> How come in the drawdown from 16k to 2.5k American soldiers and Allies weren’t dying

They were. The Taliban had attacked various places in Afghanistan upwards of 15 times during the drawdown (probably WAY beyond 15, but I don’t have a concrete number that’s defendable so I picked one that seems arbitrarily small)

https://www.factcheck.org/2021/08/timeline-of-u-s-withdrawal-from-afghanistan/

• “Defense Department inspector general’s office says, ‘The Taliban did not appear to uphold its commitment to distance itself from terrorist organizations in Afghanistan. UN and U.S. officials reported that the Taliban continued to support al-Qaeda, and conducted joint attacks with al-Qaeda members against Afghan National Defense and Security Forces.’”

• Sept. 16, 2020 — The Taliban continued attacks on government forces. The Voice of America reported that “Taliban attacks in three provinces across northern Afghanistan since Tuesday killed at least 17 people, including six civilians, and wounded scores of others even as a Taliban political team was negotiating peace with Afghan government representatives in Doha, Qatar.”

• Defense Department IG’s office released a report for the quarter ending Sept. 30, 2020, that said the peace negotiations between the Afghan government and Taliban representatives had stalled and violence increased. “At the same time, the Taliban increased its attacks against Afghan forces, leading to ‘distressingly high’ levels of violence that could threaten the peace agreement,” the report said.

• Dec. 2, 2020 — After past false starts, Afghan and Taliban negotiators agree on a framework to govern peace negotiations. “At the same time, the Taliban continued its ‘fight and talk’ strategy, increasing violence across the country to increase its leverage with the Afghan government in negotiations,” the Defense Department IG’s office said

• Afghanistan’s First Vice President Amrullah Saleh tells the BBC that the Trump administration made too many concessions to the Taliban. “I am telling [the United States] as a friend and as an ally that trusting the Taliban without putting in a verification mechanism is going to be a fatal mistake,” Saleh says, adding that Afghanistan leaders warned the U.S. that “violence will spike” as the 5,000 Taliban prisoners were released. “Violence has spiked,” he added.

All of this was before Biden was elected.

> How come Afghans weren’t hiding on wheelwells and falling to their deaths as planes took off?

Because there were no indications of an imminent government collapse at that point? Some people were sounding the alarm in the US about the dangers (Rubio deserves his credit) but it wasn’t a common position

Biden didn’t nail the situation, but the larger issue was the treaty Trump signed that Biden felt beholden to in order to not diminish US influence abroad, and the troop drawdown which allowed the Taliban to take a more aggressive role even while America was still there

Uhhhh under Trump we went from 13k troops to 2.5k troops and he ignored multiple calls on the dangers of drawdown even from people like Rubio. They HAD left, just not every soldier. Biden was put in an impossible situation where he was obligated to respect a treaty signed by his predecessor but that treaty was just utter shit.

Biden even stated: “it is not my intention to stay there for a long time. But the question is: How and in what circumstances do we meet that agreement that was made by President Trump to leave under a deal that looks like it’s not being able to be worked out to begin with? How is that done? But we are not staying a long time.”

I’d advise maybe getting a bit more acquainted with the events that unfolded, as it is very apparent to pretty much everybody in the thread the narrative you are presenting isn’t quite reflective of the reality of the situation

https://www.factcheck.org/2021/08/timeline-of-u-s-withdrawal-from-afghanistan/