In the comments to my post last Friday about President Biden’s remarks on Afghanistan, Y_Y Sima Qian asked if I’d write a post addressing the question of whether there was or was not an intelligence failure in regard to Afghanistan. The short answer is both from what I’ve seen reported and the professional work I was involved with that dealt with Afghanistan there was not. Or at least not in the sense that the term is generally used.
My professional opinion as someone who has provided assessments to senior leaders serving in Afghanistan or working on issues pertaining to it, pre-deployment preparation and training for units deploying to Afghanistan at brigade and echelons above brigade, reach back research support for personnel deployed to Afghanistan, and as a technical subject matter expert assigned to a working group about how to better handle cultural information for elements deployed to Afghanistan is that the intelligence and information work, especially at the tactical and operational levels, was not and has not been a failure. One of the problems, as was very well described in this interesting and excellent article, is that quite often we had the information, but we didn’t have the context to make sense of it. Another part of the problem is that just because the information was accurate, does not mean that the senior leaders and decision makers understood it, accepted it, wanted to hear it, or acted on it an appropriate manner. This itself follows from a related problem, the collection, analysis, and preparation of the intelligence may have been done correctly, but it may not have been briefed to the senior leaders and decision makers the way the product was prepared by the actual subject matter experts. This is a major problem with what we call the intelligence cycle. Because everyone knows the policy preferences of the senior leaders and decision makers, this can skew any and all parts of the cycle from collection to presentation. Another major problem, as a former boss refers to it, is the Legion of Frightened Men (LOFM). These are themselves senior personnel who refuse to speak up to contradict more senior leaders or at all because of their professional conditioning over 20 plus years of service.
I think another major problem is that everyone wants to grade their own homework. So the Intelligence Community has a set of metrics for progress or success and the military has a separate one. And as long as you’re meeting those metrics or exceeding them, then you’re successful. I had this discussion as part of a panel in 2009 on counterinsurgency hosted by NYU’s Center for Law and Security that included John Nagl as one of the other three panel members with me. I was on the panel to talk about the gap between our theory of counterinsurgency as delineated in US Army/military doctrine and the actual application in Operations in Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. I also discussed the implications of the failure of the Bush 43 administration to negotiate a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the Iraqis, as well as the debacle that were the provisional elections and what would be the forthcoming national elections based on the work I’d done in Iraq on how Iraq’s electoral system was then structured and functioning. After I went through all the disconnects and complications, Nagl then made his presentation where he explained that because we’d just spent X amount in Y locations in Iraq and Afghanistan building all sorts of infrastructure, that we were succeeding in the hold and build phase of operations (Phase IV of conventional operations), and that, as a result, the US would maintain at least 100,000 troops in Iraq indefinitely and a smaller, but still significant number in Afghanistan indefinitely as well until we completed remaking both states and societies, as well as the region. Leaving aside that this was completely delusional in terms of what the US would do in the long term, especially given that at that point the US was on a ticking clock to withdraw from Iraq in 2010, it also is a very good example of the dynamic I’m trying to describe. Nagl, and some of the other top names within in the public perception in regard to counterinsurgency, had a set of outcomes for success and metrics that they had delineated for Iraq and Afghanistan, and as long as positive progress was being made on those, then were making progress and success was achievable. This doesn’t make them bad people, it just made them wrong. Then and now.
Another major contributing problem is related to and a result of the Legion of Frightened Men problem. One of the things that senior leaders and decision makers need is someone who not only can tell them what they need to know, not what they want to hear, but whose job is to do just that, who is not afraid to do so, and who is empowered to so. This was what my job was for the commander of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team/1st Armored Division, for the 48th, 49th, and 50th Commandants of the US Army War College, for the Commanding General of III Corps, and for the Commanding General of US Army Europe (same general officer). Not every commander, senior leader, and/or decision maker has someone who can or will do this. I’m sure there are some that don’t want it. Often we see, both in terms of senior military personnel and senior elected and appointed officials, that senior leaders and decision makers have a team of trusted personnel that they take from assignment to assignment, elected office to elected office, appointed position to appointed position. While this is often a good thing as it provides the senior leader with a cohesive and coherent team that he or she can trust. However, it also can cut in the opposite direction leaving the senior leader without someone who can bring them information and give them and their staffs advice they don’t want to hear.
