1) Take 1 sachet of Evaporated Patton.
2) Add Water.
3) Triumph with brilliant flanking maneuver.

A young, freshly-minted Global Superpower could do it.

Too sclerotic now.

It just has to play out the hard way. Lot of people are learning important lessons. Not the political or military leadership, obviously… but people lower down. Good lessons which will bear fruit in future. Good will come out of this.

In the shorter term, the Darwin Awards ceremony is going to be a tough betting market.

What about MANPADS?

My naive idea would be to set up a temporary airfield big enough to handle a few jumbo transports at a time and of course well-guarded. Then chopper people in from changing locations that the Taliban couldn’t block with checkpoints.

It wouldn’t be small and it wouldn’t be simple and maybe it wouldn’t work. But goddamn we are a global superpower. We ought to be able to do something besides play “Mother May I?” with the Taliban.

Because the helicopters out of Saigon only had to get to the carriers just over the horizon from the coast, so about 60 miles or so.

Could begin by offshoring some of the offshoring types.

Geoffrey Britain, Bryan Lovely:

Well, that’s a shame.

Why did helicopters work in Vietnam?

Helicopters are out of range of anywhere they could start from without multiple refuelings en route. Things are bad enough, I don’t really want to have to watch Desert Two: Afghanistan Boogaloo.

John Guilfoyle,

True, ads alone will not effect the needed change. Events is what will convince Americans of the democrat’s sheer incompetence. Harris can only exacerbate those coming events. Trump can win since he won in 2020. Whether fraud will prevent any Republican candidate from succeeding is another issue. Personally, I would favor Fla. Gov. DeSantis. He’s much more articulate than Trump, far less bombastic and consistent in his conservatism. In 2024 we’ll have a country, though we may not recognize it. But there is a change a-coming. What can’t go on, won’t go on.

Tom Grey,

There are no Americans being evacuated, nor will there be any more flights out of Kabul. Last flight came under fire as it was lifting off, when an aircraft is most vulnerable. It got away but that’s an omen that can’t be ignored.

huxley,

The Taliban have access to MANPADS, Man-portable air-defense systems. Portable surface-to-air missiles. Those helicopters would be sitting ducks.

I mean seriously.

FaceBook and YouTube aren’t going to let anyone see it. Their algos might let it get through to hard core Trump supporters just for plausible deniability. But nobody who could potentially have their mind changed will ever see it. You can take that to the bank.

Anyway, I reckon just about all hearts and minds which could have been won by persuasion have been won already. Any future flippers will do so because they sense which way the wind is blowing. Sorry to disappoint you about the mass of humanity, but that’s how it works.

Whatever they’re paying you is too much.