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I find it amusing that one of the most conservative political pundits, Ann Coulter, actually came out yesterday and strongly endorsed Biden’s decision to implement an immediate military withdrawal from Afghanistan while dissing Trump who she said”abandoned” his unequivocal campaign and subsequent promises to withdraw troops. After citing multiple statements and Tweets by Trump she wrote in a NY Times piece: “Thank you, President Biden, for keeping a promise Trump made, but then abandoned when he got to office….Trump REPEATEDLY demanded that we bring our soldiers home, but only President Biden had the XXXXs to do it.” Its bizarre to hear Fox and others twisting themselves into pretzels trying to explain why in his 4 years in office, Trump couldn’t withdraw.
I’m confused (probably cut i haven’t been keeping up with political pieces anymore).
Without rehashing anything or having a Trump Biden discussion, are people who are happy the war is over feeling that it justifies the taliban takeover or are they just stating it as two separate pointsSyag
” are people who are happy the war is over feeling that it justifies the Taliban takeover or are they just stating it as two separate points”
The two are synonymous. It is clear at this point that The war wouldn’t end without a Taliban takeover. If 20 years and billion of dollars couldn’t prop up the Afghanistani govt it is a bit silly to think just a few more years or just a few more billions, we can still turn this around.
So the choices are:
Indefinite war
or
end the war and let the Taliban take overI think a reasonable argument can be made for both views .
However there is no ending in which the war ends without a Taliban takeover . so the answer to your question “are people who are happy the war is over feeling that it justifies the Taliban takeover” is yes, by definition.
ubiquitin,
The Taliban began a final offensive on May 1. They conquered so much territory that they were controlling major parts of the country by Mid August.
They made huge gains between July and August The Taliban took some areas from government by force. In other areas, the Afghan National Army withdrew without a shot being fired.The question is how many American’s do we lose fighting them.
Not to worry, the right wing MAGA’s with the support of the Trillion dollar Military Industrial complex will find another war to send other people’s kids into so that they can repair their self-image of how “tough” America is and be proud of how “everyone fears us”.
“Not to worry, the right wing MAGA’s with the support of the Trillion dollar Military Industrial complex will find another war to send other people’s kids into so that they can repair their self-image of how “tough” America is and be proud of how “everyone fears us”.“
Right jackk
That’s why there was no new wars under trump
But keep on thinking that right wingers are war mongerers
Gadolhadorah,
Ann coulter is not a fan of trump
That’s like bringing out mitt Romney
> Indefinite war or end the war and let the Taliban take over
Should we be honored that apparently Mr Biden himself is posting here? Maybe he is afraid that twitter would ban this as disinformation.
More reasonable choice was between (1) leaving while minimizing losses and (2) staying in small remote numbers supporting gov troops from the air. (1) did not happen as everyone understands now, (2) is open for discussion – whether Taliban would have resumed attacking US forces after US would say we are staying. Trump was seemingly trying to find a 3rd way – force all stubborn sides (Gov, warlords, Taliban) to negotiate dangling various sticks and carrots: when gov does not make peace w/ warlords, US talks to Talban… If Taliban does not negotiate, bomb them again and refuse to leave, etc. Would it have worked? nobody knows, but there was a chance. Is AFG harder than Israel-Arab agreement?
Technically, (2) was worth trying: keep US troops safely on bases, flying planes and throwing missiles. Gov would have continued fighting and it would not be worse than now.
AAQ makes a number of good points. I’m less convinced that any combination of interim steps would have been effective and only would have deferred the inevitable chaos. Trump kept talking about honoring our commitments to those who assisted U.S. troops and diplomats while essentially gutting the State Department and HHS offices responsible for processing the special visas for those Afghans. Biden obviously moved at a glacial pace to restore those capabilities while either deliberately or naively ignoring the accelerating collapse of the Afghan military and government. However, given the facts on the ground once the Taliban took control, the generals agreed that once Kabul was lost, they needed to get out asap, which is what they did with incredible success (125,000 airlifted out) withsurprisingly minimal casualties (notwithstanding the tragic deaths of 13 heroes last week). We should have left Afghanistan 10 years ago and another week, month or year would only have resulted in greater losses.
