Someone please educate me- why couldn't we keep some troops in Afghanistan?...

[FivePtsDawg]

It seems like there was a push that intensified under the Trump & Biden administrations to remove all US military personnel from Afghanistan, despite the fact that everyone seemed pretty sure that the Afghan government would never hold up & the Taliban would either eventually or very quickly take back over once we left. Unfortunately, it was the latter, and has happened even before we've actually pulled up stakes completely.

But my question is, why couldn't we leave some number of troops there- and I don't know if it needed to be 5K, 10K, 20K, more, less?- to try to keep the Taliban and other enemy forces from coming back into power, and- among other things- potentially using it as a staging ground for terrorist attacks. From what I can tell we have hundreds of thousand of US troops stationed all over the world in non-combat capacities, including in places where we previously fought & won wars. I normally don't like to use Wikipedia as a source, but they had it all boiled down pretty neatly, so take a look:

United States military deployments - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

So 65 years after the end of WWII, we still have 35K troops stationed in Germany and another 54K in Japan. We have 26K in South Korea. We have thousands more in other parts of Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, & elsewhere around the world. So leaving some level of troops "behind", or moving them into a strategic part of the world, isn't exactly a foreign or untested concept, and clearly must serve some purpose since we've been doing it for decades. So why can't or wouldn't we do it in Afghanistan? I'm sure there are folks on this board either with or without military backgrounds that can explain the rationale & decision making. I genuinely am curious and look forward to hearing it.

 

[blackpug6]

It seems like there was a push that intensified under the Trump & Biden administrations to remove all US military personnel from Afghanistan, despite the fact that everyone seemed pretty sure that the Afghan government would never hold up & the Taliban would either eventually or very quickly take back over once we left. Unfortunately, it was the latter, and has happened even before we've actually pulled up stakes completely.

But my question is, why couldn't we leave some number of troops there- and I don't know if it needed to be 5K, 10K, 20K, more, less?- to try to keep the Taliban and other enemy forces from coming back into power, and- among other things- potentially using it as a staging ground for terrorist attacks. From what I can tell we have hundreds of thousand of US troops stationed all over the world in non-combat capacities, including in places where we previously fought & won wars. I normally don't like to use Wikipedia as a source, but they had it all boiled down pretty neatly, so take a look:

United States military deployments - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

So 65 years after the end of WWII, we still have 35K troops stationed in Germany and another 54K in Japan. We have 26K in South Korea. We have thousands more in other parts of Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, & elsewhere around the world. So leaving some level of troops "behind", or moving them into a strategic part of the world, isn't exactly a foreign or untested concept, and clearly must serve some purpose since we've been doing it for decades. So why can't or wouldn't we do it in Afghanistan? I'm sure there are folks on this board either with or without military backgrounds that can explain the rationale & decision making. I genuinely am curious and look forward to hearing it.

simple answer;
the intel is coming in faster than this admimistration can process data.
it is indeed a cluster F!

 

[MRDAWG]

It seems like there was a push that intensified under the Trump & Biden administrations to remove all US military personnel from Afghanistan, despite the fact that everyone seemed pretty sure that the Afghan government would never hold up & the Taliban would either eventually or very quickly take back over once we left. Unfortunately, it was the latter, and has happened even before we've actually pulled up stakes completely.

But my question is, why couldn't we leave some number of troops there- and I don't know if it needed to be 5K, 10K, 20K, more, less?- to try to keep the Taliban and other enemy forces from coming back into power, and- among other things- potentially using it as a staging ground for terrorist attacks. From what I can tell we have hundreds of thousand of US troops stationed all over the world in non-combat capacities, including in places where we previously fought & won wars. I normally don't like to use Wikipedia as a source, but they had it all boiled down pretty neatly, so take a look:

United States military deployments - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

So 65 years after the end of WWII, we still have 35K troops stationed in Germany and another 54K in Japan. We have 26K in South Korea. We have thousands more in other parts of Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, & elsewhere around the world. So leaving some level of troops "behind", or moving them into a strategic part of the world, isn't exactly a foreign or untested concept, and clearly must serve some purpose since we've been doing it for decades. So why can't or wouldn't we do it in Afghanistan? I'm sure there are folks on this board either with or without military backgrounds that can explain the rationale & decision making. I genuinely am curious and look forward to hearing it.

In Germany, Japan etc our troops are not being shot at. They are in Afganistan.
The troops in Germany are there in case of a Russian invasion. Asia troops for China and N Korea.

 

[anon_03j5dr7l9qs90]

In Germany, Japan etc our troops are not being shot at. They are in Afganistan.
The troops in Germany are there in case of a Russian invasion. Asia troops for China and N Korea.

Yes, that’s what happens when the President trusts a terrorists organization.

 

[jenkinscreekdawg]

In Germany, Japan etc our troops are not being shot at. They are in Afganistan.
The troops in Germany are there in case of a Russian invasion. Asia troops for China and N Korea.

Up to now , there had been no military deaths since Feb. 2020 ... of course Joe screwed that up !

 

[stray]

Up to now , there had been no military deaths since Feb. 2020 ... of course Joe screwed that up !

Puddin Brain can f*ck up a steel anvil with a rubber mallet.

 

[RoyDawgMercer]

It seems like there was a push that intensified under the Trump & Biden administrations to remove all US military personnel from Afghanistan, despite the fact that everyone seemed pretty sure that the Afghan government would never hold up & the Taliban would either eventually or very quickly take back over once we left. Unfortunately, it was the latter, and has happened even before we've actually pulled up stakes completely.

