the can because it goes with the job, but the overall failure is twenty years in the making.
Washington Post reporting the Taliban want the US to maintain a diplomatic presence, and I can see the US assisting the Taliban, because irony of ironies the Taliban cannot control or govern the country without support. It won't be troops on the ground, but hardware, drones and the like. A proxy war, in part against ISIS, but also to get some stability in the region.
