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

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Muse said:
I'm really not sold on anything. I figure Biden could be right, just get out. But how you get out of something like that is maybe something he didn't give enough thought. We'll see how things go. I suspect that the next 6 months won't be pretty concerning this and that Biden's approval ratings will suffer. They already have. That's to be expected, but this isn't looking like a policy win.
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Really? You think Biden, a president who’s own children have been in the military, a representative and Senator for decades as well as a Vice President, just didn’t think this one through?

Sure sounds like you’ve be sold on something.
 
ivwshane said:
Really? You think Biden, a president who’s own children have been in the military, a representative and Senator for decades as well as a Vice President, just didn’t think this one through?

Sure sounds like you’ve be sold on something.
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Sounds like propaganda to me. Yep, son in Iraq, experienced in foreign policy. I'm not convinced, OK? Tell me what I'm sold on? 🙄 You're sold on Joe. Cool. I was fine with Joe before this. I'm not sure I'm OK with this the way it's being/been handled. Is it making me think I should have voted for the Orange Menace? Don't be ridiculous.

I'm not a my country (or its president) right or wrong guy, never have been.
 
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Muse said:
Why would he do that? Apparently he was the ambassador to Afghanistan for Obama and he's writing in the NYTimes, not exactly your right wing rag.
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Why would he inflate/manipulate the numbers and imply that we had almost 5000 in Afghanistan, when we only had 2500 when Trump left office, if he wasn't trying to push a false agenda? It doesn't matter who or what he did in the past.. Look at Joe Manchin, he's supposed to be a Democrat but really seems to be a Republican in disguise. Point: anyone can be a piece of shit, no matter their history.
 
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Those 2500 were also bolstered by a cease fire. Without that, there would have been inevitable losses. That is what is maddening about this. Our country's 15 minute attention span does not remember the thread here, The Names of the Dead. For 20 years now they have added names to that list.
The cease fire stopped the losses, in exchange for getting out. The appearance of it is a total backfire with our collective short memory span. It seems like it was going well to those who had no clue WHY.
 
If you could point to a single politician that had the most to do with the United States being in Afghanistan for 21 years, you'd be pointing at Joe Biden. 8 years a US Senator that supported and voted for it and 8 years as Vice President to Obutthole, who did nothing to stop it. The only other person to be considered would be George Bush, and he's been out of power for 13 years.
 
Muse said:
It's pretty apparent to me that Biden boobooed when he signed to cut and run by 9/11. If he'd been canny he would have at the minimum leaned on his generals on the ground and hedged his bets about getting citizens and at risk Afghanistanis out of the country before the Taliban could do squat. A timeline was the last thing he needed. Right now it looks like Afghanistan could go back to being a staging ground for international terrorism. We had a lot of casualties there, I don't have the figures, but to me it looked like way less than in Vietnam or Korea.

Would it have been impossible to leave enough military presence there to prevent a Taliban takeover without major expense and loss of life?

Here's the article he co-wrote for the NYT published May 4, 2021 detailing ideas on what Biden should do before the US exit from Afghanistan:

www.nytimes.com

Opinion | Here’s What Biden Must Do Before We Leave Afghanistan (Published 2021)

We cannot allow history to repeat itself.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
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He wanted to leave a military presence to defend the Embassy in the middle of a heavily populated city in the middle of a civil war. He didn't say how big he thought that would have been. If you have an article sharing an actual plan with proposed troop levels, I'd be interesting in seeing it.

He's also does the let's get everyone who's ever helped us while simultaneously arguing that we can't let the Taliban take over bit. I don't believe you can have it both ways. By removing all these Afghanis is a tacit acknowledgment the Taliban is most likely going to be in power.
 
Muse said:
Why would he do that? Apparently he was the ambassador to Afghanistan for Obama and he's writing in the NYTimes, not exactly your right wing rag.
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He also didn't explain why there hasn't been loss of life(cease fire). So, there some attempted manipulation. The question is why? Maybe he advocated for keeping troops there when Obama was president and he was the Ambassador and doesn't want that to be seen as a bad call. Not sure, but I discounted the article because of that.
 
Muse said:
If he'd been canny he would have at the minimum leaned on his generals on the ground and hedged his bets about getting citizens and at risk Afghanistanis out of the country before the Taliban could do squat.
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Here is a thought. Trump had already given Afghanistan to the Taliban.

Think about the rapid takeover of EVERY province. This did not happen over night. For years our minimal presence and the steep body count the Afghan forces suffered, it added up. To a token force that did not maintain control over the population. The cities already belonged to the Taliban, in everything but name. That is how you can flip a switch and the so called Afghan government vanishes over night. They had already lost the war. Before Biden became President.

2,500 US forces, not enough to defend themselves or fight the Taliban, were under a ceasefire agreement. The one Trump made when he cut the Afghan government (non existent) out of the peace talks with the Taliban. Trump negotiated with the Taliban because they already ruled Afghanistan.

