The US and Taliban are heading to a confrontation over the Kabul airport if thousands of Americans and allies don't get out in the next 7 days
By: rcohen@insider.com (Rebecca Cohen,John Haltiwanger) 18 hrs ago (MSN)
Ya think?
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
© US Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Samuel Ruiz A Marine during the evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Sunday. US Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Samuel Ruiz
- As tensions in Afghanistan continue to rise, the US has until August 31 to evacuate thousands.
- The G7 lobbied Biden to extend the evacuation date to get everyone out, but he's sticking to it.
- The Taliban threatened "consequences" if troops aren't out on time.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
As tensions continue to rise in Afghanistan, the US faces a hard deadline to evacuate all Americans and allies who wish to flee the country.
The Taliban have threatened "consequences" if President Joe Biden doesn't follow through on his promise to get troops out of Kabul by August 31. On Tuesday, a Taliban spokesman said there wouldn't be an option to extend the deadline past that date, The Associated Press reported.
Now a confrontation between the Taliban and the US looms.
On Tuesday, the White House in a statement announced that the US intended to maintain the August 31 deadline for completing evacuations from the Kabul airport. Prior to this announcement, G7 leaders tried to lobby Biden to impose an extension to that date, The AP reported.
It's possible that some might be left behind in Afghanistan if troops pull out by August 31.
© MARCUS YAM / LOS ANGELES TIMES via Getty Images A military transport plane launches as Afghans who cannot get into the airport watch in Kabul on Monday. MARCUS YAM / LOS ANGELES TIMES via Getty Images
There have been widespread complaints about Biden's handling of the Afghanistan crisis from Britain, France, Germany, and others in the G7, according to the AP.
Video: U.S. Is Talking to Taliban About Getting People to Kabul Airport (Bloomberg)
If Biden cannot evacuate all Americans by the deadline, the Taliban could shut down Kabul's airport as a consequence, which would prevent people from leaving the country.
Biden was set to speak at noon ET, but the speech was pushed back to Tuesday evening. He'll likely address his decision to maintain the August 31 deadline.
Taliban said it wouldn't allow a deadline extension, and the UN warned of 'credible' reports of executions
The Taliban on Tuesday also said they would not allow Afghans to reach the Kabul airport, saying that they needed skilled people to rebuild the country.
"We are asking the American please change your policy and don't encourage Afghans to leave," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.
This came as the UN's human-rights chief warned of "credible" reports of serious violations by the Taliban, including the executions of civilians and surrendering Afghan forces.
With the Taliban tightening their grip over the country, Biden's handling of the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan has been widely criticized. But the president has fervently defended the move, saying that keeping a significant force of US troops in the country would not have fundamentally altered the situation on the ground after roughly 20 years of war.
The Taliban already controlled much of Afghanistan by the time Biden announced the US withdrawal in April, which built off a deal the Trump administrationbrokered in February 2020. While the US intelligence community said that the Afghan government would struggle to retain control of Afghanistan after a coalition withdrawal, Biden in July expressed confidence in the ability of Afghan forces to keep the Taliban at bay.
Within a few weeks, the Taliban had retaken the country - often capturing major cities without much of a fight. The Biden administration has acknowledged it was caught off guard by the Taliban's rapid takeover, despite prior warnings.
The US sent in about 6,000 additional troops to Afghanistan after the Taliban entered Kabul to assist with evacuations. It's unclear precisely how the Taliban will respond if the US stays in Afghanistan beyond the August 31 deadline.
The US military has evacuated nearly 60,000 people from Afghanistan since August 14, Reuters reported, citing a NATO diplomat.
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Pretty much inevitable................gonna get tense. REAL tense
Attacking US forces is not in the Taliban's interest. A firefight between Taliban and US forces won't end well for the Taliban. That only provides an excuse for US escalation and would let Joe Biden off the hook politically. A confrontation between US forces and Taliban forces would shift attention away from Afghans 'stuck' in the country. Given a provocation, Biden can take harsh measures without sending troops into Kabul. Think drones. Think cruise missiles. Think long range, precision weapons. Biden can look tough without actually doing much.
