Easy Street,

MoD announced today that that 200 included all local hires too, with their immediate families. Majority being women and children. Additionally some 40 EU and NATO staff has been forwarded. The guys and gals are still in Kabul airport and its vicinity helping out others (been told publicly they've been out of the airport).

Was there an expectation it would be free?

Well... During the Border war Germany was helping out Mexico, and the whole of Europe was keeping Germany pre-occupied in a minor argument called the Great War so we may agree that its a tie?

I am afraid I suspect those figures were devised by PR staff to be solemnly reproduced in the media (as indeed they were). Can you honestly say that when this aircraft was stormed an accurate manifest was kept ? And you can spot 4 children, in a photo of the whole aircraft interior taken from the front bulkhead. We all wonder where the other 179, plus their mothers, are.

I don't know. However I don't recall my father (RAF WW2 bomber crew, Handley Page Halifax in case you ask, to keep us on PPRuNe topics) saying that if the Germans had started invading Britain in 1940 he, alone, would have been down at the Liverpool docks looking to storm a ship to Canada, RAF and family left behind ...

No, but when they were offloaded at the other end I imagine it was. If you don't believe the numbers given because they don't match up to your feelings, I can't prove otherwise I'm afraid.

Don't forget that depending on who's doing the classifying and where, anyone under the age of 18 may count as a 'child', and anyone a bit over 18 may claim to be under 18 (having, of course, 'lost' his identification) in order to enhance his refugee status – despite his profuse black beard. It wouldn't surprise me at all to hear that on arrival, a quarter of the pax on that C-17 were written down as 'children'. Their mothers would have been left behind, of course.

Bit disappointing to have it thought I have predetermined feelings, or an "agenda", but whatever. Sticking to the facts, in that photo of the inside of the C-17 there are NO WAY 183 children mixed in there, as is perfectly plain for all to see. Why pretend otherwise ? Which makes you wonder how reliable the rest of the accounts of the situation are.

There are clearly many children in this photo, WHBM. I can't account for why you can't/won't see them. https://www.stripes.com/theaters/mid...s-2615090.html

I can see at least 16 children (under the age of 10)in the first 3 rows. Gave up then as there is obviously many children on this flight. Hard to tell when you start getting to 15-16 year olds.

Err the USA provide intelligence, aviation fuel tankers off shore at Ascension, accommodation and messing at Ascension flown in for us, latest Sidewinders? Amongst a myriad of other stuff, France helped out too.

I think it is more about how the retreat from the Country was (planned??? and) executed which causes irritation than the fact as such. The rapid collapse of the Afghan Army ironically to some extent confirms that the retreat as such probably was inevitable. If you can't bring a Country to a stable setup after 20 Years of heavy involvement and support you won't achieve it in 30 or 40 either.
It was not super clever, however, to:
- do this retreat in the high Fighting Season
- move out the Troops first and leave civvies and local staff behind, just to -surprise- find out that you need troops to defend and organise the evacuation of the civvies and locals.
- leave an alternate Airfield overnight which could have been used for evacuation of other already cut- off areas
- not give a heads up to the allies now compounding to the mess.

I would be sooooo curious to learn how this should have looked like had it run according to plan!?

that is a fair point, and certainly applies to other nations with nearby unfriendly neighbours

can’t disagree with any of that. I think Big Pistons Forever properly nailed it though in #15.

I can guarantee you that the US is big on words over Taiwan, and South Korea, but would never actually go to war over either. Taiwan would be lots of rhetoric, but little action. South Korea they would be moving their troops south and eventually out at the first sign of hostilities. The world has changed and in the scheme of things who cares if China controls either. I can guarantee you that the American people wouldn’t regard hundreds of thousands of American dead in either conflict as worth it. Which countering China would require. Too be fair they would lose anyways regardless of the casualties. The US can’t physically stop China in its own backyard, just like China couldn’t stop the US in its backyard.

I am using the assumption that North Korea would never attack without support from China. Which I think is reasonable.

The Soviet’s spent twenty years or so in Afghanistan before they bailed.

I’m not sure why the US thought they could do any better.

Look at the mountains. Does that look like a place where you want to fight, especially if the locals know caves where they can retreat to and wait to fight another day?

Apparently the fighting routinely stops in the winter because the conditions are too harsh, then resumes in the Spring

Not a good place to try to change the culture.

i am not defending the way that the US carried out the pullout, but it seemed like an unwinnable war.

All the money and time and manpower the US spent training the Afghan Army amounted to nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

Biden did not expect the Afghan Army to walk away and disappear immediately

I have read that the Taliban merely bribed local leaders to tell their troops to turn over their weapons, and that was that.

Blame it on lack of military intelligence, as clearly the US had no clue that everything would fall so fast

Rubbish! The Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979. The end of the Soviet Union was 1989.

[QUOTE=Ascend Charlie;11100248]Not much being said about the Afghan army, and the speed with which it collapsed.


AC

this is the same issue you see happening time and time again. For a society to work you need a professional management class. Afghanistan lost this with the last king, Iraq lost it with debaathification etc etc.

if you read Rory Stewart’s book sbout afghanistan you see the guys attracted to the government / army - most are illiterate, not favoured by clan and it is a job that pays money . That’s it , there is no desire to risk lives and defend their country and that is why it all falls apart. This has been said since day 1, but there are none so blind as those who won’t listen and as they say hope is not a strategy.

if you want to nation build you have to reinstate the professional class, denazifiy, destasi dewhatever etc. Most professional classes take the flag that keeps them alive and keeps society running.

sometimes that is distasteful but Germany both east and west , Japan etc show it is the way to stability, self reliance and independence.

must go and get my crayons out, the other thread has given me the itch to write an a400 spooky proposal , got to be worth a few beer chits

My bad. The Soviets spent ten years in Afghanistan before they gave up.

I once read a theory that the Soviets viewed Afghanistan as a pathway towards warm water ports to the South, a mere country or so away.

Given that the Article Ocean has far less ice, they may not be as concerned about a southern route to an ocean.

Regardless, I still don’t see how the US could « win » there.

And, to respond to part of the original premise of this thread, the US should have done a lot more a lot faster to get their Afghan allies and assistants out of the country a lot sooner

Some of the interpreters have been waiting for years for visas to leave.

I do not know why we didn’t act sooner.

It may be part of the anti-immigrant sentiment from the previous US administration, but obviously it sends the message that we don’t have your back, which is a very stupid approach to foreign policy.

So you keep telling us.