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

[zzyzxroad]

Afghanistan should have trained an all female military. They have so much more skin in the game than men that I bet the Taliban assault would have failed.

Not going to pretend I know anything about Afghanistan but is that even a culturally viable option for that region? Plus I get the impression the government we propped up was extremely focused on making themselves rich.

 

[Zorba]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1427973568630083587

The mystery about why regular Afghans would not lay down their lives for the Afghan government truly is one for the ages.

Obviously corrupt as hell, but if rather him and UAE have it then the Taliban.

 

[Zorba]

Biden should own it, he should come out and accept responsibility for any and all of it. Politically speaking it’s a win in the American people’s eyes and he’ll be seen as the president that stood up to the MIC and who stopped getting Americans killed in one of the most pointless wars ever.

Regardless of whether or not he’s owns it, the rights going to try to hang any negative outcomes on him but at this point does anyone care what the right says other than their cult members?

Did you watch his speech on Monday? He did own it and said the alternative wasn't worth it.

 

[Zorba]

At least a FEW of the dems have enough integrity to call for investing this piss-poor execution...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1427691039750565898

Something you'd literally never see a republican doing with Trump.

You like a lot of right winger can't keep it straight if you wanted us out or to stay forever.

 

[UNCjigga]

So, I gotta ask... where are the UN peacekeeping forces?

People here keep saying that it's not the US's job to be the policemen of the world... but isn't that the UN's job? If so, why aren't they doing it? Besides sending the Taliban leadership a strongly worded e-mail, have they done ANYTHING useful in Afghanistan recently?

UN is toothless with an instant Russia/China veto of anything the rest of the security council wants to do.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Obviously corrupt as hell, but if rather him and UAE have it then the Taliban.

how much of that money was supposed to go to pay police & military?

 

[Jaskalas]

Did you watch his speech on Monday? He did own it and said the alternative wasn't worth it.

The alternative might be described as a clean exit, without tens of thousands of foreign nationals (Americans included) trapped behind enemy lines.
Biden's bungle has pinned his Presidency on the kindness of the Taliban and whether they let people peacefully reach the airport.

 

[Panino Manino]

The only thing we gained from 20 years was the knowledge that we invaded the wrong country. Within the 20 years we learned the terrorism originated not from Afghanistan but Pakistan. We should have invaded Pakistan rather than Afghanistan from the beginning. The Pakistan leaders them selves are terrorist fans. There has been news spreading around the world in this past year where the Prime minister of Pakistan has claimed that isis were not terrorists but civilians. Seriously, it's Pakistan that US should have invaded, and should have done the nation building.

Murrica is just another, and the biggest, terrorist nation out there.
Why murrica that says loves democracy and freedom always, always sides with the extremist nations and fascists? They went on this worldwide crusade against Islamic terror but alongside the sunnis, alongside the biggest financiers of sharia law indoctrinators and terrorist jihadists groups?
There's no "logic" and don't need be one, it's all a scam.

 

[ivwshane]

Did you watch his speech on Monday? He did own it and said the alternative wasn't worth it.

Yes and he did do some minor blame shifting (although it was warranted). My point remains, he should accept all and any responsibility. His response to any criticism would be that he did what was necessary to protect American troops.

 

[K1052]

The alternative might be described as a clean exit, without tens of thousands of foreign nationals (Americans included) trapped behind enemy lines.
Biden's bungle has pinned his Presidency on the kindness of the Taliban and whether they let people peacefully reach the airport.

Afghanistan has been at a State Department level 4 "no travel" advisory since at least early 2019. Non-essential government employees were ordered out in April. On Aug 7 the Embassy told all Americans left not in government employ they should GTFO now and you can't be guaranteed help if you don't because the situation is unstable. There are ultimately limits to getting American citizens to listen about the risks until it's too late.

So far the Taliban is more or less not accosting foreign nationals trying to get to the airport. The same can't be said for many Afghans tryin to get out so far.

 

[hal2kilo]

Afghanistan has been at a State Department level 4 "no travel" advisory since at least early 2019. Non-essential government employees were ordered out in April. On Aug 7 the Embassy told all Americans left not in government employ they should GTFO now and you can't be guaranteed help if you don't because the situation is unstable. There are ultimately limits to getting American citizens to listen about the risks until it's too late.

So far the Taliban is more or less not accosting foreign nationals trying to get to the airport. The same can't be said for many Afghans tryin to get out so far.

That's one of the things that's been bugging me. WTF were these Americans citizens thinking was going to happen. Once, again we were going to come to the rescue! What lives and treasure will satisfy them!

