Google Maps shows us "Biden should've held Bagram" is very bad advice

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In this video production I put together on Sunday, I use Google Maps to understand 

—  Clay Claiborne

Why Biden Abandoned Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan

Illustrated Transcript

I'm no kind of military expert. In fact, I haven't served a day in the military in my life, but in this video I'm going to show you how you can use Google Maps, and a little common sense to show that the received wisdom from the politicians and media pundits that pushed the Afghan war on us in the first place, that Biden should have held Bagram Airbase, or as Senator Ben Sasse put it on ABC's This Week today:

"Abandoning Bagram airbase will be read about in military textbooks for decades as one of the stupidest military blunders ever. "

This Google Map shows the road from Kabul to Bagram. As you can see, it's 58 kilometers from Kabul, and can be expected to take an hour and twenty minutes by car on a good day.

While it's true that Bagram has two runways, as compared to Kabul's one. It's almost 60 kilometers from Kabul, where most of the people are. Everybody being evacuated would have to be pushed up that road before they could get on a plane. 

Martha Raddatz knows the Afghan War well. She's been with the war from the very beginning, and she's seen it from all angles. She has a real overview. In an earlier segment in that same This Week, she pointed out that traveling by road in Afghanistan ain't no cake walk:

       Tony Blinken: There's other ways to leave Afghanistan, including by road..."

       Martha Raddatiz: "That's a very dangerous trip."

What a fun trip the Kabul-Bagram Airport Road  could turn out to be. Especially if ISIS or Al Qaeda, or anybody should try to interfere.

Actually, there are two roads from Kabul to Bagram, but the same problems apply. This second doesn't look recommended. It is longer, and it takes longer, and I have to imagine the transits times on both will start to stretch out once you start putting a lot of traffic on them, and especially if you have to start probing for IEDs and landmines. Not to mention the problems we might have if the Taliban was to get it into their heads that the only reason we were hanging on to Bagram is to continue the occupation.

Here we've switched to the terrain view, and we can see that Bagram is pretty much in the middle of nothing.

Here we zone in, and we can see there's really not much to evacuate in the immediate neighborhood.

Here's a real closeup. We can see the former Soviet base nearby. Foreign occupations don't end well in Afghanistan. When will they ever learn.

Anyway, let's look at some of nearby names on the map.

Here's Karam. They have a high school and a bus stop. At least that's a start. It's close to the Airport Road, so it should be easy to evacuate.

Here's Daw-lat-sah, on the other side of Bagram. Please forgive my pronunciation. When Martin Sheen narrated my Vietnam Doc, he made me get recording of native speakers pronouncing all the Vietnamese names so he could get them right, but I'm on a reduced schedule here. 

Here Daw-lat-sah close up. I still don't see much there, so it would appear that Bagram is pretty much in the middle of no-where, which is good for a military base, security-wise and all, but bad for an evacuation point.

Parwan University seems to be the most substantial thing in the area.

Photo by Hashmat Noon

Here's a picture of what appears to be the main building.

Photo by Yahia Rahimi

Here's another view, pretty as its set against the mountains. We can see two cars, a pickup truck, and bus parked off to the side. Probably more around back.

Photo by Yahia Rahimi

Here's a better view of the whole campus. We can see three buildings and maybe a dozen people.

Photo by Hashmat Noon

 

Here we can see a courtyard or maybe a garden?

Photo by Yahia Rahimi

And now we say good-bye to Parwan University

Photo by Abdul mosawer Ahmadi

Very pretty flowers, but as we can see, there just isn't much to be evacuated from around Bagram.

Almost every American and Afghan to be evacuated would have to make that road trip from Kabul to Bagram, and as Martha said:

Martha Raddatiz: "That's a very dangerous trip."

So, you can see that all those pundits and politicians that are complaining that Biden didn't hold on to Bagram are just blowing so much smoke. You know that because they keep talking Bagram's two runways, without addressing these other problems.

Well, I say: One runway in the city is worth two in the bush.

And all those demanding that Biden retake Bagram really want this Forever War to continue.