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Acting SecDef Chris Miller: Trump's Afghanistan "Withdrawl" Was Negotiating Tactic
Posted on 8/19/21 at 9:43 am
Posted on 8/19/21 at 9:43 am
https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2021/08/trumps-pledge-exit-afghanistan-was-ruse-his-final-secdef-says/184660/
h/t OkieTiger for the heads up
quote:
President Donald Trump’s top national security officials never intended to pull all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, according to new statements by Chris Miller, Trump’s last acting defense secretary.
Miller said the president’s public promise to finish withdrawing U.S. forces by May 1, as negotiated with the Taliban, was actually a “play” that masked the Trump administration’s true intentions: to convince Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to quit or accept a bitter power-sharing agreement with the Taliban, and to keep some U.S. troops in Afghanistan for counterterrorism missions.
In a conversation this week with Defense One, Miller revealed that while serving as the top counterterrorism official on the National Security Council in 2019, he commissioned a wargame that determined that the United States could continue to conduct counterterrorism in Afghanistan with just 800 American military personnel on the ground. And by the end of 2020, when he was acting defense secretary, Miller asserted, many Trump administration officials expected that the United States would be able to broker a new shared government in Afghanistan composed primarily of Taliban officials. The new government would then permit U.S. forces to remain in country to support the Afghan military and fight terrorist elements.
That plan never happened, in part because Trump lost his reelection bid in November. And at least one other former senior Trump administration official questioned Miller’s retelling. But in revealing it, Miller challenged recent assertions that Trump is to blame for setting up this week’s chaotic scenes unfolding across Kabul. Miller alleged that despite Trump’s frequent public pledges to end the Afghanistan war and bring home all U.S. troops, many senior national security officials in his administration believed a total withdrawal was not inevitable.
h/t OkieTiger for the heads up
This post was edited on 8/19/21 at 10:07 am
14
Posted on 8/19/21 at 9:44 am to VoxDawg
All that "I'm the president and the buck stops with me" from the pedo the other day was such bullshite
Posted on 8/19/21 at 9:44 am to VoxDawg
Would Trump's plan have ended up worse than this?
I'm not sure it's even possible to have fricked this up more than they did without giving the Taliban nukes.
... They didn't give the Taliban nukes, did they?
I'm not sure it's even possible to have fricked this up more than they did without giving the Taliban nukes.
... They didn't give the Taliban nukes, did they?
Posted on 8/19/21 at 9:45 am to VoxDawg
TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP
Posted on 8/19/21 at 9:45 am to teke184
We don’t know
Posted on 8/19/21 at 9:45 am to teke184
Yeah, I need someone to explain the 4D chess play here for me.
Posted on 8/19/21 at 9:47 am to VoxDawg
quote:
a “play” that masked the Trump administration’s true intentions: to convince Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to quit or accept a bitter power-sharing agreement with the Taliban, and to keep some U.S. troops in Afghanistan for counterterrorism missions.
So...Trump wins again? Because it sure sounds like Trump got what he (and we) wanted. We're out of Afghanistan. Let them deal with it.
Posted on 8/19/21 at 9:47 am to VoxDawg
I posted this yesterday along with several supporting articles and for some reason 38 down votes. Guess it is teh deal making with the Taliban? Not sure what about it no-one gets?
LINK - TD - Trump never planned to completely pull out of Afghanistan - it was supposed to be a ruse
LINK - TD - Trump never planned to completely pull out of Afghanistan - it was supposed to be a ruse
This post was edited on 8/19/21 at 9:48 am
Posted on 8/19/21 at 9:48 am to VoxDawg
If this is all true then holy shite. We have an ex-military leader at the top of the food chain willing to dish out what I assume to be pretty classified information all in the name of getting the heat off of the potato in the White House. Am I understanding this all correctly?
If so..... HONK!!!!!!!!!!!
If so..... HONK!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted on 8/19/21 at 9:48 am to teke184
quote:
Would Trump's plan have ended up worse than this?
According to the article, Miller believed we could hold the country with 800 SpecOps.
quote:
While Miller acknowledged on Saturday that it would have been impossible for the United States to support the Afghanistan government forever, he said the Taliban’s rapid advance across the country and the resulting deadly chaos playing out in Kabul could have been avoided had the Biden administration heeded military and national security experts.
