Afghanistan

[CJD]

I think the war in Afghanistan was a lose-lose from the very beginning. The options were essentially perpetual occupation or a return to Taliban rule. It would have been nice if the Afghani army that Americans trained (at a rather large expense) was able to maintain power over the area, but that obviously didn't occur.

I don't believe America should be the World Police, so I understand why we wanted to get out of Afghanistan, but I can't help but feel like there had to be some way to help the Afghani people maintain control even after we left.

Of course, posing this as a Trump vs Biden thing is silly, as they both wanted to leave Afghanistan as soon as possible and since we already know what Trump did to the Kurds in Syria, I have no doubt he would have been just as bad as, if not worse than, Biden in Afghanistan as well.

[*Nately120*]

(08-16-2021, 12:09 PM)Arturo Bandini Wrote: Dude who took control of the Kabul capitol  yesterday was freed with those 5000 people. They all went straight to taliban army.

Shades of Reagan's arms deals, but meh....as long as you can convince people you're the only game in town as far as "defending the country" goes you can get things over on your fanbase.

And that goes for liberals who thought Obama was some sort of peace-loving hippie.  Marketing rules us all.

[Truck_1_0_1_]

(08-16-2021, 12:10 PM)Arturo Bandini Wrote: Doha 02/29/2020

Thanks for the info.

I've seen this crop up from some people on Twitter, but since I'm not heavily-invested into American politics, I didn't know if it was legitimate or not

[*Nately120*]

(08-16-2021, 12:11 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: Of course, posing this as a Trump vs Biden thing is silly, as they both wanted to leave Afghanistan as soon as possible and since we already know what Trump did to the Kurds in Syria, I have no doubt he would have been just as bad as, if not worse than, Biden in Afghanistan as well.

Right, the war stuff is old hat and has become very "by the way."  As much as the OP wants to make this a "Biden blew it, shoulda voted Trump" thing it simply isn't.  The GOP moved on from the warhawk stuff which is why Bush, Dick and Liz Cheney, and John McCain had all become unwelcome and unpopular with the new Trump party.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

I have several friends who served in Afghanistan and to a person none of them are surprised at how fast the Afghan "army" collapsed. Not one of them had a single nice thing to say about our "allies" in that country and, in fact, had a lot of bad. Ill disciplined, venal, corrupt, then you add the really heinous things like the chai boys who were extremely prevalent. A very unfortunate side effect of overthrowing the Taliban was the re-emergence of using young boys for sex, a practice that was totally outlawed under the Taliban. Consequently, the US was/is seen as condoning the practice to many Afghanies.

As for the collapse, it happened on Biden's watch and, if we're being honest, Biden totally flubbed the lead up with his 100% guarantee that what just happened would not happen. It may not be fair, and I agree that all administrations, the W one especially, share in this failure. But at the end of the day the POTUS gets credit for things they had nothing to do with and condemnation for the same if "X" event happens under their watch. This will be no different.

[KillerGoose]

It’s unfortunate, but like others have mentioned this is a failure on several administrations. It was a war doomed to fail, much like the War on Drugs. Someone else mentioned it, but when Trump said he was bringing back the troops, I supported it. We would be over there for eternity if we don’t bring them back. You simply can’t defeat an ideology like this.

Bush bombed the shit out of them.

Obama bombed the shit out of them.

Trump bombed the shit out of them.

Biden, I’m sure has dropped some bombs as well.

Not a single administration made things better over there. We have been wasting money and lives in that country. Pull them out. I would’ve applauded Trump on pulling them out and I’ll applaud Biden for doing it.

[CJD]

(08-16-2021, 12:40 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: As for the collapse, it happened on Biden's watch and, if we're being honest, Biden totally flubbed the lead up with his 100% guarantee that what just happened would not happen.  It may not be fair, and I agree that all administrations, the W one especially, share in this failure.  But at the end of the day the POTUS gets credit for things they had nothing to do with and condemnation for the same if "X" event happens under their watch.  This will be no different.

Unfortunate side effect of being such a partisan/politically divided country. You want to claim all the good things for your side and deflect all the bad things for your side and vice versa. I don't know if it was always like this or how we got this way, but God I hope the next generation isn't so viscerally divided.

