Thread by @MarkHertling

Thread: This piece by @JRubinBlogger is calm & succinct, and may be helpful to those who may not have closely followed the 20-year AFG war, but are now trying to make sense of what they see now. 1/ washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…

The piece does a fact check on what we’ve seen during the first few days of chaos and dysfunction at Kabul. 2/

I’d add a few thoughts. First, there’s been much talk about the Afghan Army “melting away.” Yes, many deserted…but like in Iraq when their soldiers faced ISIS it was, in many cases, due to a lack of confidence in their AFG government and some senior AFG military leadership. 3/

Second, NEO (non-combatant evacuation operations) is 1 of the toughest & complex missions the military executes. It assumes many things: whether it is a permissive or contested environment, approval by the State Dept/Ambassador, if the host-nation govt is functioning…4/

…if the host-nation military is functioning, if the enemy is nearby, how many need evacuation and their priorities. All those “assumptions” were tested (and changed, rapidly) in Kabul, making these first few days extremely difficult 5/

Third, regarding evacuation. The Special Immigrant Visa program - the approval method for those who served with US forces in AFG (and Iraq), is slow & tedious…and it’s run by the State Dept, not DoD. 10s of 1000s have applied, & some - unfortunately - are not approved. 6/

There are many outside the Kabul airport right now wanting out, but not all of them are SIV or green card holders. The throng of people will cause confusion & horrible optics, which the Taliban will use for propaganda. 7/

There will eventually be a “last plane out,” and the images of those left behind will be heart-wrenching. We must prepare for that, as well as changes in the environment around the airport. 8/

Fourth, Ms Rubin addressed repercussions w/ US allies. There are many in NATO who are pissed right now, but I’d suggest that anger may contribute to a better functioning and decision-making in that body in the long term. 9/

No matter, the US will have work to do with our allies in Europe & around the world to improve our reputation and our methods of communications. 10/

Every Administration has a chaotic or screwed up foreign policy disaster. How the Biden admin recovers from this debacle - in the coming days, weeks, months - will be important to watch. 11/

Some are saying this is the “worst policy disaster in a century.” While this was fubar’ed, that description is hyperbolic. 12/

What is critical, though, is how this debacle is affecting those in the military & in other organizations that served in AFG. Many are questioning their service. They shouldn’t…what they did provided hope for that country as part of the trail of history. 13/

There will be more revelations of many things that went wrong in AFG over the years, but there were just as many selfless acts by those who wanted to make the world better. 14/end.