Miller is a true believer in special operations forces capabilities. He landed in Afghanistan in December 2001 at the beginning of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Later, he served as a Green Beret commander and as director of the National Counterterrorism Centers. Appointed acting defense secretary just days after Trump lost his re-election bid, Miller soon traveled to the Green Berets’ home of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, for a ceremony to elevate the authority of the special operations assistant secretary.
Weeks later, Miller flew to Afghanistan, where he met Ghani and visited with American troops at Afghan Army’s Special Operations Command at Camp Morehead, in Wardak Province.
"I always felt it was a huge strategic error by expanding the war. I thought the war was for special operations, small footprint,” he said at the time.
By then, Miller knew that some in the U.S. intelligence community believed the war could become smaller once again, and sustainable.
“We did plenty of wargames on this and we knew what the minimal force structure was,” he said this week. “The number was 800. If this all goes bad, what is the minimal force structure needed to maintain [counterterrorism] strike and reconnaissance capability? We can do it for 800, 850.”
Defense One was able to confirm Miller’s account of the 800-personnel study independently with another former NSC staff member.
Food for thought: DJT had his Defense Dept wargame how to hold off 70k Taliban with 800 SpecOps troops, but he DIDN'T gameplan how to deal with a general election that would be tipped by CCP-intervention?
This post was edited on 8/19/21 at 9:54 am
Posted on 8/19/21 at 9:49 am to VoxDawg
frick Chris Miller, that "ruse" resulted in zero lost US military lives over 18 months & a Taliban network that was frozen in fear of retaliation.
Posted on 8/19/21 at 9:50 am to MightyYat
quote:
We have an ex-military leader at the top of the food chain willing to dish out what I assume to be pretty classified information all in the name of getting the heat off of the potato in the White House. Am I understanding this all correctly?
Not in the least.
Miller is saying that we not only had a plan to keep it from unraveling, but we'd be doing it with 1/10 of the troops that Asterisk is trying to use as he's flailing to put out the dumpster fire he created.
Posted on 8/19/21 at 9:50 am to VoxDawg
Officials worry Trump may back Erik Prince plan to privatize war in Afghanistan
"I know he's frustrated," Blackwater founder Prince said of the president. "He gave the Pentagon what they wanted. And they haven't delivered."
Posted on 8/19/21 at 9:50 am to VoxDawg
quote:
According to the article, Miller believed we could hold the country with 800 SpecOps.
We should definitely waste 800 SpecOps holding together a pile of rocks. Please tell me this guy isn't actually in charge of anything?
Posted on 8/19/21 at 9:50 am to MightyYat
quote:
We have an ex-military leader at the top of the food chain willing to dish out what I assume to be pretty classified information all in the name of getting the heat off of the potato in the White House. Am I understanding this all correctly?
No, Chris Miller is getting Trump's back, not Biden's. Trump was negotiating - full complete withdrawal a chip to force Afghan president to negotiate with Taliban - to enable our withdrawal since it was obvious Taliban couldn't be kept down without our help.
Biden dropped the ball on it.
This post was edited on 8/19/21 at 9:51 am
Posted on 8/19/21 at 9:51 am to Kjnstkmn
quote:
I posted this yesterday along with several supporting articles and for some reason 38 down votes. Guess it is teh deal making with the Taliban? Not sure what about it no-one gets?
LINK - TD - Trump never planned to completely pull out of Afghanistan - it was supposed to be a ruse
Nice on the early catch. I totally missed that, otherwise I would've bumped your earlier thread.
Folks that are getting upset over this aren't understanding Miller's point. We had this sucker on lock, and the way it's all unfolded under Sleepy is ANOTHER underscore to his incompetence.
Posted on 8/19/21 at 9:53 am to Kjnstkmn
Oh, ok. Got it. I was confused obviously. 
Posted on 8/19/21 at 9:53 am to VoxDawg
If his crystal ball can determine the Trump plan was a ruse and would not work... why couldn't he use it to see the the Biden Admin's plan would be an utter fscking disaster?
Posted on 8/19/21 at 9:54 am to dakarx
quote:
If his crystal ball can determine the Trump plan was a ruse and would not work... why couldn't he use it to see the the Biden Admin's plan would be an utter fscking disaster?
Again, if that's your takeaway, you're missing Miller's overarching point.
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