re: Taliban has taken Kabul. Terrorist attack at Airport at least 12 marines confirmed killed

Wall Street Journal Opinion

This pretty much nails it.
I’ll quote the piece for those that can’t get behind the pay wall.

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The President tries to duck responsibility for a calamitous withdrawal.

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Pres­i­dent Biden’s state­ment on Sat­ur­day wash­ing his hands of Af­ghanistan de­serves to go down as one of the most shame­ful in his­tory by a Com­man­der in Chief at such a mo­ment of Amer­i­can re­treat. As the Tal­iban closed in on Kabul, Mr. Biden sent a con­fir­ma­tion of U.S. aban­don­ment that ab­solved him­self of re­spon­si­bil­ity, de­flected blame to his pre­de­ces­sor, and more or less in­vited the Tal­iban to take over the coun­try.

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With that state­ment of ca­pit­u­la­tion, the Afghan mil­i­tary’s last re­sis­tance col­lapsed. Tal­iban fight­ers cap­tured Kabul, and Pres­i­dent Ashraf Ghani fled the coun­try while the U.S. fran­ti­cally tried to evac­u­ate Amer­i­cans. The ji­hadists the U.S. top­pled 20 years ago for shel­ter­ing Osama bin Laden will now fly their flag over the U.S. Em­bassy build­ing on the 20th an­niver­sary of 9/11.

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Our goal all along has been to of­fer con­struc­tive ad­vice to avoid this out­come. We crit­i­cizedDon­ald Trump’s deal with the Tal­iban and warned about the risks of his urge to with­draw in a rush, and we did the same for Mr. Biden. The Pres­i­dent’s ad­vis­ers of­fered an al­ter­na­tive, as did the Af­ghanistan Study Group. Mr. Biden, as al­ways too as­sured of his own for­eign-pol­icy acu­men, re­fused to lis­ten.

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Mr. Biden’s Sat­ur­day self-jus­ti­fi­ca­tion ex­em­pli­fies his right­eous dis­hon­esty. “One more year, or five more years, of U.S. mil­i­tary pres­ence would not have made a dif­fer­ence if the Afghan mil­i­tary can­not or will not hold its own coun­try,” Mr. Biden said. But the Afghans were will­ing to fight and take ca­su­al­ties with the sup­port of the U.S. and its NATO al­lies, es­pe­cially air power. A few thou­sand troops and con­trac­tors could have done the job and pre­vented this rout.

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Worse is his at­tempt to blame his de­ci­sions on Mr. Trump: “When I came to of­fice, I in­her­ited a deal cut by my pre­de­ces­sor—which he in­vited the Tal­iban to dis­cuss at Camp David on the eve of 9/11 of 2019—that left the Tal­iban in the strong­est po­si­tion mil­i­tar­ily since 2001 and im­posed a May 1, 2021 dead­line on U.S. forces. Shortly be­fore he left of­fice, he also drew U.S. forces down to a bare min­i­mum of 2,500. There­fore, when I be­came Pres­i­dent, I faced a choice—fol­low through on the deal, with a brief ex­ten­sion to get our forces and our al­lies’ forces out safely, or ramp up our pres­ence and send more Amer­i­can troops to fight once again in an­other coun­try’s civil con­flict.”

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Note that Mr. Biden is more crit­i­cal of his pre­de­ces­sor than he is of the Tal­iban. The Pres­i­dent has spent seven months os­ten­ta­tiously over­turn­ing one Trump pol­icy af­ter an­other on for­eign and do­mes­tic pol­icy. Yet he now claims Af­ghanistan pol­icy is the one he could do noth­ing about.

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This is a pa­thetic de­nial of his own agency, and it’s also a false choice. It’s as if Win­ston Churchill, with his troops sur­rounded at Dunkirk, had de­clared that Neville Cham­ber­lain got him into this mess and the British had al­ready fought too many wars on the Con­ti­nent.

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Mr. Trump’s with­drawal dead­line was a mis­take, but Mr. Biden could have ma­neu­vered around it. He knows this be­cause his Ad­min­is­tra­tion con­ducted an in­ter­nal pol­icy re­view that pro­vided him with op­tions. The Tal­iban had al­ready vi­o­lated its pledges un­der the deal. Mr. Biden could have main­tained the mod­est pres­ence his mil­i­tary and for­eign-pol­icy ad­vis­ers sug­gested. He could have de­cided to with­draw but done so based on con­di­tions on the ground while pre­paring the Afghans with a plan for tran­si­tion and air sup­port.

