(08-19-2021, 01:38 PM)Matt_Crimson Wrote: But that's my point. In my opinion our concern shouldn't have even been about what happens once we leave.
Our concern should have been getting everyone out safely.
If Afghanistan falls, yes, you're right that's on them. But you cannot let Afghanistan fall AND botch the exit. That's a double negative.
I understand, but there is no evidence there is a way to not botch the exit...but that's the way life goes. History has neither testability nor repeatability. I will say if the GOP starts focusing on foreign policy and our involvement in nation building then maybe this has an impact on us.
Maybe the actual Biden exit will be an issue, or maybe it'll just be filed under "Biden blew the exit because he's a senile idiot liberal wimp...no wonder he needed millions of fake votes from Hugo Chavez to win!"
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(08-19-2021, 01:45 PM)Nately120 Wrote: I understand, but there is no evidence there is a way to not botch the exit...but that's the way life goes. History has neither testability nor repeatability. I will say if the GOP starts focusing on foreign policy and our involvement in nation building then maybe this has an impact on us.
Maybe the actual Biden exit will be an issue, or maybe it'll just be filed under "Biden blew the exit because he's a senile idiot liberal wimp...no wonder he needed millions of fake votes from Hugo Chavez to win!"
I'd say that depends on what one considers a botched exit.
What if we had attempted to evacuate all of the people we're trying to evacuate now from the beginning instead of getting our troops out of there first and then going "Oh shit, we need to go back and save those guys". I wouldn't consider that a botched exit assuming we actually had the necessary set up for such evacuations..... namely having boots on the ground.
What if while we had control, we had checkpoints instead of the Taliban?
What if we still had control of our weapons until we got everyone out instead of the Taliban?
Now we don't have control, we're rushing back to save people, and the Taliban is apparently escorting people we should have been escorting from the beginning.
In other words, a non botched exit seems like it would have been much more likely had we simply kept control until we got everyone out.
(08-19-2021, 09:25 PM)Matt_Crimson Wrote: I'd say that depends on what one considers a botched exit.
What if we had attempted to evacuate all of the people we're trying to evacuate now from the beginning instead of getting our troops out of there first and then going "Oh shit, we need to go back and save those guys". I wouldn't consider that a botched exit assuming we actually had the necessary set up for such evacuations..... namely having boots on the ground.
What if while we had control, we had checkpoints instead of the Taliban?
What if we still had control of our weapons until we got everyone out instead of the Taliban?
Now we don't have control, we're rushing back to save people, and the Taliban is apparently escorting people we should have been escorting from the beginning.
In other words, a non botched exit seems like it would have been much more likely had we simply kept control until we got everyone out.
Good point, but what if we had done that some time in the past 20 years?
(08-19-2021, 09:25 PM)Matt_Crimson Wrote: I'd say that depends on what one considers a botched exit.
What if we had attempted to evacuate all of the people we're trying to evacuate now from the beginning instead of getting our troops out of there first and then going "Oh shit, we need to go back and save those guys". I wouldn't consider that a botched exit assuming we actually had the necessary set up for such evacuations..... namely having boots on the ground.
What if while we had control, we had checkpoints instead of the Taliban?
What if we still had control of our weapons until we got everyone out instead of the Taliban?
Now we don't have control, we're rushing back to save people, and the Taliban is apparently escorting people we should have been escorting from the beginning.
In other words, a non botched exit seems like it would have been much more likely had we simply kept control until we got everyone out.
I think that the thing that prevented a mass evacuation of that scale was the need to sell what we've done over there for 2 decades as even remotely sustainable without occupation. A plan like that basically admits that the government and military you've invested lives and treasure building for a really long time has zero chance of staying upright at any hint of an absence of US support. I'm not even talking about selling it to American voters. That means nothing. I'm talking about having to admit to Afghans you've been pumping full of western ideals for 20 years that everything we tried to build was for naught and if you don't get in that airplane, the Taliban is going to kill/torture you and your family in short order.
Control the guns? So we are supposed to take the only chance our trained Afghan govt had vs the Taliban when they inevitably took the country back? Support a regime for as long as we did and then just take their means of defense on the way out? I doubt that helps.
Any gradual withdrawal just gives the Taliban time to plan. They already read the tea leaves and made short work of any resistance (read none) in a matter of hours. That's been cooked into the books ever since they became negotiating partners and were released from captivity.
