Today In Biden Land

[Kirkland Laing]

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/sta...93500213686274



We should have a sweepstake on when Afghanistan falls to the Taliban. American troops are supposed to be out by September 11th and I'm thinking about going either 16 or 36 days after the last troops leave, largely because I like the number six. I'm going to put some thought into it and come up with a concrete date. Using your skill and judgement come up with your own bet.

[Kirkland Laing]

There's nobody rushing to get your bets down for Afghanistan then.



https://twitter.com/normative/status...21189515485187


Keep scrolling with that one.



https://www.washingtontimes.com/news...they-cant-pro/



and finally:



https://twitter.com/bradheath/status...84481344360448

[palmerq]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58191638

The Taliban are moving pretty quick, I'll go with less than 100 days from now they will have Kabul.

[Kirkland Laing]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58191638

The Taliban are moving pretty quick, I'll go with less than 100 days from now they will have Kabul.

I have been checking around with the risk management chaps and in between them offering me detailed reports from their boots on the ground people for tens of thousands of dollars a month they told me a couple of government ministers have already resigned and fled the country and the US have given up on the Afghan government/army and are already negotiating with some northern warlords to supply them with weapons and money to fight the Taliban and at least keep them busy after they take control of almost all of the country. One city in the north, I forget the name, which didn't fall to the Taliban back pre 9/11 when the Taliban controlled ninety percent of the country has already fallen to them.

The US, UK and others are sending thousands of troops to help evacuate the thousands of people we still have there. So they think it could go totally to shit at any minute. Sixteen days after we leave might be optimistic.

[Kirkland Laing]

https://twitter.com/jameshohmann/sta...92918568546309



https://twitter.com/bensaufley/statu...95825749643271



https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/s...89742252920836



https://twitter.com/christinawilkie/...77681850638337



Of course he won't even be investigated for insider trading.

[palmerq]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58191638

The Taliban are moving pretty quick, I'll go with less than 100 days from now they will have Kabul.

I have been checking around with the risk management chaps and in between them offering me detailed reports from their boots on the ground people for tens of thousands of dollars a month they told me a couple of government ministers have already resigned and fled the country and the US have given up on the Afghan government/army and are already negotiating with some northern warlords to supply them with weapons and money to fight the Taliban and at least keep them busy after they take control of almost all of the country. One city in the north, I forget the name, which didn't fall to the Taliban back pre 9/11 when the Taliban controlled ninety percent of the country has already fallen to them.

The US, UK and others are sending thousands of troops to help evacuate the thousands of people we still have there. So they think it could go totally to shit at any minute. Sixteen days after we leave might be optimistic.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/afg...rces-1.6139450

I saw Canada where sending guys in to evacuate the embassy too :S....

The Taliban appear to be right gits but is there anything that could have been done to avoid this other than staying forever?..

I'm obviously not a millitary expert btw.

[palmerq]

https://twitter.com/jameshohmann/sta...92918568546309



https://twitter.com/bensaufley/statu...95825749643271



https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/s...89742252920836



https://twitter.com/christinawilkie/...77681850638337



Of course he won't even be investigated for insider trading.

This is pretty dodgy :S.... Makes sense though but now this git is hero in those circles because YouTube took him down for a week.. Good work posting this.

[Kirkland Laing]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58191638

The Taliban are moving pretty quick, I'll go with less than 100 days from now they will have Kabul.

I have been checking around with the risk management chaps and in between them offering me detailed reports from their boots on the ground people for tens of thousands of dollars a month they told me a couple of government ministers have already resigned and fled the country and the US have given up on the Afghan government/army and are already negotiating with some northern warlords to supply them with weapons and money to fight the Taliban and at least keep them busy after they take control of almost all of the country. One city in the north, I forget the name, which didn't fall to the Taliban back pre 9/11 when the Taliban controlled ninety percent of the country has already fallen to them.

The US, UK and others are sending thousands of troops to help evacuate the thousands of people we still have there. So they think it could go totally to shit at any minute. Sixteen days after we leave might be optimistic.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/afg...rces-1.6139450

I saw Canada where sending guys in to evacuate the embassy too :S....

The Taliban appear to be right gits but is there anything that could have been done to avoid this other than staying forever?..

I'm obviously not a millitary expert btw.

Everybody in Afghanistan is a right git. The Taliban are far nicer now than when Reagan was backing them but they're still all bad. They've been greeted as liberators in some parts of the country where the US backed Afghan security forces were even bigger gits than the Taliban were pre 9/11.

Looks bad for the US that any possible opposition to the Taliban seems to have been either captured by them or fled abroad. One of the main opposition warlords has been captured by them, this one buggered off to Uzbekistan:

https://twitter.com/rezahakbari/stat...53792269094920



This does not make America look good:

https://twitter.com/EsteveGirbes01/s...75392853778435



This is an excellent explanation of how we got here:

https://jabberwocking.com/in-hindsig...rmy-collapsed/



This is from ten years ago:

For almost two decades, U.S. military commanders have assured the public they are making progress on the cornerstone of their war strategy: to build a strong Afghan army and police force that can defend the country on their own.