If Biden is guilty of something, it is being too feeble to read the room and to react accordingly. Too feeble to wield the truth and hammer home the points, to make it simple and to explain it to us. The dice were loaded, The Art of the Deal was in play. Only option(s) Biden had left was a new invasion force of 100,000+ US soldiers, or to cut and run. It was done badly because we were trying to escape with our tail between our legs. From an enemy nation with a paltry force of 2,500. VS an entire nation. Engaging the Taliban in violence without full force would have been catastrophic.

If we had a competent President, he could have sold us the truth. It would have been shocking, horrible even, but he would have at least been straight and honest with us.
 
Jaskalas said:
Think about the rapid takeover of EVERY province. This did not happen over night.
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I think that, more than anything else, it's a testament to how spectacularly the exercise in nation building failed. We weren't able to create effective local leadership. Every single position of power was filled by grifters. No one was interested in governing, just in enriching themselves. It was always a house of cards absent NATO.
 
HurleyBird said:
I think that, more than anything else, it's a testament to how spectacularly the exercise in nation building failed. We weren't able to create effective local leadership. Every single position of power was filled by grifters. No one was interested in governing, just in enriching themselves. It was always a house of cards absent NATO.
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Yep and the resources needed to rebuild a nation properly would have been astronomical. It was a war we didn’t need and it was a war we weren’t willing to win and a war that wasn’t backed by the American people. No president except Biden had the stomach to cut our losses and it’s probably because he’s the only president who actually had skin in the game at one point (unless there was a bush I’m not aware of who served during this time period).
 
HurleyBird said:
I think that, more than anything else, it's a testament to how spectacularly the exercise in nation building failed. We weren't able to create effective local leadership. Every single position of power was filled by grifters. No one was interested in governing, just in enriching themselves. It was always a house of cards absent NATO.
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I think if anything we've embedded grifters and politicians enriching themselves in our country and I wouldn't be surprised if our own government falls apart like a house of cards just like they did.

It's a miracle it didn't on Jan 6th, but the next time most likely it will.
 
ivwshane said:
Yep and the resources needed to rebuild a nation properly would have been astronomical. It was a war we didn’t need and it was a war we weren’t willing to win and a war that wasn’t backed by the American people. No president except Biden had the stomach to cut our losses and it’s probably because he’s the only president who actually had skin in the game at one point (unless there was a bush I’m not aware of who served during this time period).
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I'm hearing a lot of criticism from UK and other NATO figures of Biden for pulling the troops out. The odd thing is it's largely coming not from the right but from the sort of centrists who I dislike for much the same reason that I'm not keen on Biden. I don't know quite what to make of it all. If Tony Blair is calling your actions "imbecilic" I don't know that that's necessarily a bad thing.

Various NATO-connected figures seem very miffed about it all as well, some muttering that it is undermining NATO. The concrete complaint seems to be that the withdrawal has been done the wrong way round, taking the troops out first, then thinking about the civilians and local Afghans who need to be evacuated.

Seems to me Biden is finally accepting the inevitable in withdrawing from the place and the very fact that it all collapsed so quickly surely proves nothing was being achieved by being there. But I think it's entirely possible the process of withdrawal might not have been done as well as it could have been. I'd leave it to others to argue that out. It sill seems preferable to repeating what his predecessors did - just letting it drag on pointlessly while deferring the difficult choices to the next guy.
 
pmv said:
If Tony Blair is calling your actions "imbecilic" I don't know that that's necessarily a bad thing.
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For Americans this is tantamount to asking GWB about Biden's Afghanistan mistakes. Absolute freedom from context and responsibility is the birthright of the many elite centrists who sunk us into this mess.
 
imported_tajmahal said:
If you could point to a single politician that had the most to do with the United States being in Afghanistan for 21 years, you'd be pointing at Joe Biden. 8 years a US Senator that supported and voted for it and 8 years as Vice President to Obutthole, who did nothing to stop it. The only other person to be considered would be George Bush, and he's been out of power for 13 years.
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Another completely dishonest statement. If you bothered to do your homework you would have found Biden has never wanted a long term presence in Afghanistan. No President in office on 9/11 wouldn't have gone into Afghanistan. That was a given since it was the source of the attack.

I have a question, do you lie as a reflex or is it a team thing?

PS - As much as you are trying to blame the entire Afghanistan mess on Biden are you willing to give credit to the only "No" vote for going in? We first went awry trying to stay there and nation build.
 
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ivwshane said:
Really? You think Biden, a president who’s own children have been in the military, a representative and Senator for decades as well as a Vice President, just didn’t think this one through?

Sure sounds like you’ve be sold on something.
Click to expand...


That he has had children in the US military doesn't guarantee he'd think everything through insofar as it affects those _not_ in the US military, e.g. Western civilians or local Afghans or even other nations military.
I agree with Muse that it's by no means certain that Biden has done this the 'right' way. That he's done it at all puts him ahead of his predecessor(s) however.
 
Jaskalas said:
Here is a thought. Trump had already given Afghanistan to the Taliban.

Think about the rapid takeover of EVERY province. This did not happen over night. For years our minimal presence and the steep body count the Afghan forces suffered, it added up. To a token force that did not maintain control over the population. The cities already belonged to the Taliban, in everything but name. That is how you can flip a switch and the so called Afghan government vanishes over night. They had already lost the war. Before Biden became President.

