Talk:2020–2021 U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan

Separate article?

Good morning Juno, just want to make sure you're aware of Withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Do you think we need a separate article for events in 2021? --Cerebellum (talk) 10:34, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Cerebellum, thanks for checking in! I did see that article. It is (very reasonably) focused on the 2014 plan. I thought that the 2021 plan was different enough and had received enough separate coverage to merit a separate article. Juno (talk) 06:00, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

@Juno: Ok fair enough, my concern is that Biden won't order a full withdrawal, but either way I can see that this article will be a useful place to collect developments over the next few months. For Iraq we have Withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq (2007–2011) and Withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq (2020–21), do you mind if I move this page to Withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan (2020–2021) to match the naming convention? Then I'll propose a move of the other page to Withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan (2011–2016). --Cerebellum (talk) 10:36, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

The ongoing events can not be separated from the agreement of 2020. About a half of the withdrawal was even done in 2020. The name of the article should be modified.

Requested move 14 April 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

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• 2021 withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan → United States withdrawal from Afghanistan (2021)
• Withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan → United States withdrawal from Afghanistan (2011–2016)
• Withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq (2007–2011) → United States withdrawal from Iraq (2007–2011)
• Withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq (2020–2021) → United States withdrawal from Iraq (2020–2021)

– I am requesting a move of several articles that will reduce the number of words, avoid the use of an acronym, and fall in line with the names of other articles involving US withdrawal, such as:

• United States withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
• United States withdrawal from the Paris Agreement
• United States withdrawal from Saudi Arabia
• United States withdrawal from the United Nations

If those articles were not enough for examples, there is a related article entitled Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, which is not entitled Withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. I think this move would be sensible, but since several articles are involved, I think a discussion is necessary before taking action. Jay Coop · Talk · Contributions 21:36, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

• Support 100%, consistency is key. Kellis7 00:52, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
• Weak support for apparent consistency. RopeTricks (talk) 05:24, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
• Weak support While i would oppose it because no "troops" word in the propose title and making it ambigous whether it is troops or embassy, at least consistency is need. 180.254.166.107 (talk) 08:08, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose this proposal is insufficiently WP:PRECISE or WP:RECOGNIZABLE about what is being withdrawn. Otherwise, it could refer to withdrawal of funding, withdrawal of diplomats, etc. (There was also withdrawal of some foreign aid from Iraq and Afghanistan during the same periods, but this isn't covered in the articles). I agree that all the military ones should be harmonized, but not to the proposed title. Something like 2021 United States military withdrawal from Afghanistan might be better. (t · c) buidhe 10:52, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
• This is a long-need shift and I'd like to thank Jay for getting the ball rolling. I generally support the above. If it would be productive, I would also like to break into a few intertwined questions while we are here:
  1 - year. Was there really a withdrawal of American troops from Iraq in 2020? There is some suggestion that the troop numbers may have gone up in parts of 2020. I would like to condense the time portion of the title to the date when it actually happened/the date that it is scheduled to happen. Other time metrics; the announcement of the withdrawal, the planning of the withdrawal, what constitutes the start of the withdrawal, are all too opaque and subjective. I would strongly favor only hitting the date that they boots leave the ground.
  2 - "withdrawal". There was no American withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014. One was announced, likely even planned, but at the end of the day thousands of American troops continued combat operations for another 6+ years. I believe that the wording should reflect this. Perhaps "2014 planned United States withdrawal from Afghanistan".
  I also plan on splitting this article into the 5/1 withdrawal plan and the 9/11 withdrawal plan but I'll wait on that until after we're reached a consensus on the naming. Juno (talk) 04:03, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
• Support This name makes it less confusing and generally sounds better. DXLB Muzikant (talk) 16:25, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
• Support as consistency across the wiki is important. —WildComet ^talk 05:49, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. I concur with Buidhe's points – the proposed titles are too ambiguous and lack recognizability because there's no military mention. I support a harmonization under a set that mentions troops or military. — Goszei (talk) 08:44, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
• Support per nom. – SɱαɾƚყPαɳƚʂ22 (Ⓣⓐⓛⓚ) 20:35, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

• Support Chandan Kanti Paul (talk) 14:39, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose because most of the articles cited with the other format are more about US withdrawal from entities/treaties, not physical removal of something like troops. They are fundamentally different types of articles and the titles should reflect the distinction, perhaps something like "US Military withdrawal from Afghanistan(2021)" could work. Tim70cs (talk) 20:26, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose per buidhe. Ambiguous title and not precise. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:05, 11 May 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose: The article is about the withdrawal of U.S troops specifically. Wretchskull (talk) 13:33, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Date of the actual withdrawl

If the Department of Defense ends up keeping 950 troops in Afghanistan they have not actually withdrawn from the country and this article should refelect that. 136.33.177.173 (talk) 05:31, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

It is indeed officially a withdrawal of regular combat forces, determined by the U.S. government as the official conclusion of a war. It's not a "total", absolute withdrawal of every single American with a gun, but a withdrawal is indeed occurring. RopeTricks (talk) 08:47, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion:

• America Withdraw from Afghanistan.jpg

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 20:24, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

Operation Allies Refuge

I've created a page for the ongoing civilian evacuation operation. I'll let others decide if that merits an article on it's own or should be merged and expanded as a section to this article. It looks like historically, the civilian evacuation operations of a military withdrawal have been notable on their own (refer to the See Also on that page for a few examples). The article is currently a draft: Draft:Operation Allies Rescue. If it is approved I suggest adding a new header here such as"2.3 Civilian evacuation" and linking that operation there. _ morde _t ^.. 04:42, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Ok, so that article was approved and is here now: Operation Allies Refuge_ morde _t ^.. 19:11, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

I update the article to make room for additional information regarding the Operation. RopeTricks (talk) 03:11, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Why not rename?

