Reuters: 'We Could Have Done More' - Frustration Grows in Washington Over Biden's Kabul Evacuation

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Frustration and anger at U.S. President Joe Biden's handling of evacuations from Afghanistan https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/talibans-rapid-advance-across-afghanistan-2021-08-10 are mounting among administration officials, lawmakers of both parties and advocacy groups.

"Part of the answer is some of the Afghans did not want to leave earlier, still hopeful for their country," Biden said

But five U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that weeks before the Washington-backed Afghan government collapsed, the U.S. military wanted a bigger role in helping to evacuate Afghans at risk because they worked for the United States. The officials believe that a more orderly withdrawal would have been likely.

"We could have done a lot more to help. The administration waited too long," a military official said..

The source and another U.S. official told Reuters that the administration so badly misjudged the situation that the State Department flew a regular rotation of diplomats into Kabul last Tuesday even as the Taliban advanced toward the capital.

"The withdrawal of U.S. troops should have been carefully planned to prevent violence and instability, and to ensure that the hard-fought progress gained over the past two decades particularly when it comes to Afghan women and girls would not be lost," said Tom Carper, a U.S. senator from Biden's home state of Delaware and fellow Democrat.

Rawhide said:

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HuMcK said:

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You've already responded to my comments saying they both share some blame, and some of the key decisions that set the stage for this took place in 2020. No matter how much you want it to not be true, what I'm saying is what happened.

I've detailed mistakes both Biden and Trump made, it's your turn to acknowledge that Trump had a hand in this too.

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This isn't trump's fault. This 100% on biden. Unless biden called trump and trump told him exactly what to do, trump's fingerprints aren't on biden's fubar'd pull out.

I know you so desperately want it to not be biden's fault.....but no luck scooter. It falls squarely on his shoulders.

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UK's ambassador to Afghanistan is STILL in Kabul 'personally processing visa applications for staff trying to flee'

Props to this dude.

Despite scramble to evacuate, ambassador Sir Laurie Bristow was said to be remaining in Kabul
The UK's ambassador put plans to leave the country on hold - and remained at Kabul airport to help process the applications of those seeking to leave.

British troops, supported by Special Forces, are currently attempting to evacuate up to 500 embassy staff from the city. Despite the scramble to evacuate, the ambassador Sir Laurie Bristow was said to be remaining in the city last night.

This Bush lackey is f'ing insane.

MSNBC host @NicolleDWallace: "95% of the American people will agree with everything [President Biden] just said. 95% of the press covering this White House will disagree." pic.twitter.com/UzLr6DPyPz

— The Recount (@therecount) August 16, 2021

The Taliban spokesman is on MSNBC but Donald Trump is banned from Twitter...

This is what MSNBC is up to right now. pic.twitter.com/d94ZTLORdk

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) August 16, 2021

If the Taliban was smart they would use this opportunity so install themselves as a legitimate government. There is far more money to be made in that endeavor. But they are factional and while some may want that others in the group will see it as weak and make a play for power.

There has been fighting in that region for 2000 years and there will be for another 2000.

I read in 2019 that high-ranking generals were lying to Trump about the conditions in Afghanistan

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents/

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/magazine/lies-generals-afghanistan.html

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/09/afghan-papers-reveal-us-public-were-misled-about-unwinnable-war

If they lied to Trump in 2019, it seems likely they also lied to Biden this year.


It's easy to blame politicians. But a lot of the blame belongs to the men wearing stars.

@NBCNews Chief Foreign Correspondent

Biden says human rights center of US policy. A hard sell tonight where im sitting outside the kabul airport.

— Richard Engel (@RichardEngel) August 16, 2021

Evac planes coming in and taking off rapidly from Kabul airport after delay. Quick turnaround on ground.