The last point I want to make on this issue is that we also do a good job of lying to ourselves. Everything we’ve been trying to do in Afghanistan once operations shifted to counterinsurgency and what is popularly being called nation building, has been based on Army Field Manual (FM) 3-24: Counterinsurgency. FM 3-24 is a mess. It has numerous, significant historical and factual errors. One striking example is the completely inaccurate narrative around the Tupamaros and their campaign in Uruguay. The basic historical events recounted are correct. The placement of them within Uruguayan history, including what the Tupamaros actually did or did not accomplish and why, is historically/factually incorrect.
Another significant problem is the complete lack of historical context as to the concept of the spreading ink spot. The spreading ink spot concept – a description of taking, clearing, and holding a location to force the insurgents to reconcile with the government through a negotiated settlement – is something that comes to us from the French campaign in Algeria. The spreading ink spot worked in Algeria because it refers to the French seizing the oases and forcing all the Algerians that needed the water to reconcile in order to access and continue to access them for water. It worked in Algeria because there were, and still are, oases. It failed when the French tried to adapt it into the strategic hamlet during their war in Indochina. And it failed us in Iraq when it became the strategic lily pad. It also failed when we adapted it to Afghanistan. And the reason is that Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan DO NOT have oases! What the French or the US substituted for oases in the concept in each of those places was a poor substitute and failed for reasons of different human geographies. Unfortunately, this concept has itself spread, if I may use that term, from FM 3-24 to other related Army doctrine, such as Mass Atrocity Response Operations and Stability Operations, where it is still historically contextless and makes no conceptual/doctrinal sense.
Another example is that FM 3-24 describes either establishing or reestablishing a legitimate government. Unfortunately it doesn’t define legitimate. Is it the government that existed before whatever crisis precipitated our intervention? Is it the government recognized by the UN and/or the international community? Is it the government that the people of that state and society accept? Some combination? I cannot tell you how many war games, planning sessions, and meetings where I’ve asked this question. No one has a good answer. The final example I’m going to give is that FM 3-24 describes three different operational footprints – heavy, medium, and light – that could be employed to conduct counterinsurgency. Unfortunately, at least for a 3rd party counterinsurgent force like the US has been in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is no empirical evidence that anything other than the heavy footprint actually works and now almost twenty years of evidence that light and medium do not! To be perfectly honest, I still can’t count more than three – and that’s being generous – 3rd party counterinsurgencies that were ever successful. And each of those used heavy footprints. And the only one that is considered an outright success – the British counterinsurgency in Malaya – cannot be replicated because that counterinsurgency was basically the classic example of destroying the village to save it. This is something we’re not going to do.
Right now the Non-combatant Evacuation Operation (NEO) is going very well. There was two or three days at the outset that were bumpy, but I don’t think that’s surprising. The first few days of almost every operation are. That’s not an excuse, it’s just reality. Since then we’ve evacuated almost 40,000 people from Afghanistan. I expect that by the time those of us in the US, Canada, and Mexico are awake tomorrow that we’ll be around, if not over, 50,000 evacuated.
It is also important to keep pointing out that despite everyone in the news media, the punditariat, and the various national security experts that have spent the past week to ten days screaming the Biden administration is failing, President Biden has lost the plot, why wasn’t Biden and his team prepared, and why didn’t they do something earlier, THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE ISSUED AN EVACUATION ORDER FOR AMERICAN CITIZENS IN AFGHANISTAN BACK IN MAY!!!!!!
Security Alert – U.S. Embassy Kabul, Afghanistan (May 15, 2021)
Location: Throughout Afghanistan
Event: Historically violence has increased in Afghanistan following the Eid holiday. Therefore, U.S. citizens are reminded to exercise caution in places where people are known to congregate, including public celebrations, markets, places of worship, and banks. The U.S. government remains concerned that insurgents are intent on targeting foreigners via kidnapping schemes and attacks at locations such as hotels, residential compounds, security checkpoints, government facilities, and airports.
