Taliban's lightning-fast takeover of Afghanistan raises big questions for U.S. security chiefs

[rangerrebew]

Taliban's lightning-fast takeover of Afghanistan raises big questions for U.S. security chiefs
NBC Universal
Courtney Kube and Ken Dilanian and Chantal Da Silva and Mushtaq Yusufzai and Yuliya Talmazan
August 16, 2021, 1:35 PM

The Taliban's lightning-fast offensive across Afghanistan has placed intense pressure on the U.S. security establishment to explain the rout of the Afghan military, which the U.S. spent billions of dollars to train and equip in a war that cost thousands of American lives.

The Taliban, a force of 75,000 militants, overwhelmed a U.S.-trained army numbering about 300,000 — at times without a single bullet fired. While U.S. military officials had warned that the Taliban had the momentum in the 20-year war, the pace and manner of their victory two decades after being toppled has exposed how badly prepared U.S.-trained troops were.

The rushed evacuation of U.S. Embassy personnel in Kabul over the weekend has drawn comparisons to chaotic images of Americans being airlifted from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, South Vietnam, in 1975.

https://www.aol.com/talibans-lightning-fast-takeover-afghanistan-162500222.html

[sneakypete]

@rangerrebew

Must be the worse kept secret in the world. We took air power away from the friendlies,and at that same time informed the friendlies we were abandoning them and they were on their own. This caused their leadership to suddenly start worrying more about their own safety and the safety of their familes back home than anything else,so many of them abandoned their units to go try to protect their families.