Taliban Taking Over Afghanistan - Does anyone care?

[05_never_again]

He did come out firing with the initial question, but notice how Tapper let him speak for about 2 minutes uninterrupted after asking the question.

They never would afford someone they didn't like that chance, especially when the first thing out of Blinken's mouth wasn't the whole truth (i.e., the reason we were over there was purely to get al-Qaeda/bin Laden).

 

[Septic]

The Role of Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan in the Breakdown of the USSR

https://faculty.washington.edu/aseem/afganwar.pdf

Afghanistan: Soviet Withdrawal Hastened Collapse Of Communism

Nice history, but anecdotal.

What does that have to do with what I asked? e.g. what the Russians thought of the hasty exit?

 

[AirVol]

Biden threw out that deal remember.

No, they have a selective memory.

 

[hog88]

relevance?

I wonder if the Russian's ripped their government for getting the f*** out of that cesspool as jovially as the American's are?

They ripped their country apart, that's pretty ****ing relevant to your dumbass post.

 

[Ashevolle]

Biden threw out that deal remember.

And then essentially followed through with it in practice. Sounds like both presidents planned to do the same thing. This withdrawal is for the best imo. We have 20 years of blame to go around. Rip off the bandaid and move on, I say. Every future dollar and life spent there is a waste.

 

[DancingOutlaw]

So she's getting roasted by rando's on twitter for suggesting people to get vaccinated during the worst part of a global pandemic.

Gotcha.

Yes, clearly that's not something an elected leader would want to address. I see that now.

Sometimes I think folks are so hell bent on dunking that they lose any modicum of rational perspective.

IMAGINE what Twitter would be like if this was happening on Trump's watch and all Pence did that weekend was tweet about checking the batteries in your smoke alarm. Orange man raciss, orange man hates our allies and wants them to die, orange man ruined our global standing, etc.

 

[Velo Vol]

Which would you prefer from a president:

(1) A disastrous withdrawal in year one of his administration

(2) A competent kicking of the can down the road for another four years

 

[hog88]

And then essentially followed through with it in practice. Sounds like both presidents planned to do the same thing. This withdrawal is for the best imo. We have 20 years of blame to go around. Rip off the bandaid and move on, I say. Every future dollar and life spent there is a waste.

I haven't seen anyone here criticize Biden for getting out, I 100% applaud that decision. It's the execution that deserves condemnation.

 

[NorthDallas40]

So she's getting roasted by rando's on twitter for suggesting people to get vaccinated during the worst part of a global pandemic.

Gotcha.

Yes, clearly that's not something an elected leader would want to address. I see that now.

Sometimes I think folks are so hell bent on dunking that they lose any modicum of rational perspective.

This can easily be rectified. All you need to do is post a reply stating how every one is just pearl clutching. Fixed.

 

[tnmarktx]

Which would you prefer from a president:

(1) A disastrous withdrawal in year one of his administration

(2) A competent kicking of the can down the road for another four years

None of the above.

 

[hog88]

Which would you prefer from a president:

(1) A disastrous withdrawal in year one of his administration

(2) A competent kicking of the can down the road for another four years

Are you saying a well planned and executed withdrawal wasn't an option?

 

[BreatheUT]

We only had a few thousand troops there and I don't believe any of them had been killed this year.

It's questionable at best to leave any troops there but I think we clearly needed to maintain an intel presence somehow.

I agree with all who say "no more nation building" especially with US resources. We should get more out of anything than we put in which could draw criticism.

 

[05_never_again]

Are you saying a well planned and executed withdrawal wasn't an option?

As long as we were leaving with no viable government in place, the images we've seen over the last few days out of Kabul would be the end result.

 

[Septic]

They ripped their country apart, that's pretty ****ing relevant to your dumbass post.

So they ripped their country apart for leaving Afghanistan to hastily and ineptly?

Or the government collapsed because of a system that was unsustainable, broke and that the only thing they had faith in was the military. Which got it's ass handed to it.

Many analysts now believe that the Afghan war hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union by undermining Soviet citizens' faith in one of the cornerstones of Soviet patriotism: the army. They point out that leaders in Moscow had for decades appealed to Soviet citizens to make economic sacrifices for the army, whose victories in World War Two gave it a tremendous mystique. The Afghan campaign weakened that mystique and with it the appeal of the Communist regime overall.

I don't think anyone would doubt that Russia isn't "back" and that the reasons you tout as government collapsing aren't completely irrelevant to the current butt hurt you and the others' are pretending to exhibit over the poor, poor afghans.

So thanks for your input, now maybe you could read your own post and apply a little critical thought, it'd serve you well before calling someone else a dumbass.

