It may feel good to complain that Biden shouldn't let the Taliban dictate our actions at Kabul. But from Biden's own decisions it is too late for America to be forceful with the Taliban. Only our level of groveling to escape is in doubt.
American forces are already starting to leave, as American troops are hollowing out their presence at the Kabul airport. Some are calling for America to defy the Taliban deadline to get all of our people out.
You know, I'm open to hearing how we can defy the Taliban and stay as long as we need at the Kabul airport to get our people and local friends out of Afghanistan. But explain some things to me.
First, how do we secure the
perimeter of the airport from indirect fire and anti-aircraft
interdiction? Oh, and add suicide truck bombs or drones or even captured aircraft used
as kamikaze attackers as threats. Think Dien Bien Phu. Or maybe "just" the Beirut barracks bombing.
Also, how do we get the people trapped in the city of Kabul
behind Taliban lines who want to get out? Helicopter missions that will attract anti-aircraft traps? Think Black Hawk Down.
Repeated ground convoy forays that eventually get ambushed or trapped? Again, Black Hawk Down. Or maybe Task Force Baum.
To avoid going over the same territory repeatedly and risk ambushes, won't we need to capture the entire city of 5 million people? Perhaps
destroying the city in the process? Let's talk Fallujah now. People might actually rally to the horrible Taliban at that level of destruction, no?
How many troops will this require? And who will provide the territorial access to landlocked Afghanistan for this massive aerial troop movement and logistics effort? Pakistan? Iran?? Russia??? With winter coming, will it be Stalingrad for our troops?
With a huge American force on the ground reliant on aerial resupply over potentially hostile territory how do we maintain that for long and what about the degree of difficulty in pulling all that out via airlift? Dunkirk will look like child's play. And the mind boggles at the amount of far more modern equipment used to expand the territory we control that we'd have to abandon to evacuate our troops.
Further, with any forceful measure, how do we keep the Taliban from grabbing our people behind their lines and moving them farther away before we can get to them? What then?
What do we do about troops or air crews captured during the battle? Expand the war to get them back, too?
Oh, and even if that works what about the people we want to rescue who haven't even gotten to Kabul?
We've had no combat deaths for the last year and a half in Afghanistan helping the Afghanistan government fight the Taliban. How many casualties would we endure fighting the Taliban in this type of mission?
Explain how we get around these obstacles and I'll get back to you.
European nations offered stark warnings Thursday about the waning days of a massive airlift to bring people out of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, with a British official saying an “imminent attack” could target Kabul’s international airport.
As nice as it is to think we could be forceful at this late date, that option requires a friendly Afghanistan state with security forces still holding major bases, Kabul, and other cities. We had that with only 2,500 troops. But Biden decided that was not important.
So the ship of American defiance has sailed. Now we are just in the position of minimizing the humiliation. And I have doubts about our leadership's ability to do that.
UPDATE: Worse:
An explosion went off Thursday outside Kabul's airport, where thousands of people have flocked as they try to flee the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. Western nations had warned of a possible attack there in the waning days of a massive airlift.
Is this the first of many or the opening bid in negotiations for how much money we have to pay to stop such attacks?
UPDATE: The U.S. says it was a "complex" attack. Which means it used more than a single means of attack. So more than a suicide bombing.
UPDATE: There are reports that 4 American Marines were killed in the blast.
UPDATE: Eleven Marines and a Navy medic were the American troops killed in the suicide attack.
UPDATE: Bush 43 was believable when he stood on the rubble of the Twin Towers and pledged to destroy the terrorists who attacked America on 9/11.
"To those who carried out this attack, as well as anyone who wishes America harm, know this –– we will not forgive, we will not forget, we will hunt you down and make you pay," the president said in a somber White House address.
Biden forgot as soon as he walked away from the podium.
UPDATE: How hard are the Taliban laughing right now at that threat?
