Submitted by: Terry Payne
Subject: ADDENDUM to my complaint sent earlier about Afghanistan
Folks,
The long detailed commentary below is Part 2 on Afghanistan DISASTER written by a retired USNR Captain familiar with domestic and foreign military defense systems and aviation matters. Well worth the history lessons on intelligence or lack thereof………
Terry
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As usual, sending unedited was a mistake. As you may have noted, it is U-235 that is fissionable and U-238 which is not. Nickel not nickle. Some missing ? marks. Forgive. Probably other “mis-steaks” to be found. Fumble fingers? Vision issues? Inattention. Illogical thinking?
Whatever.
Friends,
Another outpouring from a very frustrated person even angrier that in my prior comments about the disgraceful mismanagement of the Afghan withdrawal. You may be tired of reading and have no interest, but at least a few of you have managed a comment or thought. Likely, it will be useful to me to write. Again, unedited, here goes.
Perhaps many, most or all US Citizens will get out of Afghanistan, now under Taliban control, without farther incident. Perhaps many Afghans well similarly be rescued. Pres. Biden is scheduled to give another briefing this afternoon. Perhaps he will have grand (and verifiable) news to relieve concerns. Perhaps the tooth fairy lives.
As the politicians are always saying, “let me clear”. My prior comments on the catastrophic withdrawal were not to argue for or against having gone into Afghanistan in the first place, staying after defeat of Taliban and al Qaeda to attempt nation building in this tribal and backward land, withdrawing now, withdrawing later or much later or even attempting to argue for staying and maintaining a key facility in a hostile region, a key intelligence and listening post and some strike capability. That is an argument for another day.
It was to comment on reality. We didn’t stay. We closed Bagram Air Base first, a very large, advanced and capable facility along with some smaller outposts. We withdrew troops and fled the embassy. Then we had to send troops back in to try to secure the Kabul airport to try to evacuate mobs at risk. To date, we have completely botched the withdrawal.
The issue is how we decided to withdraw, the evident lack of a plan, the foolish sequence of events and the danger now imposed on thousands of our citizens, allied troops and civilian workers, and even the Afghans who had been supporting the US effort and/or the fight against the Taliban.
Friday and Saturday, 21-21 Aug, we were treated to another confusing and contradictory series of briefings by the confused and misleading President Biden as well as the State Department and Department of Defense spokespersons. Perhaps the worst statement among all the erroneous and weak statements was the assertion by the Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, that we did not have the capability to rescue our stranded citizens throughout Afghanistan and they would have to find their way to the Kabul airport.
Good grief. If we don’t have the capacity to go outside the wire at the airport, we are, indeed, a paper tiger, a hollow force, led by weak officers and executives lacking in will or courage. I simply do not believe Austin. This is a catastrophic display of Executive and Top Military weakness, indecision and timidity.
Now, as I write, I see the Air Force is calling up the “Civil Reserve Air Fleet” getting 18 aircraft from 5 or more civilian airlines to lift refugees onward to the US after they get out of Afghanistan and C-130s are now going in to help the lift out of the civilian airfield in Kabul with C-17s. Little short of military air lift, are we?
As to Biden’s briefing, wrongez-vous, Joe. (That’s fractured French). You made a number of factually wrong and/or misleading statements. Either you are totally uninformed, a totally incompetent leader, or indeed suffering greater mental deterioration than many suspect, and managed by a bunch of totally inexperienced theoreticians who have no idea what they are doing.
You didn’t collaborate with the International Community or even NATO, let alone our allies who had their own troops on the ground. Boris Johnson tried to call you and had to wait two days for a call back. Your staff admitted you hadn’t called anybody, after which you returned Boris’ call and since called others (or finally accepted their calls) days after this fiasco began. Now you claim you are in contact with all these world leaders and they thoroughly approve what you have done.