 

[DancingOutlaw]

Which would you prefer from a president:

(1) A disastrous withdrawal in year one of his administration

(2) A competent kicking of the can down the road for another four years

This withdrawal didn't have to be a disaster. We should have had a plan to evacuate friendly Afghans and had that rolling for quite some time. And really we should have been monitoring how the ANA responded when we left a sector. Did the Taliban immediately attack, did they wait, did the ANA resist or roll over without a fight? Because it sounds like the ANA has fallen like dominoes as soon as our primary forces left. That should have been an immediate red flag that the pullout is going to be a shitshow and everyone who needs to leave goes well ahead of time. I would have been fine delaying this a few months if it meant we could avoid what we're seeing in videos now. What's another few months after 20 years of this.

 

[tnmarktx]

As long as we were leaving with no viable government in place, the images we've seen over the last few days out of Kabul would be the end result.

This shows a failure of the top military brass and the intelligence community over the past 2 decades. These people should be fired immediately. They're more concerned with the politics in this country to be concerned with actually doing their job.

 

[hog88]

As long as we were leaving with no viable government in place, the images we've seen over the last few days out of Kabul would be the end result.

I absolutely agree that country was going to fall, the administration, the military and the intelligence community should have known this was the eventual outcome and that it would be weeks and not months.

 

[Septic]

IMAGINE what Twitter would be like if this was happening on Trump's watch and all Pence did that weekend was tweet about checking the batteries in your smoke alarm. Orange man raciss, orange man hates our allies and wants them to die, orange man ruined our global standing, etc.

Frankly, I care a lot more about the fact that my county's health system is nearing capacity than I do that the Afghans are realizing that they have to figure out how to deal with their own problems.

 

[VolnJC]

 

[BreatheUT]

The Role of Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan in the Breakdown of the USSR

https://faculty.washington.edu/aseem/afganwar.pdf

Afghanistan: Soviet Withdrawal Hastened Collapse Of Communism

Notice decades later the Soviets are still looked at as failures. What will be this administrations legacy on this topic decades later? I think we know the answer. It will attached to all those who voted for him. They can share stories with their grandchildren about how it was Trump's fault they voted for Biden. If he hadn't sent mean tweets.

 

[hog88]

So they ripped their country apart for leaving Afghanistan to hastily and ineptly?

Or the government collapsed because of a system that was unsustainable, broke and that the only thing they had faith in was the military. Which got it's ass handed to it.



I don't think anyone would doubt that Russia isn't "back" and that the reasons you tout as government collapsing aren't completely irrelevant to the current butt hurt you and the others' are pretending to exhibit over the poor, poor afghans.

So thanks for your input, now maybe you could read your own post and apply a little critical thought, it'd serve you well before calling someone else a dumbass.

I never said Afghanistan was the sole reason the USSR collapsed but to your original dumbass post, yes the Russians ripped the hell out of their government over Afghanistan.

 

[05_never_again]

This shows a failure of the top military brass and the intelligence community over the past 2 decades. These people should be fired immediately. They're more concerned with the politics in this country to be concerned with actually doing their job.

"Failure" is also a matter of perspective. This is a massive failure from the perspective of ordinary citizens like us and folks whose job it was to actually rebuild the institutions of the country and help institute a Western-style democracy. It isn't a failure from the perspective of government bureaucrats and the military-industrial complex though, who are the decision-makers and set policy.

It's a failure only from the perspective of people whose job it was to implement the plan. Those who came up with the plan? That's a different story.

 

[Caculator]

"What a dope.
Back on July 21, anti-Trumper Gen. Mark Milley was touting the Afghanistan government’s ability to prevent a Taliban takeover of the country.

Less than four weeks later the Taliban is in complete control of the country.
Milley never saw it coming. He was more focused on white rage and diversity exercises."

 

[05_never_again]

I absolutely agree that country was going to fall, the administration, the military and the intelligence community should have known this was the eventual outcome and that it would be weeks and not months.

Yeah, I guess if there is something that actually caught them off guard, it was simply the pace of the collapse. They knew that the Afghan government was completely non-viable and would disintegrate quickly, but they figured they could keep the Taliban out of Kabul for a couple more days while we left. I suppose that was a genuine miscalculation, but none of the other things that seem like failures about this were miscalculations. They knew the piss poor shape it was in.

It's like coaching a football team, and you know that you're going to lose by 50 points, but you're down 75-0 at the end of the first quarter.

 

[Tyler Durden]

Which would you prefer from a president:

(1) A disastrous withdrawal in year one of his administration

(2) A competent kicking of the can down the road for another four years

Only hindsight will tell on this one.

If terror attacks start happening again and the leaders are safe in Afghanistan then this was absolutely the wrong move.

I think the best we can hope for is Afghanistan simply being a repressive country who's ideology is confined to its borders. I would think the last thing they want to do after taking back their country is to do something that would bring us right back. Only time will tell.