— Richard Engel (@RichardEngel) August 16, 2021

Oldbear83 said:

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I read in 2019 that high-ranking generals were lying to Trump about the conditions in Afghanistan
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents/
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/magazine/lies-generals afghanistan.html
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/09/afghan-papers-reveal-us-public-were-misled-about-unwinnable-war
If they lied to Trump in 2019, it seems likely they also lied to Biden this year.
It's easy to blame politicians. But a lot of the blame belongs to the men wearing stars.

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Walk that back. Generals reflect the politicians who got them the job. General staff positions are incredibly political. Ask yourself how they got those stars and who helped them get them.

nein51 said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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I read in 2019 that high-ranking generals were lying to Trump about the conditions in Afghanistan
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents/
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/magazine/lies-generals afghanistan.html
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/09/afghan-papers-reveal-us-public-were-misled-about-unwinnable-war
If they lied to Trump in 2019, it seems likely they also lied to Biden this year.
It's easy to blame politicians. But a lot of the blame belongs to the men wearing stars.

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Walk that back. Generals reflect the politicians who got them the job. General staff positions are incredibly political. Ask yourself how they got those stars and who helped them get them.

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Given the time it takes to get a 2nd/3rd star, and the fact that it takes Congressional approval for high-ranking generals to get there, this goes back to Obama days and the people running Congress at various times and in various committees.

This feels weird to say, but it's true. Trump's election lies have proven to be far more dangerous to Americans in the homeland than the Taliban ever could be. No Taliban fighter ever breached the Capitol and threatened Congress like Trump's supporters did based on his lies. Incidentally, it was those lies that got him banned.

"Biden's election lies have proven to be far more dangerous to Americans in the homeland than the Taliban ever could be."

Far, far closer to the truth than the bilge spewed by Huckey.

Fck that lying ass "bunch of grandparents" talk, Oathkeepers, Proud Boys, III%ers are all straight up militia groups, and they were all there.

It wasn't any Afghans that carried out 9/11 attacks. The Taliban basically have no reach, or desire to reach, outside of Afghan/Pakistan. Meanwhile your boy Trump is trying his damndest to radicalize his own version of Taliban-like militants here at home, they already tried their own version of a Munich Pusch and Trump has shown no signs of de-escalating his rhetoric (hence social media Twitter ban). People like Wuzzy, or Curtpenn who advocate violence against "the left" are far more dangerous to me here in Texas than Abdul Baradar is 7000 miles away.

Dogs only bark when they get bit. Good dog.

nein51 said:

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Trump is not my boy. He's a ****ing moron and a jackass.

That you think what happened on 1/6 was a greater threat to the US than the Taliban simply means you're a nut job. So blinded by your hatred of Trump you can't see straight. Like you have legitimately lost your damned mind. Lost. It.

The US government was never in any danger of anything on 1/6. You think the Proud Boys are going to annex West Virginia? Maybe march across the US beheading people? Perhaps they will go ahead and take Cuba and let dissidents out of Guantanamo? Give me a break. They pose less threat than the local rotary club. They pose less threat than a fly on an elephants ass.

You've created your own straw bogeyman, impressive.

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The only Americans the Taliban is really a threat to are those in their country. The Taliban is a human rights threat to Afghanis, particularly girls and women, but they have no interest in attacking us domestically. They're just trying to gain power and territory for their fundamentalist vision of Islam.

HuMcK said:

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Fck that lying ass "bunch of grandparents" talk, Oathkeepers, Proud Boys, III%ers are all straight up militia groups, and they were all there.

It wasn't any Afghans that carried out 9/11 attacks. The Taliban basically have no reach, or desire to reach, outside of Afghan/Pakistan. Meanwhile your boy Trump is trying his damndest to radicalize his own version of Taliban-like militants here at home, they already tried their own version of a Munich Pusch and Trump has shown no signs of de-escalating his rhetoric (hence social media Twitter ban). People like Wuzzy, or Curtpenn who advocate violence against "the left" are far more dangerous to me here in Texas than Abdul Baradar is 7000 miles away.

