Only Kabul Left Standing as Jalalabad Falls | Hacker News Reader

Only Kabul Left Standing as Jalalabad Falls

voanews.com

13 pointsthrowawaysea11 comments

The drawdawn has been a mess.

They are still 'working on visas', for the translators and helpers, which is an insane thing. Many could get slaughtered and the bureaucrats in DC are 'still working on visas'. Ridiculous:

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/14/forget-the-visas-th...

Lift them out first to safety, then work on their settlement. This looks like Vietnam 2.0.

In many way, this administration is revealing to be just as inept as the previous one. They should have foreseen this before hand. This looks really bad, at also paints the US gov. as completely inept and weak and frankly just completely naive. I wouldn't trust our young men and women in our armed forced to the decisions done by these inept bureaucrats.

Almost as? Can anyone have imagined a more disorderly retreat? A mess is an understatement.

I guess Saigon had to be rebooted for a younger audience...

It's sad though: 20 years ago, a lot of people said Afghanistan would be a new Vietnam, an unwinnable war over a territory that had broken several empires already. Humanity just does not learn from history, not even recent history. So much death and distraction to accomplish nothing (except fattening the pockets of military suppliers and contractors).

A lot of people maybe, but polls at the time gave 80% support for invading Afghanistan.

It's easy to see how history repeats in retrospect but it's nearly impossible to prevent it from happening. For better or worse decisions are taken as a mix of powerful people doing what they can to stay in power and the masses acting often on a whim. That leaves a whole lot of blind spots.

80% of whom? In Europe public opinion was split, even as politicians were rushing to declare their support for the invasion. It's the reason European forces never really committed to it (with the exception of the UK) - in the long term, there was no hope.

Isn’t it a moral hazard to all-but-guarantee visas to everybody?

The current heads of state have no reason to keep Afghanistan together. They’re all going to the US with whatever plunders from they made anyway. No skin in the game.

Since the last administration, Afghan government was not involved in negotiations with Taliban, and this sudden not calculated retreat. Can someone explain what is the mentality of the people who are agreeing with this. I have not seen one military person interview saying this is what they wanted.

Seems like no one knows what is going on. We gifted the Taliban 700 vehicles, hummers, drones, and even a few Blackhawk helicopters. How could securing our valuable physical assets not be important enough for our military. It makes us look like incompetent fools. Furthermore our estimates for when Kabul will be lost to Taliban have been wildly off and went from 90 days to 3 days overnight. It’s a total disaster over there and no matter what anyone says these things are the responsibility of the current administration and military. Total embarrassment so far. The audacity of the Taliban to even dare try to steal 700 vehicles from the USA. This alone brings aggression from other enemies and for that reason alone is grounds for us making a strong demand to get our stuff back or else risk our re-entry. Taliban should have a choice between letting us leave with our stuff or having us come back in force.

Fear not, for the vehicles were left without keys, so they were useless to everyone including the Afghan army.

I just saw some videos of teenage girls being dragged to be forced married on the street. Not sure how I can unsee it, really.

The reason for all of this is China is supporting the Taliban and the US cannot afford to go to war with China, even by proxy.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com