US forces in Afghanistan, 2020 and beyond

[stui magpie]

^

go back near 25 years ago, my son did Auskick at Winsor reserve. This one year it was unavailable to the Auskick was moved, obviously with permission, to the oval at Watsonia Barracks. We'd enter through a side gate on Yallambie Rd rather than the main entrance on Greensborough Rd.

Parents and kids were restricted as to where we could go, no chance of just roaming round having a stickbeak, but having uniformed soldiers running around training while the kids were doing Auskick was a mind trip.

They were really great.

[pietillidie]

Biden went ahead with the withdrawal as it was already agreed and staying on made no sense, but to argue that it was managed as well as it possibly could be is utter claptrap

What factual information about the situation makes you think that? The rate of bad publicity? That's the actual claptrap.

We're not dealing with the Mighty Unbeatable USA in complete control of something here. They were not in control, so consequences were out of their hands. People just can't cope with the thought they were not completely in control because psychologically we have grown used to living off proxy American stability. A lack of control in a completely hostile country plainly does not spell clean withdrawal.

The US wasn't in complete control and clearly hadn't been for a while now. And critically, that already compromised degree of control was declining by the minute. Any delay would've been far worse because the Taliban would've been even more organised and could've leveraged and blackmailed even harder.

[think positive]

that actually makes sense to me, i should go 50/50 on scotch more often! i guess these countries are a whole different ball game, no such thing as fair play, cant see them meeting at any line for a christmas drink and then going back to their ditches

[David]

I remember when Australia first announce they were joining the USA into Afhganistan. The usual suspects were out the front of Victoria Barracks protesting and calling out those in uniform.

They had one dickhead saying " we should storm the building and wreck all the equipment in the Defence Signals Directorate and then go to Watsonia and disable Omega.

All well and good but DSD had relocated to Canberra 5 years before. And the military part of Omega had been turned off years earlier and replaced by GPS and the Department kept a skeleton staff to maintain it because it was still being used by commercial shipping and turning it off could have had catastrophic effect on shipping within Port Phillip and Westenport bays and Bass Strait. The satellite dish that can be seen from StKilda road is actually a receiver dish for US Armed forces radio so the US exchange people and the US consulate staff could receive it and the building used by the consul did not have space.

They also picketd only one entrance and their are nominally 4 , And the military were told to dress at work.

Good to hear, just wish there’d been a lot more of that at the time.

[Pies4shaw]

I'm slightly troubled by one aspect of ronrat's post: "And the military were told to dress at work". Was this a change from some prior command by which "the military were told not to dress at work"?

[think positive]

it m eans arrive naked so they dont know your a uniform guy!

[stui magpie]

Picked up some interesting info at a meeting, seems like the planes coming to Australia from Afghanistan contain a number of unaccompanied minors, mostly male, 12-15 age.

The state government is working with different agencies to get people to go through quarantine with them, to support them through the process. NFI about timing at this stage.

Just an example of the logistics that don't come front of mind when you think of situations like this.

[think positive]

gees poor kids