The challenges ahead (Biden's America)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Really, we lost Afghanistan when we switched our attention to Iraq and allowed the Taliban to regain a foothold.

[River]

Anything less than that was doomed to fail, and thus Donald Trump and Joe Biden were right to pull out. The Biden administration probably could have done a better job of it, but I don't know that for sure.

I think no one anticipated how quickly it would fall apart. Friday I listened to an NPR interview with the Afghan Minister of Education. She said people in Kabul were aware that the Taliban were coming but the fighting seemed far away. She thought they had a week or more. Sunday, the city fell.

[Dave_LF]

I think almost everyone, and certainly the State Department, has failed to reckon with how fast these things can happen in the social media age. There's almost zero need for planning and logistics when you can just check Twitter to see what the other cells are up to. The BLM riots, the attempted Trumpist coup in the US, and the successful Taliban coup in Afghanistan all sprang up and spread before the people who are supposed to stop those things even had time to figure out what was going on.

Or to put it a different way, traditional, centralized law enforcement cannot compete with a social media mob.

[N.E. Brigand]

In the past day, both the Republican Party and Donald Trump have removed from their website the pages that praised the deal the U.S. struck with the Taliban during Trump's presidency.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Well,then it never happened!

[Lalaith]

I'm so relieved to again have a president who is sane.

(I'm watching Biden address the nation.)

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[Voronwë the Faithful]

Sane or not, he is going to take a lot of shit because of this, mostly undeserved.

[N.E. Brigand]

Bloomberg reports that the Taliban and the Afghan government under President Ashraf Ghani had "tentatively reached a deal in which all sides would declare a two-week cease-fire in exchange for President Ashraf Ghani’s resignation and the start of talks on setting up a transitional government," but that if fell apart when Ghani fled the country. Ghani's sudden departure caught the U.S., the Afghan negotiating team, and Ghani's own top aides by surprise.

[Lalaith]

I agree, Voronwë. It will be mostly undeserved. I don't even blame Trump for this. This extends back much further than either of these two, though I'm no expert on this subject whatsoever.

NE, that's the part of Biden's speech that I thought was quite relevant. If the Afghani people won't fight for themselves (the military and government officials), then we can't continue to fight for them.

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[Lalaith]

I agree, Voronwë. It will be mostly undeserved. I don't even blame Trump for this. This extends back much further than either of these two, though I'm no expert on this subject whatsoever.

NE, that's the part of Biden's speech that I thought was quite relevant. If the Afghani people won't fight for themselves (the military and government officials), then we can't continue to fight for them. But, again, what do I know?

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[Frelga]

It's rare that I don't know what the right thing is, but I honestly don't, now. Should we have stayed indefinitely? Was it really necessary to withdraw now?

One thing that does makes sense to me is that it is our (the US) obligation to take in the Afghani people who are now fleeing for their lives. Especially those who worked for the US, and women acticists.

[River]

There is rapidly growing traction for the idea of bringing the translators and everyone else who's likely to get shot for existing by the Taliban in on immigration parole and then processing their visas. A lot of veteran's groups are leaning hard on this. Congressman Gallego is one of them. He rather poignantly pointed out that he's heard almost nothing on the matter from his constituents.

I have no idea what the right thing to do was either. It appears that absolutely no one involved in maintaining the situation in Afghanistan was telling the truth about how things were going. They lied to us, they lied to each other, and they probably lied to themselves. Staying would have been useless. Pulling out probably didn't have to dissolve into utter chaos, but maybe it was destined to. There are definitely things we could have done differently and, if the former government of Afghanistan actually cared for its people, things they could have done differently (like, oh, I don't know, pay their troops)

[N.E. Brigand]

I'd like to know a lot more about how the U.S. government got caught by surprise, or if it did.

Here are two possibilities I've seen commentators put forward. Neither may be correct, but both are worth some consideration, I think:

(1) The Biden administration did know that a collapse was imminent for August, but feared that admitting it in June or July would make the collapse happen even faster.

(2) The Biden administration did not know that a collapse was imminent, because U.S. intelligence sources in Afghanistan had been paid off by the Taliban (who obviously were busy buying the loyalty of lots of Afghani military and military officials) and lied to the CIA to paint a rosier picture.

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Rachel Maddow on MSBNC has been pushing on her show for a couple months now for faster immigration processing of Afghani interpreters and others who had helped U.S. forces and now were in danger for that reason. On one episode several weeks ago, she interviewed the governor of Guam, who had announced that her U.S. territory stood ready to welcome refugees, as that island has done on several previous occasions, most notably following the fall of Saigon.

This morning on conservative talk radio, I heard an interview with J.D. Vance, the author who is vying to be the senator from Ohio. He put forward what seemed to be two somewhat contradictory messages about Afghanistan: (1) Joe Biden was monstrously abandoning all the Afghanis who had aided our troops, and (2) Afghani refugees should be not be allowed to immigrate to the U.S. but instead should be relocated to nations where they fit in better.

[River]

Afghanistan to Guam would be one helluva shock.

Regarding the refugees...I think Vance is (perhaps deliberately) underestimating the melting pot powers of the US. I suspect that after some initial culture shock the refugees will just get swallowed up and their kids will be my kids' classmates in college if not sooner.

[elengil]

Just skimmed an article saying many of the Afghanis are going to be settled in Seattle/Tacoma area. Not sure *how* many, but local at least.

[River]

Just skimmed an article saying many of the Afghanis are going to be settled in Seattle/Tacoma area. Not sure *how* many, but local at least.

Not sure there's much of an Afghani community there. And housing is scarce and expensive. But hey, maybe someone will open a restaurant and I'll have a chance to try Afghani food next time I visit. I can't imagine there being a local outcry. Seattle and Tacoma have absorbed Hmong and people from the Horn of Africa. They'll make room for Afghanis.

[elengil]

Not the exact article I'd seen but same idea: https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/afghan ... WRSBIVVV4/

[N.E. Brigand]

A U.S. State Department spokesperson today said that no interviews for special immigrant visas for Afghani citizens (e.g., the interpreters who worked with U.S. troops) were conducted between March 2020 and February 2021.

March 2020 was right after the U.S. reached the withdrawal deal with the Taliban.

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Edited to add: Accordingly, it may be notable that former president Donald Trump, who called on Monday for the U.S. government to help Afghanistan's refugees, today complained about the photo of more than 600 Afghani citizens being evacuated Monday on a military cargo plane. Trump's statement today said that that plane should have carried Americans rather than Afghanis, and included the exclamation "America First!"

[Voronwë the Faithful]

A U.S. State Department spokesperson today said that no interviews for special immigrant visas for Afghani citizens (e.g., the interpreters who worked with U.S. troops) were conducted between March 2020 and February 2021.

March 2020 was right after the U.S. reached the withdrawal deal with the Taliban.

While that is an important point and a sign that the previous administration has a lot to answer for, the truth of the matter is that the current administration knew that those interviews had not been conducted and therefore knew that if they went forward with the withdrawal plan that it would result in many of those individuals being in harm's way. This was not well thought out.

(I will pass by your edit with no comment, because really, what can be said?)

[N.E. Brigand]

But the Biden administration didn't go forward with the withdrawal as originally announced. They delayed it by four months, from May 1 to Sep. 1. (And they delayed it by nearly eight months from what the Trump administration attempted to enact in late 2020, when Trump ordered a Jan. 15 withdrawal.)