Coffee,
Who are the ones that are attacking Biden for pulling our troops out? Who is calling America weak and emboldening terrorists?
The same ones who if Trump had gotten it done would be lavishing praise on him.
AAQ
” Indefinite war or end the war and let the Taliban take over… More reasonable choice was between (1) leaving while minimizing losses and (2) staying in small remote numbers supporting gov troops from the air. ”
Not sure why you rephrased my two choices.
choice 2: “staying in small numbers” until when? either indefinite (my first choice) , or until yo u chaneg your mind to Leave and let the taliban take over (my second choice)
choice 1 “leaving while minimizing losses” is what they attempted/did
Again you can disagree with the choice made and many reasonable people do.
Btu those are the only 2 choices. your rephrasing them doesn’t change it
AAQ ,
There were 11 American deaths in 2020, 21 in 2019 and 14 in 2018. Is that called “safely” ?
ISIS and the Taliban had already successfully taking over the country. There were no other option left.
jackk, of course Republicans/right wingers would praise Trump if he did it because it’s not the pulling out of Afghanistan that’s is the problem, the problem is with the way it was done! Leaving billions of dollars of worth of equipment for these terrorists, not securing the airport enough to protect it from the blast that killed 13 US soldiers and leaving Americans behind because they couldn’t get to the airport on time.
Trump would never, ever pull out of Afghanistan in this terribly neglectful manner. In fact, I remember he didn’t have such good relationships with the army generals and now I see why. They are a bunch of incompetent, woke fools who actually forced to get some work done under Trump.
“Who are the ones that are attacking Biden for pulling our troops out? Who is calling America weak and emboldening terrorists?
The same ones who if Trump had gotten it done would be lavishing praise on him.“
Why do you think trump would do the same exact thing as Biden?
It’s like saying if Biden was president when Obama was he would have killed bin Ladin
But obviously he wouldn’t have because he was there and said don’t kill him
Even Obama was upset at the way Biden handled things
Ubi >> choice 2: “staying in small numbers” until when? either indefinite
staying in small numbers was attempted successfully from 2015 with average 12 combat deaths per year. This included having advisors embedded with Afganis, etc. Could be made even safer if we reduce missions to videos and bombs. Some people get PTSD from flying Predators but that it is all. From the time Trump started talking to Taliban in Feb 2020, there were 0 deaths, so other groups are no threat at all. There was no risk in this mission, except politically. Worst case, we will get back to conceding in 4 years. So more people would go to school there in these 4 years.
jackk> The same ones who if Trump had gotten it done would be lavishing praise on him.
We do not know at this point what Trump would have done. He was involved in a number of foreign policies and so far there are none that Biden (or Obama) handled better. Trump tried but failed to stop Nordstream-2, Biden just folded. Trump imposed sanctions on various Chinese companies, Biden rescinded just the one against TikTok and so far kept the rest. Islamic State, Abrahamic accords, Iran – in all cases Trump handled it better than B or O. So, there is no reason to think that Trump would do worse and possibly would have done better. He would negotiate, threaten – not just Taliban, but also Ghani and warlords. Would he had succeeded, we don’t know, but I think everyone would agree, at least he would have tried, instead of just looking how to blame everyone. Mayhbe we need to wait for the next Trump term to find out.
AAQ
We aren’t arguing.
Yo favor staying indefinitely, as I said a reasonable case can be made for that.
absolutely no questionGadol > while either deliberately or naively ignoring the accelerating collapse of the Afghan military and government.
I think Biden’s people who have mostly experience in the “Beltway” do not think of the real world. In their mind, they can put Afghani army in a position to fight for 6 months and expect that Army simply follow the plan in order to save US from an embarrassment of an immediate collapse, disregarding the prospect of being brutally killed after the 6 months. This leaked conversation between Biden and Ghani is a good illustration – Biden talks about world perception, and Ghani is asking for air support.
“I think Biden’s people who have mostly experience in the “Beltway” do not think of the real world.“
Of course, and the Georgia voting law proves it
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