Honestly, I think the only good optic was to stay there more or less forever. We broke it, we bought it. An American backed government never had a chance without American military might backing it. Keep it under realtive control, provide a way to montior terrorist activity, and forget any high minded ideas about them running it without us. Fear rules in those kinds of places. For 20 years, they had the US military to fear. With that threat removed, now they fear the Taliban. It's probably not something the average Afghan had to think about for very long before deciding who was in charge.
(08-19-2021, 12:27 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Straight out of the Bill Ayers playbook, equate your political opponents with terrorists who are committing vile atrocities.
Lol feels like I’m being interviewed by Sean hannity.
I certainly made an analogy, but not based on “atrocities.”
Can you refute my analogy by explaining which (actual) points
of it do not hold? E.g, would you say my “political opponents” don’t feel their way of life threatened by “globalist” forces driving social change, challenging their values? Religion is not central to their identity?
Interestingly enough, leaving Afghanistan might be the only thing that Trump and Biden agreed on. Trump made the agreement with the Taliban for us to leave. Biden followed through with Trumps agreement. He didn't have to: the Taliban had already broken many terms of the agreement. Then again, if Trump would have been really serious about having us leave, he could have made it happen at any time during the prior four years.
I will give Trump credit for this much, however: His agreement with the Taliban is probably what will make it possible for thousands of Afghanis to leave in the next couple of weeks. But bear in mind that the Taliban is not a "top-down" centralized authority type organization. Rather, they are completely the opposite. They are a loose collection of small groups. What that means is, one group may negotiate with the U.S. and sincerely promise not to attack Afghanis who wish to leave, while on the other side of the country another group may decide that public stoning is on the entertainment menu for tonight.
As far as the weapons, those are weapons the Afghanis purchased from us. That's the funny thing about arms deals: once you sell them to someone else, you never know where they might end up, eh.
(08-17-2021, 09:13 PM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: I went to Afghanistan. I can’t help but think some of the kids I saw on the street back then are now taliban dudes. If I was a kid and saw some foreign fighters coming through my village tearing up the place like I did with a battalion of Marines when I was deployed I would most definitely be all about fighting the intruders.
Screw that hell hole and screw the cowards who we trained and equipped for 20 years who lay down quicker than a tired baby. Bunch of the softest batch cowards I’ve ever seen.
I was pretty proud one of the things we did over there was help secure elections when women were voting for the first time.
All for naught. I’m not sure how these dudes can grow up in such a harsh constant conflict environment and be so weak. I guess I’m just an asshole. But I’m done with it. Stop wasting our lives time and money for people who are perfectly capable yet will not fight for themselves.
Desert mountains and mud huts. Eat a bag of smashed assholes Afghanistan
I wish you would never had been there bro'. My Rep comment will explain why I said that.
(08-20-2021, 03:13 AM)Bengalzona Wrote: ...one group may negotiate with the U.S. and sincerely promise not to attack Afghanis who wish to leave, while on the other side of the country another group may decide that public stoning is on the entertainment menu for tonight.
(08-20-2021, 03:13 AM)Bengalzona Wrote: Interestingly enough, leaving Afghanistan might be the only thing that Trump and Biden agreed on. Trump made the agreement with the Taliban for us to leave. Biden followed through with Trumps agreement. He didn't have to: the Taliban had already broken many terms of the agreement. Then again, if Trump would have been really serious about having us leave, he could have made it happen at any time during the prior four years.
I will give Trump credit for this much, however: His agreement with the Taliban is probably what will make it possible for thousands of Afghanis to leave in the next couple of weeks. But bear in mind that the Taliban is not a "top-down" centralized authority type organization. Rather, they are completely the opposite. They are a loose collection of small groups. What that means is, one group may negotiate with the U.S. and sincerely promise not to attack Afghanis who wish to leave, while on the other side of the country another group may decide that public stoning is on the entertainment menu for tonight.
As far as the weapons, those are weapons the Afghanis purchased from us. That's the funny thing about arms deals: once you sell them to someone else, you never know where they might end up, eh.
Trump deserves credit for prison reform as well, among other things that get buried behind his mean tweets and the media hysteria over Trump. It's sad too, because if he could've refrained from calling people names on twitter every day more people might care about some of the good things he actually did do. Its his own fault, smh
(08-18-2021, 08:38 PM)michaelsean Wrote: My point, and it was not meant to be partisan,it was somewhat tongue in cheek but somewhat not, is that it is extremely difficult to occupy a well-armed populace. Russia also failed. And nobody said they would meet them on the battlefield.