Really? With the British Parliament voting censure on you? One MP, a veteran speaks to Court Martialing you as opposed to mere impeachment. Another chastised you as a non-veteran with no experience in Afghanistan for your blanket dismissal of the Afghan fighters. Angela Merkel and her likely successor both slamming you, with him calling it the “biggest debacle” since the formation of NATO. The French denouncing your decision along with the Aussie. The Secretary General of NATO speaking out about the serious mistakes made?
Others aren’t supporting or praising your terrible plan. Germany, France, Australia and the UK all are openly criticizing and complaining. By the way, they did not agree with you and wanted to keep a minimal force in country. But you didn’t listen and didn’t consult them on your decision either. Their desire to stay may be right or wrong in the long glare of history, but it was reprehensible not to confer with or warn them.
No the Taliban hasn’t foresworn violence and are even beating and threatening US citizens trying to get to the airport. This despite your claim to the contrary. You thought al Qaeda wasn’t in the country any more. Wrong again.
Have you also forgotten ISIS which also is active and doing well in the Taliban provided haven in areas under their control. Don’t you expect revenge is high on their list after we obliterated their Caliphate in Syria and Iraq and splattered their disgusting leader, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi all over the countryside?
You claim al Qaeda is gone. Nope. Wrong again. They never will all eliminated in Afghanistan and are still functioning in Pakistan as well as having decentralized in a classic move to make it much harder to find, infiltrate and “roll up” the entire organization. Yes they have branches in the Maghreb, the Arab Peninsula and elsewhere but they are very much still in Pakistan and Afghanistan. They are alive and well and now have a large area and supportive government from which to plot, plan and renew their terror attacks. Do you remember all those attacks of the 90s. Embassies in Africa. Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. USS Cole in Aden harbor? The Bojinka plot? The list is long, all eventually leading to 9-11.
Did you forget ISIS also is operating in Afghanistan?
Oh, and did you notice Ayman al Zawahiri, spiritual leader and founder of al Qaeda just pledged Bay’ah or a loyalty oath to the Taliban? Also did you notice the brother of the leader of the Haqqani network arrived in Kabul and the Haqqani’s are taking charge of “security”. They are about as blood thirsty as they come. Oh, and they are out of Pakistan which has its own Taliban and an ISI which has collaborated with the Taliban all along. Have you noticed Pakistan not only sheltered bin Laden until his demise and still shelters much of al Qaeda, and the defeat in Afghanistan is widely celebrated in nuclear armed, fundamentalist leaning Pakistan. Seems like a pretty dangerous situation in that part of the world. Having an outpost isn’t all that bad an idea.
You seem very tentative about staying until all US citizens and allies are evacuated and staying after your deadline of 31 Aug. Will we stay to get everybody or is 31 Aug. really the end date? Your military and state department leaders say we don’t have the capability to go out and rescue people. Can we hold on at the Kabul airport? Will the Taliban “allow” it?
Yes, we could go out and rescue our people, especially as you were bragging about the might of our military, but you ordered our troops to stay within the confines of this small airport. Somehow, these other allied countries have managed to put their special forces and lift capability to work to go out, find and bring in their citizens. Not sure, but I think the English, French and Germans have all launched rescue missions. Why don’t you authorize a similar mission?
Oh and you had to re-insert even more troops than we originally had on the ground to secure one tiny footprint in a small airport to try to rescue people now in mortal danger. Yet we still say we can’t go outside the perimeter of the airport? Why? Are we that weak militarily? Is it a lack of interest? Lack of will? Do you not care about the stranded and at risk American citizens to say nothing of our allies and Afghans who worked with us? Are you that detached? Or ill informed? Or un-caring?
You say we have no strategic interest in Afghanistan. I think denying terrorists a safe sanctuary to plot and scheme is rather much a strategic interest. Now we have lost a key listening post, a major air facility, intelligence assets, surveillance and strike capability with drones and manned aircraft, SAR of CSAR capabilities and if nothing else a major refueling and repair facility in a very unfriendly part of the world with no other assets within thousands of miles. That seems pretty strategic too.
