"No military plan survives contact with the enemy."
RADM (ret) John Kirby
DoD Press Secretary
Oh boy...here we go again. Former CNN mouthpiece John Kirby had to trot out that old nugget...and to his credit...actually appeared to believe what he was saying. Kirby...like most military officers these days love that quote...but misuse it to cover up their own inadequacies. The quote is attributed to Moltke the Elder, a Prussian General . Now Prussian generals are not known for making excuses...but in our modern military...that's basically what it sounds like. Moltke actually went on to say that plans were not important...but "planning" was. Sure, your grandiose plan may not work when you make contact with an adversary...but you have built that in by having numerous options (planning) that you can pivot to...immediatley...in order to prevail. The Biden administration had a plan for exiting Afghanistan...but I see no evidence of any "planning"...if the plan did not work. The plan was basically this: Sleepy Joe decrees that the U.S. Military will depart Afghanistan by 11 September 2021. That was the plan. Now Kirby and his fellow swillmongers will say..."we did planning....the president prepositioned some Army battalions to the region on 12 August"...2 days before the Taliban declared victory. That's not planning...that's reacting to a crisis. I'm sure if old Moltke was around he would say "Ich habe in meinem ganzen Leben noch nie so einen Haufen unfähiger Dummköpfe gesehen!" Translation: "I have never seen such a bunch of incompetent dumbasses in my entire life!"
Be Afraid...Very Afraid
Now to be fair, this result would have happened if Trump was in office also. Why? Because we got the same military thought process that has been in place for the last 20 years. Milley...Petraeus...McChrystal...Kelly...Mattis....Kirby etc....etc....etc. No military flag or general officer involved in this 20 year debacle has any credibility any more. How many of them contributed to the "big lie" to the American people....that the Afghan military was capable of defending their country? We have been hearing this for 15 years. So were these military leaders incompetent...or liars? It has to be one or the other. Unless I'm mistaken....I don't recall any of them raising concerns about this in the last ten years. For the Defense Department to now say that they had doubts about the Afghan Army's capability last May...is simply incredulous. Hell...Milley was over there training them 5 years ago. Now he says he had concerns...after Biden said we're out? I'm sorry...but this is as bad a look as the US military had after Vietnam. It took ten years to get past that.
Does Anyone Really Care?
Right now the visual that this administration has in Afghanistan is people falling to their deaths off the wings of a USAF C17. Can they recover? Will the American people give a shit about this a month from now? I don't know or care really. What I do know, however, is that a whole generation of senior military leadership best STFU...because no one should give them any platform to spew their garbage.