 

[KMFJD]

UN is toothless with an instant Russia/China veto of anything the rest of the security council wants to do.

^^^Palestinians know that feeling all too well

Here's a great thread explaining somethings about Afghanistan that i read that made sense, came from this book -

Thread by @theHessam on Thread Reader App

Thread by @theHessam: This past weekend, I re-read “No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War through Afghan Eyes” by @Anand_Gopal_ for the 2nd time. What an amazing and insightful book. Here ...…

threadreaderapp.com

Within months after the US-led invasion in 2001, the Taliban effectively vanished. Al-Qaeda leaders fled to Pakistan, but the Taliban - realizing they had no chance of victory - accepted the new order. They acknowledged Karzai as interim president, surrendered arms, and ...
retreated from politics with no plans to return. They even denounced fund-raising efforts by religious clerics in Pakistan to revive the Taliban. It wasn’t a just scheme to hold-out in hiding. They genuinely ceased to exist.
So what led to revival of Taliban several years later?

Here was the dilemma. The US was there to "fight terrorism". But without the Taliban or AlQaeda there, there was no enemy. They needed targets to bomb, homes to raid, and people to imprison. This created an incentive for local politicians to “create enemies where there were none”
...and report their political rivals to US intelligence branding them as terrorists. These false intelligence reports were typically rewarded with money, business contracts, and more access to American troops which meant more political power to wield US military in their favor.

In one telling case, January 2002, two competing political groups of pro-American Afghan political officials were simultaneously massacred, arrested, and tortured by US marines. Each group had falsely tipped off the Americans, portraying the other group as Talibs.
Soon Afghanistan was riddled with a bunch of regional repressive strongmen, like Gul Agha Sherzai and Jan Mohammad Khan, who fed their enemies and dissidents to the target-hungry American war machine and buffed up their own private militia with US dollars.
Things were different in places with less US military presence. In northern Afghanistan or Istalif, for example, political rivals could not call in US troops to settle their feuds. American troops in the south brought instability, violence, and cycles of revenge.
US troops raided homes and detained and tortured village elders and tribal leaders, many of whom were sympathetic to the US. This violence had nothing to do with the Taliban and everything to do with local politics which grew more sectarian in such circumstances.

Many of the pre-Taliban war criminals had rose to power again, with full US backing, pretending to fight terrorists. Police forces morphed into the same militias and gangs of the civil war days. They'd ransack shops and homes, loot travelers, and in some cases rape and murder.
It was in this atmosphere of resentment and that the Taliban re-emerged in 2004 and grew in the years to come.
The repression led to more resentment. The resentment led some to seek revenge against the US and Afghan government by joining the Taliban.
The book covers the story of a former Talib that renounced all former ties with the group and set up a local business. Police repeatedly beat him, threatened him with torture and took all his savings. He and his fellow villagers ultimately joined the Taliban.
The resurgence of the Taliban made the US even more dependent on private Afghan militiamen (which ironically would sometimes pay the Taliban to withhold their attacks - meaning that the US indirectly paid the Taliban for security).
The Taliban are in power today, not "despite 20 years of US presence", but precisely because of the form of US presence and the political order that ensued. It is a mess we created, not one that we failed to fix out of incompetency or lack of resources

https://twitter.com/x/status/1427705000210440195

 

[K1052]

That's one of the things that's been bugging me. WTF were these Americans citizens thinking was going to happen. Once, again we were going to come to the rescue! What lives and treasure will satisfy them!

To be fair many many many people had the wrong guess about how long it would take Kabul to fall in to Taliban hands. Even the Taliban was shocked.

At this point arguing about some theoretical perfect withdrawal that likely could not be accomplished because it would also precipitate the exact same rapid collapse is kind of pointless. This is an area Biden did error on setting expectations for. We get it, after 20 years nobody is happy that what was the likely final eventuality is here and so soon.

We've got a situation and we just have to deal with that situation.

 

[gothuevos]

what about what was said in that tweet was an incorrect statement broceritops?

Does the truth hurt or tickle you?

What is the point of "removing all the military equipment" you just gave your allies, and then ask them to prop up the country after we pull out?

Huh?

 

[blackangst1]

Biden should own it, he should come out and accept responsibility for any and all of it. Politically speaking it’s a win in the American people’s eyes and he’ll be seen as the president that stood up to the MIC and who stopped getting Americans killed in one of the most pointless wars ever.

Regardless of whether or not he’s owns it, the rights going to try to hang any negative outcomes on him but at this point does anyone care what the right says other than their cult members?

He did in his speech. "The buck stops with me".

 

[Zorba]

how much of that money was supposed to go to pay police & military?