2,500 US forces, not enough to defend themselves or fight the Taliban, were under a ceasefire agreement. The one Trump made when he cut the Afghan government (non existent) out of the peace talks with the Taliban. Trump negotiated with the Taliban because they already ruled Afghanistan.

If Biden is guilty of something, it is being too feeble to read the room and to react accordingly. Too feeble to wield the truth and hammer home the points, to make it simple and to explain it to us. The dice were loaded, The Art of the Deal was in play. Only option(s) Biden had left was a new invasion force of 100,000+ US soldiers, or to cut and run. It was done badly because we were trying to escape with our tail between our legs. From an enemy nation with a paltry force of 2,500. VS an entire nation. Engaging the Taliban in violence without full force would have been catastrophic.

If we had a competent President, he could have sold us the truth. It would have been shocking, horrible even, but he would have at least been straight and honest with us.
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Agreed except the last sentence. I think even he was playing a balancing game. He couldn't fully come out and telegraph he was abandoning Afghanistan as it would have fallen faster than it did now. I think he maintained some hope that the Afghan army could hold off the Taliban and at least hold Kabul so they could keep an embassy. But as we saw, that was a mistaken calculation. I heard Blinken say the Afghan president was saying he would die defending Afghanistan a few days before he fled.

pmv said:
I'm hearing a lot of criticism from UK and other NATO figures of Biden for pulling the troops out. The odd thing is it's largely coming not from the right but from the sort of centrists who I dislike for much the same reason that I'm not keen on Biden. I don't know quite what to make of it all. If Tony Blair is calling your actions "imbecilic" I don't know that that's necessarily a bad thing.

Various NATO-connected figures seem very miffed about it all as well, some muttering that it is undermining NATO. The concrete complaint seems to be that the withdrawal has been done the wrong way round, taking the troops out first, then thinking about the civilians and local Afghans who need to be evacuated.

Seems to me Biden is finally accepting the inevitable in withdrawing from the place and the very fact that it all collapsed so quickly surely proves nothing was being achieved by being there. But I think it's entirely possible the process of withdrawal might not have been done as well as it could have been. I'd leave it to others to argue that out. It sill seems preferable to repeating what his predecessors did - just letting it drag on pointlessly while deferring the difficult choices to the next guy.
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Have to be cautious of the motivation of the critical voices. A lot are critical of the pullout as a subtext for the continuing argument between staying long term and leaving. I've read a lot of criticisms ( even visited sites like national review for them) and haven't seen one criticism with a substantial plan for averting what happened, beyond the boilerplate talking points. (side point, if National Review is the best the right has in terms of policy debate, the Republican party is in trouble and by extension the US).
 
pmv said:
That he has had children in the US military doesn't guarantee he'd think everything through insofar as it affects those _not_ in the US military, e.g. Western civilians or local Afghans or even other nations military.
I agree with Muse that it's by no means certain that Biden has done this the 'right' way. That he's done it at all puts him ahead of his predecessor(s) however.
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Actually it’s almost guaranteed he didn’t take those people into consideration since he said as much. His main priority has been Americans first.

The alternative is the status quo, a residual force forever. Unless we were going to go all in, there never was a better alternative than those two choices.
 
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ivwshane said:
The alternative is the status quo, a residual force forever...
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I do not believe that is realistic. We had 2,500 troops in Afghanistan at the beginning of the year and the Afghan forces were taking too many casualties. They had no sustainability.

To maintain the "status quo" and avoid a complete Taliban takeover, would have required a new full scale US invasion force. A re-taking of Afghanistan. Because in the previous years that country had fallen in all but name. We held a paper bag over the truth. Trump left Biden holding the hot potato, but a deadline was set. In 2021 that paper bag was coming off to reveal Taliban control. One way or another.

Trump let the Afghan government / security force collapse years ago.
 
A friend who did her Masters in England worked with two Afghans that were very outspoken against the Taliban while in London. They were in Afghanistan as the country was falling. One got out just in time. The other went outside Kabul to try to get some journalists out. She just found out the second guy is safe now. He got out.
 
I hear people complain about how this has been handled, but I haven't really heard a potential plan that would have worked better. I hear that we should have kept Bagram open longer, but since it's almost 50 miles from Kabul how would that work for getting people out?

This whole thing was going to be a shitshow the minute Trump signed the surrender with the Taliban. Afghan government officials started negotiating with the Taliban for their takeover that day.

The fact that we had troops close enough to fly in and secure the airport before the Taliban got there is a pretty big deal that I don't think people appreciate. Trying to get people out through a Taliban controlled airport would be the real nightmare scenario.
 
Leeea said:

So I guess the question is, how "red" is the red line going to be?


Because from the looks of things, I do not see us getting everyone/everything out by the 31st.
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I think the Taliban will back down. They want the country all to themselves, meaning they want the US out. They've got rebels they are already fighting in the northern provinces. They don't want to continue the war with the US.
 
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