The Embassy reminds U.S. citizens that on April 27, 2021, the Department of State ordered the departure from U.S. Embassy Kabul of U.S. government employees whose functions can be performed elsewhere due to increasing violence and threat reports in Kabul. The Travel Advisory for Afghanistan remains Level 4-Do Not Travel due to crime, terrorism, civil unrest, kidnapping, armed conflict, and COVID-19. Commercial flight options from Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA) remain available and the U.S. Embassy strongly suggests that U.S. citizens make plans to leave Afghanistan as soon as possible. Given the security conditions and reduced staffing, the Embassy’s ability to assist U.S. citizens in Afghanistan is extremely limited.
Actions to Take:
- Make plans to depart Afghanistan by commercial airlines
- Have evacuation plans that do not rely on U.S. government assistance
- Stay alert in places frequented by foreigners
- Be aware of your surroundings
- Keep a low profile
- Notify a trusted person of your travel and movement plans
- Be aware of your surroundings and local security developments
- Monitor local media
- Review your personal security plans
Assistance:
- American Citizen Services Unit, U.S. Embassy Kabul, Afghanistan, Located at Great Massoud Road between Radio Afghanistan and the Ministry of Public Health in Kabul.
+93-700-114-000 or +93 -700-108-000 (after hours)
KabulACS@state.gov
https://af.usembassy.gov/- State Department – Consular Affairs
888-407-4747 or 202-501-4444- Afghanistan Country Information
- Afghanistan Travel Advisory
- Enroll in the Safe Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP) to receive security updates
- Follow us on Facebook and Twitter
If Americans in Afghanistan ignored these instructions, even for the best of reasons so they could continue their work with Afghans on a variety of projects from education to governance, this is not the fault of the Biden administration. We can’t send a SEAL Team to round up every American who decides not to evacuate when told to evacuate. Not least of which because we don’t have that many SEALs.
Clearly Secretary Blinken and his people were not ignoring the intelligence, or confused by it, when they issued this order. Nor, as I wrote about on Friday, did Secretary Blinken and the Biden administration ignore the dissent cable sent by Foreign Service officers in Afghanistan on 13 July warning that the Taliban could take over the country much more quickly than expected. While that dissent cable estimated 31 August, within 36 hours of the cable’s receipt, by 15 July, the Biden administration announced Operation Allies Refuge, which is currently being carried out quite effectively. So here too there was neither an intelligence failure in term of collection and analysis nor of receiving it by senior leaders and decision makers and acting upon it.
The real outstanding concerns right now need to be the ability of spoilers, such as Islamic State in Khorasan (IS-K), which is a serious enemy of the Taliban, attacking Kabul airport to derail the NEO and cause problems for the Taliban as a result of the US responding to such an attack. Another is the Taliban’s recently announced 31 August deadline for the US to complete the NEO. I think this is likely going to be less of a concern than some are making given that right now Afghanistan’s funds are frozen and being held by the Federal Bank of New York. This provides significant leverage over the Taliban, which both needs to access those funds and wants to do so. The Taliban still might not budge, but leverage, if it is used correctly, can be very effective.
I think the largest problem is one that Josh Marshall highlighted in Ryan Noble’s reporting from earlier this evening:
understandably people are reluctant to talk about this. but pretty soon there’s going to have to be a discussion of how we’re defining these terms. But I wld imagine that by some definitions this cld be a significant percentage of the population of the country. pic.twitter.com/z5GW399Fyg
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) August 24, 2021
I don’t think it is a problem in terms of America’s, as well as our closest allies like Canada’s, ability to absorb this number of refugees from Afghanistan. I’m not even sure the politics is a problem given that the one thing the hysterically overreacting news media and punditocracy wants is all of these people relocated. I think the problem is where do we draw the line on who – as in which Afghans – we will bring out and who does not qualify for relocation. I think it will be a problem in and of itself because at some point a decision delineating this will have to be made and some Afghans are going to be on the wrong side of it. But I also think it will be a problem for Afghanistan’s long term viability to eventually move past the Taliban. This is going to be a huge societal drain that will have long term consequences for Afghanistan as a state and a society and for the region. The Afghans we are going to get out, no matter how many, are going to enrich the states and societies they are relocated too. And they’re going to have far better lives even as they become exiles beginning new lives in very different places than those they’re used to. But Afghanistan, as a state and a society, is going to be significantly impoverished as a result. And that, in and of itself, is going to create new risks and future problems.