The only leverage the Taliban has is reprisals against Afghans which would make Biden look weak because Biden can't do anything to stop reprisals. The Taliban will take harsher measures to deny access to the airport. The Taliban will detain US citizens as a form of hostage taking. The Taliban will increase their rhetoric against Afghans that collaborated with a foreign invader. The Taliban will increase their pressure on Biden to withdraw or risk a bloodbath.
It wouldn't be in their best interest but as far as it ending well for the Taliban, that all depends on the morons in D.C. The Taliban doesn't operate under any Rules Of Engagement (ROE) like the US military does. For years, the idiots in D.C. implemented a ROE that was so restrictive that it left the US Military with our hands tied. We could watch the Taliban roll into a village and take over and there was nothing we could do because the ROE explicitly stated we could not engage them unless provoked. We had to wait until they shot directly at us before we could do anything. The US success with night raids going after the Taliban leadership was such that they complained and President Obama's administration added restrictions that prevented us from carrying out night raids. With those restrictions it meant the Taliban could do anything they wanted at night. It lead to a drastic increase of IED's and injuries.
Then come along President Trump's administration who lifted many of the restrictions and we were able to beat back the Taliban. They feared the US. We still had restrictions that, the military disliked but we weren't as helpless. Now that the Trump Administration is gone and the current administration has a strong tendency to show cowardice, incompetence and indecision at even the smallest of things, the Taliban see this and acted quickly. This is why we saw them take over the country is such a short time.
All of that could take place. Given that the Taliban now has control of US Ground Equipment and rotary wing aircraft, it would be too easy to pull ground forces from the country and just run mission after mission of nothing but aerial attack using fixed wing aircraft targeting this equipment. But the problem is the current administration won't do it. They have already blown off the military leadership who had been in Afghanistan for years leading the fight for for a political decision that has left so many Americans at risk in both Afghanistan and here in the US (since they decided to fly unvetted "refugees" to various locations CONUS).
In a nut shell this was a failure by many agencies that snowballed since January 20th. Things were in place for a drawdown in Afghanistan. Not only military, but State Department, military, and the intelligence side as well. But due to political grandstanding, a horrid decision was made by the current administration and we are seeing the result.
None of what is happening is about the military mission. Everything that's happening now in Afghanistan is about politics.
The military mission in Afghanistan was never to conquer Afghanistan. The military mission in Afghanistan was never a conflict over geopolitical ideology or geopolitical spheres of influence. The military mission in Afghanistan wasn't to support a proxy war. The military mission in Afghanistan was not to extend US power and influence into the region. The strategic point is that Afghanistan was pointless strategically.
The United States has no need to defeat the Taliban; the Taliban were never the threat against the United States. The Taliban has not spread terrorists around the world. There aren't any Taliban supported forces in Iraq or Syria or Yemen. The Taliban established a safe haven for terrorists as a source of money and little else. Afghanistan has been a safe haven for terrorists but Afghanistan has not been a state sponsor of terrorism.
The military was in Afghanistan to hunt and kill Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. When that military mission was accomplished, Afghanistan became a hobby for nation building diplomats that did not serve US interests. Nation building is all politics; the only role for the military in nation building is to act as a cudgel. Military missions shift and change on the whims of the diplomatic corps; the military only serves a political purpose. Diplomats change the ROE based on political objectives and not military objectives. Military personnel are placed at risk to score political points. That's what we witnessed over the last 5 years and what we are witnessing in Afghanistan now.
Joe Biden is playing politics and the Taliban are playing politics. That's all there is about what is happening in Afghanistan.
BTW, what is happening in Afghanistan is a failure of the State Dept. The State Dept. is responsible for passports, visas, dealing with refugees, and American citizens in foreign countries. The State Dept. is responsible for security of embassies. The military improvised an extraction because the State Dept. plans failed. Again, what is happening is all political and has nothing to do with the military presence or mission.
Antony Blinken bears more responsibility for the chaos than does Lloyd Austin.
it's because of the politics that it's a military mission. The politics also hinder the military from doing what needs to be done. The military's mission in Afghanistan was to prevent another attack on the US. Which despite the political climate, we did just that.
You'd be surprised what you find out when the politics aren't involved and you get to sit in on the "on ground" intel briefings.