Afghanistan is land locked so even this over the horizon air capability you brag about now has to fly thousands of miles over Iran or a hostile Pakistan with little time on station and no ground spotters to even tell them where to look. Many aircraft will require air to air refueling over less than friendly territory for these “over the horizon” missions. Have we thought about that and do we have the tankers to do it.
If you send manned aircraft to gather intelligence, electronic information, strike or image and observation missions rather than drones, and a plane is downed, we now have no SAR or search and rescue or special forces to rescue the pilot. That would apply not only to missions over Afghanistan, but elsewhere in this hostile region.
The intelligence, surveillance, air strike capability and special forces in country were serving a strategic interest but also were necessary to the denial of reconstitution by al Qaeda, ISIS and new dangers to US interests around the world. Have you forgotten the 1990s and the escalating terror attacks as al Qaeda gained strength and enjoyed the luxury of a protected environment and our having no intelligence or surveillance?
By the way, with the flood of illegal immigrants to say nothing of the “get aways”, who knows what “bad guys” have already used our open borders to enter the US. Who knows where they are or what they are plotting.
Now there will be another flood of refugees whether directly or via intermediate temporary sanctuaries with little ability to vet any of them. Who knows whether the Taliban, ISIS, al Qaeda, or other terror organizations will be quick and clever enough to mix into the fleeing mob and insert dedicated Shahid seeking special privileges in Paradise?
You say you were never warned the collapse would come so quickly. Now we have warnings sent to you from the embassy in Kabul. I believe it is called a “dissent cable”, a brave and possibly career ending statement of profound disagreement with information being presented or the policy. I believe 22 of 23 career diplomats in Kabul signed it. Did you even know of the communication? Did Secretary Blinken brief you about it? The intelligence community and even the military were supposedly resisting your decision. But you claimed you never heard any of the negative and your decision represented the “consensus opinion”.
Granted you are the Commander in Chief and had the power to decide, as you loudly declared, and order a withdrawal. But it seems the decision was precipitous, unplanned, and poorly executed. At any rate, after parroting the Truman “the buck stops here” phrase, you should be able to comprehend that you are now responsible for the decision and the consequences. Trump may have started the process but it was “conditions based”. Whatever he might have done or modified the mission, he is gone. At any rate, you have had months to follow his plan, devise your own, or stop the withdrawal. Blame yourself, for once.
Really! Leaving all those weapons, aircraft, drones, latest technology and vehicles and an intact base at Bagram would rank as pretty stupid in most quarters. Getting our troops out before our citizens throughout the country and the Embassy, and leaving the Embassy so precipitously we left all sorts of documentation for the Taliban to use to identify and hunt down those who worked with us seems pretty stupid as well, if not criminal. The facts to date, the chaos, the inability to process SIVs all suggest you didn’t even consider or didn’t care about the at risk Afghans to say nothing of our citizens.
You offered a false choice. Evacuate the way we did, namely fleeing, abandoning equipment, documents indicting many thousands of Afghans and our own citizens, or reintroducing massive ground forces.
Actually, the “consensus” and facts seem to support the idea we were doing well with a very few troops at Bagram and a few other outposts, intelligence assets, targeting capabilities, drone and other air support, and support for the Afghan Army. For all the corruption and the Tribal peculiarities, even the reluctance of some to fight fellow Muslims, they actually were doing pretty well over the last year or two and they were taking all (yes all) the casualties. They crumbled when we withdrew all support and it was evident we were leaving soon leaving no residual capability or promise of any support.
And no they ALL didn’t quit, throw down their weapons and run as you inferred. The VP and a number of troops have jointed the “Northern Alliance” fighters in the Panjshir Valley led by Ahmad Massoud, son of assassinated leader who fought the Soviets, the Taliban and with our forces ridding the country of the Taliban and al Qaeda. They are still in the field fighting in this mountainous enclave in the North close to Tajikistan. They are now abandoned and without support so far as we know. Given the tribal nature of the land, the religious and ethnic differences with the extremist, Sunni Muslim, majority Pashtun making up the majority of the Taliban, and the history, they likely will continue to fight for their tribes, their geographical area, their traditions, and even their own Muslim Shia beliefs. Should we ever seek help again, one might guess they would not be inclined to again offer support and fight with our special forces or work with the CIA.
