Let's blame Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden for Afghanistan.

I supported Trump pulling out as much as I support Biden pulling out. 20 years is to long and if we were going to win the war we would have done it already. We tried to do what Russia could not and failed.

First off the Taliban were ready for the US to pull out. I read they negotiated deals with parts of the Taliban army to surrender before we even started pulling out. This was planned out and Joe Biden obviously was not ready for it. He could have told people to evacuate months ago and left the army in place untill everyone was evacuated. He could have done this many different ways for a better outcome. He even said the buck stops with him but this is not all his fault. Is he even in charge or is it Kamala?

Bush started the war. He should be blamed for this entire mess. Bush was a horrible president and should have never been president. Why did we even go into Afghanistan in the first place? Did they do September 11? No.

Obama holds some blame. He never pulled us out and continued the war Bush started. Why did Obama want to stay there? Did he even try to negotiate with the Taliban?

Trump was the first president to want to get us out of there. He even said 20 years was to long and pointed out we were spending billions of dollars. The Democrats blasted Trump. What about all of the women who now work? They said. Not all Democrats were against it but on Twitter many used it to try and politically hurt Trump.

Still Trump had the right idea and set a date of May 3rd 2021. I don't know what his plan was for pulling out but he could not have predicted if he would win in 2020. If he was serious about pulling out why not do it in 2020 or sooner? Also Trump negotiated the deal and by the sounds of it gave the Taliban whatever they wanted. Trump had to have known this was coming. The Taliban taking over the country as fast as they did. We don't know how Trump would have pulled us out but he is still partly to blame.

Biden is the current president and he obviously screwed up so badly this will stain him forever. Republicans are using it to politically hurt him and the world is not happy with Biden right now. Its not the pull out that is hurting him. It's the way he is doing it and the lack of planning.

Having said that we can't forget the part the previous 3 presidents played in Afghanistan including the one who started it all. So let's blame Bush, Obama and Trump while we are at it. They all could have tried to prevent this.

I fully support Biden leaving as I did Trump. If the Afghan Army can't defend itself after 20 years of training then that is not our problem. We can't police the world. It's time to go.

 

They are not the problem. We are. We, THE PEOPLE, accept the nonsense they call as "free elections" and we put all these people and all those before them in office.

This is US.
This is not pretty, but it is US.

 

Great post

 

Only ONE of them chose to withdraw the troops before the civilians. Choose to surrender the airports before the evacuation

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It's illogical because Biden is impatient, unreasoning and he doesn't care. All the half assed after the fact efforts he is engaged in now are only because it's a political disaster for him.

 

What about general who fight a 20-year war and lose? What about secretaries of defense and state who lie to us during a 20-year war? What about he media who goes along?

 

I doubt Harris has much to do with it. I don't see why she would.

I can't agree with the notion that going in was wrong and that they weren't responsible for 9/11, because that's where the terror network was. That's where Bin Laden was. It was right to deal with that and prevent further terrorism of that kind and scale targeting us or any other country around the world.

Beyond that, though, it sounds like we're on the same page. I think it should have been a much shorter operation with no nation-building. I suspect there were grand plans about remaking the entire Middle East in our image, considering the invasion of Iraq as well and the much later attempt, though half-hearted, to oust Assad in Syria. I think someone wanted US hegemony in the Middle East. Of course, goals might have been less than that, too. Might just have been more efforts to contain Iran and Russia. Either way, we attempted more than we ought to have based simply on an act of terror.

I also suspect that our good friends in Russia had a lot to do with how Afghanistan turned out. Russia was obviously involved with the Taliban and probably had something to do with the US-Taliban negotiations that Trump entered into. This outcome could not be more beneficial to them, and there were reports of their involvement, considering the intelligence indicating that they were paying bounties for American heads there. The way the Taliban rapidly took over and the way they talk about peace now also reeks of Russian influence. Not that this is a bad thing in any objective sense -- it's better to have a relatively docile Taliban talking about supporting women's rights and promising not to attack US forces as they exit -- but subjectively, it all benefits Russia and looks like the outcome of a very well executed operation that involved eagerness on our part to get out and inexperience on Trump's part when it comes to such matters, which would have made him more susceptible to being tricked and manipulated into making the agreement that he did with the Taliban. The Russians might even have had some useful intel lifted right off of US government servers, too, considering the extent of their hacking operations that occurred not long before those negotiations.

