Afghanistan, on the Edge of the Abyss
"Core [staffers would continue diplomatic and consular work at the U.S.Embassy]."The embassy remains open. This is not abandonment. This is not an evacuation.""This is not a wholesale withdrawal.""Let me be very clear about this: The embassy remains open. And we plan to continue our diplomatic work in Afghanistan.""[The heightened pace of the Taliban’s rout, leading to increased violence and instability across Afghanistan, is of] grave concern.""So given the situation on the ground, this is a prudent step [partial evacuation]."U.S.State Department spokesman Ned Price"Without a [U.S.] diplomatic footprint the Afghan government would suffer a major psychological blow.""Nnarratives of U.S. abandonment would strengthen, and the Taliban would score yet another victory."Michael Kugelman, South Asia scholar, Wilson Center
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U.S. President Joe Biden stated with the confidence of his conviction that he had no regrets over his decision to pull the American military out of Afghanistan and leave the defence of the country to the very capable, Western-trained Afghan military and national police, against the puny efforts of the Taliban to return themselves to governing the country.
His exquisitely planned American withdrawal pointed out the technologically advanced military equipment being left for the Afghan military to make use of. Advanced helicopters that no Afghans have any idea how to service. Heavy-duty military vehicles left unprotected when the troops left in the dead of night without warning their Afghan counterparts.
All of those weapons and vehicles left unguarded no longer have any need to be guarded, they are in the possession of the 'insurgent' terrorists who plan to make very good use of them, courtesy of the American taxpayer. But there's more of the U.S. treasury yet to come, to bolster the fortunes and future of Afghanistan under its current government; promises from the Biden administration of hard cash and more military arms to follow.
Oops, unless the Taliban who are steadily gaining territory and capturing provincial capitals, proceed with dispatch, moving on to Kabul, to take complete charge as is their intention.
In which case, the U.S. State Department, loathe to fully vacate the premises of its costly, fortified, high-tech embassy, is confident that its appeal to the better nature of the Islamist terror group known as the Taliban to spare the embassy and allow its work to go on, which includes of course, funding transfers to Afghanistan, to continue.
Zalmay Khalilzad, chief U.S. envoy in discussions with the Taliban is dispatched to extract the assurance the U.S. embassy will escape attack. That assurance for future foreign aid ...
Of the 1,400 American nationals servicing the U.S. embassy not all are scheduled for evacuation, ostensibly. Yet thousands of troops are being dispatched back to Afghanistan, having just a week or so earlier been pulled out. Their mission: to aid in the airlifting of American personnel and local allies; clearing them out of Kabul before the capital of the country is completely overrun by the Taliban. The airport in Kabul is to see another 3,000 combat troops arrive for the purpose of critical evacuation.
The Canadian government and the Brits have also announced special forces dispatched to evacuate their nationals. America, it seems, doesn't know whether it's coming or going. It did go, but now it is returning, however temporarily, and under conditions that evidently were too harrowing to even contemplate. Now that Afghanistan's second- and third-largest cities under attack by Taliban are theirs, the capital is next in their line-of-sight.
Although the arriving military deployment is not considered a combat mission, infantry soldiers and Marines are set to deploy with machine guns, mortars and allied heavy weapons. And just as well they do. Two infantry battalions from the Marine corps and one combat unit from the Army already deployed in the region are to arrive in Kabul with an additional brigade between 3,500 and 4,000 American soldiers sent to Kuwait on standby.
In actual fact, with those numbers and that weaponry the U.S. could in all likelihood, confront and completely destroy the Taliban.
Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani will have to be content with the assurances of Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin "that the United States remains invested in the security and stability of Afghanistan in the face of violence by the Taliban". With that assurance it is a foregone conclusion he will sleep much, much better at night.
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Labels: Afghanistan, Conflict, Government, Kabul, Military, Rout, Taliban, United States
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, August 14, 2021
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