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The fall of Kabul
Author: TriSec    Date: 05/22/2021 11:56:14

http://cache.boston.com/resize/bonzai-fba/Globe_Photo/2009/05/15/1242441987_5068/539w.jpg



It's over.

If President Biden is able to keep the military on-track to meet the timetable, by the 20th anniversary of a particular event in NYC, our servicemembers will be home for now.

But what has 20 years of war brought us?

We didn't lose this one - but we didn't win it, either. This was the more legitimate of President Bush's two wars. We had cause and reason to believe that our enemy was hiding somewhere out there.

But was he really? It took ten years to track him down and do the deed, and he wasn't even in Afghanistan!

Our folly has resulted in two decades of pain and suffering for the Afghans as well as the Americans and Allies that had to suffer through it all. In the end, we got what we came for a decade ago now - and we should have started the exit process as soon as those SEALS returned from Pakistan. But I digress.

Leaving a war zone is not an easy process, even with victory. I can rattle off some names from our past where we fought, and now still have bases. USAG Army Base in Scheinfurt, or Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa spring readily to mind. We never had to evacuate those places because we never left.

One place we did leave in a shambles was also the "only war America lost". The photo above the fold is the chaotic scene of the last helicopter leaving the US Embassy in Saigon.


CH-53 and CH-46 helicopters were used to evacuate Americans and friendly Vietnamese to ships, including the Seventh Fleet, in the South China Sea. The main evacuation point was the DAO Compound at Tan Son Nhat; buses moved through the city picking up passengers and driving them out to the airport, with the first buses arriving at Tan Son Nhat shortly after noon. The first CH-53 landed at the DAO compound in the afternoon, and by the evening, 395 Americans and more than 4,000 Vietnamese had been evacuated. By 23:00 the U.S. Marines who were providing security were withdrawing and arranging the demolition of the DAO office, American equipment, files, and cash. Air America UH-1s also participated in the evacuation.


It is anticipated that leaving Afghanistan will be somewhat less chaotic - but you can never predict that sort of thing.

Of course, we've spent 20 years sending supplies and hardware, as well as building bases and military infrastructure to support it all. So what's going to happen to all that equipment? As you can probably guess, most of it is going to be destroyed in situ and left for scrap.


BAGRAM, Afghanistan -- The twisted remains of several all-terrain vehicles leaned precariously inside Baba Mir’s sprawling scrap yard, alongside smashed shards that were once generators, tank tracks that have been dismantled into chunks of metal, and mountains of tents reduced to sliced up fabric.

It’s all U.S. military equipment. The Americans are dismantling their portion of nearby Bagram Air Base, their largest remaining outpost in Afghanistan, and anything that is not being taken home or given to the Afghan military is being destroyed as completely as possible, even small outposts are being dismantled or reduced to rubble.

They do so as a security measure, to ensure equipment doesn’t fall into the hands of militants. But Mir and the dozens of other scrap sellers around Bagram see it as an infuriating waste.

“What they are doing is a betrayal of Afghans. They should leave,” he said. “Like they have destroyed this vehicle, they have destroyed us.”

As the last few thousand U.S. and NATO troops head out the door, ending their own 20-year war in Afghanistan, they are involved in a massive logistical undertaking, packing up bases around the country. They leave behind a population where many are frustrated and angry. The Afghans feel abandoned to a legacy they blame at least in part on the Americans — a deeply corrupt U.S.-backed government and growing instability that could burst into brutal new phase of civil war.

The bitterness of the scrapyard owners is only a small part of that, and it’s based somewhat on self-interest: They feel they they could have profited more from selling intact equipment.

It’s been a common theme for the past two traumatic and destructive decades in which actions that the U.S. touted as necessary or beneficial only disillusioned Afghans who felt the repercussions.

At Bagram, northwest of the capital of Kabul, and other bases, U.S. forces are taking stock of equipment to be returned to America. Tens of thousands of metal containers, about 20 feet long, are being shipped out on C-17 cargo planes or by road through Pakistan and Central Asia. As of last week, 60 C-17s packed with equipment already had left Afghanistan.

Officials are being secretive about what stays and what goes. Most of what is being shipped home is sensitive equipment never intended to be left behind, according to U.S. and Western officials who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to talk freely about departing troops.

Other equipment, including helicopters, military vehicles, weapons and ammunition, will be handed over to Afghanistan’s National Defense and Security Forces. Some bases will be given to them as well. One of those most recently handed over was the New Antonik base in Helmand province, where Taliban are said to control roughly 80% of the rural area.

Destined for the scrap heap are equipment and vehicles that can neither be repaired nor transferred to Afghanistan’s security forces because of poor condition.


But that is only the equipment. American military, as well as our allies, will all line up and board a series of transport aircraft and fly home when it's all done. But what of those Afghan citizens that chose to help us? Their future is far less certain.


WASHINGTON – In 2019, Omid Mahmoodi was working as a linguist for a U.S. Army brigade in Kabul when he overheard an Afghan soldier badmouthing the American forces.

Mahmoodi quickly alerted an Army sergeant, and the Afghan soldier was expelled from service.

"I have no doubt in my mind that Omid's actions that day saved an American soldier's life," his supervisor, Army Capt. Jonathan Flancher, wrote in a letter supporting Mahmoodi's application for a U.S. visa.

Mahmoodi is now among thousands of Afghans desperately seeking to leave their homeland as the Biden administration withdraws the last 2,500 American troops in the coming months. These Afghans fear that once U.S. forces are gone, the Taliban will sweep back into power and target them as traitors.

"You will see the dead bodies in every street," Mahmoodi said in a phone interview from Afghanistan, where he said he's already being tracked by the Taliban. "They will slaughter us."

Because of such dangers, Congress created a special visa program in 2006 for Afghans and Iraqis who worked alongside American troops in those two conflicts.

But the program is backlogged and limited. It takes an average of nearly three years for Afghans' applications to be processed, in part because of the rigorous vetting involved, according to the State Department. Right now, there are about 18,000 Afghans waiting for approval – and fewer than 11,000 slots.

"They're in a panic right now because there's been such a backlog of these visas," said Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., a former Green Beret who served multiple tours in Afghanistan. "They're afraid they're going to be left behind and massacred."


It is incongruous, but as it's one of the trademarks of AAV - I'll leave you with a quote from one of my favourite movies to ponder.

You came in here, but didn't you have a plan for getting out??


 
 

4 comments (Latest Comment: 05/23/2021 13:43:14 by BobR)
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Comment by TriSec on 05/22/2021 15:28:15
A bonus click, having nothing to do with today's blog.

Globe "Spotlight" has taken aim at Governor Baker over the Holyoke Soldier's Home Disaster.



Comment by TriSec on 05/22/2021 15:29:35
And also - today's the day!

We'll be "nipping up to the shop" in about an hour or so. We'll see what I can make happen. My first choice bike is apparently sold out (Kawasaki Z-400), but my second choice (BMW G310) is in-house and waiting for me to close the deal.

I also plan on taking a stroll through the pre-owned section to see if I might get lucky.

https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/600x600/23199773_zxKASpbnYk82MP5Ivk0rXr86T5bzlPHiSnArb7ei2Fk.jpg


Comment by TriSec on 05/22/2021 22:11:38
If all goes well, Trisec will be on two wheels come next weekend!!

https://2yrh403fk8vd1hz9ro2n46dd-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/2021-BMW-G-310-R-First-Look-naked-upright-sport-motorcycle-urban-8.jpg


Comment by BobR on 05/23/2021 13:43:14
Quote by TriSec:
If all goes well, Trisec will be on two wheels come next weekend!!


Noice!