Pray for our Military KIA today

[Interpolation_Dawg_EX]

The exit could obviously have gone smoother, but I'm not really sure what "smooth" looks like in this case. The DoD and our Afghan embassy have been telling American citizens to leave FOR MONTHS. When you literally break a country, you pretty much own it...until you don't anymore...and this is what that looks like. .

Do you even know anything about force protection or projection?

[BeardoMSU]

Do you even know anything about force protection or projection?

Of course I do.

But what is the number? We talking about boots on the ground? Drones? Twitter threats? What?

And how long are we willing to back it up? 1 year? 2? 3? 4? Or is it just a bluff?

There is no scenario, other than us staying in Afghanistan forever, where the Taliban or some other group of lunatics wasn't going to take their country back.

As I said, the withdrawal was far from ideal. Obviously an understatement.

What else, exactly, could we have don't to drastically change the outcome, though? The scene at the airport of Afghans escaping the brutality of the Taliban was ALWAYS GOING TO HAPPEN. Yet we have pundits saying those folks escaping that hell "aren't the best and brightest", so **** them I guess, right?

Now look, I agree that getting every US citizen out should've been a priority, but as I mentioned before, the DoD and embassy the last few months literally begged US citizens to leave the country. What else can they do? If you're not military or State Dept., I can't fathom being in that hell-hole voluntarily, so again...I'm perplexed.

[Matt3467]

Of course I do.

But what is the number? We talking about boots on the ground? Drones? Twitter threats? What?

And how long are we willing to back it up? 1 year? 2? 3? 4? Or is it just a bluff?

There is no scenario, other than us staying in Afghanistan forever, where the Taliban or some other group of lunatics wasn't going to take their country back.

As I said, the withdrawal was far from ideal. Obviously an understatement.

What else, exactly, could we have don't to drastically change the outcome, though? The scene at the airport of Afghans escaping the brutality of the Taliban was ALWAYS GOING TO HAPPEN. Yet we have pundits saying those folks escaping that hell "aren't the best and brightest", so **** them I guess, right?

Now look, I agree that getting every US citizen out should've been a priority, but as I mentioned before, the DoD and embassy the last few months literally begged US citizens to leave the country. What else can they do? If you're not military or State Dept., I can't fathom being in that hell-hole voluntarily, so again...I'm perplexed.

If the citizen and allies we had there had any clue that this would be the result after we left I doubt we'd have this many left behind. Biden and others on down said there wouldn't be any issues after we pulled out. I know part of the blame is on the Afghan army that apparently just laid down their guns but on the other hand I've seen reports listing thousands upon thousands of vehicles we just left behind coupled with over 200 aircraft, more than half a million small arms and thousands of larger ones, military communications, etc. Common sense tells me than when you leave a place, especially if it was planned, you take your stuff. Its like we bolted in the middle of the night.

I'll never forget when Biden said it wouldn't be like Saigon where Americans had to be evacuated off the embassy rooftop and within two days we were doing the same thing in Afghanistan.