Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kirkland Laing
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Spicoli
Biggest stretch of reality we can attempt to make is that any of the last 5 U.S administrations have clean hands in this. It's a giant shat sammich everybody grab a napkin. This was going to be ugly and nasty with back to back pull out "plans" made into campaign slogans but given a literal end date. In a way it's the closest Trump and Biden have ever been on anything but we're trying to put lipstick on pigs and make them our favored security blankets. The execution and order of exit was shameful and needs to be investigated. Lost me at midnight abandonment of Afghan forces and Bagram airbase like we were fleeing a rent collecting landlord. And so was knee-capping the Afghan leadership and agreeing that the Taliban will 'fight the terrorist's ??? and freeing thousands of them. I'm of the unpopular opinion that our small maintained quick reaction and air based presence kept the lid on the jar and was the burden we (they) excepted once we entered and cleared the hornets nest in the first place and agreed to provide the full rent. Politicians knew that and they just kicked the can down the road.
There are up to ten thousand Americans still in Afghanistan. The situation over there could easily go to shit at any time. I wonder what we'll discover in years to come about this, exactly what bribes or assurances we've given the Taliban to let us get our people out. The Taliban aren't going to let the west extract all their people and then turn on them full scale with sanctions, international isolation and so on. They have the west by the balls at the minute and will surely have extracted cast iron guarantees over various issues.
Even if they have and you would have to think they have thinks can still go wrong at any minute. But if we were going to leave this kind of situation was inevitable. I wonder if any agreements were worked up in advance.
When you look at this:
https://twitter.com/tomgara/status/1426938737523630090
it makes you wonder. But then you have Biden making all those claims on camera just a few weeks ago that the whole thing wouldn't end up like the fall of Saigon and so on. So maybe the whole thing is just an epic clusterfuck with huge amounts of blame for everybody involved.
These posts all make excellent points/are very informative:
https://twitter.com/JustinTLogan/sta...90580679745537
keep scrolling
https://twitter.com/Ibishblog/status...87884238843905
https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/sta...79074092183553
https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/sta...26213325377540
keep scrolling
https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/stat...86393291481088
https://twitter.com/jbarro/status/1427660668937900040
https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/sta...84020430729222
https://www.slowboring.com/p/afghan-war
Beginning to look like some intelligence waving red flags may very well have been disregarded and for me I just cannot get my head around abandoning Bagram in July so haphazardly in the middle of the night. It's like it was backwards. That along with prior "deals" made by Individual #1 sent the clear as day signal that 'hey fellas, you're on your on'. On one hand we
knew we were leaving. It was advertised and foolishly pre dated. It's a fact Biden is doing exactly what he said he was going to do. But ffs there should have been flights outta other airbases July to Aug to get ahead of what we're seeing now. This Taliban offensive started on the timeline Trump agreed to be fully withdrawn, May 1st. They didn't retake the first province until Aug. 6th. We had to see that and know it was an inevitable push to Kabul and that window was glaring with the clock ticking. I think the 800 lb gorilla in the room is that after forces were cut in half to 2.5k
last year...and contractors pulled and key base abandoned...for
any stabilized and fluid withdrawal of allied assets and the ones clamoring now to get out to happen it would have been totally necessary to surge U.S troops and be prepared to hold and defend any and all attacks from Taliban mounting an offensive. Aka right back to square one. If the Administration thinks they're getting an ear full now just imagine how that announcement of further combat would have gone over with an American public that was 65 percent in favor of "bringing our boys home" a very long time ago. I think we need to be completely honest about what's happening and as much as it sucks to say and own up, the writing was on the wall for us to make uncomfortable and even morally wrong decisions while getting out. The same people ranting 'he let the Taliban take over' are party line fools. That was the wink and nod all along. "let them fight for themselves" etc. Any talk that this was going to be clean and we'd ride home on golden unicorns was just delusional, and Biden put his foot in his mouth and was no better than his predecessor in his contradictory messaging and apparent lack of planning. Much is going to come out as investigations go forward.