The Afghanistan evacuation decision tree
Our withdrawal from Afghanistan is riddled with bad decisions. Whether they were intentionally bad and designed to harm the US I do not know, but in this post I’ll assume for the sake of argument that that was not the case and that they were simply very very bad decisions. Once that assumption is made, it seems to me that all of those bad decisions flowed from two initial and basic bad decisions, both set by Joe Biden (and/or some of his aides) and adhered to with great stubbornness and a total lack of flexible response to changing conditions.
The first terrible decision was to set a rigid date for withdrawal no matter what happened – a date chosen not for strategic reasons but for Biden’s idea of good PR. The Taliban insisted on the date as well after Biden had announced it. Since they realized that Biden was 100% committed to a total withdrawal on that date, he had no leverage with them to exercise even if he was capable of and willing to exercise it.
The second terrible decision by Biden was that he refused to order enough troops to manage the evacuation safely or smoothly. I’m no fan of the generals here, but he was asking them to do impossible things and as a result they had to make some choices that were going to be difficult.
Neither the hard deadline – without conditions – nor the low number of troops even for the transition made any sense, except perhaps in Biden’s mind and maybe the minds of a few other aides.
The otherwise totally inexplicable and bizarre decision to leave Bagram stemmed from these two unwavering decisions. If there wasn’t enough military personnel to defend both Bagram and the Kabul airport, and they didn’t think the Taliban would take over until after we had evacuated most or all of the Americans, then the Kabul airport seemed more convenient. A fatal choice. But again, one that stemmed from the original two decisions.
And so later, when the Taliban were entering Kabul and gave the US the choice of controlling either the Kabul airport or the city, I think the general in charge figured he had to surrender the city to the Taliban because in order to get people out the US had to control the airport.
That put the US in the truly awful position of allowing the Taliban to control the streets of Kabul, and to be able to let certain people get to the airport and detain or beat or even kill others. Instead of depending, like Blanche Dubois, on the kindness of strangers, the US had to depend on the kindness of terrorists. An absurd position to be sure, but flowing from the lack of troops and Biden’s refusal to order enough troops to make it possible to continue to be in charge of both the city and the airport.
Then, because the Taliban controlled the city, the US had to give the Taliban the names of the Afghans who had helped them and who wanted safe passage through Taliban checkpoints. It is absurd and actually seems insane and evil to have done that, but they were in a situation in which all choices were very very bad. And again, it all stemmed from those first two choices of Biden’s and his determination to stick with them and make everyone else stick with them.
This entire sequence and many many others seems nonsensical, illogical, and in violation of every rule of successful evacuation. But it has its own internal “logic” because each decision flows from those first two terrible ones.
[NOTE: The generals had their own decisions to make – obey or refuse to obey by resigning. They apparently chose the first.]
If there were some other reason for Biden’s two decisions than dementia enabling his appalling cognition and personality, it would be nice to know.
Biden “ordered” the troop level. Do we know for sure he wrote down a number? Did he provide that instruction prior to being asked? Was he asked first and then answered? Did he ask the generals and then cut the requested number? Do generals usually ask for such granular orders in the first place? Maybe he asked for a plan and then cut the numbers arbitrarily.
I ask rhetorically, of course. But the process by which the number appeared would be interesting if it ever surfaced.
I can see this clown getting a number and then exerting his mojo by arbitrarily cutting it.
Note. Pentagon says the Humane Society is incorrect and the military working dogs are being brought home. The dogs in the picture belong to another organization. Which, current circumstances require me to add, just happen to be in cages in the airport, whose breeds as far as can be determined look like those favored by the military and we’re taking the Pentagon’s word.
Never trust anyone over 0-6.
I’m with you, neo, until the decision to give names. By that time, the situation was apparent and we had the option to flex our strength to regain an advantage. Other nations did this without creating a new permanent situation nor massive bloodshed. It was here that Biden left an indelible mark of weakness that will haunt Americans in foreign diplomacy for decades to come.
The second terrible decision by Biden was that he refused to order enough troops to manage the evacuation safely or smoothly.
Surging troops prior to a withdrawal seems like an obvious thing, at least in this type of low conflict situation. I think Neo’s got the story right.
I suspect some of this goes back to Mogadishu and Black Hawk Down. The Clintons probably said, never again. Years later Bill Clinton said his lack of action on Rwanda was one of his big regrets. Of course, did he mean it?
Then ISIS in Iraq and Syria was only the JV team to Obama and Hillary, and ISIS expanded greatly. Libya needed to be wrecked, but without a serious presence and level of control. Finally, Benghazi under Hillary’s Sec. of State watch was another “you’re on your own” situation, with Sec. Def. Panetta silent.
