by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
The next few hours in Kabul are going to be pretty shocking, it seems. History has shown that once things get rolling in Afghanistan, they happen really fast. I remember 20 years ago how quickly the Taliban were overthrown with far fewer troops than anyone expected.
And, now, it’s our turn.
My biggest concern is, of course, we’re going to have a Saigon 1975 meets Teheran 1979 type situation with maybe a little bit of America’s involvement in Somalia thrown in for good measure.
The key issue for me is as many of the American support staff in Kabul (and beyond) get pulled out of Afghanistan as quickly as possible. We’re a big country, we can afford to bring in a few hundred thousand Afghani allies if need be. If I was in charge — which I’m not — I would make sure to snatch as many women and girls as I could from the situation. Grab everyone available and then sort them out in Guam, if need be.
This is a crisis and in such situations we need to stop fucking around with visas and just make sure as many people are as possible are safe.
Again, my fear is the Kabul will fall so fast that the American troops in the city sent to get people out will get trapped themselves and, I don’t know, something really, really bad will happen to them.
I guess we’re just going to have to wait and see.