[Goalpost]

Went from withdraw to evacuate. That's where the issue was. Sloppy. Sounds like the French and Great Britain are doing the same thing. Taliban wants to rename the country. Open up trade with Pakistan? Hints that China could get involved rebuilding infrastructure.

[Dill]

Tapping this out on a phone.

For years politicians and military have resisted or opposed “nation-building” in A-Stan. Can’t work. Remember Vietnam Tho willing to set up and defend a “government” army and police force. Couldn’t negotiate with “terrorists” for 15 years.

Still, Looks like the A-Stan fiasco will be chalked up to “nation-building”
So we won’t do that “again.”

Watching Faulkner Harris. Gold star families r enraged at Biden. “Both sides” did it. “Experts” were all wrong.

[*Nately120*]

(08-16-2021, 12:54 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: Unfortunate side effect of being such a partisan/politically divided country. You want to claim all the good things for your side and deflect all the bad things for your side and vice versa. I don't know if it was always like this or how we got this way, but God I hope the next generation isn't so viscerally divided.

I wouldn't bet on it...but I don't think this is all that new either.  I'm pretty sure the media and the notion that the younger generation was fully of overly liberal wimps was blamed for the USA failing to secure a quick and easy victory in Vietnam, too.  Plus everyone then was a deep state secret commie and "sentiment against the war" was the single greatest threat to the country itself, and so on and so forth.

Plus, Nixon was no more for de-Vietnamization than McGovern, but LBJ and democrats had been so bootstrapped to Vietnam that we needed to retreat back to a republican who couldn't beat JFK in order to get out of the war successfully, because you couldn't trust another democrat to do it.  That seemed like pure party nonsense over actually facts, too.

Technology has changed the way we get the spin and sow the seeds of discontent and mistrust, but people is still people in the end.

[CKwi88]

(08-16-2021, 01:01 PM)Dill Wrote: Tapping this out on a phone.

For years politicians and military have resisted or opposed “nation-building” in A-Stan. Can’t work. Remember Vietnam Tho willing to set up and defend a “government” army and police force. Couldn’t negotiate with “terrorists” for 15 years.

Still, Looks like the A-Stan fiasco will be chalked up to “nation-building”
So we won’t do that “again.”

Watching Faulkner Harris. Gold star families r enraged at Biden. “Both sides” did it.  “Experts” were all wrong.

All Gold Star families, and frankly anyone who served over the past 20 years deserve to be enraged. But that rage needs to be directed at our government's philosophies and actions as a whole. It's one thing to hear media talking heads talking about how the past 20+ years of war have been a waste of time, money and resources. This fiasco of a withdrawal is a tacit admission by our government and military that all that money was spent for nothing, all the time apart was for nothing, and all those lives lost were for nothing. There was no good outcome here, for anyone. But as long as we were there these people could hold on to the belief that sustainable good was being done. Now it's all come crashing down and there is little doubt that it was all in vain. 

[*Nately120*]

(08-16-2021, 01:18 PM)CKwi88 Wrote: All Gold Star families, and frankly anyone who served over the past 20 years deserve to be enraged. But that rage needs to be directed at our government's philosophies and actions as a whole. It's one thing to hear media talking heads talking about how the past 20+ years of war have been a waste of time, money and resources. This fiasco of a withdrawal is a tacit admission by our government and military that all that money was spent for nothing, all the time apart was for nothing, and all those lives lost were for nothing. There was no good outcome here, for anyone. But as long as we were there these people could hold on to the belief that sustainable good was being done. Now it's all come crashing down and there is little doubt that it was all in vain. 

That's the blowback when war is being marketed to people like it is some sort of sporting event.  We're gonna go in there and win because we are right and god is with us and we're the best and the most powerful and so on and so forth.  Politicians and pundits make bank and win the day by convincing people stuff like this is simple and right and black and white and there is nothing to it.

[Dill]

(08-16-2021, 01:18 PM)CKwi88 Wrote: All Gold Star families, and frankly anyone who served over the past 20 years deserve to be enraged. But that rage needs to be directed at our government's philosophies and actions as a whole. It's one thing to hear media talking heads talking about how the past 20+ years of war have been a waste of time, money and resources. This fiasco of a withdrawal is a tacit admission by our government and military that all that money was spent for nothing, all the time apart was for nothing, and all those lives lost were for nothing. There was no good outcome here, for anyone. But as long as we were there these people could hold on to the belief that sustainable good was being done. Now it's all come crashing down and there is little doubt that it was all in vain. 

