By Brian E. Frydenborg (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @bfry1981, YouTube) August 17, 2021 (recorded August 16, 2021) see related article, America’s History of Failure in Unconventional and Asymmetric Warfare Is Instructive for Our War with the Coronavirus
Seventh Episode (Afghanistan Special #1) on the execution of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and especially how it affects the mission to get our brave Afghan allies out of the country and away from a Taliban that may kill them, with special guest Col. Steve Miska, U.S. Army (Ret.), a leader of this effort to do right by our Afghan allies, who served on the National Security Council under President Obama and who wrote Baghdad Underground Railroad: Saving American Allies in Iraq.
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Correction: the last U.S. military combat deaths were in February 2020
Notes
How to Help:
NGOs/charities/agencies helping get allied Afghans, Iraqis out and/or resettle:
- No One Left Behind
- Vets for American Ideals
- Miry’s List
- International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP)
- Evacuate Our Allies (EAO)
- UNCHR list of U.S. refugee resettlement agencies
One-page “How Can You Help?” fact-sheet mentioned in podcast
American citizens: contact your senators and congressmen
Col Miska’s (e-)book: available at Amazon; Barnes & Noble
Other info:
White paper by Miska et al. Soft Networks: Protecting an Achilles Heel of American Influence mentioned during podcast
Long War Journal’s interactive Taliban control map (present and over time)
Letter from 16 veterans’ organizations representing over 3 million people urging fastest possible processing of Afghans’ visa application
Truman Center report: Special Immigrant Visa: Call for Cooperative Action (April 2021)
Video of the chaos at Kabul’s airport (graphic if not bloody)
Article on U.S. not notifying Afghan allies at Bagram Air Base of U.S. withdrawal from Bagram
Like Col. Miska, I, too, noted we should not have withdrawn during the fighting season but the winter off-season
On anchor species, used as an analogy by Col. Miska to compare to U.S. support personnel in Afghanistan
On the importance of support personnel for militaries (tooth-to-tail ratio)
CRS report on Iraqi and Afghan Special Immigrant Visa Programs
Former President Trump’s National Security Advisor Gen. H.R. McMaster on Trump’s 2020 “peace deal” with Taliban being Munich-like “appeasement”
My related article, America’s History of Failure in Unconventional and Asymmetric Warfare Is Instructive for Our War with the Coronavirus, discussing the big-picture failures of America’s Afghanistan project
My graduate school paper from late 2009 advising, in a simulated memo, President Obama on Afghanistan policy
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