Taliban taking over Afghanistan again

I don't have high hopes for Harris, but, there is a dangerous irrationality to Biden that is completely disqualifying. It would leave Dems in a dead tie in the Senate, without the tie breaker, with the GOP very likely to retake the House. I view Kamala as extremely incompetent, but, not angrily and dangerously irrational as Biden has proven to be.

With Afghanistan, try to figure out what he could have done worse. And this is not the first time his instincts have been to the worst possible choice, what is different is the enormous power he has as CIC. I think they thought he would be easily managed and instead have found themselves dealing with a belligerent, angry, irrational stubborn old man who insists on a course of action that for some reason he is drawn to, no matter how destructive and irrational.

Biden has confidence within his irrationality that I do not think Kamala possesses, and I think that makes Biden the more destructive choice.

 

exactly. How does ne "war"onan ideology??.........or on an "ism".. ( ie terrorism)...........for that matter.

 

Welp...

 

We exited, and our allies were defeated. Not the other way around.
Anti-Taliban fighters claim victories as first armed resistance emerges
Local commanders said they took three districts from the Taliban in a northern province.
By Ezzatullah Mehrdad and Sudarsan Raghavan

 

Not exactly. Soviets departed in 1989. Taliban took power in 1996. Massoud et al continued to resist the Taliban.

 

You may be right, but the US military industrial complex and our corrupt bipartisan ruling political class has embraced endless warfare for over 75 years. How has Biden displeased them?

 

The Afghan military might have been able to defend itself with the massive "over the horizon" air support promised by Biden.
They certainly would not have been overrun quickly if the Taliban entry routes had been attacked from the air.

The withdrawal of the civilians should have been carried out in the winter, IOW, before May 1, while most of the Taliban fighters were being equipped by the ISI in Pakistan. It would have been easy. IMO, they were left behind to act as a trigger for another massive military operation in Afghanistan.

Willie Sutton, if he was still alive would probably admit that 'War is where the money is'.

 

In fact, this disaster is on Biden even though I think he has been played by his military and the intelligence advisors.
The Trump plan was to be out by May 1 - before the end of winter and the Talibans annual spring offensive launched from Pakistan.

IMO, Trump should stop ridiculing Biden. The last thing we need is RP politicians encouraging the Deep State to stage another coup.

 

Yes, this is a betrayal, very like what we did to our Vietnamese allies in 1975.
We trained a military to rely on air and naval support and then withdrew that support when it was most needed.

 

I don't see this as a betrayal at all. The leaders were all corrupt nepotists - every one over the last 20 years - working both sides of the fence. The people in general like the Taliban ..a good number of them obviously. Looks like the "Leaders" that we suppoedly betrayed - had already made agreements towards the transition of power .. writing was on the wall so to speak. .. this has been one of the more bloodless coups ... which is good. Taliban has to do almost nothign to look good .. as the bar was so low .. as for the people ..can't get much worse than it was .. and many wanted this .. Islamists through and through.. The Taliban do not exist in a vacuum .. so who is betrayed here ? .. the non Islamists I suppose . ... if your stuck there .. and most of the people around you are Islamist - sucks to be you - but that said .. it has sucked in Afghanistan for at least the last 20 years .. so can it get much worse.. not like you could walk around freely without the Hijab prior to the Taliban taking over. ..

In a den of robbers and theives .. words like "betrayal" don't have the same meaning. It is taking your car downtown and expecting that along the way their "won't" be stupid drivers .. then getting all upset and acting surprised .. when you are not surprised at all.

Took me a while to stop cursing out bad drivers .. now I tell myself .. what did you expect moron .. when catch myself cursing.

 

Are their leaders more corrupt than ours?

I suppose we did betray the corrupt leaders we effectively selected for Afghanistan, but, IMO, that is virtually as irrelevant as our betrayal of the corrupt leaders we selected rule South Vietnam.

OTOH, the betrayal of all the poorest young men, soldiers, in both countries who were told that America had their back is especially odious even for our corrupt leaders.

“Biden strenuously disagreed on Thursday, saying he reassured Afghan President Ashraf Ghani at their White House summit late last month that the United States would provide substantial aid and “over-the-horizon” military capability (meaning force not originating from within Afghanistan, most likely drones and other types of air strikes). “I want to make clear what I made clear to Ghani: that we are not going to just walk away and not sustain their ability to maintain that force. We are,” Biden said.”
FOREIGN POLICY, ANALYSIS, Is Biden Haunted by Vietnam? Should He Be?, The president said this withdrawal will be nothing like what happened in 1975, but there are some striking parallels., By Michael Hirsh, a senior correspondent and deputy news editor at Foreign Policy.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/07/09/is-biden-haunted-by-vietnam-should-he-be/

 

My concern is getting the trapped Americans out of Afghanistan.

 

My concern is getting back to constitutional governance so that such illegitimate invasions and wars do not happen in the first place.

 

So far 17,000 evacuated, 2500 of those are Americans.

They are getting everyone out.

 

How many more to go?

​

 

I don't know what point you are supporting here.

 

Yes, our "nation building" failed in Vietnam, too.

But, we had options if we actually understood the situation in Afghanistan. We could have stayed, for example - something that was distasteful and offered no political reward, but was one obvious choice. AND, it was CLEARLY a foundational assumption of the Trump plan for withdrawal.

As for support, the military of the Ghani government didn't last long enough to make the promised support a useful or successful enterprise. That fundamental US assumption of Afghanistan's military capability and willingness was clearly not even CLOSE to being right.

>>The fundamental question is why did we EVER think the Ghani government could defend itself, even just in the cities.

How did the US government come to the conclusion in 2020 that Afghanistan could defend itself against the Taliban without US troops on the ground, manning the numerous military bases we had constructed?

 

I'm sure Biden made mistakes, but there is NO possibility of blaming Biden for the situation Trump left behind.

So, what is it that you think Biden should have done?

Frankly, there really is only ONE option he had in order to save Afghanistan:

>>Biden would have had to TOTALLY reverse the Trump plan and reestablish a full US military contingent in Afghanistan IMMEDIATELY before "fighting season" could get under way.

Anything else would remain as a total concession of Afghanistan to the Taliban.

Agreed?

 

You'd have to ask our current Commander in Chief.

Wait! He's out to lunch

 

Never gonna happen.

Unless you're not counting tens of thousands of Afghans, whom we've promised to get out.

 

You're just pointing to another problem.

Trump did not include the president elect in ANY of the Trump discussions concerning Afghanistan.

So, no, you can't ask Biden. He was specifically excluded from that issue.

 

He also did not include the previous Afghan government in the peace talks, it was just him and the Taliban.

 

Good point.

 

Seriously- was it within Biden's powers to postpone running out with the tail between his legs? For a month? For a year? For ten years - so that all the people can leave orderly, and with dignity?

If you say no - I'll believe you. If you say yes, I'll believe you too

 

He did stop the Trump troop withdrawal timeline. One of his first acts as president was to halt the departure that the Trump/Taliban plan called for - the plan that called for the last 2,500 troops to be out of Afghanistan by May 1.

But, it's now crystal clear he would have had to do more than that.

We know now for certain that 2,500 US troops wasn't going to hold Afghanistan.

But, Biden DID have an option:

He could have reversed the Trump/Taliban plan and moved a serious US military presence back into Afghanistan before the so called "fighting season".

Would the US Congress and our citizens have supported that decision? I would say that sometimes the president may need to do stuff the entire nation hates.