The fall of Afghanistan

 The news from over the weekend. The President of Afghanistan flees, US diplomatic mission destroys classified documents and evacuates, and Afghan citizens concerned about a return to Taliban rule want to flee. This is starting to be called President "Sleepy" Joe Biden's Saigon moment. The President had already announced that he had planned to remove U.S. troops from there by Sept. 11, 2021 - oh wow!

20 years after some devastating terrorist attacks on U.S. territory resulting in a huge loss of life. We went there to  eliminate Al Qaida and remove the Taliban regime from power. In 2001 the Taliban largely had control of a huge swath of territory there, I suppose classic might makes right if you got the guns and troops what can anyone else do about it. Then American forces came and held the territory for just about 20 years and fought a lethal insurgency there.

The Taliban never really went away. Al Qaida is actually still around they're less one important leader who Seal Team Six killed in neighboring Pakistan in 2011. Wait what's his name again?

And now we have the disaster of Afghanistan under Sleepy Joe's watch. I can never really appreciate the Vietnam situation and the fall of Saigon and how it came to be. However it seems what's happening in Kabul over there seems quite needless and have only served to reverse what we hoped to accomplish after the deadly terrorist attacks of 20 years ago.

How did this come to be CNBC writes about an intelligence failure

The Taliban’s rapid takeover of Afghanistan, including its capital and the presidential palace, suggests that U.S. military intelligence failed in its assessment of the situation, according to Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“This is an intelligence failure of the highest order,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Monday, adding that it’s the “biggest intelligence failure” since the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War, a campaign of devastating surprise attacks on the U.S. and its allies in 1968.

Roggio said the Taliban pre-positioned equipment and materials, organized, planned and executed a “massive offensive” since early May before beginning its “final assault,” while U.S. officials said the local government and military forces should be able to hold out for six months to a year.

Last week, Reuters reported that a U.S. defense official saw Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, falling in 90 days. Instead, that happened on Sunday, less than 10 days after the first provincial capital of Zaranj was taken by the Taliban.

Would this be any different under a President Trump? Under that orange man so many people hate so much that they wanted Sleepy Joe in power!