US and Nato withdrawal from Afghanistan...- threadbanned users in OP

Fair enough. I took it to mean the whole $h1tshow

Firstly its not 300k soldiers.

There were officially 300,000 Afghan troops, but the 300,000 included only 185,000 army troops or special operations forces under Defense Ministry control, with police and other security personnel making up the rest.

Barely 60 percent of the Afghan army troops were trained fighters.

A more accurate estimate of the army's fighting strength, once the 8,000 air force personnel are taken out of the equation, is 96,000.

However the Afghan army had to replace 25 percent of its force each year -- largely because of desertions -- and American soldiers working with the Afghans came to see this rate as "normal."

Secondly, the salaries of the Afghan army had been paid for years by the Pentagon.

But from the moment the American army announced its planned withdrawal in April, responsibility for those payments fell on the Kabul government.

Numerous Afghan soldiers have complained on social media that they not only have not been paid in months, in many instances their units were no longer receiving food or supplies -- not even ammunition.

Thirdly the Afghan army fighting alongside American troops was molded to match the way the Americans operate. The U.S. military, the world’s most advanced, relies heavily on combining ground operations with air power, using aircraft to resupply outposts, strike targets, ferry the wounded, and collect reconnaissance and intelligence.

In the wake of Biden’s withdrawal decision, the U.S. pulled its air support, intelligence and contractors servicing Afghanistan’s planes and helicopters. That meant the Afghan military simply couldn’t operate anymore.

When U.S. forces were still operating , the Afghan government sought to maximize its presence through the country’s far-flung countryside, maintaining more than 200 bases and outposts that could be resupplied only by air.

Once the air support went these bases were isolated.

The Taliban concentrated on overrunning the isolated outposts, massacring soldiers who were determined to resist but allowing safe conduct to those who surrendered, often via deals negotiated by local tribal elders. The Taliban gave pocket money to some of these troops, who had gone unpaid for months.

By the time the Taliban began their assault on major population areas this month, the Afghan military was so demoralized that it offered little resistance. Provincial leaders and senior commanders replicated surrender deals struck on the local level before. The elite commando units were one exception, but they were too few in number and lacked aircraft to move them around the country.

Biden should not have withdrawn the final troops when it was obvious that the Taliban had repeatedly reneged on the promises agreed under last years treaty.

Biden’s determination to adhere to the treaty without a well-planned military transition plan, emboldened the Taliban and hit the morale of the Afghan armed forces just as the country was beginning its fighting season.

The Taliban now have control of all the advanced weaponry the US provided.

Its been a catastrophic sequence of events and Biden has made a complete mess of it.

That's a good synopsis. On the other hand what could they have done differently, would a slower or faster pull out have made any difference in reality?

They pumped serious resources into Afghanistan and as soon as they handed back to the Afghanis the whole place fell apart. I mean the Afghans had 20 years to become self sufficient here, if they were that poor organisationally, militarily and as corrupt as you outlined there, at what point do the US say "**** this, we are going nowhere with this crowd"

Seems like the country was always going to be there for the taking no matter what Biden did. They had to leave sometime and the Taliban would have been (and were) ready to pounce whenever that happened.

FG and FF????

Go to bed man, seriously for your own good.

But Trump struck a deal to withdraw by May 1st.

Here we are 3 months later.

How is that Bidens fault?? If anything he bought time but realised the Taliban had run out of patience.

Trump and his promise to withdrawl so hastily is the root cause of this mess.

Yes, and the other prevailing theory that majority of Afghans want the Taliban back... and the basis for this belief is the refusal of the Afghan military refused to fight.

Who doesn't like the bumper cars?

Technique could do with some work.

I for one am shocked that a US military led operation on foreign soil can be a complete disaster from start to finish.

This is surely the first time such a thing has happened.

When I see all the blaming of Trump and Biden

https://twitter.com/sumaiya15258374/status/1427328981754339339?s=21