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How long are you and Malcolm Nance going to push this bull***** 5-10-15 years?

boognish_bear said:

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Biden said he will not pass on the conflict to a fifth U.S. president and that the U.S. would no longer fight a war that is "not in our national security interest."  https://t.co/GHoCq7bjve

— Axios (@axios) August 16, 2021

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What he said: "I stand squarely behind my decision"

What China heard: "Taiwan is yours."

LIB,MR BEARS said:

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boognish_bear said:

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Biden said he will not pass on the conflict to a fifth U.S. president and that the U.S. would no longer fight a war that is "not in our national security interest."  https://t.co/GHoCq7bjve

— Axios (@axios) August 16, 2021

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What he said: "I stand squarely behind my decision"

What China heard: "Taiwan is yours."

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Much like the Anschluss was no big deal because the Austrians all spoke German anyway.

GoldMind said:

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whiterock said:

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HuMcK said:

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whiterock said:

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Canon said:

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HuMcK said:

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That's extra rich coming from him. Taliban was already violating the terms of their "deal" with offensives before Trunp left office. They wanted us gone months ago, Trump literally criticized Biden for pushing the date from May to September, if anything the withdrawal would have been more chaotic and unorganized back then if that's possible. Extra irony is someone that admin had released from prison in 2018 is the presumptive next Taloban leader of Afghanistan.

It's not an accident that the deal they struck scheduled the handover during the next admin's term, they knew how this was always going to end no matter who was in office, especially after the large prisoner release.

---

Your relationship with reality is so tenuous, you might as well be posting about Hogwarts.

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Someone should remind him that Biden reversed Trump on international agreements (Climate Accords, Iran Nuke Deal) on day one.

Yet, he let a much narrower agreement with the Taliban remain in place.

So it's just fatuous to suggest that Biden doesn't own this disaster. Biden could have scrapped Trump's deal and reversed it for the long haul at any time after he was inaugurated until yesterday.

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You have an extremely limited understanding of how things work for a someone who claims to have worked in intel analysis. Those 5000 prisoners Trump let go probably constituted the bulk of the current Taliban officer corps. We already know their next President was released from jail in 2018, what a boon that must have been to get a chess piece of that stature back in exchange for nothing. There was no going back from an action like that, nor was it feasible to re-import all of the equipment and forces that left the country before Biden ever got in office.

So no, armchair general, he could not have simply reversed course on a dime to go back to status quo, and it is laughable that you think otherwise. If we had broken the deal, right after giving them back their most seasoned fighters and removing our forces, they would have started targeting US soldiers again and casualties would have spiked, then you would be here talking about how stupid that move was.

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What an unspeakably dumb argument, contradicted no less by the man you are trying to defend.

Biden could have, had he determined it necessary, surged 40k troops into the country and re-established the 20-year stalemate we maintained in the mountains.
Bush did that.
Biden did not do that.

He could have done another shock & awe campaign at any time.
He did not do that.

He could have prepared an orderly withdrawal, covered by shock & awe, that destroyed equipment rather than leaving full depots.
He did not do that.

He could have had assets in place to remove diplomats and citizens well in advance.
He did not do that.

A smart POTUS would have done at least a little of all that, in advance of departure.
He did not do that.

I mean, did he have the embassy on drawdown? They advertised for a FSN position THIS WEEK, so the answer is no. Key question: were there dependents at post? I don't know, but the answer will be telling.

Instead, just days ago, he stood in front of a microphone, as did his SecState separately back in July, and flatly refuted your assertions. He insisted that the Afghan Army would NOT collapse, that there would be no disorderly retreat. (so much for your assertions about Trump sealing our fate a year ago.) No serious observer of Afghan affairs ever thought Afghan Army could ever win a war against the Taliban. But it seems like Sleepy Joe the Foreign Policy Expert relied on exactly that calculation....that the Afghans could cover our retreat.