No, the bad guys of the world aren’t impressed or cowed by the vaunted strength you brag about. They see weakness, flight and abandonment as well as a number of crises within the US and at our borders.
No, you, your advisors and the top Pentagon and State personnel haven’t restored our faith or that of our allies. We may “be back” as you bragged to NATO and the EU, but in what role? For a thoughtful person, the leadership, both military and executive, has displayed a hopeless inability to plan or execute a mission or to advise you properly. They continue with this delusion that talk, negotiations, concessions, payoffs, the opinion of the International Community, or the good will of bad guys with whom we are begging, will save the day.
You might consider the idea that a well-trained, well-armed, cohesive, fighting force devoted to winning and a viable strategic force to worry strategic opponents is the deterrent which will restrain those with evil intent, not fluffy words,, pleading, begging, bribes or willful ignorance and denial. Diplomacy and talk are wonderful until they aren’t. Deterrence is critical. Deterrence only works if the bad guys know you have the means to punish them severely and the will to use it.
By the way, in my last effort, unedited and with a few typos and done from memory, I failed to mention about three other Iranian facilities, hidden from us and undiscovered for years. These included several other facilities for manufacture of high speed centrifuges, one of which the Israeli’s just took out and one for extracting Pu from spent reactor fuel.
If you have been believing the propaganda and don’t understand the fuel cycle from raw Uranium ore to 85-90% fissionable U235, you have been lied to. The Iranians aren’t a few years away from a bomb. It happens when you have done all the work to separate the very small amount of Uranium isotopes from raw ore and dirt, then separate out the vast majority of un-fissionable U235 from the much more abundant U238, when you get to 60% concentration, you have actually done 93% of the work. Very little time and effort is required to get to weapons grade material.
And nobody probably every told you about neutron enhancements to create a more efficient explosion from less material, fissionable material cast into a sphere for an efficient implosive initiated explosion and the perfection of implosion triggering, or their work on reentry vehicles, guidance and longer range missiles, all done during the time the so called JCPOA was being observed by the US. Do you really think offering economic relief, aid, sanctions lifting and going back to JCPOA will cause them to abandon their nuclear program?
You don’t go to great expense and effort to build very expensive long range missiles with sophisticated reentry nose cones and guidance, to deliver a few hundred pounds of TNT. Drones or suicide bombers are better at that.
Enough. I will try to refrain from commentary for a respectful period in which I will hope that I am wrong, all will go well with the withdrawal, al Qaeda, ISIS and others won’t build while in a new safe haven, new terror attacks won’t be generated, and the other world problems will resolve as those with evil intent will listen to your bluster about the mightiest economic and military power in the world and be good.
Iran will accept all our help and apologies, call off their terrorists, call off the Yemen civil war, stop trying to rule in Iraq and Syria, restore Lebanon to freedom and return to growing pistachios and harvesting sturgeon eggs for caviar. Russia will get out of Crimea, Georgia and E. Ukraine, stop supporting the thug in Belarus and quit building new weapons of war and return to making painted stacking dolls. China will quit all of its threats and aggressions and go back to exporting Chinese restaurants and menus. Islam will reform becoming tolerant, inclusive loving and forgiving, Sharia law will be modernized, Salafists will be consigned to history and Sunni and Shia will go forward in harmony.
I have to stop now and go look under my pillow to see if the tooth fairy left a nickle.
Hoping that you young folks included in this mailing, who have years ahead to live with how things evolve, will find these worries unfulfilled and indeed the hoped for “Peaceable Kingdom” inferred from Isiah, Hosea and the Sermon on the Mount, portrayed by Edward Hicks in art and the choral work by Randall Thompson, has arrived.
End of this lengthy missive.
XXXXX CAPT. USNR-Ret
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