Ric Grenell was on Fox Biz News this morning with his opinion as to who is running the show. He believes that Susan Rice is the chief architect, with Avril Haines, Antony Blinken, and Wendy Sherman as the lieutenants. A web search showed that Grenell has been beating that drum for some months now. Grenell asked whether people actually believe Susan Rice is managing the Medicare budget? (Her job description.)
This is a pretty good analysis but it leaves out one important point.
Donald Trump announced a peace deal with the Taliban in February 2020 that included the withdrawal of U.S. forces by May 1, 2021. Biden announced on April 14 that he was moving that withdrawal date to September 11. So EVEN after Trump “lost” and EVEN after Biden was inaugurated, the U.S. military should still have been planning for a May 1 withdrawal from Afghanistan. They should have been planning and preparing for that withdrawal date FOR OVER A YEAR before Biden changed it.
Yet after having over a year to prepare for withdrawal and then being given four more months to further prepare, the U.S. military was still astonishingly unprepared with just about a month left to go. Even if the Afghan government hadn’t collapsed and the Taliban hadn’t taken over, I think it’s fairly clear that the U.S. still wouldn’t have actually gotten all of the relevant people and equipment out of Afghanistan by Biden’s deadline.
So, while everything you write about Biden’s awful decision-making is likely true, that needs to be put in the context of a military/intelligence/foreign service blob that never wanted to leave Afghanistan and spent years doing everything short of outright mutiny to slow and stymie all efforts to withdraw.
Mike
Leland:
But flexing our strength at that point would have involved using enough troops to control much of Kabul. Biden would not do that. He could have done it, but he would not commit more troops or change the deadline.
The generals had their own decisions to make – obey or refuse to obey by resigning. They apparently chose the first.
It appears that Obama’s careful retiring of selected US top military officers over his eight years set off a landslide of promotions of social-justice warriors, resulting in those two examples in their lofty heights just when the Afghan crisis hit. Of course they didn’t resign, they’d never attained the sense of responsibility of a Patton or an Eisenhower, let alone Grant or Sherman. They just done what they were told.
Agree that Biden chose not to do it which is a decision made with other options. I disagreed with “the US had to give”, which is a no option decision that can be excused because lack of options. I think you are suggesting that previous decisions lead to no option. I think there was still options up to the point the bad decision was committed to action. Those options include what many veterans point out, someone should have resigned in protest and whistle blown to Congress and/or media. Vindman did this for a much more pathetic reason and, while he likely knew how much he would be protected, he still took a level of risk to do what he thought was a worthwhile cause. No one had an issue with giving names of vulnerable people to known, US recognized, terrorist.
And I hope you understand I am debating concepts while harboring the utmost respect for you and your opinions and recollection of facts.
Representative Mark Green-TN, a veteran, stated on the Ingraham Angle (FoxNews), that he personally knew that the the Pentagon presented Biden with a package that requested an additional 4,500 troops for the Afghanistan evac. This would have enabled the securing of Bagram airbase during the operation. Biden nixed it.
TommyJay:
I believe that is true. From the start, I could not believe that generals – even these pretty awful generals – would have recommended the things that were done here. It had to be Biden (and/or some aides – but mostly Biden). As I said, it has his fingerprints all over it – horrendous judgment, ignorance, stubbornness, arrogance.
However, the generals have covered themselves in shame by not resigning en masse or threatening to do so if he didn’t listen to them. They either didn’t threaten or didn’t follow through on it. Either way, they bear a huge responsibility.
I think MBunge is getting close to the mark. The following is mostly just speculation:
The more I think about it, the more I’m inclined to place a majority (how much, I don’t know) of the blame for this catastrophic withdrawal on the senior DoD personnel. They were famously insubordinate and belligerent to the previous CinC, so much so that I believe they completely blew off preparation for withdrawal, thinking they could convince Uncle Joe to keep a small force in place.
What they didn’t anticipate was a hard no from Joe, so they were left scrambling to plan. Trump’s May date made far more sense, as it coincided with Ramadan, thus making any offensive operations for Muslim troops incredibly difficult. That’s why they needed the August 31st extension. There’s no way even our current crop of perfumed Pentagon princes couldn’t plan this withdrawal in the original time allotted. Now it’s all about message control and how they had this all planned out, which doesn’t pass the laugh test, of course.
If they had just done their jobs under Trump, they wouldn’t be facing an existential crisis.
@ Neo > “If there wasn’t enough military personnel to defend both Bagram and the Kabul airport,”
…they could have borrowed some of the troops guarding the Capitol.
https://www.michaelyon-online.com/images/stories/082921win/91572_pemx98wlllqr7jd_full.jpg
Yon is not a happy camper.
https://michaelyon.locals.com/upost/1012388/taliban-hanging-victim-from-american-black-hawk