Sunday, January 24, 2021

An Analysis On A U.S. Special Operations Mission That Went Wrong In Afghanistan



A devastating incident in Afghanistan shows the perils of relying on Special Operations alone to fight the nation’s battles. 

Both the Trump and Obama administrations relied heavily on highly trained Special Forces units to keep Afghanistan from collapse. The strategy has kept recent episodes of the 21-year Afghan War out of the public eye, but it is failing to stabilize the country and is straining the United States military’s elite troops, who serve back-to-back combat tours without an end in sight and disproportionately give their lives in service of a war the public knows almost nothing about. 

When Kunduz, a major city in northern Afghanistan, fell to the Taliban in 2015, U.S. Special Forces were dispatched on a secret mission to help Afghan commandos recapture it. Under-resourced and unprepared, the soldiers found themselves in the midst of a pitched battle with conflicting orders. The story of how it led to one of the U.S. military’s worst disasters in Afghanistan shows the perils of relying on Special Operations alone to fight the nation’s wars. 


WNU Editor: The above incident happened in 2015. But it illustrates why the U.S. must reassess why they are in these forever-conflicts in the first place. Unfortunately. I do not see that debate happening in the Biden administration. And worse .... probably will not respect President Trump's agreement with the Taliban to leave Afghanistan and escalate the conflict .... White House to review landmark US-Taliban deal for peace talks with Kabul (France 24).

2 comments:

Stephen Davenport said...

This happens in wars, groups such as the Taliban or ISIS do not honor the Geneva convention. They wear civilian clothes and mingle with civilians specifically to cause this type of event then use it as propaganda.

Anonymous said...

if the IED's dont kill our troops, the green on blue will. Or maybe the burn pits...