Check out this, an AP story from 6 weeks ago.
BAGRAM, Afghanistan (AP) — The U.S. left Afghanistan’s Bagram Airfield after nearly 20 years by shutting off the electricity and slipping away in the night without notifying the base’s new Afghan commander, who discovered the Americans’ departure more than two hours after they left, Afghan military officials said.
Afghanistan’s army showed off the sprawling air base Monday, providing a rare first glimpse of what had been the epicenter of America’s war to unseat the Taliban and hunt down the al-Qaida perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks on America.
The U.S. announced Friday it had completely vacated its biggest airfield in the country in advance of a final withdrawal the Pentagon says will be completed by the end of August.
If you want to know why the military has been sent back to Kabul airport to be sitting ducks on the runway, that's why. I can't get over the enormity of that blunder. If we'd stayed at Bagram, we'd have been able to run an orderly evacuation. We'd have had air support, defensible positions and, best of all, no civilians running on the runway while our planes are trying to take off. Dig this.
Kabul Airport runway today. No words needed. pic.twitter.com/8SfzEOprUZ
— Shiv Aroor (@ShivAroor) August 16, 2021
Everyone is pointing fingers about all kinds of things, but the poor decisions of the past at least had some kind of rational thought behind them. Leaving Bagram has me gobsmacked.
Bonus Photo
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| They can't leave the airport because the city is in chaos. They can't take cover because they're standing on a runway. Knock out a C-17 as it's trying to take off and these guys will be trapped, sitting ducks. This must be the worst military decision in the last decade. |
I'm not sure how much Bagram would have helped any sort of evacuation from the Kabul vicinity. It is 70 km away from Kabul, and the roads are apparently bad enough that Google Maps thinks it takes over an hour and half to drive it. It is also only a single runway, just like the Kabul airport. I suppose it is better fortified than Kabul, but that doesn't help if you can't get there quickly.
ReplyDeleteBagram had a hospital, repair shop, parts depot, generators, counter-battery radar, fuel depot, ammunition dumps, plenty of runway, wrecking material to get crashed aircraft off the runway, runway repair tools ...
ReplyDeleteOur guys in Kabul don't have a place to take a dump.
Bagram was a place from which you could project power to rescue American civilians behind enemy lines.
Kabul Airport is where our troops themselves are hostages to the Taliban.
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ReplyDeleteSo far, has the Taliban attacked any American during this pull-out, or gone against the Agreement Trump signed in any way? You keep using terms like "losing" and "hostage", but I see chaos without major violence against Americans.