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Why Biden is pulling the US -- and NATO -- out of Afghanistan

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Checked some stats, and American troop levels in Afghanistan have gone like this:

2010, which was the height of Obama's "surge": 100,000
2017, when Obama left office: 8,400
2021, when Trump left office: 3,000

Similarly, American deaths there have declined from a high of 496 in 2010 to about 15-20 per year these past several years.

We aren't really doing the same thing, and certainly not in the same numbers, as we once were.

I think there is an obsession with which POTUS happens to be in office when the last American soldier leaves, but I view it more as a continuum of risk being constantly mitigated by steady drawdowns. So realistically speaking, it may not be the most important issue who pulls out the last few thousand troops.

That said, because people seem to credit whoever removes the last remnant as "the President who got us out" I suppose it will benefit him somewhat politically to do it. Assuming we don't get a terrorist attack sourced from that country before he leaves office, in which case it will backfire.
 
woolfe9998 said:
Checked some stats, and American troop levels in Afghanistan have gone like this:

2010, which was the height of Obama's "surge": 100,000
2017, when Obama left office: 8,400
2021, when Trump left office: 3,000

Similarly, American deaths there have declined from a high of 496 in 2010 to about 15-20 per year these past several years.

We aren't really doing the same thing, and certainly not in the same numbers, as we once were.

I think there is an obsession with which POTUS happens to be in office when the last American soldier leaves, but I view it more as a continuum of risk being constantly mitigated by steady drawdowns. So realistically speaking, it may not be the most important issue who pulls out the last few thousand troops.

That said, because people seem to credit whoever removes the last remnant as "the President who got us out" I suppose it will benefit him somewhat politically to do it. Assuming we don't get a terrorist attack sourced from that country before he leaves office, in which case it will backfire.
Click to expand...

I think John Oliver or one of the political pundits similar to him did a piece where the military was essentially finding deceptive ways to classify troops as not "active troops" while literally still being there - and active - in Afghanistan.
 
s0me0nesmind1 said:
I think John Oliver or one of the political pundits similar to him did a piece where the military was essentially finding deceptive ways to classify troops as not "active troops" while literally still being there - and active - in Afghanistan.
Click to expand...

IIRC I don't think Oliver said the troop totals were being deflated. He said that some troops had combat roles even if not classified as such. Which is pretty much what happened early in the Vietnam war. That I'm not questioning.

But regardless of those roles, deaths are down from hundreds per year to 15-20 year. So clearly we have significantly downsized our presence.
 
s0me0nesmind1 said:
The fact that our country is - and always has been - a giant non-partisan military industrial complex is a longstanding alt-right troll narrative?

Okay buddy lol, whatever you want to tell yourself.


It's simply money-hungry people. Afghanistan is having millions of dollars thrown at them, they have zero incentive to want us to back-out. The US military depends on it for increasing budgets and continuing production and buying of more weapons. It isn't a political party thing.
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It hasn't always been. I'm sure you are completely oblivious of this, but the idea of a professional army in the US wasn't a thing until after WW1. Even going into WW2, we were inexperienced, useless, non-professional laughing stock of the world's more seasoned militaries.

The MIC was purely a product of post-war victory and our "fortuitous" establishment on the world stage as consequence of being the only participant in the war that wasn't now living in and rebuilding upon a nation-sized pile of rubble, and the creeping in of the Cold War era.
 
zinfamous said:
The MIC was purely a product of post-war victory and our "fortuitous" establishment on the world stage as consequence of being the only participant in the war that wasn't now living in and rebuilding upon a nation-sized pile of rubble, and the creeping in of the Cold War era.
Click to expand...
It's hard to emphasize this enough. Human loss of life aside, other countries had damage ranging from cities being deleted, to rather large percentages of the country rendered uninhabitable to life for a time. We had a bajillion factories able to churn out war machines (or just retooled to make cars, boats, and civvy guns) and one fucked up harbor.
 
[DHT]Osiris said:
It's hard to emphasize this enough. Human loss of life aside, other countries had damage ranging from cities being deleted, to rather large percentages of the country rendered uninhabitable to life for a time. We had a bajillion factories able to churn out war machines (or just retooled to make cars, boats, and civvy guns) and one fucked up harbor.
Click to expand...
Paul Krugman has pointed out why this argument may not hold a ton of water:

1) exports after WW2 were only about 5% of our economy, so there’s only so much effect to be had.

2) if all our competitors are economically ruined, how can they afford to buy our stuff?

