The Many Faces of US Politics...

[J70]

Each administration over the past 25 years made mistakes to lead to this point. However, the execution of the exit falls square on this administration.

The WH keeps saying that they wanted to stick with Trumps agreement rather than going back into a 10 year more war (or something to that effect). I thought Trump agreed to a 1st May exit, we're in the middle of Aug now so there should have been ample time to get this right. Sending in 2K-3K more troops to assist in a fast exit should have been an easy decision to make if there was concerns with the 2.5K troops there.

Well let's hope Biden does the right thing by all of these people now and gets them out of there to safety and into the process for residency in the States.

The Trump wing of the country is already ratcheting up the propaganda about them coming to "your neighbourhood", but what's right is right. If there's a political cost to it, so be it.

[Gmac]

Each administration over the past 25 years made mistakes to lead to this point. However, the execution of the exit falls square on this administration.

The WH keeps saying that they wanted to stick with Trumps agreement rather than going back into a 10 year more war (or something to that effect). I thought Trump agreed to a 1st May exit, we're in the middle of Aug now so there should have been ample time to get this right. Sending in 2K-3K more troops to assist in a fast exit should have been an easy decision to make if there was concerns with the 2.5K troops there.

Well let's hope Biden does the right thing by all of these people now and gets them out of there to safety and into the process for residency in the States.

The Trump wing of the country is already ratcheting up the propaganda about them coming to "your neighbourhood", but what's right is right. If there's a political cost to it, so be it.

the 2 clowns milley and Austin just said in briefing that whoever the taliban let through is who's coming through and when they cut that drip off that's it .
Those 2 guys should have resigned or been fired by now

[Gmac]

Joe heading off home for a long weekend
10k plus us citizens are trying to get out of Afghanistan
This man is incompetent and dangerous.

[fearbrags]

I agree  Joe is useless (full of hot air)  and so was his predecessor, The Taliban played them all  like a drum ,


""In 2018, however, Washington's attitude changed and Donald Trump's Afghan envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, asked the Pakistanis to release Baradar so he could lead negotiations in Qatar, based on the belief that he would settle for a power-sharing arrangement. "I had never seen any real substantiation of that point, but it just took on a kind of mythic idea," the former official said.
Baradar signed the Doha agreement with the US in February 2020, in what the Trump administration hailed as a breakthrough towards peace but which now appears a mere staging post towards total Taliban victory.""

""The US and Taliban agreement not to fight each other was supposed to be followed by power-sharing talks between the Taliban and the Kabul government of Ashraf Ghani. Those talks stumbled along with little progress, and it is clear now that Baradar and the Taliban were playing for time, waiting for the Americans to leave and preparing a final offensive. Baradar's life has taught him patience and confidence in ultimate victory.""

[Look-Up!]

The mess Afghanistan is now in, for me, is not of Trump or Biden's doing. The people to blame under Bush administration are laughing all the way to the bank and unfortunately there will never be justice.

For all the spin and BS Biden is selling to the press at the moment, there is a lot of truth in what he says. Same as Trump recognised that they could not stay in the stale mate indefinitely, they have decided to go with the "ripping off the bandaid" option. While a phased withdrawal would make for better optics would it have led to a long drawn out civil war where civilians were going to be again the biggest losers anyway?

Time cannot be turned back 20 years but hopefully Afghanistan can find an Afghan solution for an Afghan problem. US intervention and trying to impose western style nation building was never going to work. Whatever you say about the Taliban, the previous government and police force was detested by the local population, possibly more than the Taliban were. The justice system was detested also as it was seen (justifiably) as completely corrupt. Many Afghans preferred Taliban Courts to Official ones to sort out legal disputes. The Taliban judgement was swift and cost free and based on Islamic code which people respected, even if the judgement went against them. Compare that to Official Courts where the process was slow, long drawn out, prohibitively expensive with bribery and corruption rampant. Sexual exploitation of young boys seems to have been rampant between local government and police officials too with little ordinary civilians or US soldiers could do about it.

So Taliban are back in town singing a milder hymn at present. In these sort of scenarios there will always be some amount of blood letting, doesn't matter who is in charge, you cannot control everyone and there is always someone with an old score to settle. Hopefully it will be minimal although the huge influx of military hardware the country has seen over the last 2 decades has to be a big big worry. It would be great if the country can move on and rebuild and turn into the fair, prosperous and progressive society it apparently once could have been. The Afghan people certainly deserve a break.

[armaghniac]

The intention to withdraw is one thing, the operation of it is another. Why did the US not retain Bagram air base until the end and use it to fly people out? In their deal with the Taliban they should have said that no Taliban could come with 25km (or whatever) of this base until the West left and had some semblance of a plan for flights.

[Look-Up!]

