Today, when Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was on stage with Mark Milly, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, we took his face out of the milk carton.
There is not much news to be released. The reporters are quite submissive and flattering. They are not at all the freedom of the press that you would expect from a free country, where the trillion-dollar national defense built there was knocked down by a herd of semi-illiterate goats. Nevertheless, there are some interesting projects. When discussing the “rapid collapse” of the Afghan security forces and government, General Milli hardly suppressed his anger. For your convenience, the video is prompted.
Let me comment on intelligence, because I have seen warnings of rapid collapse in all news.
As I said before on this podium and in the sworn testimony in Congress, intelligence clearly shows that many situations may arise. One of them was the direct takeover of the Taliban after the rapid collapse of the Afghan security forces and government. The other is the civil war. The third is to negotiate settlement. However, the time frame for “rapid collapse” is widely estimated, ranging from weeks to months or even years after we left.
I or anyone else did not see any signs that this army and this government would collapse within 11 days.
Sadly, I actually believe him.
When Kabul fell, CIA Director Bill Burns was on a six-day visit to the Middle East. The facts of his overseas travel show that the CIA does not believe that the collapse is imminent.
-Axios (@axios) August 18, 2021
Think about this question. Afghanistan is a country that we basically occupied for two days. Their military and government are basically paid for by the United States. We have military advisers down to the battalion level. I’m sure we have a large number of payroll informants and agents in the country. We can travel anywhere and talk to anyone. However, our intelligence community cannot do this. So, do you think they really understand China or Russia’s intentions or North Korea’s nuclear weapons? What does the multi-billion-dollar intelligence budget actually bring us? Unfortunately, as I said above, I do believe them.
If you believe the current statement of the Biden administration, the US intelligence community has time to monitor Tucker Carlson, lift his veil, and leak his communications to reporters, but it does not have the time or ability to figure out what the Taliban depends on.
-Sean Davis (@seanmdav) August 18, 2021
The next big news shows the lack of coordination between Austin and Millie’s answers. A reporter, I think it’s CNN’s Barbara Starr, and she asked Milly how they plan to retrieve Americans who could not reach the airport. Milli talked about the State Department’s responsibilities and the agreement reached with the Taliban, and then at 19:07 time, he said: “If necessary, we have other capabilities to do other things.” In the Austin presentation, he mentioned the airport. The US and British special forces are included in the troop package. This means the British Special Aviation Service and the American Delta Force. So Milli is correct, the commander of the airport has the assets needed to carry out the mission. In extremism Rescue if necessary. What will trigger this situation now and what the result will be is clearly uncertain.Then Austin joined the conversation at 19:28, and finally he said, “We don’t have the ability to go out and gather a large number of people.” He said yesterday’s news, it’s yourself, look. The Biden team admits that there are no plans to rescue Americans trapped outside of Kabul.
The last point is that there is a disconnect between State Department information and what Austin/Milli said at the press conference.Earlier today, my colleague Bonchie posted The State Department issued an incredibly disturbing announcement about those trapped in AfghanistanIn this article, the state complained that the Taliban had violated the agreement on allowing foreigners to enter the airport through checkpoints.
#break in The U.S. State Department claimed that the Taliban had violated Afghans’ promise to enter the airport pic.twitter.com/d2w9e9HmB5
-AFP (@AFP) August 18, 2021
At least twice, Austin made it clear that the Taliban allowed American passport holders to pass through checkpoints. So is Austin telling the truth? Or is he trying to smooth the wrinkled Taliban feathers? We have no way of knowing.
In general, the new conference began to lock in the picture of a defense agency that is quite incompetent and may not have a coherent plan to deal with the fall of Kabul. I know this is shocking, right? All this reminds me of James Bond Martini.