GG, Russia (and China?). GG.

 

I agree with you.

 

It is not the why of pulling out of Afghanistan… it is the how….
When Biden “giving "aid and comfort" to enemies either on U.S. or foreign soil” by leaving US helicopters, high tech weapons, etc behind without the common sense of destroying or removing them is arguable treason by any definition.

 

After going in the real problem was that we did not fight a war, we operated a police action.

 

did people forget about the P.N.A.C way back in the late 90's? I know there website now has been scrubbed but I do have it ripped onto an old computer somewhere.

From memory Afghanistan was on the list of countries to be targeted - along with Iraq, Syria, Libya.

I will have to dig out my old computer but I recall it being about countries using the petrodollar.

Sure it was Cheney or Rumsfeld who is on record saying 'America need a new pearl harbour' so they could finalise their plans.

a few years later you got 9/11 and guess what, all the countries on that list became targets.

 

Why didn't that happen when we went from 14000 troops to less than 3000 in two years? Would that not have been the time to do such thing and not rely on the last couple thousand troops left in the country to do it? Why was all that equipment not take out in 2018 when our numbers were cut in half?

 

Yes, the last 4 Presidents are all war criminals. Bush started the illegal war in the Middle East under pretext of 9/11 (see PNAC), Biden supported it, Obama expanded it, Trump continued it, Biden seems to be trying to pull out after committing additional war crimes (indiscriminate bombing) and here we are 20 years later, back where it started with the Taliban under control of Afghanistan and hundreds of thousands (millions?) of innocent civilians massacred or otherwise destroyed and $trillions in profits made for the war profiteers and it's really not quite over yet.

 

I would like to add that in 20 years we could not train, equip, and set up a government that could defend itself.

 

In fairness, it was Bush who as foolish enough to allow the mission to change to nation building. We had no business doing that. And the Federal Government does nothing without Congress authorizing the funding. I wrote my Congressman about that yesterday and asked him for better decisions going forward.

 

Seems he even campaigned on not doing that very thing.

Every the optimist I see. Good for you.

 

That seems to be the failing we never learn from.

 

He did. Dubya was a major disappointment. We presumed he was as smart as his dad on realistic foreign policy and he clearly wasn't.

It's just stunning how badly we FU on foreign policy, and it's both parties and has been occurring for decades. I personally suspect that Dennis Rodman, in three years, on his own dime and just following his heart, was more effective on foreign relations with North Korea, than the entire State Department, with thousands of employees, and $Billions in annual budgets, in a half century.

We as a self-ruled people have come to accept a level of mediocrity from our government that is just astounding at a financial cost that is equally stunning.

One reason that I believe this has occurred is our foolishness at allowing them to split us 50/50 and put us each other's throats. Split 50/50 we are no danger to them. When we are in 65/35 agreement, we have their full attention, because at those numbers, they are unlikely to survive their next election.

I'd like to see us be more respectful of the right of the other side to disagree and spend and equal amount of time on the issues we agree on.

 

Which issues do we agree on? We are cross purpose on the border, If we aren't badly at odds over the budget mess we should be. We are not at all happy with conditions in Afghanistan fingers pointing both directions and both sides think the other to be ignorant partisans and while we bicker peoples lives are at stake. Where is our common ground?

 

are we? There might be disagreements on the best way to control the border, but that is all.

Seems nobody really cares about the budget mess, at least not based on how the vast majority of people vote. It has been more than a century since we had a presidnet that was elected by the people that cared about the budget mess.

Most of the country agree it was time to get the hell out, if not past time. And most (70% from what I read) think that Biden ****ed it up

 

Biden admin for sure bungled the pullout ...just not as much as the others bungled by not pulling out.

 

Agreed. At least he has the balls and spine to take responsibility and own it.

 

There is no border control currently and this budget mess is going to hurt.

I agree it's past time to get out but I am ashamed that we did it so painfully for those we left.

 

can't disagree with this. Though I do wonder why so many Americans were left when they knew at a bare minimum 9/11 was going to be the last day.

who are all these 5 to 20 thousand people everyone is talking and what were they doing there in the first place?

 

If the Administration followed the Trump plan it would be the first thing he left behind that they didn't take a huge dump on. Whoa there....... maybe that's what they did?

 

I think it will mean more to you if you discover these on your own. I see them now and then and they do my heart good.