Of course that makes sense but obviously their reading of the situation was well off what the reality is. If their finger is so far off the pulse, and has been from day one, I think whatever they done was likely to be a cluster **** anyway. A long drawn out civil war doesn't seem that great an alternative. There was always going to be human collateral damage unfortunately and we'll never know what would have been the best damage limitation exercise. What shocks me is that people are shocked at the yanks throwing their allies to the wolves when it suits.
It's history repeating itself over and over again. You don't try second guess an Afghan and you get in bed with Americans at your peril.   

[Eamonnca1]

Why the place is impossible to conquer. Good little primer if you've got 16 minutes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ab9zK8yT4_Y

[Gmac]

Joe and the administration think they can wait out this disaster ?  they seem to be doing f all
The videos and pictures coming from outside the airport are a disgrace and a humanitarian disaster.
Do you still think he's fit to run the country j70 ?

[J70]

Joe and the administration think they can wait out this disaster ?  they seem to be doing f all
The videos and pictures coming from outside the airport are a disgrace and a humanitarian disaster.
Do you still think he's fit to run the country j70 ?

Given the alternative we were presented, every f**king day of the week.

We weren't given a choice of Lincoln and FDR.

It was either one of the worst presidents and one of the worst human beings to occupy the office in history, or a mediocre, moderate politician.

So no regrets whatsoever on my end. Especially as there most likely would be f**k all that much different in terms of Afghanistan if Trump and Pompeo were running things.

Didn't you say a couple of weeks ago that you were going to ignore me, BTW?

[screenexile]

Joe and the administration think they can wait out this disaster ?  they seem to be doing f all
The videos and pictures coming from outside the airport are a disgrace and a humanitarian disaster.
Do you still think he's fit to run the country j70 ?

Yeah Trump would be all bout helping the Afghan civilians and translators who assisted through the last 20 years!!

Nobody is given Biden a pass on this but what was the alternative? I see his approval has held at 50 points from 51 today so doesn't seem like buyers remorse has set in yet!

[whitey]

Joe and the administration think they can wait out this disaster ?  they seem to be doing f all
The videos and pictures coming from outside the airport are a disgrace and a humanitarian disaster.
Do you still think he's fit to run the country j70 ?

Given the alternative we were presented, every f**king day of the week.

We weren't given a choice of Lincoln and FDR.

It was either one of the worst presidents and one of the worst human beings to occupy the office in history, or a mediocre, moderate politician.

So no regrets whatsoever on my end. Especially as there most likely would be f**k all that much different in terms of Afghanistan if Trump and Pompeo were running things.

Didn't you say a couple of weeks ago that you were going to ignore me, BTW?

Don't know if it's true but there's rumblings that Joe wanted the withdrawal to be wrapped up by 9/11 so that he and Kamala could have some big photo op on the anniversary of 9/11.

Seemingly he ignored both advice and intelligence briefings that warned this might happen

Trump isn't without blames, but this outcome is 100% on Joe and Kamala

[J70]

Joe and the administration think they can wait out this disaster ?  they seem to be doing f all
The videos and pictures coming from outside the airport are a disgrace and a humanitarian disaster.
Do you still think he's fit to run the country j70 ?

Given the alternative we were presented, every f**king day of the week.

We weren't given a choice of Lincoln and FDR.

It was either one of the worst presidents and one of the worst human beings to occupy the office in history, or a mediocre, moderate politician.

So no regrets whatsoever on my end. Especially as there most likely would be f**k all that much different in terms of Afghanistan if Trump and Pompeo were running things.

Didn't you say a couple of weeks ago that you were going to ignore me, BTW?

Don't know if it's true but there's rumblings that Joe wanted the withdrawal to be wrapped up by 9/11 so that he and Kamala could have some big photo op on the anniversary of 9/11.

Seemingly he ignored both advice and intelligence briefings that warned this might happen

Trump isn't without blames, but this outcome is 100% on Joe and Kamala

Didn't say otherwise.

Hope your drains are clear BTW! We're getting washed out of it.

[Gmac]

Complete disaster in Afghanistan
Southern border another disaster
Inflation
Cutting our own energy supply
Covid still rampant
Jan 6 another cover up
Like they used to say for four years it's only 10am on Sunday impeach this clown

[J70]

Complete disaster in Afghanistan
Southern border another disaster
Inflation
Cutting our own energy supply
Covid still rampant
Jan 6 another cover up
Like they used to say for four years it's only 10am on Sunday impeach this clown

Jan 6 cover-up? Pease do tell us more you f**king clown.

More of the energy supply bullshit which I showed to be pure nonsense the other week?

Inflation? What does Biden do about the computer chips and the surge in second hand car demand? The increased demand for hotel rooms as people travel more internally? The global supply chain issues combined with increased demand driving shortages in things like furniture?

Covid ?  Are you f**king serious? The absolute gall of you; you were on here spreading moronic, half-baked misinformation a couple of weeks ago, nonsense you no doubt picked up from right media and politicians. The same kind of shite that's lengthening the pandemic.