To me that’s a compelling argument that the economic ruin of a lot of other industrial powers doesn’t explain our postwar boom.
 
fskimospy said:
Paul Krugman has pointed out why this argument may not hold a ton of water:

1) exports after WW2 were only about 5% of our economy, so there’s only so much effect to be had.

2) if all our competitors are economically ruined, how can they afford to buy our stuff?

To me that’s a compelling argument that the economic ruin of a lot of other industrial powers doesn’t explain our postwar boom.
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At large didnt we buy your stuff with your own money? Marshall plan and all that?
 
cytg111 said:
At large didnt we buy your stuff with your own money? Marshall plan and all that?
Click to expand...
I think the Marshall Plan is a bit oversold but yes we definitely did a bunch of that. In that case though we could just as easily bought stuff for ourselves with our money and had the same effect. It didn’t rely on Europe in ruins.
 
fskimospy said:
Paul Krugman has pointed out why this argument may not hold a ton of water:

1) exports after WW2 were only about 5% of our economy, so there’s only so much effect to be had.

2) if all our competitors are economically ruined, how can they afford to buy our stuff?

To me that’s a compelling argument that the economic ruin of a lot of other industrial powers doesn’t explain our postwar boom.
Click to expand...
Post war boom was all about consumer spending. We had strong unions, put tons of returning GIs through college dramatically increasing the number of highly educated workers available, benefits from improved productivity tended to translate into higher wages, giving workers more to spend further driving economic growth. We had a massive construction boom. We had 17 years of pent up demand in this country from the depression and WW2.
 
brycejones said:
Post war boom was all about consumer spending. We had strong unions, put tons of returning GIs through college dramatically increasing the number of highly educated workers available, benefits from improved productivity tended to translate into higher wages, giving workers more to spend further driving economic growth. We had a massive construction boom. We had 17 years of pent up demand in this country from the depression and WW2.
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Very much agree. Even today the vast majority of economic activity is domestic, with Americans buying stuff from other Americans.
 
s0me0nesmind1 said:
DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN

The military industrial complex MUST GO ON!



Click to expand...
Hey dumbfuck she has no power nor does she hold any office, elected or otherwise that affects any policies, so take your DUN DUN DUUUUUUUN bullshit and shove it as far as you can up your traitorous ass!
 
s0me0nesmind1 said:
DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN

The military industrial complex MUST GO ON!



Click to expand...

That's a dishonest take on a dishonest representation of what Clinton actually said. She said we need to be prepared to deal with a possible Taliban takeover, which is obviously true. She said we need to be prepared to deal with radical terrorist groups using Afghanistan as a base of operations, also obviously true. She did not say that she opposes the action, certainly not in the clips provided.

Besides that, she lost, so get over it & yourself at the same time.
 
VW MAN said:
Hey dumbfuck she has no power nor does she hold any office, elected or otherwise that affects any policies, so take your DUN DUN DUUUUUUUN bullshit and shove it as far as you can up your traitorous ass!
Click to expand...
No, but she must still be a threat to his masculinity. Otherwise why would he be so butthurt by what she says.
 
So the Taliban are taking over as we withdraw. The country will likely be under their control within weeks after final withdrawal.

www.cnn.com

Afghanistan is disintegrating fast as Biden's troop withdrawal continues | CNN

Earlier this week, a lone Taliban gunman with a red skull cap and a rifle sauntered up to the gates of Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan's fourth largest city, and snapped a selfie.
www.cnn.com www.cnn.com

Which raises the question, if this was always going to happen, then why didn't we get out long ago. Also WTF have we been doing there training their military and police this whole time. Because clearly after 20 years it didn't take.
 
woolfe9998 said:
So the Taliban are taking over as we withdraw. The country will likely be under their control within weeks after final withdrawal.

www.cnn.com

Afghanistan is disintegrating fast as Biden's troop withdrawal continues | CNN

Earlier this week, a lone Taliban gunman with a red skull cap and a rifle sauntered up to the gates of Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan's fourth largest city, and snapped a selfie.
www.cnn.com www.cnn.com

Which raises the question, if this was always going to happen, then why didn't we get out long ago. Also WTF have we been doing there training their military and police this whole time. Because clearly after 20 years it didn't take.
Click to expand...
The country is basically collapsing. Women have zero rights, the Taliban are brutes, they are likely to kill all the people who cooperated with Americans there if they aren't granted visas to get out, which appears uncertain. Seems that it's going to get worse and worse. It's one of a handful of the most pathetically deteriorated countries in the world. It's not like it was ever much better, AFAIK. I think the geography has something to do with it.
 
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