Seriously, Huck. The premise that this is Trump's fault is childishly silly. I'm certainly not suggesting vanquishing the Taliban was ever in the cards for anyone. My critique is about a botched retreat. And "botched" does not fully capture the essence of what happened.

In fairness to Biden and his predecessor, it was Obama who is most responsible. He could have pulled out of Afghanistan the day after we killed Bin Ladin, when the Taliban was not nearly as strong as it is today. Sure, over time, the same thing would have happened. But we would not be scrambling airlift assets which will not fully be on site for another 48 hours. By staying to craft the Afghani future, we mission-creeped ourselves from doing something only the USA could have done (find/kill BinLadin) to doing something our nation simply does not have the political will to do anymore - nationbuild.

And it's also not fair to really even solely blame Biden. The man is in an advanced stage of senescence. It's the Democrat foreign policy establishment, full of progressives these days, who are running the show. This is on them. They stood down the military to indoctrinate them in Critical Race Theory to prepare for what their worldview told them was the most imminent threat = white supremacy. Well, we're prepared for that paper tiger. It's the real tiger that got our ass. And until you knuckleheads wake up and joint the real world, you are going to keep making messes and getting people killed.

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So basically, just spend into infinity to fight an enemy that's never been defeated.

Ok.

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The first option would be spend into infinity. He gave several others, none of which you addressed. Kind of a dishonest approach by you, don't cha think?

Here it is, your Moment of Zen. pic.twitter.com/3zUYWORRHL

— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) August 17, 2021

HuMcK said:

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Dogs only bark when they get bit. Good dog.

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I didn't think you could say something more idiotic and yet this.

Who or what was biting my neighbor's dog for two hours last night while I was trying to sleep?

Muslims worldwide are more opposed to violent jihadi ideology, which may help make Afghanistan less of a terrorist sanctuary. https://t.co/UnVSXE0Dkq

— The Christian Science Monitor (@csmonitor) August 17, 2021

" The Taliban know how unpopular they are among Afghans, especially women. "You do not see Muslims flocking to become part of these very antiquated and rigid and idiosyncratic versions of a caliphate," says Ms. Bennett. In 2019, it was in large part the low support among Muslims living under the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria that helped lead to the demise of ISIS.

In many Muslim countries, from Tunisia to Indonesia, the people have rejected violent jihadis, often quietly if not overtly. The peaceful intent of most of the world's 1.6 billion Muslims remains a powerful force. The U.S. and its partners must continue to harness it. One example is the Abraham Accords in 2020 that established formal ties between Israel and several Arab nations. In the past six years, deaths from terrorist attacks of any kind have declined year by year, according to the Institute for Economics and Peace. The largest decreases were in Syria, Iraq, and Nigeria.

Jihadi fighters are most vulnerable from their own Muslim communities. The Taliban must know this and might decide to keep foreign jihadis out of Afghanistan. An avenue of hope is for the world to encourage Afghan Muslims to practice their faith by rejecting a violent ideology.

The best reaction to the Taliban takeover is not fear. Then the U.S. efforts in that country including building up education and women's rights over 20 years were not in vain."

LIB,MR BEARS said:

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GoldMind said:

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whiterock said:

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HuMcK said:

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whiterock said:

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Canon said:

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HuMcK said:

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That's extra rich coming from him. Taliban was already violating the terms of their "deal" with offensives before Trunp left office. They wanted us gone months ago, Trump literally criticized Biden for pushing the date from May to September, if anything the withdrawal would have been more chaotic and unorganized back then if that's possible. Extra irony is someone that admin had released from prison in 2018 is the presumptive next Taloban leader of Afghanistan.

It's not an accident that the deal they struck scheduled the handover during the next admin's term, they knew how this was always going to end no matter who was in office, especially after the large prisoner release.

---

Your relationship with reality is so tenuous, you might as well be posting about Hogwarts.

---

Someone should remind him that Biden reversed Trump on international agreements (Climate Accords, Iran Nuke Deal) on day one.

