Trump On Afghanistan Withdrawal

[John T. Ford]

Biden fucked up the withdraw but withdrawing was the right thing to do.

Holy Shit ....

We agree on something.

Is your comment a typo?

 

[Toro]

If true, this is a disgrace

 

[progressive hunter]

Trump on the withdrawal.



What is fair is that it's hard to believe that the Trump administration would have been any more incompetent at managing the withdrawal as Biden.

I bet trump would have listened to people that had plans and lists of people that needed to get out,,

U.S. Army Vet goes off on MSNBC about Biden’s remarks on Afghanistan – The Right Scoop

therightscoop.com

 

[Toro]

The difference is ... I don't believe imperialism is a pejorative description.

America should be spreading its wares and culture. Our music should be on everyone's lips, our jeans should be on everyone's arse.

We should have learned 50 years ago that you don't destroy Communism with bullets and embargoes (embargoes and the threat of force kept Castro and the Kims in power for decades longer than they should have been).

You destroy Communism with raw, naked, sexy, Capitalism ... seduction will always be more powerful than compulsion...

View attachment 526841

Ha! You're sounding like a leftist idealist! Because that's not what actually happened.

It's our military that backs up our ideals and our economic system.

Gorbachev admitted that he couldn't keep up with Reagan's defense spending, which led to Perestroika and ultimately the collapse of the USSR.

It wasn't jeans and Hollywood movies! It was naked American power backed by the military and American capitalism that made it happen.

 

[Coyote]

This "we need to withdraw from the world and stop being the world's policeman" diminishes America. It makes us look weak and foolish. It accelerates China's relative ascent and calls into question America's ideals to the world. It reduces our power and our wealth. We lose our moral standing.

Nature abhors a vacuum. If we withdraw, China will enter. And that's not a world that we want.

China already is...for some time now. The long game.

 

[Toro]

China already is...for some time now. The long game.

China has a lot of problems.

But whether or not China ascends to being the preeminent global power depends greatly on what we want to do as a nation.

If we want to withdraw, this accelerates China's power, and makes it more likely that the US becomes a second rate power.

 

[Coyote]

If true, this is a disgrace

View attachment 526842

I can’t find anything confirming that. The closest I find is this, so I am skeptical.

The US embassy in Kabul is shredding documents and disposing of American flags over fears the building could soon be overrun by the Taliban

The notice to embassy staff asked workers to dispose of anything with a US logo or flag to prevent it from falling into the Taliban's hands.

news.yahoo.com

 

[Wuwei]

The US tried to keep civilian casualties down. The Taliban did not care. The Taliban had an intense religious fervor that the Afghanistan government and military could not match. The Taliban were suicidal and willing to die for their cause. It is always hard to build a better government, and it is very easy to tear down. We should have got out of there as soon as we got bin Laden

A real tragedy is that the women will lose their freedom and return to being burka wearing cloistered wives. Girls will never get an education. It would have been better if the women trained and formed an army. Their fervor could match that of the Taliban, unlike their frightened husbands, but of course that was culturally impossible.
.

 

[Toro]

FTR I understand the arguments for withdrawing from Afghanistan.

But the process of the withdrawal has been an absolute ******* disaster.

This looks worse than Saigon.

 

[progressive hunter]

FTR I understand the arguments for withdrawing from Afghanistan.

But the process of the withdrawal has been an absolute ******* disaster.

This looks worse than Saigon.

according to this guy biden had several different plans and list of people that needed to get out since the first of the yr

U.S. Army Vet goes off on MSNBC about Biden’s remarks on Afghanistan – The Right Scoop

therightscoop.com

 

[Toro]

The US tried to keep civilian casualties down. The Taliban did not care. The Taliban had an intense religious fervor that the Afghanistan government and military could not match. The Taliban were suicidal and willing to die for their cause. It is always hard to build a better government, and it is very easy to tear down. We should have got out of there as soon as we got bin Laden

A real tragedy is that the women will lose their freedom and return to being burka wearing cloistered wives. Girls will never get an education. It would have been better if the women trained and formed an army. Their fervor could match that of the Taliban, unlike their frightened husbands, but of course that was culturally impossible.
.

The problem in much of the Middle East and central Asia in many of these Muslim countries is that there are basically two sides - the corrupt and the religious fanatics.

We have decided to side with the corrupt because they are willing to bend to our interests because they can be bought.

 

[pknopp]

Ha! You're sounding like a leftist idealist! Because that's not what actually happened.

It's our military that backs up our ideals and our economic system.

Gorbachev admitted that he couldn't keep up with Reagan's defense spending, which led to Perestroika and ultimately the collapse of the USSR.

It wasn't jeans and Hollywood movies! It was naked American power backed by the military and American capitalism that made it happen.

It was the start of massive debt. We weren't paying for what we were spending.

 

[Toro]

It was the start of massive debt. We weren't paying for what we were spending.

That's been going on since 1981.

 

[JoeB131]

IOW "Totally **** over the people that helped us."

Awesome.

What an outstanding human being you are.

I missed the part where they were helping us.

They were stealing aid money as fast as we could send it over.
One of main reasons so many of the Afghan National Army gave up was because they hadn't been paid in months.
Not to mention their complicity in the opium trade, which made a comeback when the Taliban was out of power.

There were 300,000 guys in the Afghan National Army, who were defeated by the Taliban despite having a 4-1 advantage.

Are we going to take them all in? Of course not. because most of them have already reached agreements with the Taliban.

I have no problem getting someone out if he can show a legitimate threat to his well-being by the Taliban... but taking in people on the losing side... meh, not so much.

 

[Toro]

I missed the part where they were helping us.

They were stealing aid money as fast as we could send it over.
One of main reasons so many of the Afghan National Army gave up was because they hadn't been paid in months.
Not to mention their complicity in the opium trade, which made a comeback when the Taliban was out of power.

There were 300,000 guys in the Afghan National Army, who were defeated by the Taliban despite having a 4-1 advantage.

Are we going to take them all in? Of course not. because most of them have already reached agreements with the Taliban.

I have no problem getting someone out if he can show a legitimate threat to his well-being by the Taliban... but taking in people on the losing side... meh, not so much.

Yeah, they are corrupt as ****.

Can't argue with you on that one.

 

[Toro]

I'm on the wrong side of political opinion on this, I know.

 

[pknopp]

That's been going on since 1981.

Yes, it continued to grow and grow under Reagan.

 

[JoeB131]

I'm on the wrong side of political opinion on this, I know.

View attachment 526851

Yes, people are comfortable with something in the abstract and less comfortable with the reality.

DUring the leadup to the Iraq War, Bush had 70%+ approval rates.

When we got the daily drip-drip-drip of casualty reports, his approval rating went down to the 20's.

 

[Natural Citizen]

The blame game is really dividing democrats more than anything, as there simply aren't that many principled progressives left.

Again, I'm talking about the blame game here. The finger pointing.

That's all I have to say about that.

 

[Toro]

Utter incompetence