black321 wrote:
So it's a Catch-22.  You either warn everyone and create a panic while you're still there....or you keep it relatively low-key and risk some folks not getting the message.  The Afghans asked us to keep it low-key.

I supporting getting folks out, and going town to town with large military forces to do so if necessary...but hopefully we're not going out to find profiteers and mercenaries who stayed too long trying to grab an extra few dollars in the chaos.

It's a mess...but it was always going to be messy.

 islander wrote:
Chris Miller actually said something like this the other day. Said something about it being a “play” by Trump. If true, not sure what it was meant to, or did, accomplish.

 rgio wrote:

I don't know exactly why, or how so many appear to be "left behind," but the troop departure shouldn't have been a surprise.
Still, and at the very least, Biden exasperated this whole mess, and made it worse than it had to be.
It appears the Afghans weren't willing to fight, and now the Taliban, a group the U.S. had a large hand in bringing to power, have control.

But at least from a PR perspective, the Biden admin should have been promoting the end is near, leave now or else...

Timeline:
https://www.factcheck.org/2021...

Hey Joe !  Since you cannot come up with a way to get out the 15,000 Americans trapped behind Taliban lines, here's a solution for ya !

Hire the Mexican Drug Cartels to go over there and get them out.  They seem to specialize in that kind of thing.  They'll get them out and muy rapido.

The downside of that for you might mean fewer migrants coming through our southern border ...

Otherwise, we have a little hostage situation taking shape.  Going by how much Obama paid Iran in cash for the 5 hostages, about  $1.5 Trillion ought to do it.

 rgio wrote:

To be fair, it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that Trump would change his mind along the way, or that he was 'just joking' when he set the original date.

 kurtster wrote:
The blood of ordinary Afghanis is on you kurtster.  The blood of US and allied soldiers is on you kurtster.   Trump's wishful thinking agreement with the Taliban is on you kurtster.

Man up.  

 kurtster wrote:

He's 3+ months after Trump wanted the withdrawal.   When would you like to finish what Trump started....give me a date when we can leave having given Americans enough time (beyond the 16 months they've had) to get the hell out.

 rgio wrote: 
I see. 

So you're giving Biden a pass on this and all those Americans still there are dumb fucks who should'a left long ago and to hell with them.

Got it.

 kurtster wrote:
September 2018 - 15,000 US troops in Afghanistan

February 2020 - Trump signs agreement with Taliban, committing to leave in 14 months.

November 2020 - Trump orders the reduction of forces by January 15 down to 2,500, and issues a statement saying "his hope the incoming Biden administration would have all US troops "come home safely, and in their entirety" by their previously agreed 1 May 2021, deadline.

After Trump lost, he ordered troop levels down to 2,500 and reiterated the commitment to be out "as he agreed" by May.  It's August.  Any Americans stuck in-country have had ample time, based on the telegraphed plans of Trump.  The Trump administration sat on interpreter and local guide immigration paperwork for years. This is exactly what he wanted... make it nearly impossible for Biden (and the US) to leave without a crisis.   Your boy poured the gasoline and lit the match, and you want to blame the fire department that the house burned down.

History will prove Trump destroyed US relations for decades to come, but if you're lucky you'll be able to strike that from the history books as some sort of woke demonization of white leadership.

 rgio wrote: 
Yes, the WH admitted yesterday that there are 15,000 Americans still in Afghanistan and that they are scattered across the "country" (if you can call it that) ...

Trump did have an agreement in place that was contingency based, not absolute as been misrepresented repeatedly.  Trump said this morning what is a big duh ... you get the civilians out before the military.  The military is the last out, not the first out.

Over the weekend, Leon Panetta said that this debacle is as bad or worse than The Bay Of Pigs, saying that the difference here though, is that Kennedy owned up to it.  Biden owns this but blames Trump.  Biden has reversed nearly every Trump policy or died trying.  Why not this one ?  Biden hasn't even said that our military will stay until the last American is safely brought out, and nothing that even resembles that.  In other words, American citizens in Afghanistan, good luck, you're on your own.  Biden is taking the Taliban at their word that Americans will be given safe passage out of the country.  Ah, c'mon man ...

Yeah, Biden, foreign policy genius whom former CIA director and Defense Secretary Gates once said was on the wrong side of everything in foreign policy.  And he was voted into office despite his record being well known and out in the open.

Taiwan will be toast before the 2022 election ...

Oh, and nobody has yet to call this what it is ... a coup.  A successful coup.

 black321 wrote:

but what about the clicks for cliques?
ration and reason are great when used properly
it's a big part in how we make better decisions
most people are busy a/f and don't have the time to weigh in on everything
much less get good information to make a good decision
lots of doo doo to wade through
and extremists spouting dogma aren't helping either
replacing an old bad idea with a new bad idea isn't progress
even if it is an adamantly assumed party-line diktat
is their lunacy is a cry for attention?

 R_P wrote:
QED.

The USA could have waited and seen if the then current leadership would hand over Osama Bin Laden.  The USA did not wait.  I believe the USA and Israel were deathly afraid of giving Osama Bin Laden a public platform in a court of law.

The USA could have militarily struck targets in Afghanistan from a distance.  It could have imposed sanctions.  Sanctions may not have been effective but then they would have cost the USA less.  And sanctions certainly would have hurt ordinary Afghanis a lot less than a bloody military invasion and occupation. The USA could have sent out assassination squads to pick off Al Quaeda leadership.   But then the USA would have to do better than unilingual American recruits....  

Western nations never did manage to infiltrate the Taliban did they?  Perhaps that is a subtle message that top-down profound regime- and cultural change is not a given? 

Or the USA could have ended military and diplomatic support for the Israeli nation building program and nipped future similar problems in the bud.

Are violent conflicts about resources or are they about us versus them 'stuff'?   Or are 'us versus them' narratives simply spun to support resource grabs and demonize the enemy to make their civilians easier to kill?

 westslope wrote:
80-90% supported an invasion of Afghanistan...

 R_P wrote:
LOL!  Sometimes.  

Frankly, lots of reasonable centrist people do support questionable policies.  

The War on Terror.   Over the top use of economic sanctions.   Obesity-sitting-dementia policies.   Massive subsidies for the ecologically punishing agricultural sector.  Canadians pay people to overfish, and good numbers of workers to NOT work, year-in, year-out. "Balanced budgets".   The employment mandate of the US Federal Reserve.  Blank cheque support for the Israeli anti-Semitic ethnic-cleansing nation-building project.   Heavy-handed, thuggish industrial policy.  The startling absence of single-payer, basic universal health care in the USA. 

Mind you not everybody agrees on what constitutes 'questionable policies'.  

Clearly, I find many of Biden's policies to be 'questionable'.  

 oldviolin wrote:

idioms are running the asylum...

 rgio wrote:

Irony alert

 westslope wrote:
I used to feel that way, but competence has no chance against tribalism.  People have apparently lost the ability to reason.  I don't get it.

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote:
I do.

 westslope wrote:
The mythical (reasonable, moderate) middle!

Pick a salient issue and the self-identified reasonable ones can go from zero to wingnut in under five seconds...

 black321 wrote:
Median voters and normal, quiet, stable folks do not make headlines and sell copies/eyeballs.