Fair with tongue in cheek, of course the US wouldn’t “occupy” its own territory.
(08-18-2021, 06:32 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: He wasn't comparing the Taliban to US gun owners as people, he was pointing out that armed insurgents with no airforce, navy or tanks, coupled with minimal support weaponry resisted the US military for twenty years. This rather puts the lie to the claims of many that US citizens armed only with small arms would stand no chance against a US military that has F-15's and nukes. So, it's nothing close to the same type of comparison as there is no ideology being compared, just facts about armed resistance to a modern, even the most modern, military.
I doubt it. Regardless "Trumpism" is not a religion. There's a reason why the de-Nazification went so much smoother than anticipated. Because the Nazi leaders were only men, claiming no divine guidance. Discrediting a human being is a far more simple task than discrediting "god", no matter how persuasive that human is/was or how many followers they had at one point. Or how absurd the "god" in question is, for that matter.
I’m mostly giving you some lighthearted razzing cause I agree with you that there’s no comparison w radical Christians in the US, but lumping them with “patriots” hmmmm
(08-18-2021, 08:38 PM)michaelsean Wrote: My point, and it was not meant to be partisan,it was somewhat tongue in cheek but somewhat not, is that it is extremely difficult to occupy a well-armed populace. Russia also failed. And nobody said they would meet them on the battlefield.
But "The man who killed Bin Laden"* says it is easy. Just let him and a few other folks shoot absolutely everyone in their way.
"I don't want to be in charge, but if I was ... give me 9 guys, I'm gonna walk through the streets [in Afghanistan] and I'm gonna kill everyone I see, and I'm gonna grab the Americans. It is not difficult" -- Rob O'Neill
(08-20-2021, 12:35 AM)Dill Wrote: Lol feels like I’m being interviewed by Sean hannity.
I certainly made an analogy, but not based on “atrocities.”
Can you refute my analogy by explaining which (actual) points
of it do not hold? E.g, would you say my “political opponents” don’t feel their way of life threatened by “globalist” forces driving social change, challenging their values? Religion is not central to their identity?
You're the one who's comfortable with comparing people to Nazis and the Taliban, not me. Oddly, at the same time you chafe at discussions regarding Islam as it is practiced in much of the world and how it enables radical Islam. It's an interesting incongruity to be sure.
(Note, as you need to be constantly reminded of this, this does not mean all, or even most, followers of Islam are bad or condone radical Islam.)
(08-21-2021, 05:06 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: You're the one who's comfortable with comparing people to Nazis and the Taliban, not me. Oddly, at the same time you chafe at discussions regarding Islam as it is practiced in much of the world and how it enables radical Islam. It's an interesting incongruity to be sure.
(Note, as you need to be constantly reminded of this, this does not mean all, or even most, followers of Islam are bad or condone radical Islam.)
Lol “Islam as it is practiced in much of the world” but not by “all,or even most, followers.”
So you are going to continue Spinning off accusations,
but you are not going to refute the analogy I made?
(08-22-2021, 10:25 AM)Dill Wrote: Lol “Islam as it is practiced in much of the world” but not by “all,or even most, followers.”
Yeah, it's quite simple. Name me a majority Muslim country in which women and homosexuals are treated even close to equal to men. Once twenty second has elapsed then name the same types of countries in which that is not the case. Compare the size of each list and get back to me.
Quote:So you are going to continue Spinning off accusations,
You have routinely stated you have zero issue with comparing people to Nazis, now you've expanded to comparing Americans to the Taliban. This is not an accusation, it is a fact.
Quote:but you are not going to refute the analogy I made?
Your analogy refutes itself, as do your Nazi comparisons. It doesn't matter if some people share some facets of another ideology. When making a comparison to extreme groups such as Islamic terrorists or Nazis you are engaging in hyperbole, unless those groups you are comparing have engaged in anything close to the same types of behavior, e.g. rounding up homosexuals and "undesired" ethnicities and engaging in violence against them.
I've repeatedly stated that such comparisons are hyperbolic, and intentionally so. You engage in them to paint people you dislike as analogous to some of the worst groups of people in human history. I know you're doing it, you know you're doing and everyone else knows your doing it. I'd expect it from some freshly "enlightened" college sophomore, not a 70+ year old man.
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