Top U.S. diplomat says the State Department put out repeated warnings every three weeks to Americans in Afghanistan telling them to leave since April: “People chose not to leave. That's their business," Ross Wilson said. pic.twitter.com/hr5HlLxA0F
The U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan seeks a Public Engagement Assistant. The incumbent functions in an extremely sensitive political environment in which an ongoing insurgency adds to the urgency of accurate media reporting. https://t.co/tfm3aISgkC
The Commons has returned to the Palarse today to debate the Taliban and the hasty and unseemly exit from Afghanistan.
Much hot air will be expended today on the motion:
“That this House has considered the situation in Afghanistan."
Which will mean fuck all to the people trapped inside Afghanistan wanting to escape the Taliban.
The bottom line is that without American support (political and military) the UK has no power to influence anything in Afghanistan.
On the subject of hot air, Biden finally broke his isolation from world leaders by calling Boris yesterday from his holiday home at Camp David.
Seemingly Boris managed to rebuke him, as diplomatically as one can do with a president:
“The Prime Minister stressed the importance of not losing the gains made
in Afghanistan over the last twenty years, of protecting ourselves
against any emerging threat from terrorism and of continuing to support
the people of Afghanistan.”
Parliament will be recalled on Wednesday for a statement by the prime minister and a debate on the situation in Afghanistan.
The Commons will be recalled to sit from 9.30am. and the Lords from 11am. The PM will make a statement followed by five hours of debate,
with no vote expected. The orders allowing MPs to contribute remotely
have now lapsed, so anyone wanting to take part will have to attend the Commons in person.
Somewhat pointless given that the coup has already happened.
However, at least the PM has publicly spoken since the fall of Kabul, which is more than Biden has done"
Thanks to a decision by Biden (that will go down in history as one of America's greatest foreign policy and strategic blunders of the last few decades) America is rerunning its humiliating evacuation from Saigon (this time from Kabul).
At the cost of countless lives, $1 trillion and a whole heap of equipment America has realised that the 20 year war in Afghanistan was unwinnable.
Whilst that may well be the case, what Biden failed to grasp when he made the decision to withdraw (although he will be grasping that now) is that the Taliban will takeover Afghanistan in a matter of weeks, and establish the country as the go to address for every terrorist group on the planet.
The war, in the form envisaged by America when it entered Afghanistan 20 years ago, was unwinnable. However, training a local army to hold out against insurgency takes more than air support and high tech equipment (especially when you withdraw that). Like it or not, if America wanted to keep the Taliban out, then it needed to maintain a presence there to stiffen the resolve of the local army and to ensure that they were properly trained.
"“If you are looking to rebuild an entire nation’s military capability to
withstand ever-evolving adversaries, such as ISIS or the Taliban, you
cannot do it in one or two decades. You can get the bulk of it done in
that time, but the technical expertise of learning skills like fighting
close combined arms battles or maturing a high-risk man-hunting special
forces capability — the bedrock of any counter-insurgency campaign —
takes a far greater period of time.
I know this, because that’s what I
did in 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2010 in Afghanistan. It’s technical; it’s
hard work; it requires a long-lasting commitment. But done properly, it
is absolutely worth it in terms of reducing an insurgency’s momentum,
building capability and, crucially, confidence in partnering forces, and
critically reducing civilian casualties while retaining Afghan
consent.”
On July 8th Biden said:
"“the likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.”
Biden has badly misjudged this, and the consequences of his misjudgement will be felt by the world for decades to come!
