Gen Milley should resign

[BashiChuni]

For obvious reasons. But he won’t. Gotta secure that lucrative post military defense contracting gig. 

[pawnman]

9 minutes ago, BashiChuni said:

For obvious reasons. But he won’t. Gotta secure that lucrative post military defense contracting gig. 

For being the guy in the chair when the music stopped?

Not sure I agree.

[HeloDude]

15 minutes ago, BashiChuni said:

For obvious reasons. But he won’t. Gotta secure that lucrative post military defense contracting gig. 

What are you talking about?  He’s doing great!

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/republicans-joint-chiefs-chairman-critical-race-theory-congress/2021/06/23/84654c34-d451-11eb-9f29-e9e6c9e843c6_story.html%3foutputType=amp

Edited August 15, 2021 by HeloDude

[ViperMan]

Let's be honest. This end-state for AFG was inevitable and was/is/has been a foregone conclusion. The notion that we were going to install a democracy there was absurd from day one. Period.

Root cause = we defined success to be an unachievable goal from "go" - hence failure. It really is that simple. It's not Biden's fault we lost. It's not Trump's fault we lost. It's not Obama's fault we lost. It is Biden's fault we are losing in such an embarrassingly avoidable manner, however. That *is* his fault. We should be losing more gracefully.

[Stoker]

Just because it's no one's fault doesn't mean no one is responsible. If you lose a war, maybe we don't want you in charge of fighting the next one. 

[BashiChuni]

The end result was never going to change no matter who was in charge. 
 

im talking about this cluster f of getting our people out. He’s jcs chairman he’s responsible. And if the civilian leadership didn’t listen to his advice he should have resigned in protest. 
 

 

[ClearedHot]

14 hours ago, pawnman said:

For being the guy in the chair when the music stopped?

Not sure I agree.

It's how the music stopped...we left a tape recorder playing, gathered our instruments and slipped off the stage thinking no one would notice.  Absolute chaos!

[jazzdude]

The end result was never going to change no matter who was in charge. 
 
im talking about this cluster f of getting our people out. He’s jcs chairman he’s responsible. And if the civilian leadership didn’t listen to his advice he should have resigned in protest. 

This one's on CENTCOM as the COCOM. JCS probably had little to no influence on the operational planning for the evacuation.

But there won't be any accountability there either.

[Bozo]

2 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

It's how the music stopped...we left a tape recorder playing, gathered our instruments and slipped off the stage thinking no one would notice.  Absolute chaos!

Woke up this morning to videos of people falling off of C-17s mid-flight (after hanging onto the outside of the aircraft no less).  I am literally speechless after seeing that.

I've been to AFG a couple of times (with one tour on the USFOR-A staff) ... I understand how difficult it is to plan anything over there.  Based upon the news/images/videos coming out of AFG it almost appears as if we totally assumed away our force protection and left that for the AFG government to handle.   What does it say about the plan when POTUS has to get involved and order troops back into country to provide security?

Somebody should be held accountable ... agree that they probably won't.   The "beautiful people" will receive their Legions of Merit while the troops on the ground (pilots, SOF, Marines, etc.) are forced to execute this completely feckless plan.

[HuggyU2]

“The Afghan Security Forces have the capacity to sufficiently fight and defend their country…” - Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, July 21, 2021.

Edited August 16, 2021 by HuggyU2

[Guest]

Too worried about "White rage" huh Milley? Come one, come all, the U.S. gov's clown show will surely impress all!

[pawnman]

3 hours ago, HuggyU2 said:

“The Afghan Security Forces have the capacity to sufficiently fight and defend their country…” - Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, July 21, 2021.

I would wager that they have the capacity.  They lack the will.

[pilot]

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2021/08/16/our-military-is-a-woke-joke-n2594151

 

that will just about cover the flybys

[dream big]

13 hours ago, HuggyU2 said:

“The Afghan Security Forces have the capacity to sufficiently fight and defend their country…” - Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, July 21, 2021.

Fuck that guy. Maybe less time pushing Marxist ideology on the military and acting like you are the HMFIC/CJCS. 

[Guest]

19 hours ago, pawnman said:

I would wager that they have the capacity.  They lack the will.

The official narrative is "they lacked the will", but what if the will the officials are talking about, isn't the will the Afghans in general want to pursue? Take a look at this U.S. Special Inspector General report from this year. The U.S. has spent $787,000,000 trying to manufacture consent among Afghans to support "gender equality". Maybe the Afghans don't generally want what the U.S. institutions consider "gender equality". This is only one example of the U.S. attempting to push something on the Afghans that don't want it.

SIGAR 21-18-LL Support for Gender Equality: Lessons from the U.S. Experience in Afghanistan

"The high-level focus on gender issues in Afghanistan translated into congressional and executive branch agency support for significant funding for these efforts. Although the $787.4 million disbursed for programs specifically and primarily to support Afghan women and girls pales in comparison to the $141.24 billion spent on Afghanistan reconstruction assistance overall since 2002, the $787.4 million for women and girls spent over two decades is still significant."

