According to a report from Politico, the US is planning for a full withdrawal from its embassy in Kabul as the city is increasingly under threat of a Taliban take over. Sources told Politico that US Central Command sees a complete evacuation of the embassy as “inevitable.”
The US has already deployed 3,000 troops that are due to arrive in Kabul soon to help evacuate some diplomatic staff. When the move was announced, the State Department portrayed it as only a drawdown and insisted the embassy would stay open. But behind the scenes, the US appears to be accepting reality.
The embassy has directed its staff to destroy sensitive materials, including documents that feature American flags that could be used for propaganda. “Please also include items with embassy or agency logos, American flags, or items which could be misused in propaganda efforts,” an embassy notice said, according to CNN.
There have been reports that say the Biden administration is considering moving the embassy to the Kabul airport, where the 3,000 US troops are being deployed to facilitate the evacuation. Only time will tell if the US tries to leave some sort of diplomatic mission or chooses to completely withdraw from Afghanistan.
The Taliban continued to capture major cities on Friday, including Kandahar, the country’s second-largest city. The Taliban now controls all of southern Afghanistan and could Isolate Kabul even sooner than the 30-day prediction the US made this week. A diplomatic source told CNN that an intelligence assessment indicates Kabul could be isolated in as soon as 72 hours.
The US has also deployed about 1,000 troops to Qatar to help process visas for Afghan interpreters and an entire infantry brigade combat brigade of some 4,000 soldiers to Kuwait to stand by for a possible Afghanistan deployment. There are about 4,000 civilian personnel at the embassy, including 1,400 US citizens.
The Taliban are one day’s march from Kabul, on foot.
It might take some time to take the capital. I would assume that any materiel that the US didn’t destroy or the Taliban didn’t claim when the Afghan Army bravely ran away is centered around Kabul. Now, granted, the Afghan Army famously sucks at fighting, but the Taliban has time to get full reinforcements, and might take the time for full preparations. Then it’ll be over.
The Afghan “army” is at this very moment running away from the Kabul outskirts.
I stand corrected. Wow.
Edit: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/8/15/taliban-enter-kabul-from-all-sides
The Taliban say they will not take Kabul “by force” and are negotiating a peace deal. I would interpret that as saying, “We’re biding our time until the terms of surrender are negotiated.” Hopefully that negotiation will also include the release of all stolen money back to Afghanistan proper.
The consummate humiliation. Logically it were time for Viet Nam Syndrome 2; but, I doubt it. You can’t humiliate these types.
The Afghan Finance Minister already left the country, to join “his” money.
The flight of the money guy to his money was when it really ended.
That was some of the US aid to Afghanistan that did not buy the ammo and food that their troops didn’t have when needed. It was some of the pay of the “ghost troops” for which payment was made but were never really present. That helps explain how it came to this.
Now it is just a few proud guys hanging on to their “honors” for the last few hours before they too flee, and some soldiers who are trapped. Those who can run are likely to get out ahead of the last US troops, and ahead of the refugees who trusted us — money is good for that.
Excellent post, and it should be a major part of the investigations to find out where all those billions went.
When did any investigations ever happen — other them clownish political shows?
No, there will be no investigation. None was really done for Iraq. Or any other costly mess.
Investigations do happen, usually by the Inspectors General of whatever bureaucracies screwed up, but to stay in Afghanistan 20 years was a political decisions fueled by false information and starry-eyed projections. You’re right, though, hearings will solve nothing, and besides, many authors have already covered the mistakes made.
Run….Rabbit Run….!
“The embassy has directed its staff to destroy sensitive materials, including documents that feature American flags that could be used for propaganda.”
Destroying in US language is document shredding…! Which they can easily be taped back together…!
Have you ever tried to tape a bin full of shredded documents back together? It’s pretty much an impossible task. Each document doesn’t get its own separate bin, they’re all mixed in together.
Iran did it after they took the US Embassy. It took time and a lot of people. Not easy. Not impossible. Afghanistan’s Taliban will have all the people it needs for such simple repetitive tasks, and all the time in the world after winning.
The Iranians did it. Painstaking but far from impossible. My friend’s father was one of those Iranians.
Depends on the shredder. A cross-cut shredder will make anything virtually impossible to to piece back together. And if the CIA learned anything from Tehran, it’s to shred completely, then burn. We’ll see.
I saw a headline a little while ago about embassy staff being ordered to burn, rather than shred, documents.
I don’t think the older US embassy in Kabul has an interior oven to burn documents… That means the embassy roof is the only place to do it and along with is is carrying millions of document papers to the roof level…! In any case Not All Docs can be destroyed and some will end up in Taliban’s hands…!
