[throwawaysea]

It was absolutely a humiliating defeat for Biden. There was no reason for him to declare a rapid pull out timeline and do it all so quick. Trump's Afghanistan deal last year would have incrementally pulled out as commitments were met by the Ghani government and the Taliban. Instead, the rug was pulled out from under the Afghan people with little planning. It was so poorly planned that there are numerous articles about the Taliban fighters raiding US weapon stores that were left behind and acquiring thousands of weapons, including military vehicles and helicopters. The whole thing was incredibly poorly managed.

Obama's ambassador to Afghanistan mentioned that the Taliban's recent blitz was avoidable (https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2021/aug/14/a-self-inflict...). In the same interview he also says:

> “I’m left with some grave questions in my mind about his ability to lead our nation as commander-in-chief,” [the former ambassador] said. “To have read this so wrong – or, even worse, to have understood what was likely to happen and not care.”