{"id":79248,"date":"2021-08-18T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-18T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=79248"},"modified":"2021-08-17T14:12:01","modified_gmt":"2021-08-17T19:12:01","slug":"success-is-not-an-option","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=79248","title":{"rendered":"Success Is Not An Option"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>It would appear the only real option in Afghanistan at the moment is picking the type of failure we want to shoot for&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8230;while remembering that many  Afghans who worked for us and are in mortal danger are hiding out  (and nationwide), and many Americans &#8211; read &#8220;potential hostages&#8221; &#8211; are &#8220;sheltering in place&#8221; as well, in Kabul.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It would appear our options are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Dunkirk, if we&#8217;re very lucky<\/li><li>Stalingrad &#8211; the German version &#8211; if we&#8217;re not<\/li><li>Mogadishu, to one degree or another &#8211; potentially leading to &#8220;Teheran, 1979&#8221; in the bargain.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Biden has his Saigon moment &#8211; He needs to avoid a Mogadishu one.<br><br>The Mission to Come: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/IKxc1xHjEG\">pic.twitter.com\/IKxc1xHjEG<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Michael P Pregent (@MPPregent) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MPPregent\/status\/1427685081804574729?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 17, 2021<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Securing an urban corridor through a hostile semi-guerrilla army to try to evacuate not only thousands of civilians, but themselves, from a single-strip airport that can potentially be rocketed out of business at the drop of a hat? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1436\" height=\"764\" src=\"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/img_1953.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-79247\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/img_1953.jpg 1436w, http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/img_1953-300x160.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/img_1953-1024x545.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/img_1953-768x409.jpg 768w, http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/img_1953-500x266.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1436px) 100vw, 1436px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Which would subject the US to a choice between:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>A humiiliating extended hostage crisis that&#8217;d make Iran in 1980 look like an episode of <em>The Waltons<\/em>, at the very best. <\/li><li>Bringing in a whooooole lot of air power to blast the paratroopers out of the jam, and hope they can save anyone at all. <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Build Back Better&#8221; indeed. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It would appear the only real option in Afghanistan at the moment is picking the type of failure we want to shoot for&#8230; &#8230;while remembering that many Afghans who worked for us and are in mortal danger are hiding out (and nationwide), and many Americans &#8211; read &#8220;potential hostages&#8221; &#8211; are &#8220;sheltering in place&#8221; as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,131],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-war-and-peace"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79248"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79252,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79248\/revisions\/79252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}