2021 NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan— Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.112.165.59 (talk) 03:18, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

"Afghan withdrawal" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Afghan withdrawal. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 August 24#Afghan withdrawal until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 23:14, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

"Stuart Scheller" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Stuart Scheller. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 October 10#Stuart Scheller until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Elli (talk | contribs) 03:41, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Stuart Scheller section "for profit"

The section indicates Mr Scheller was "asking for his superiors to take responsibility for murdering innocents for profit" - the usage of the word profit here is questionable. There are, of course, various mechanisms by which someone can profit from an action (success itself being one). However the first hand usage would imply monetary or other form of corruption which I don't believe, and the references don't indicate, was an accusation Scheller was making? Should this be reworded? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C8:8988:4601:D441:54CC:4989:5833 (talk) 10:54, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Reaction - "Domestic" section

The reaction section contains two headings - "Domestic" and "International". For the "Domestic" section, given that there are probably three locations at play - that of the reader, the USA and Afghanistan, would it not be better, given the section's content for this to say "USA" or "United States" rather than "Domestic"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C8:8988:4601:D441:54CC:4989:5833 (talk) 10:57, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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I propose merging U.S. Forces Afghanistan Forward into Withdrawal of United States troops from Afghanistan (2020–2021). I think the content in the former can easily be explained in the context of latter, and a merger would not cause any article-size or weighting problems in latter.Phillip Samuel (talk) 07:06, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

• Support as per above. RopeTricks (talk) 12:57, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
• Support. Yes, "U.S. Forces Afghanistan Forward" article is a bit too small, serves no real purpose, and it's better to merge this into the big one like this one here. XXzoonamiXX (talk) 19:32, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

• Support. As XXzoonamiXX said, "U.S. Forces Afghanistan Forward" is very short and merging it with "Withdrawal of United States troops from Afghanistan (2020–2021)" would let it serve a better purpose, — Preceding unsigned comment added by KING WIKIPEDIAN DCCLXIV (talk • contribs) 05:18, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

• Support. No reason for an article this small to not be merged. Gabe114 (talk) 17:42, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support. The article is not long enough to be itself. `~HelpingWorld~` ^(👻👻) 05:38, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

@Gabe114 and HelpingWorld: my view is that the consensus was well and truly clear before you commented, and it was therefore worth merging rather than comment. Want to have a go? Instructions at WP:MERGETEXT. Otherwise, I'll no doubt be back ... Klbrain (talk) 18:53, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Military Equipment Left Behind

It has been reported that because of the hasty withdrawal, "billions" worth of equipment was left behind and there have been calls for better accounting of military assets related to withdrawals. Should this be added to the main page with it's own section? Tepkunset (talk) 18:15, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

Yes. The Taliban's procurement of American-supplied military equipment, sabotaged and otherwise, has gotten notable attention and deserves its own section. However, there pretty much already is one of these sections at 2021 Taliban offensive#Equipment losses, so it could be redundant to make an identical one here. I personally recommend making a short, very brief section discussing total amounts for this article, then linking to the more detailed section on the Taliban offensive article. That's what I would do, anyway. RopeTricks (talk) 13:40, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion RopeTricks, I think it is great idea! Tepkunset (talk) 15:44, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

How about... Equipment Loss Reports have been made by a US Senator, and former Afghanistan war veteran, Jim Banks that because of the withdrawal the Taliban now have access to over $85 billion worth of US equipment. Including 75,000 vehicles, over 200 airplanes and helicopters , 600,000 small arms and light weapons. A more detailed breakdown can be found on the 2021 Taliban offensive#Equipment losses page. Tepkunset (talk) 17:31, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Go for it. RopeTricks (talk) 18:55, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

This entire page has been hijacked. It has a Neo-con point of view, and is mostly opinions and not facts. Unsupported statements by a politician should not be a source. The equipment left behind was provided to the Afghan government to protect their people. The Afghan Army simply quit, and the Taliban took all the equipment. The value of the equipment needs to be verified by an independent non-political source. Most of the equipment could not be evacuated anyway, because Afghanistan is a land locked country surrounded by countries hostile to the Western nations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.39.110.90 (talk) 17:32, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

The equipment was flown in. It could have been flown out. 150.243.145.236 (talk) 15:37, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

References

Aftermath

Events in Afghanistan continue to unfold. While the Taliban made commitments regarding ruling in exchange for unfreezing their assets they have reneged on many of these pledges. LGBT and women in particular have suffered greatly over the decision to remove all support for the Ghani government and the Taliban’s rise to power. These events are a direct result of the decision to remove American troops and shouldn’t there be mention of the subsequent happenings since August 2021? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.190.233.44 (talk) 04:06, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Result

It was Taliban victory similar to how the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan was a Mujahideen victory. Behsbsue (talk) 19:05, 10 October 2023 (UTC)