"However, because hundreds of other U.S. programs and projects included an unquantified gender component, this amount significantly understates the actual level of U.S. support for women, girls, and gender equality"

[ViperMan]

What AFG needs is a bunch of remote controlled blimps with .50 cals and sensors attached to them. We can float them there for about 1000 years and just snipe Taliban and AQ from 15-20K feet. I bet we could get the cost of a terrorist down to about $1 - $2 USD. We could even make a new AFSC for it and give big puffy wings to the operators.

Also, *announce* that we don't care about their government or their values. We're just there to kick ass, permanently. Don't saddle victory with any unachievable goals (schools, muh rights, "governing"). We need to look at this a long term tax we have to pay to keep the primitive world at bay. Let it develop on its own timeline and via its own accord.

Edited August 17, 2021 by ViperMan

[ClearedHot]

In several threads there have been a lot of discussions about cost.  Labeling everything in Afghanistan a waste is a bit myopic and that thought pattern enjoys the view of knowing the outcome.  In the context of the days after 9/11 we were going to do something and I doubt standing outside and launching a few airstrikes into Afghanistan would have met the will of the American People.  Perhaps more appropriate to discuss if we should have left sooner rather than continue to nation build.  Maybe shortly after we killed Bin Laden?  Regardless, it will be interesting to watch the "economics" now.  Terrorism will again flourish in Afghanistan and will most certainly be exported to other areas, hopefully not the U.S. homeland.  Will we ramp up our ISR and episodically pitching Tomahawks, Hellfires and PGMs or will we walk away all together and let chaos reign in the region?  I have yet to hear a wise word spoken by Milley...perhaps (I hope), he pushed back in private?

[Standby]

On the subject of cost: Afghanistan proved to be the worlds largest live fire range. Not sure what 20 years of continuous, largely uninterruptible hot range time would cost in the US (let alone the lobbying required amongst the DC elites)…but surely more expensive than staying CONUS, right?

[SurelySerious]

On the subject of cost: Afghanistan proved to be the worlds largest live fire range. Not sure what 20 years of continuous, largely uninterruptible hot range time would cost in the US (let alone the lobbying required amongst the DC elites)…but surely more expensive than staying CONUS, right?

If you needed 20 years to figure out that you could hit an asshole riding on a dirtbike without taking down a building by firing a laser guided rocket from a high-end fighter…sure… but we used 20 years times 36-69 constant caps of our high end assets on the range that are now tired and have no service life left with no viable replacement.

Yuuuuge.

Net.

Loss.

Edit: unless you’re a defense contractor

[Standby]

53 minutes ago, SurelySerious said:

If you needed…

I should have typed my OP in sarcasm font, that’s my b. 

[Prozac]

3 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

In several threads there have been a lot of discussions about cost.  Labeling everything in Afghanistan a waste is a bit myopic and that thought pattern enjoys the view of knowing the outcome.  In the context of the days after 9/11 we were going to do something and I doubt standing outside and launching a few airstrikes into Afghanistan would have met the will of the American People.  Perhaps more appropriate to discuss if we should have left sooner rather than continue to nation build.  Maybe shortly after we killed Bin Laden?  Regardless, it will be interesting to watch the "economics" now.  Terrorism will again flourish in Afghanistan and will most certainly be exported to other areas, hopefully not the U.S. homeland.  Will we ramp up our ISR and episodically pitching Tomahawks, Hellfires and PGMs or will we walk away all together and let chaos reign in the region?  I have yet to hear a wise word spoken by Milley...perhaps (I hope), he pushed back in private?

I don’t think there’s any argument that we should’ve avoided boots on the ground from the get go. I had just finished up in tweets & watched the second plane hit the trade center live from the TV in the flight room. At that moment there was was no doubt in my mind that a good chunk of my military career would be defined by the ensuing conflict. And I was more than ready and willing to join the fight. But we accomplished what we initially showed up to do within a few years. The Taliban was defeated militarily. Al Quaeda was forced underground and rendered largely impotent, at least to conduct large scale operations in American soil. Then we got distracted by Iraq & Afghanistan got placed on the back burner for half a decade. Instead of developing any semblance of an exit strategy, we largely ignored the theater & lo and behold things started a downward trend. It is unconscionable that senior civilian and military leadership would let things devolve to the point that we were involved in a never ending conflict with no clearly articulated goals. We should’ve declared victory in 03 or 04 and packed our shit and left. Maybe leave a few small footprint forces in the region to deal with terror threats as they popped up. Instead we committed a huge chunk of our conventional forces, built Pizza Huts & Baskin Robins’ and chose to ignore the implications of expending people and machines with no clear or worthwhile goal in mind. Once we went down that road, the end result was preordained. 

[SurelySerious]

I should have typed my OP in sarcasm font, that’s my b. 

https://www.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/f5d1a724-15c8-408e-a378-2a4a1ab42597

[LookieRookie]

What a shit show

[BashiChuni]

Embarrassing 

[Standby]

SECDEF said on the first day that his #1 priority was the pandemic. This shit shouldn’t shock anybody.