Open thread!
dmsilev
Thank you, Adam.
One bit of nitpickery/copyediting:
Should be Algeria, no?
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: Yep, thanks for catching that. I’ve just fixed it.
John Revolta
What about those frozen funds? How do we decide whether and when to turn them over to the Taliban?
And if/when we do, are we gonna hear Repubs screaming how “OMG Biden gave the Taliban 9 billion dollars!!1!!1!11!” (Just kidding. Of course we are.)
Earl
Very interesting, but still… any comment on why the military appears to have no feedback loop?
eg leader says we are on track to achieve X. X is not achieved. While I take your point that the metrics are built so that something is always achieved, eventually reality intervenes.
How does the military reconcile a generation of leaders who proclaimed victory (by some definition) is achievable and being achieved, with a military that evaporates under a hint of pressure? Or is there an implicit supposition that eg Obama was told, “Shit ain’t happening, but here’s a strategy to kick the ball down the road”?
dmsilev
@Earl: I would suggest that what we’re seeing now is the intervention of reality. Yeah, it took a few Presidents and a couple of decades…
Adam L Silverman
@John Revolta: They already are doing that.
Adam L Silverman
@Earl: Because despite what the folks from the Combined Arms Center at FT Leavenworth constantly say, the Army is NOT a learning organization.
Damien
Adam, I envy your students. Rarely has any teacher of ANY subject I’ve studied from Farsi to CGI pipelines been remotely as clear, concise, and capable of drawing connections understandably. Not to mention the five or so VERY informative books on CI tactics you recommended to me, and your post about protest safety that I used to prepare my girlfriend for her attendance to a Floyd protest last summer.
Thank you, sincerely and completely. That’s all I had to share.
Adam L Silverman
@Damien: You’re quite welcome. And thanks for the kind words.
I haven’t had any students though since 2014.
Jay
As usual, thank you so much Adam.
Morzer
@Adam L Silverman:
I think many people on this blog would consider themselves your students. We’ve all learned a lot from you and are grateful for the time, thought and dedication you’ve invested in enlightening us. Thank you!
Another Scott
Thanks for this. Very well done. Make sure your Friends in High Places see it.
Cheers,
Scott.
CaseyL
What Morzer said.
Even, or especially, when what you say upsets us.
Please don’t ever think you’re unappreciated here.
HumboldtBlue
@Morzer:
No shit. We gotta get a TLDR, it’s after 9 p.m. left coast, baseball is on, I’m four beers in, and now I have to focus on my graduate lecture series first thing in the morning.
Also, it was mentioned at some point last year, but you know when Silverman had dropped a post by checking the size of the quick link to the right of the screen.
You need a podcast, Silverman, one we can listen to while cooking up some red sauce.
Ms. Deranged in AZ
Adam, thanks for this. I really appreciate your insight into these kinds of stories. But for the love of all that’s holy, why can’t you use the “click for more” link and paginate your posts? As a lifelong web programmer and designer your failure to do this annoys the heck out of me. Its ridiculously easy to do! Sorry to rant but just drives me nuts to scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, and scroll on down to the next post on my phone.
Adam L Silverman
@Ms. Deranged in AZ: What’s a phone?
Jim Appleton
This is vital and well done. Thank you, Adam.
But where are the marmosets?
Adam L Silverman
@Jim Appleton: Sleeping off a pea binge.
dmsilev
@Adam L Silverman: I think it’s one of these.
Earl
@Adam L Silverman: Ah, that’s over my head.
I will say that I’m sure the Cheney/Rumsfeld administration did a very robust feasibility analysis before getting us into this mess, and leaders were open to voices saying this is a terrible idea.
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: Doesn’t ring a bell.
Adam L Silverman
@Ms. Deranged in AZ: I fixed it for you.