Yep, clearly, there’s no time to destroy everything.
On the other hand, a lot more documents are likely in electronic than paper format than would have been the case in, say, 1979.
Of course, if all the documents were in electronic format there is no need to destroy anything…!
Well, One thing US if famous for is to Repeat Its Mistakes…same for the shredder…! A crosscut shredder is slower than straight-cut, it overheats faster and requires longer cool-downs…not to mention the paper jams and limited number of pages being shred at a time…!
So Turkey’s Tayyrip Erdogan has his troops guarding the Kabul airport to ensure a hasty US getaway. The embassy story doesn’t fly in anyone’s book.
He appears to be the central mediator if the Taliban decide to level the airport’s structures.
It seems to me that anyone that thought that the Western invaders were not doomed to lose control with lightning speed, were the quislings and NeoZions (New coinage by me?) pounced neozhans to ryme with cons.. They know who they are, and so do WE…!!!!! I wonder what Am ambasidor
Let’s see the Talinan want the US gone, the so called Afghan government want the US to stay. It looks like the Afghan people support and sympathize the Taliban more then the government otherwise there would be more resistance. So be it, let’s learn from our mistakes and rethink our purpose in life. We might rethink our foreign policy and stop with all the wars we don’t seem to be able to stay out of before its to late.
For as ling as we understand that Taliban today has nothing to do with Taluban we came to fight.
The Taliban that came from Pakistan in order to occupy the country following Al-Qaeda’s successful campaign to irganize tribes and oust Soviet Union. This was “student” movement, hence Taliban. All they did was make tribes to agree, and keep Al-Qaeda in one training camp, problem solved. Well – no. The Pakistani staffed and Saudi paid “students” once in power in Kabul and with tribes on their side — decided not to listen. They were wined and dined by Bush White House in August 2001, but they reneged on pipeline deal — and after 9/11, US made a decision that working through proxies was not the way to go. It was a way to get rid of two proxies – Al-Qaeda and Taliban.
But once Pakistani “Students” were removed, US managed to get Kabul government established and set out to create a centralized state. A country that never was bases on a concept of one nation, this could not work. From that moment — Afghan clans started to negotiate with US for a power-sharing agreement, as centralized control was not going to work. US did not listen. The ides is — if a national army can be created than clans would have no choice but to be obedient.
All wrong assumptions. Decentralized economy gave regions the means to fight central government, Not even infusing ISIS style terrorist mercenaries cannot work. Once clans got their act together, Kabul government has no constituency in the country.
So much does not add up.
Negotiations with Taliban in Doha. Negotiations with Government. Taliban spends time in Moscow and Beijing. Government spends time in Moscow and Beijing. Both talk to Iran. Both talk to Pakistan. All talk to Turkey, Taliban has no problem Turkey remaining there, but does not want Turkey to do what US wants it to do,
Russia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan hold border maneuvers on Afghanistan borders. Taliban takes over all border posts with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan — military maneuvers over, go home. Apparently, they were not afraid of Taliban spilling over as terrorists. They trust their assurances – no terrorists will come from Afghanistan.
And does it mean that neighbors re fearing the American supported government for being unable to control extremism and even mercenary militants? Looks that way.
Did US actually plan all along to throw Kabul government under bus? But just strung them along? Or US did not anticipate that the provinces would just give Taliban the keys?
But then, why is not Ghani government fleeing (with the exception of finance guy)?
There is something that went wrong from US government point of view.
If Biden knew what would happen, would have announced long time ago that Embassy is closing until the transition in Kabul is complete, and name charge d’affairs. But apparently did not know the real situation. Not that ling time ago, US was contemplating some over the horizon bombing. That would have been a good plan if Taliban and Kabul government remained in a long term stalemate. But if Taliban is successful and no civil war ensues — US would not have any mission left in Afghanistan. Sending 3,000 soldiers looks like a knee jerk reaction.
Hopefully Taliban will be methodical — as they were thus far, and wait out for the Embassy issue to sort itself out.
I don’t think the US government planned to throw Kabul under the bus (if there was any planning involved for the occupation, I’d be surprised), but at some point it appears that the White House decided to listen to the intelligence assessments instead of the Joint Chiefs’ self-serving robust BS claims.
US is famous to throw governments under the bus……They did it to Shah of Iran…. to Saddam of Iraq…and to Kaddafi of Libya to name a few…!
President Ghani has just left Afghanistan, according to Al Jazeera, and has left to Tajikistan.
Not too far…! Is he planning to come back to the country to get arrested…?!