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Comment by saberdancer | Hacker News Reader

If you don't expect Afganistan to fall to Taliban, why would you pull out?

I'm baffled that they made this big of a mistake, but if you operate from the assumption that ANA does not fold, you have no reason to pull out your embassy personnel or civilians in general.

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They very much expected Afghanistan to fall. they just thought it would take a few months.

I don't think many people expected Afghanistan to fall. A month ago in a press conference Biden said he was confident that the Afghan government and military could defend against the Taliban successfully. Was he lying to the American public if it was so obvious? I personally think he was just incredibly ignorant and incompetent, rather than lying out of malice. OTHER people expected that Biden's strategy would fail. Military generals and the bipartisan Afghan study group report suggested a slower withdrawal and maintaining a limited force to perform counter terrorism and provide a safety net. But Biden decided to just plow ahead, presumably to be able to symbolically claim that he pulled out before the 20th anniversary of 9/11.

This is from June 23, with the US absolutely expecting the Taliban to win, just for it to take a little while longer.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/afghan-government-could-collaps...

>> I don't think many people expected Afghanistan to fall. A month ago in a press conference Biden said he was confident that the Afghan government and military could defend against the Taliban successfully. Was he lying to the American public if it was so obvious? I personally think he was just incredibly ignorant and incompetent, rather than lying out of malice.

> This is from June 23, with the US absolutely expecting the Taliban to win, just for it to take a little while longer.

That's from 3/4 of a month ago and "revised their previously more optimistic estimates" based the events that occurred during the previous week. They still gave the government six more months when it didn't even last one. I think that's broadly consistent with the GP.

I agree with the GP, a lot of the US government statements I've seen recently about the Afghan military situation just sound clueless and dumb. Like someone who's still taking paper estimates at face value in the most simplistic way, when actual events clearly contradict them (e.g. our numbers show the Afghan military is 3x the size of the Taliban, they can still win!). Also the talk of a negotiated settlement just makes them sound like they have their heads up their asses. Why the fuck would anyone make concessions when they're winning so easily? It makes no sense.

Also, in retrospect, symbolic deadlines should be considered a giant a red flag signaling a bad plan.

Yes but that's not an assessment from Biden or his spokespeople. I guess we're both saying the same thing but we were non-specific in naming who expected what. There were many military generals, advisors, reports, and so on recommending the maintenance of a contingency force to deter the Taliban and lend aid to the Afghan military forces. Those parties expected a collapse if the US pulled out completely. But Biden did not feel the same way - he stated explicitly that it was "highly unlikely" that the Taliban could take over (https://www.foxnews.com/politics/wapo-fact-checker-calls-out...).

That's valid, I guess at this point with things as they are it's hard to imagine thinking the Taliban wouldn't be able to take over.

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