John Revolta
@Adam L Silverman: iswydt
Adam L Silverman
I’m going to wrack out. Catch everyone on the flip.
steve g
I get the feeling that it is the fault of the Biden administration. Biden threw everyone off by being the first president in a while to say what he means and mean what he says. How dare he tell it like it is, when people have been BS’ing on Afghanistan for decades!
jl
This is an elaboration on what I typed in an earlier thread.
Trump made the withdrawal and ‘peace’ Doha agreement with the Taliban, the official Afghan government had been uninvited after some initial meetings, IIRC. The agreement was that the US withdraw, and the Taliban pledged to this that and the other. One of the other things was that the Taliban would negotiate the future governance of Afghanistan with the Afghan government that we supported.
So, Trump sold out another ally to get a win that he could make a BS and false claim that he actually solved a problem. Well, in this case he did solve the problem of endless US occupation of Afghanistan, but the Trumpsters claimed it did a lot more than that.
So, the Doha agreement with Trump made with the Taliban, that for all practical purposes froze out our allies, was in February 2020. I think the fall of the Afghan government started back then. I never hear about the implications of that agreement from the BS war mongers in the media. They are totally divorced from reality and playing some fantasy game in their heads that has no more to do with reality than a poorly produced video game.
HumboldtBlue
I think we need an explanation about why Gene Kelly was upset at Malcolm McDowell about his use of “singing in the rain” in Clockwork Orange.
So here it is.
Earl
Well, this is real
https://twitter.com/ddoniolvalcroze/status/1429821042294284289
acrobatic archery, apparently. Kind of want to see it in person. World Nomad Games.
divF
@dmsilev: Adam uses those only when he is cooking. They go with the tiara and frilly apron.
jl
I found a video tutorial that will make us all international security experts! See you folks in the green room! We’re on our way to fame and glory in the international expert biz.
I AM THE MASTER OF RISK! NO ONE CAN STOP ME – RISK: Global Domination Gameplay
https://youtu.be/-9SDOMAKAII?t=1582
jl
@Earl: Pretty impressive. Thanks. Wiki says that they have wrestling on horseback too. If people know about this stuff, might give the fancy pants Olympics a run for it money.
JaneE
Thank you. That should be an op-ed piece in every major newspaper. Informative, understandable, and saying what needs to be said, even if almost every senior person who would read it would immediately think “I’m glad he wasn’t talking about me.”.
trollhattan
@Morzer:
+1. However, the dog age my
homeworkbrain.Heartfelt appreciation of Adam’s contributions. You rekindle interest in being an engated citizen, not just an observer/complainer. These events and issues are hyper-complex and lacking context, difficult to understand and process. And that’s how we end up passing off policy to folks who understand less than we, and care less than that.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
This seems to be a common theme across our society.
otmar
A friend in the Austrian military once explained the term “Melon report” to me:
Inside it’s dark red, but once it’s been polished and packaged, it looks all green from the outside.
piratedan
as an aside, I do wonder if those folks who are anti-Taliban but still wanting to fight are being sent to the region that hasn’t fallen and is the US (or anyone else) taking some of these people there as a refuge…. or is that still one of the many unknowns that is still awaiting definition. I also wonder if the US will leave the region entirely, but will keep tabs on both parties but not play favorites…
not trying to monkeywrench the unfolding of events but its apparent there are more players than our media chooses to identify… what kind of pull will there be from SA, Pakistan, China, and even other regional entities like Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Russia, who will be watching borders and conflicts.
scav
It’s just as important to not confuse the plan for the reality as distinguishing the map from the territory (same thing at heart). And if the metrics for success are too embedded in the underlying model and ensuing plan, they’re about as useful as measuring success as asserting “We planned to be done in six months, so at three months, were halfway there”. Add to that the temptation of preferring easily quantifiable measures (so one can chart progress!) for essentially ineffable goals (nation building! Winning hearts and minds!) then ooooh, golly what a hairball.
otmar
I’m just reading Calling Bullsh*t and one of the memorizable quotes is: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”
That seems applicable here.
Sloane Ranger
Sure it’s been mentioned elsewhere but, just in case, posting to say that our beloved Prime Minister has called a meeting of the G7 with the aim of pressuring Biden to extend the withdrawal deadline. Apparently the French are also on board. The Defence Secretary, however, has basically said don’t hold your breath.
