How to Lose A War?

On Powerline I read a piece that said it is possible our exit from Afghanistan could have been even worse, or at least no better, if we had taken civilians out before removing the troops. I think the title was there’s no good way to lose a war; something like that. The author seems to think that if our troops were protecting fleeing civilians they and those civs woulda been in greater danger of attack.

I don’t get this. It was no secret we were leaving. Trump ran and won in part on getting outta there. He had been steadily drawing down the number of troops. This wasn’t a surprise to anybody. And lemme tell ya, if I had been in Afghanistan when Trump publicized his determination to withdraw US troops, I woulda gotten the eff outta there at that point! It seems to me all the “Americans” I see interviewed on TV who have gotten out have thick accents. I suspect they’re just “paper Americans.”. Did we have a lot of contractors there? People working on oil rigs or sump’n? If so their corporate bosses must’ve been reading the news. And don’t corporations, famously, have their own jets and helicopters? I mean, this wasn’t the Iron Curtain: the Taliban wasn’t trying to prevent foreigners or dual nationals from leaving were they? Everybody knew the Taliban was taking over, and soon. Why did ANYBODY who didn’t think they’d be happy under that regime not leave a long time ago?

People didn’t leave S.VietNam when we left because we had a peace treaty, which held for over 2 years, under which they could safely remain in their own country. We don’t seem to have had that here. Or maybe Trump did. When Trump left it was just like when Nixon left, y’think?

The situation is sickening. Biden’s painful delivery on Thursday made Carter’s mea culpa for the botched rescue effort in Iran look like a standup routine! Biden’s speech was a eulogy for our country.

But I still think there’s a lot we don’t know about Afghanistan. And I know there’s NOTHING we DO know about the young Afghani men jamming those cargo planes.