Obviously I'd rather it had gone where it was supposed to, but if there was just bags of cash sitting there I'd rather him have taken it with him than leave it behind.

Maybe we should have Interpol go over him.

 

[imported_tajmahal]

Pretty tough for fucking the incompetent and senile Biden to pull out of Afghanistan when there's still @ 15,000 Americans that he left behind enemy lines. The collapse of the Democratic party has stunned everyone.

Up to 15,000 US residents still in Afghanistan after Taliban insurgency - Washington Examiner

Up to 15,000 United States residents remain in Afghanistan following the Taliban's insurgency and takeover of Kabul, two Senate aides said, citing officials from President Joe Biden's administration.The two Senate aides confirmed they were given the statistic during a briefing led by national...

www.washingtonexaminer.com

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Pretty tough for fucking the incompetent and senile Biden to pull out of Afghanistan when there's still @ 15,000 Americans that he left behind enemy lines. The collapse of the Democratic party has stunned everyone.

Up to 15,000 US residents still in Afghanistan after Taliban insurgency - Washington Examiner

Up to 15,000 United States residents remain in Afghanistan following the Taliban's insurgency and takeover of Kabul, two Senate aides said, citing officials from President Joe Biden's administration.The two Senate aides confirmed they were given the statistic during a briefing led by national...

www.washingtonexaminer.com

What is your solution I am interested?
Why is this different than the Kurds?
I am all for making them US Citizens are you?

 

[HomerJS]

Pretty tough for fucking the incompetent and senile Biden to pull out of Afghanistan when there's still @ 15,000 Americans that he left behind enemy lines. The collapse of the Democratic party has stunned everyone.

Up to 15,000 US residents still in Afghanistan after Taliban insurgency - Washington Examiner

Up to 15,000 United States residents remain in Afghanistan following the Taliban's insurgency and takeover of Kabul, two Senate aides said, citing officials from President Joe Biden's administration.The two Senate aides confirmed they were given the statistic during a briefing led by national...

www.washingtonexaminer.com

Funny bitching about the 15,000 Americans yet your ilk don't even want them in our country even though that's the agreement we had.

 

[HomerJS]

Was Rep. Barbra Lee right back in 2001?
Clip of Barbara Lee, Congress member to oppose Afghanistan war in 2001, goes viral as Taliban retakes country (yahoo.com)

Barbara Lee, a Democratic representative from California, warned at the time that approving the so-called Authorisation for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) could mean the US would be embarking “on an open-ended war with neither an exit strategy nor a focused target.”

 

[Zorba]

The alternative might be described as a clean exit, without tens of thousands of foreign nationals (Americans included) trapped behind enemy lines.
Biden's bungle has pinned his Presidency on the kindness of the Taliban and whether they let people peacefully reach the airport.

And how exactly was that supposed to happen without causing the collapse ourselves? The withdrawal was always going to be a mess, that's why the last 3 presidents just left troops there forever.

 

[Zorba]

Yes and he did do some minor blame shifting (although it was warranted). My point remains, he should accept all and any responsibility. His response to any criticism would be that he did what was necessary to protect American troops.

He shouldn't take responsibility for being there or staying there for 20 years. He did take responsibility for what's going on now.

 

[MrSquished]

Funny bitching about the 15,000 Americans yet your ilk don't even want them in our country even though that's the agreement we had.

You are talking to a guy with the same amount of character, integrity, honesty and soul of a Trump Jr, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, etc...

As in he has no character, no soul and is a perfect example of the human garbage that epitomizes the right these days.

 

[IronWing]

So, I gotta ask... where are the UN peacekeeping forces?

People here keep saying that it's not the US's job to be the policemen of the world... but isn't that the UN's job? If so, why aren't they doing it? Besides sending the Taliban leadership a strongly worded e-mail, have they done ANYTHING useful in Afghanistan recently?

Maybe John Bolton can explain it to you…

"The United States makes the UN work when it wants it to work, and that is exactly the way it should be, because the only question, the only question for the United States is what is in our national interest."

It was not in the U.S. interest to make the UN work in Afghanistan. I'll leave it to your imagination as to why American policy makers under three different administrations didn't want the UN to work with respect to Afghanistan.

 

[IronWing]

Why murrica that says loves democracy and freedom always, always sides with the extremist nations and fascists? They went on this worldwide crusade against Islamic terror but alongside the sunnis, alongside the biggest financiers of sharia law indoctrinators and terrorist jihadists groups?
There's no "logic" and don't need be one, it's all a scam.

I got nothing. Official American obeisance before the House of Saud is self-defeating, stupid, and a source of great sorrow in the world.