This one is on Biden. That said, there was no way out withdrawal wasn't going to be pandemonium, and yes we should have done it far sooner. Obama should have done it. Trump should have done it. The one thing I would like to have seen would have been us quietly spiriting out our allies (all those guys who helped us over the years) before the collapse.
I can only hope that 20 years out of power has tempered the Taliban some. It sounds like it might have, I think they've realized that they really can't be a pariah state. Might curb some of their worst instincts. Might not.
Oh, they emptied all the jails. Some of those guys were Taliban fighters. Some of them were criminals, murderers and thieves and whatnot. Way to go Taliban! Afghanistan is their mess now. Good fucking riddance.
You would have thought that the Army War College, West Point, the US Air Force Academy, and the Naval Academy might have had a text book or history book describing how a withdrawal should happen; perhaps one they had a picture of the helicopter on the roof of the US Embassy in Saigon, for example.
You would have thought one or more of those generals or admirals would have pulled those old dusty text books and binders off their shelf and looked at them over the last 20 years.
You would have thought one of those generals or admirals would have advised their superiors in their chain of command to say, “Hey, just FYI, pulling the military out without getting Americans out and without withdrawing our weapons and assets may not be a good thing to do.”
You would have thought one of those superiors would have gone to the SecDef to advise him and the president of the same.
You would have thought.