Kandahar just fell

[blues]

Ive lost faith in quite a few of them as well

Some of the uniformed have proven uninformed. Present company posting herein excepted...(by and large).

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Following on Farscott's post and the idea that we can only trust the uniformed (I recall the rosy predictions of Viet Nam): https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...nistan/619740/

Basically, incoherent leadership at the top from the clown set of ALL Presidents, military plans not suited for the job. What else is new?

[farscott]

Following on Farscott's post and the idea that we can only trust the uniformed (I recall the rosy predictions of Viet Nam): https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...nistan/619740/

Basically, incoherent leadership at the top from the clown set of ALL Presidents, military plans not suited for the job. What else is new?

Not sure that trusting only uniformed personnel is the conclusion to be drawn. The issue is that the nature of fed.gov with different people and parties with short-term goals versus policy driven by professional national security and diplomatic corps. When your leaders are sure to change every eight years if not every four years or every year (how many SecDef appointments in the last decade??), coherent policy is almost impossible. US foreign policy is what it is because of how fed.gov is structured and operates. The pros stay but the decision makers change plus power is distributed to make any one person less important.

It is a feature of our democratic republic, not a bug. The issue is that due to the lack of long-term thinking (gotta win the next election) we struggle to promulgate and execute strategy.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Pakistan - Osama's vacation home - a take on them.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/13/w...gtype=Homepage

I hope we have some idea about how to keep Pakistan's nukes from wandering away. Just a matter of time.

[TGS]

Does anyone know how many Americans (including troops) are currently in Afghanistan, right at the moment? I did some digging this morning but didn’t see anything pop up. Just trying to get a sense of the logistics of getting our folks out without the last of them clutching for the skids of a Huey as it lifts off from the embassy roof.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/12/u...ghanistan.html

[JohnO]

Taliban terrorist in Pul-e-Khumri receiving a call about extending the warranty on his motorbike.

[BehindBlueI's]

https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....iving-Back-USA

Just a reminder there's a member here who's helping vets, and this has got to be even more challenging times for many of them than usual.

[Caballoflaco]

Taliban terrorist in Pul-e-Khumri receiving a call about extending the warranty on his motorbike.

*activate AK nerd powers* : That’s an AK that was never made at an official factory anywhere. AKM reciever with ak74 folding stock and what appears to be a cut down rpK barrel with 74 style muzzle brake. #Khyber Pass
eta: that might be an rpK reciever it’s hard to tell, but it looks like it might have the reinforced trunion.

Also interesting to see the HE/frag rpg warhead dude on the left has. I don’t see those very often in photos.

[RJ]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/12/u...ghanistan.html

Thanks TGS.

To save anyone else from sifting through the article, I believe the numbers are:

Civilian

- 4,000 "Embassy Personnel" including 1,400 American citizens

Uniformed

- 3,000 (Two Marine Inf Bns and One Army Bn) to deploy in next 2 days to Hamid Karzai Airport
- 1,000 Army personnel to deploy to Quatar to process Visa applications
- 3,500 Army Inf Brigade Combat Team from Ft Bragg to Kuwait "in case of"
- 3,500 Troops in the area at the moment* (Estimate, see below)

* per this article, if these extra troops all end up in Afghanistan, brings the number of troops in the area to "around 7,000", or double the number in country in April. If that's true, then it seems like the current number of "troops in the area" at the moment must be around 3,500.

I'm not real sure on the math on this, but I appreciate the info from TGS to try and get a handle on representative values of our folks in the area.

As a thought exercise, I used to work on simulators for USAF, both AMC and AFSOC types, and IIRC the paratrooper capacity of a C-130J-30 was around 94. So I'm guessing a round number for .civs evacuating would be easily 100 or so folks in the cargo hold; so evacuating 4,000 would need 40 C-130 lifts. I am thinking Ramstein Air Base is a busy place right at the moment.

[NEPAKevin]

This isn't new.

Nope.