TheMightyTrowel
Dipping my toe back in the comments to say thanks Adam for this very cogent overview. The press down here in oz has been unbelievably awful (even for australian standards) and we’re having a wee covid flair up so no one is paying attention much except to tut about the ongoing corruption and depravity of our elected leaders.
rikyrah
Excellent post. Full of truth and context. Appreciate this Silverman. Thanks.
rikyrah
Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) tweeted at 10:39 AM on Mon, Aug 23, 2021:
this empathy line is certainly the stupidest part of the press freakout. what’s interesting tho is missing the part about a central reason for leaving – not asking more Americans to fund or die for a mission that clearly was not and would not work. this seems not to count.
(https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1429830561326063624?s=02)
rikyrah
???
Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) tweeted at 7:47 PM on Mon, Aug 23, 2021:
Like, we all knew JD Vance was gonna show up on Tucker tonight to double down on his anti-Afghan refugee stance, right?
“40% of Afghans believe that suicide bombing is a reasonable way to solve a problem. Who wants people like that in their community?!” https://t.co/ATaSZsUm4i
(https://twitter.com/justinbaragona/status/1429968471450914821?s=02)
Tony Jay
@Sloane Ranger:
One nice thing about being on holiday (Bute, AirBnB, stunning) is that I can almost entirely avoid any situation were I might catch that batch of overwhipped goat’s cheese flobalobbing his way through another episode of “Grown-up words I don’t really mean, but I know you want to hear”.
I’m presuming an icy silence has descended across HM Opposition since Saint Anthony the Liar tossed his spiteful little grenade into the mix. Back in your soundproof box, Sir Keir, can’t have the Placeholder roaming around where he might be forced to contradict the One True Leader of the Nu-Labour Cult, can we?
Bleaugh. What a shitshow our country is.
BellyCat
Exceptional post, Adam.
“Legion of Frightened Men (LOFM)” Bingo! Altered for reasons of sexism and broader accuracy, “Men” could/should be “Managers” or “Administrators”.
Historically, the better kingdoms were those with the better Court Jesters. Today, the difficulty in speaking truth to power—without consequence— in the military, academia, and capitalism in general is a feature, not a bug.
Doug
I’d like to push back just a little on the May evacuation order. Specifically, how is it different from previous warnings about travel and work in Afghanistan? I picked this warning from August 2020 more or less at random from the Wayback Machine:
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/afghanistan-advisory.html
Afghanistan was already Level 4 — Do Not Travel. Without putting too too much tim into checking, I would guess that the country had been Level 4 for quite a while. So anybody who’s there in May 2021 to get the warning you posted has been in a Do Not Travel place already, possibly for years. What’s the change?
For comparison, I’m still on the embassy mailing list from my time in Moscow. Russia is also a Do Not Travel country “due to terrorism, harassment by Russian government security officials, the embassy’s limited ability to assist U.S. citizens in Russia, and the arbitrary of local law.” Does this, in your view, also constitute an evacuation order?
Presently, I live in Berlin. Germany is listed as Level 3 — Reconsider Travel. “Reconsider travel to Germany due to COVID-19. Exercise increased caution in Germany due to terrorism.” I’m sorry, but Germany is much safer than vast swathes of the US on both of these counts. This kind of thing renders the advisories mostly useless for anything but the USG saying “We told you so.”
Here’s another aspect from a friend, answering one of her friends’ assertion that people should have gotten out sooner once they knew an evacuation was likely. “You know, yes. And no. When you are a contractor for the US government, then evacuating is a thing they recommend but really, they prefer if you just sit and do your job as long as possible. If you have kids in school* and a mortgage to pay, and if you have been through a few bouts of violence, you keep thinking you can do one more day. We have been in these situations. They are not always as clear-cut on the ground.”
* If you are, say, on a USAID contract then the kids are likely to be in a private school**, and one of the things that you may have negotiated away to stay competitive and keep your career is getting school costs covered as part of the contract. So you need to stay. Also, who’s going to be the first to leave, and what does their career look like afterward?
