Report: Biden was warned of collapse of Afghan Air Force eight months before withdrawal

[Valin]

Hot Air

Jazz Shaw

Jan. 18 2022

In July and August of last year, as Joe Biden was pushing ahead with his decision to fully withdraw from Afghanistan and we watched the colossal debacle that followed, a couple of questions were on everyone’s lips. How did the Afghan military completely collapse so quickly and who could possibly have seen this coming? Well, thanks to new documents released under the Freedom of Information Act this week, we’re getting a better idea of the answer to the second one. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction in the Department of Defense knew and he submitted a report to the DoD back in January of 2021 on the subject. John Sopko’s report flatly stated in no uncertain terms that the Afghan Air Force “would collapse” if we withdrew and that it “did not have the capabilities to survive” after America’s withdrawal. And without air support, attempting to maintain military dominance in that country would be a fool’s errand. So how was this information completely ignored in the White House’s decision-making process? (Associated Press)

In retrospect, anyone familiar with military matters is probably not acting terribly surprised. We did an admirable job of training the Afghan grounds forces over the twenty years we spent there. (Except for the steady stream of Islamic terrorist moles who embedded themselves with the Afghan army and attacked us.) But fielding a 21st-century military air force is far different than stocking up infantry troops with guns and ammunition and training them to work cohesively in the field.

(Snip)

Most honest observers have long since concluded that Biden’s decision to suddenly pull out of Afghanistan entirely was one of the greater military blunders seen in a generation and we’re still paying the price for it today. But many of his supporters still seem to cling to the idea that it was “an honest mistake” and an intelligence failure or whatever. This report deflates such ideas entirely. An office that was positioned to know better warned the Pentagon that a disaster was on the way eight months before the collapse took place. And Joe Biden moved ahead with the plan anyway. As many of us had already suspected, the decision to evacuate from Afghanistan was a political one, not a military one. Biden had promised to end the war in Afghanistan and he didn’t want to be seen as failing to live up to that political talking point. And we continue to pay a heavy price for that completely avoidable blunder.

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Ever notice no one on our side Ever talks about the Doha (surrender) document Mike Pompeo signed on orders from Donald Trump?