What The French Knew

 This got brought up via Focus this week, and it's worth a moment thinking about this.

At some point in May....the French secret services people sat...reviewed all details on Afghanistan and the Taliban, and reached this odd conclusion....sooner than later, Kabul would fall.

So starting back in May, without saying much of anything....they started bringing their embassy people, and known French citizens in Afghanistan....out.

No....it wasn't rocket science.  They basically had people in charge who had no prior history or 'debt' to the original reason for being there.  They just looked at the information on the wall, and said this is going in a bad way....why would you bother staying?

How many came out without any chatter or news coverage?  623 French people, and around 800 Afghans who were former 'helpers' (included are their family members).

So, here's the odd part to the story.

From that day forward, they told French people NOT to fly into Afghanistan.  They got chatter from all the other communities....'this was stupid and irresponsible'.  

So they were all happy at the end?  Well....NO.  You see there were still French folks there, and Afghans who believed the American view that Kabul wasn't going to fall.  So after fall really started....there were still 3k-plus folks who had to be taken out one way or another.

My humble guess is that the Germans and French probably kept viewing things in July....maybe even on a daily basis, and just not seeing how the Americans could be this stupid....but they kept getting positive words via the State Department and President Biden.  

Lessons learned?  I might go and suggest that you always need people out there who have no invested interest in some program....to assess things and give you a honest view.  Then when everything seems to go to the crapper....you listen to them and follow their advice.