Yet, he let a much narrower agreement with the Taliban remain in place.

So it's just fatuous to suggest that Biden doesn't own this disaster. Biden could have scrapped Trump's deal and reversed it for the long haul at any time after he was inaugurated until yesterday.

---

You have an extremely limited understanding of how things work for a someone who claims to have worked in intel analysis. Those 5000 prisoners Trump let go probably constituted the bulk of the current Taliban officer corps. We already know their next President was released from jail in 2018, what a boon that must have been to get a chess piece of that stature back in exchange for nothing. There was no going back from an action like that, nor was it feasible to re-import all of the equipment and forces that left the country before Biden ever got in office.

So no, armchair general, he could not have simply reversed course on a dime to go back to status quo, and it is laughable that you think otherwise. If we had broken the deal, right after giving them back their most seasoned fighters and removing our forces, they would have started targeting US soldiers again and casualties would have spiked, then you would be here talking about how stupid that move was.

---

What an unspeakably dumb argument, contradicted no less by the man you are trying to defend.

Biden could have, had he determined it necessary, surged 40k troops into the country and re-established the 20-year stalemate we maintained in the mountains.
Bush did that.
Biden did not do that.

He could have done another shock & awe campaign at any time.
He did not do that.

He could have prepared an orderly withdrawal, covered by shock & awe, that destroyed equipment rather than leaving full depots.
He did not do that.

He could have had assets in place to remove diplomats and citizens well in advance.
He did not do that.

A smart POTUS would have done at least a little of all that, in advance of departure.
He did not do that.

I mean, did he have the embassy on drawdown? They advertised for a FSN position THIS WEEK, so the answer is no. Key question: were there dependents at post? I don't know, but the answer will be telling.

Instead, just days ago, he stood in front of a microphone, as did his SecState separately back in July, and flatly refuted your assertions. He insisted that the Afghan Army would NOT collapse, that there would be no disorderly retreat. (so much for your assertions about Trump sealing our fate a year ago.) No serious observer of Afghan affairs ever thought Afghan Army could ever win a war against the Taliban. But it seems like Sleepy Joe the Foreign Policy Expert relied on exactly that calculation....that the Afghans could cover our retreat.

Seriously, Huck. The premise that this is Trump's fault is childishly silly. I'm certainly not suggesting vanquishing the Taliban was ever in the cards for anyone. My critique is about a botched retreat. And "botched" does not fully capture the essence of what happened.

In fairness to Biden and his predecessor, it was Obama who is most responsible. He could have pulled out of Afghanistan the day after we killed Bin Ladin, when the Taliban was not nearly as strong as it is today. Sure, over time, the same thing would have happened. But we would not be scrambling airlift assets which will not fully be on site for another 48 hours. By staying to craft the Afghani future, we mission-creeped ourselves from doing something only the USA could have done (find/kill BinLadin) to doing something our nation simply does not have the political will to do anymore - nationbuild.

And it's also not fair to really even solely blame Biden. The man is in an advanced stage of senescence. It's the Democrat foreign policy establishment, full of progressives these days, who are running the show. This is on them. They stood down the military to indoctrinate them in Critical Race Theory to prepare for what their worldview told them was the most imminent threat = white supremacy. Well, we're prepared for that paper tiger. It's the real tiger that got our ass. And until you knuckleheads wake up and joint the real world, you are going to keep making messes and getting people killed.

---

So basically, just spend into infinity to fight an enemy that's never been defeated.

Ok.

---

The first option would be spend into infinity. He gave several others, none of which you addressed. Kind of a dishonest approach by you, don't cha think?

---

Lol no.

No amount of measure drawback, shock and awe, covered evac was going to stop the Taliban. Their membership is comprised of muslims from Bosnia to the Philippines not just Afghans, every death they suffer aids in the recruitment of 5 more.

A smart potus wouldnt have ****ed with Afghanistan to begin with.