Originally Posted by
Mk 1
Interesting reading the messages above. The vast majority are obviously in agreement that the withdrawal was handled badly. How was the withdrawal poorly handled and what would you have done differently?
Failing to issue visas in advance is the worst single aspect, to my mind, although doing so might have precipitated an earlier crisis as the holders fled. Most will probably alight on the decision to abandon Bagram, but getting 100,000 evacuees there without losing any to IS-K attacks enroute would have been non-trivial. At the root, I think both of those issues stemmed from the failure to understand how fragile was the former government's grip on power and how quickly it would fall once it became clear the US was definitely leaving. I can only imagine that there was an assumption that the ANDSF would be able to protect HKIA while US troops withdrew by 31 August, and would continue to do so thereafter so that US civilians and eligible Afghans could continue to leave over several months. Those failures of analysis and understanding need to be examined in case there's a systemic issue.
However, I tend to agree with Prof Patrick Porter that much criticism of the withdrawal is a fig leaf for those who disagreed with it on principle or want to deflect from earlier failures:
The incompetence of departure deserves inquest. But it should not serve to deflect from the need to withdraw, nor obfuscate the true choice. The plausible alternative to leaving was not a stable exit followed by “muddling through” cheaply until somehow things got better. It was a futile war that would likely have intensified. This point escapes “Stayers”, outspoken former officials, security elites, commentators and allies who oppose withdrawal, who historically misjudged Afghanistan and support protracted interventions in the Middle East. Their narrow fixation on withdrawal and its execution, as though it were the primary error, deflects from their own complicity in profound failure, in Afghanistan and beyond