** I know that Afghanistan has not been a family posting for a very long time (ever?) but in the way of things, the share of USAID contractors who generally reside outside the US is probably not small. Those folks (a) will often want for their children to grow up with American-style schooling or (b) can’t really participate in local schooling where they live. In either case, costs of private international schooling enter the picture.
JWR
Still catching up on today’s many threads, so this may have already been mentioned:
Yeah, good luck with your “hundreds” of firefighters willing to resign in the face of abject tyranny, fireman Chris, (who looks like an extra for Jan6.). The station asked Loyola law person Jessica Levinson about it, and she pointed to this country’s long history of such mandates, both public and private sector, being upheld.
Spanky
Bolton has an op-ed in the WaPo advocating the ending of aid to Pakistan. Step One, I’m sure, in prepping for the Republican’s next war in SW Asia.
Bolton will never run out of countries needing thrown up against the wall. I hope we run out of Bolton sooner than later.
Splitting Image
Thanks for this summary, Adam. It’s nice to have a news source that makes one feel smarter after reading it rather than dumber. That is something in this day and age.
YY_Sima Qian
Thank you Adam for the detailed write up! The pathologies of US military seem to echo those at corporate American, especially the large corporations, whose leaders often also have military backgrounds.
debbie
@Sloane Ranger:
Joe couldn’t do it even if he wanted to. I can’t imagine a scenario where the Taliban would agree to an extension. it’s not in their DNA.
debbie
@rikyrah:
Nor does Trump’s agreement get mentioned anymore. It’s almost as if he never existed. ?
Geminid
@debbie: trump sold out the Afghan government. What we see now is the result.
I think you are right about the Taliban refusing to extend this evacuation. Control of a state’s borders and airports is a fundamental aspect of sovereignity. The new Afghan government will take control of that airport September 1st whether we like it or not. We don’t let other governments tell us who can fly in and out of our airports, and neither will the Taliban.
Booger
@scav: The thing about ineffable goals is that they always seems to get pretty effed anyway.
Geminid
@Geminid: Well, now I read in Ms. Laurie’s morning post that the evacuation might continue past September 1st. Maybe we and other countries will win the Taliban’s grudging acquiescence, and they will settle for running their flag up the airport’s flagpole and give us a few more days.
debbie
@Geminid:
Fingers crossed. It would be the first sign that the Taliban is indeed a “new, moderate Taliban.”
Geeno
@Booger: That sounds like a rotating tag to me.
Geminid
@debbie: The Taliban wants international recognition, and international aid. They might figure that picking an unnecessary fight over a few days difference undercuts those goals.
Afghanistan really needs foreign assistance. It’s per capita GDP is about $750.
Soprano2
We’ve started an evaluation of our sewer cleaning program. One co-worker told me she is frustrated at how she thinks some of the guys have opinions but are afraid to voice them. I told her it’s because they’ve been slapped down and made to feel their opinions and knowledge don’t count by the previous boss. I don’t know how you overcome this problem other than showing people their input counts when they do offer it. I’ve had it happen to me more than once. In my first job as a sales service estimator, I tried to tell a salesperson that the new way we’d been told to calculate prices was going to negatively affect his commission. He waved me away and said not to worry about it. He almost literally patted me on the head (I was around 24 at the time). Totally predictably, six months later I was called into the general manager’s office, where a visibly angry salesperson said his commissions were down, and asked why I didn’t tell anyone about the problem! I told him Leonard, I did try to call this to your attention, but he acted like he couldn’t remember anything about it, and of course the boss believed him. I said I am estimating prices the way I was told to, what was I supposed to do? I still call things to people’s attention even if they don’t want to know them, though; it didn’t cow me at all, but I can see how a lot of people would decide it’s not worth the trouble to tell people things they don’t want to hear.
Soprano2
Well, since we’ve frozen all of the money they have in banks, we have significant leverage over them. I suspect they’ll let us evacuate people until we say we’re done.
StringOnAStick
Thanks Adam, your posts are always deeply informed and useful. You should be the guy offering commentary to the media!
Neldob
Much appreciated your perspective and sense. Now if only PBS or NPR could at minimum aspire.