Like I said, it's a failure by many agencies. The State Department, yes, is responsible for passports, visas, dealing with refugees, and American citizens. They aren't responsible for the military or other intelligence agencies. Even an brand new Private or 2LT could tell what was going to happen once the US pulled out of Afghanistan. It was never a matter of if it would happen. It was a matter of when it would happen. Any military leader that says otherwise if full of shit.
If you want to include the military being responsible for this political shitshow, then go ahead. So, how much can we cut defense spending now? If the military are the fuckups then we don't need to waste more money on more military fuckups. Maintaining an incompetent military is a very expensive hobby.
Please, explain how a fighting force of 2,500 was going to stop the Taliban taking over the country? Please, explain how a force of 2,500 was going to secure the airport, evacuate the embassy, and extract 20,000 or 40,000 or 80,000 Afghans from Kabul? The Taliban could have overrun the remaining force of 2,500 and claimed a real military victory; that would've been a propaganda windfall.
The Taliban are allowing the US military to leave quietly and peacefully. But the Taliban have lost control of the situation because the Afghan population has lost its mind. No one is in control of the situation at this point. And since no one is in control of the situation the risks are very high for all sides.
Afghanistan is not a rich country. The Taliban can't divert oil revenue into terror operations. How can the Taliban support state sponsored terror? The Taliban would need a sponsor; the Taliban would need the support of a state that sponsors terror. That would make the Taliban mercenary terrorists who wouldn't be in charge of anything since they wouldn't want to piss off their sponsor. The Taliban becoming mercenary terrorists or, even, sponsors of terror elsewhere would pull resources away from the fight in Afghanistan. Sponsoring terror outside of Afghanistan wouldn't allow the Taliban to regain control of Afghanistan.
I didn't say that. I said that because of the politics it's a military mission. You seem to be focusing on one aspect of this train wreck. There are many things that are at the root of the problem. Budget isn't one of them right now.
Reality is it's not. If the morons in DC place restrictions on operations, it doesn't matter if there are 250,000 on the ground. Get away from the "hearts and minds" aspect and focus on combat operations. Let NGO's like the Red Cross worry about the civil side.
Opium. Oh, and you'd be surprised how much support they get from other terrorist organizations and countries. The Taliban isn't restricted to just Afghanistan. I've fought Taliban from Pakistan while in Khost Province, a combination of several different countries in Kandahar and Taliban from Iran while in Herat Province. Those countries have also armed them as well. The captured weapons and munitions are an easy way to figure out where they're coming from. But that is kind of negated since this mess just gave them US weapons, equipment and munitions.
You can't believe everything you hear on the news about these intel briefings (or anything else for that matter). They don't tell you the full story and every single news outlet will put their little twist on it (Fox for the right leaning viewers, MSNBC for the left leaning viewers and CNN will just make shit up as they go).
Not one of those actions will get a single US citizen or Afghan out. The Taliban are insulated with the people we are trying to save. They are not a regular military, and will not go out to a neutral battlefield where our advanced technology can easily destroy them. It will take house to house fighting on the ground to root the Taliban out and rescue our citizens and get the Afghans we made promises to out. Hit the Taliban outside of the cities and they will start killing US citizens, if they haven't started already. Pictures of US dead would be terrible optics for Biden.
Biden put himself in a box. If he were a decent man he would step down; but Harris has already proven she would be no better. As congressional Democrats are coming to realize, they are royally screwed.
No, it won't get anyone out of Afghanistan. Biden's imperative right now is to get ahead of events on the ground and change the narrative. The Taliban's imperative right now is to establish legitimacy and stability. Neither Joe Biden or the Taliban have control over the situation because the Afghan population has lost its freakin' mind.
I suppose we'll see how Biden has prepared for video of the last plane out of Afghanistan. And we know that is going to be the headline for quite a few news cycles. The news media can't pass up such a golden opportunity; some of the news stories have probably already been written.
Biden’s going to slip them a pallet of our cash.
MARINES wounded at Kabul airport in bomb attack.
The first thing I hear when I turn on the TV this morning.
Thanks Biden. You have finally succeeded in bringing this country to it's knees.
The headlines in the near future will be "America loses to terrorists and withdraw under fire from previously held territory."