But my question is, why couldn't we leave some number of troops there- and I don't know if it needed to be 5K, 10K, 20K, more, less?- to try to keep the Taliban and other enemy forces from coming back into power, and- among other things- potentially using it as a staging ground for terrorist attacks. From what I can tell we have hundreds of thousand of US troops stationed all over the world in non-combat capacities, including in places where we previously fought & won wars. I normally don't like to use Wikipedia as a source, but they had it all boiled down pretty neatly, so take a look:

United States military deployments - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

So 65 years after the end of WWII, we still have 35K troops stationed in Germany and another 54K in Japan. We have 26K in South Korea. We have thousands more in other parts of Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, & elsewhere around the world. So leaving some level of troops "behind", or moving them into a strategic part of the world, isn't exactly a foreign or untested concept, and clearly must serve some purpose since we've been doing it for decades. So why can't or wouldn't we do it in Afghanistan? I'm sure there are folks on this board either with or without military backgrounds that can explain the rationale & decision making. I genuinely am curious and look forward to hearing it.

We have military forces in Europe and Japan because of 1) long standing treaties, 2) NATO and SEATO obligations. As to Afghanistan you'd have to ask Lying Donnie and Pompouspeo; they're the ones who negotiated with the Taliban for months in '19 and placed the framework around US withdrawal. I'm not granting absolution to anyone until the facts surrounding the withdrawal planning are made known.

 

[GADAWGinIraq]

We have military forces in Europe and Japan because of 1) long standing treaties, 2) NATO and SEATO obligations. As to Afghanistan you'd have to ask Lying Donnie and Pompouspeo; they're the ones who negotiated with the Taliban for months in '19 and placed the framework around US withdrawal. I'm not granting absolution to anyone until the facts surrounding the withdrawal planning are made known.

Do you know what the negotiation said? It was conditional on the Taliban behavior as well as an agreement between the Afghan Govt and the Taliban, which never happened.
This was more about getting 100k-200k Afghanis to the US. They don't give a damn about Americans.

 

[RoyDawgMercer]

Do you know what the negotiation said? It was conditional on the Taliban behavior as well as an agreement between the Afghan Govt and the Taliban, which never happened.
This was more about getting 100k-200k Afghanis to the US. They don't give a damn about Americans.

From what I've read the agreed withdrawal was not contingent upon a Taliban-Afghan agreement but rather certain behaviors of the Taliban. The Doha Agreement stipulated the withdrawal of "all military forces of the United States, its allies, and Coalition partners, including all non-diplomatic civilian personnel, private security contractors, trainers, advisors, and supporting services personnel". The Afghan Gov't would never agree to the release of 5k Taliban fighters held in prisons so a separate agreement between them fell apart. I'm at a loss as to how 100-300k Afghani's could be transported to the US over the stipulated timeline of the agreement. Apologies, but I don't understand who the "they" are referred to in your last sentence so I can't comment.

 

[woofn]

In Germany, Japan etc our troops are not being shot at. They are in Afganistan.
The troops in Germany are there in case of a Russian invasion. Asia troops for China and N Korea.

I could be wrong, but I don’t think we want to get into a ground war vs China

 

[GADAWGinIraq]

From what I've read the agreed withdrawal was not contingent upon a Taliban-Afghan agreement but rather certain behaviors of the Taliban. The Doha Agreement stipulated the withdrawal of "all military forces of the United States, its allies, and Coalition partners, including all non-diplomatic civilian personnel, private security contractors, trainers, advisors, and supporting services personnel". The Afghan Gov't would never agree to the release of 5k Taliban fighters held in prisons so a separate agreement between them fell apart. I'm at a loss as to how 100-300k Afghani's could be transported to the US over the stipulated timeline of the agreement. Apologies, but I don't understand who the "they" are referred to in your last sentence so I can't comment.

They = the current US administration. My apologies for the unclear reference.

 

[DawgHammarskjold]

It seems like there was a push that intensified under the Trump & Biden administrations to remove all US military personnel from Afghanistan, despite the fact that everyone seemed pretty sure that the Afghan government would never hold up & the Taliban would either eventually or very quickly take back over once we left. Unfortunately, it was the latter, and has happened even before we've actually pulled up stakes completely.

But my question is, why couldn't we leave some number of troops there- and I don't know if it needed to be 5K, 10K, 20K, more, less?- to try to keep the Taliban and other enemy forces from coming back into power, and- among other things- potentially using it as a staging ground for terrorist attacks. From what I can tell we have hundreds of thousand of US troops stationed all over the world in non-combat capacities, including in places where we previously fought & won wars. I normally don't like to use Wikipedia as a source, but they had it all boiled down pretty neatly, so take a look:

United States military deployments - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

So 65 years after the end of WWII, we still have 35K troops stationed in Germany and another 54K in Japan. We have 26K in South Korea. We have thousands more in other parts of Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, & elsewhere around the world. So leaving some level of troops "behind", or moving them into a strategic part of the world, isn't exactly a foreign or untested concept, and clearly must serve some purpose since we've been doing it for decades. So why can't or wouldn't we do it in Afghanistan? I'm sure there are folks on this board either with or without military backgrounds that can explain the rationale & decision making. I genuinely am curious and look forward to hearing it.

Because the de facto POTUS, Valerie Jarrett, says the US must appear "woke."

 

[jenkinscreekdawg]

Because the de facto POTUS, Valerie Jarrett, says the US must appear "woke."

I suspected she was behind the scenes somewhere ...direct line to Odumba !