Well, the US did take out al Al Qaeda and prevent continued attacks on the U S. So I dont see a total waste as compared to Iraq.

It was clear from the get go that the US could not create a modern nation there (as iraq already was). But there were better options in 2004 than turning the country back over to the warlords whose rule created the taliban in the first place. Then we let them do it again

[Vas Deferens]

Our money would have been better spent on education in the region, but that wouldn't have profited our military industrial complex. Religious fanaticism all over, no matter the flavor of bullshit a stupid antiquated hat is hung, stunts our collective progress for the benefit of a few.

We're all to blame to some extent, some much more than others. Seems like there are a lot of people who were all for these wars who are now complaining about the inevitable outcome in an effort to cleanse themselves. Same halfwits that yelled at Sikhs tending a gas station 20 years ago bemoan the future of the 'poor afghans' today. The only stain on my conscience are my tax dollars contributing to such nefarious means. Hopefully dollars previously allocated to the war machine can be redirected to the hundreds of poor hungry kids I see in my neighborhood everyday.

[Au165]

People do realize roughly 25% of the country was under Taliban rule in April and another 25% was at war and being fought over right? So essentially even with us there 50% of the country was unstable, which is why I continue to say no matter how we withdrew it always ended this way. The corruption within the military and lack of any sort of nationalism(very tribal country) leads to a lack of desire to fight those who wanted it more (Taliban).

Trump brokered a deal in 2018 to free the now President under the new Taliban rule in an attempt to build relations with what we always knew was the inevitable return to Taliban rule.

[BengalHawk62]

This from and editorial in todays Wall Street Journal.

"Our [WSJ] goal all along has been to offer constructive advice to avoid this outcome. We criticized Donald Trump’s deal with the Taliban and warned about the risks of his urge to withdraw in a rush, and we did the same for Mr. Biden. The President’s advisers offered an alternative, as did the Afghanistan Study Group. Mr. Biden, as always too assured of his own foreign-policy acumen, refused to listen."

This is what you get when a senile egotist is running the country with a coterie of anti-conservative hard-liners. Who - BTW - hate the military.

Granted, Trump was also an egotist. But he was most definitely NOT senile. And he definitely did not have a coterie of incompetents steering him.

Militarily, you have retreats, tactical retreats, pull-outs, and routs. This here is straight out of Monty Python: "RUN AWAY!!!!!"

Disgusting. I hope Biden voters are proud of their accomplishment.



Stolen from a friend of a friend.

[*Nately120*]

How does this make biden senile? We've been promised a left wing surrender and cut and run since 2004.

[KillerGoose]

(08-16-2021, 04:50 PM)Nately120 Wrote: How does this make biden senile? We've been promised a left wing surrender and cut and run since 2004.

Because there are people who don’t support him and will use anything they can to try to prove why he’s bad.

[Arturo Bandini]

(08-16-2021, 04:50 PM)Nately120 Wrote: How does this make biden senile?  We've been promised a left wing surrender and cut and run since 2004.

He actually didn't look senile during his press conference.

I've seen worse ones.

[*jason*]

(08-16-2021, 12:11 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: I think the war in Afghanistan was a lose-lose from the very beginning. The options were essentially perpetual occupation or a return to Taliban rule. It would have been nice if the Afghani army that Americans trained (at a rather large expense) was able to maintain power over the area, but that obviously didn't occur.

I don't believe America should be the World Police, so I understand why we wanted to get out of Afghanistan, but I can't help but feel like there had to be some way to help the Afghani people maintain control even after we left.

Of course, posing this as a Trump vs Biden thing is silly, as they both wanted to leave Afghanistan as soon as possible and since we already know what Trump did to the Kurds in Syria, I have no doubt he would have been just as bad as, if not worse than, Biden in Afghanistan as well.

There are no Afghani people that's why they couldn't maintain whatever we were trying to do. It's a nation with made up phoney borders that consists of multiple ethic groups and tribes that don't exactly like each other. That's not uncommon in that neck of the woods either.