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In­stead he or­dered a rapid and to­tal with­drawal at the on­set of the an­nual fight­ing sea­son in time for the sym­bolic tar­get date of 9/11. Most of the Amer­i­can press at the time hailed his de­ci­sion as coura­geous.

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The re­sult a mere four months later is the worst U.S. hu­mil­i­a­tion since the fall of Saigon in 1975. The Tal­iban is say­ing it wants a “peace­ful trans­fer of power” in Kabul, but the scenes are still redo­lent of U.S. de­feat. The scram­ble to de­stroy clas­si­fied doc­u­ments. The he­li­copters evac­u­at­ing U.S. diplo­mats. The aban­don-ment into Tal­iban hands of valu­able U.S. mil­i­tary equip­ment.

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Worst of all is the plight of the Afghans who as­sisted the U.S. over two decades. Mr. Biden said Sat­ur­day that the 5,000 U.S. troops he is send­ing will help in evac­u­at­ing Afghans and Amer­i­cans. But there are thou­sands of trans­la­tors, their fam­i­lies, and other of­fi­cials who are in peril from Tal­iban rule and didn’t get out in time. (See nearby.) The Biden Ad­min­is­tra­tion was far too slow to get them out of the coun­try de­spite ur­gent warn­ings. The mur­der of these in­no­cents will com­pound the stain on the Biden Pres­i­dency.

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The consequences of all this will play out over many months and years, and none will be good. The illusion, indulged on the left and right, that the U.S. can avoid the world’s horrors while gardening its entitlement state, is sure to come home to haunt. Adversaries are taking Mr. Biden’s measure, and there will be more trouble ahead. The costs will be all the more painful because the ugliness of this surrender was so unnecessary.    

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Look at all these weapons left
LINK

What's exactly going on at the airport? I've been following this all day and nobody will explain it. Is the embassy at the airport functioning? How many Americans or other westerners are there? Are we holding the airport? Is the Taliban letting us hold the airport? What's stopping Taliban fighters from showing up to the tarmac to fight? Can they shoot down departing planes?

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Yes and the photo is of brave Afghan girls walking to school on the streets under Taliban rule. That was the point of the tweet.

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I call bullshite! I went into that tweet and everyone on that thread called BS & fake news, from you know the actual people that live there. So much so, that they showed actual live footage of the chaos and carnage taking place and that picture is of girls going to school in the KSA.

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Well that's pretty fascinating lol. Honestly never heard of it. What height do they observe from?

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They have them monitoring our border with Mexico as well. Although I don't believe they have cameras but do have radar to find low flying airplanes trying to drop drugs across the border.

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. Is the embassy at the airport functioning?

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Yes, along with the embassies of other nations.

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How many Americans or other westerners are there?

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The initial number was set at 10,000 Americans. Some of those have been evacuated out of the country, but no word on how many. Britain, Canada, Germany, Australia, India, and others also have people being evacuated.

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Are we holding the airport?

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Yes, from reports from the State Dept and DoD, we have gained control of the airport and that includes all operational aspects. We have a perimeter secured.

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Is the Taliban letting us hold the airport?

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Essentially, yes, at least for the time being.

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What's stopping Taliban fighters from showing up to the tarmac to fight?

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Essentially, their word, and fear of drawing the US and allies back into an immediate fight that would pressure them.

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Can they shoot down departing planes?

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They could. They have the weaponry to do so. So far, they haven't.

Are they (Taliban) really willing to risk such a blatant violation of the agreement with the state department by putting US forces at risk? I doubt it, personally.

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What's exactly going on at the airport? I've been following this all day and nobody will explain it. Is the embassy at the airport functioning? How many Americans or other westerners are there? Are we holding the airport? Is the Taliban letting us hold the airport? What's stopping Taliban fighters from showing up to the tarmac to fight? Can they shoot down departing planes?

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There is supposedly around 10K Americans at the airport. US/French/Other Embassies have moved to Kabul International. Non-American visas and getting folks who have helped the US (e.g. translators) out is currently a secondary objective.

The airport is a single runway airport and apparently it is being reserved for Americans only. Commercial Flights are shut down. Biden is sending about 6K troops to help secure. American troops have secured the perimeter.

American and Allies not at the airport are to stay-at-home. Taliban has said the war is over and wants a peaceful transfer of power. China already recognizes them. The US and 59 other countries released a joint statement stating that the Taliban shouldn't stop anyone from leaving the country, etc.

Folks are worried because the Taliban could revert to Sharia Law and could use mortars, stingers, and rush the airport if they wanted.

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You’re demonized for being a fricking moron and supporting the people that are directly responsible for the shite that happened today.

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