“We’re on the right track now,” Marine Gen. Jim Mattis told Congress in 2010.



“The Afghan forces are better than we thought they were,” Marine Gen. John Allen told Congress in 2012. “The Afghan national security forces are winning,” Army Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson told reporters in 2014.

But in a trove of confidential government interviews obtained by The Washington Post, U.S., NATO and Afghan officials described their efforts to create an Afghan proxy force as a long-running calamity. With most speaking on the assumption that their remarks would remain private, they depicted the Afghan security forces as incompetent, unmotivated, poorly trained, corrupt and riddled with deserters and infiltrators.



In one interview, Thomas Johnson, a Navy official who served as a counterinsurgency adviser in Kandahar province, said Afghans viewed the police as predatory bandits, calling them “the most hated institution” in Afghanistan. An unnamed Norwegian official told interviewers that he estimated 30 percent of Afghan police recruits deserted with their government-issued weapons so they could “set up their own private checkpoints” and extort payments from travelers.




Ryan Crocker, a former U.S. ambassador to Kabul, told government interviewers that the Afghan police were ineffective “not because they’re out-gunned or out-manned. It’s because they are useless as a security force and they’re useless as a security force because they are corrupt down to the patrol level.”
Victor Glaviano, who worked with the Afghan army as a U.S. combat adviser from 2007 to 2008, called the soldiers “stealing fools” who habitually looted equipment supplied by the Pentagon. He complained to government interviewers that Afghan troops had “beautiful rifles, but didn’t know how to use them,” and were undisciplined fighters, wasting ammunition because they “wanted to fire constantly.”

Since 2002, the United States has allocated more than $83 billion in security assistance to Afghanistan, a sum that dwarfs the defense budgets of other developing nations. In 2011, at the peak of the war, Afghanistan received $11 billion in security aid from Washington — $3 billion more than what neighboring Pakistan, which has a stockpile of nuclear weapons and a far bigger army, spent that year on its military.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graph...l-topic-chain1



That's eleven billion in a country with an eighteen billion GDP and most of that is American money. There's no way on earth that Afghanistan could sustain that army even if it actually functioned correctly.


The GOP are going to spend years investigating this even though this was Trump's plan and he would have done this even faster. This is going to be Benghazi on steroids when they get control of the committees and subpoena power.

[Kirkland Laing]

https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/stat...26543338594306

[Kirkland Laing]

https://twitter.com/DaybookJobs/stat...82241659416581



https://twitter.com/GlennKesslerWP/s...05358057447430



https://twitter.com/samthielman/stat...66637259481090

[Kirkland Laing]

[walrus]

Ha ha ha. It’s Trump the evil orange mans fault. He made this plan. Ha ha. But the border didn’t trump have a plan with that? Ha ha ha ha. Biden needs to go to Afghanistan and throw out paper towel and bullets. China is living every minute of this and is waiting to be amongst the first to recognize the Islamic empire of Afghanistan and scoop up some minerals. Hiding in the bunker got Joe elected but it’s not working well for his presidency. Oh well we are only immortal for a limited time. Glad I spent some time In Afghanistan got a nice sun tan, every fucking day. Why leave during fighting season? This is when shit gets whacky. You think guns are weird in America spend a little time in Afghanistan, everybody is packing full auto.


I think bitcoins like 47 or something but we are really watching that ethereum. Just the gwei sucks but what’s perfect anyway.

[Kirkland Laing]

Ha ha ha. It’s Trump the evil orange mans fault. He made this plan. Ha ha. But the border didn’t trump have a plan with that? Ha ha ha ha. Biden needs to go to Afghanistan and throw out paper towel and bullets. China is living every minute of this and is waiting to be amongst the first to recognize the Islamic empire of Afghanistan and scoop up some minerals. Hiding in the bunker got Joe elected but it’s not working well for his presidency. Oh well we are only immortal for a limited time. Glad I spent some time In Afghanistan got a nice sun tan, every fucking day. Why leave during fighting season? This is when shit gets whacky. You think guns are weird in America spend a little time in Afghanistan, everybody is packing full auto.


I think bitcoins like 47 or something but we are really watching that ethereum. Just the gwei sucks but what’s perfect anyway.

https://www.saddoboxing.com/boxingfo...87#post1545187



https://www.saddoboxing.com/boxingfo...65#post1545365



https://www.saddoboxing.com/boxingfo...19#post1545419



https://twitter.com/theNuzzy/status/1427051039404957697



https://twitter.com/travisakers/stat...08000498225153



https://twitter.com/thomasjoscelyn/s...13881558118401



https://twitter.com/thomasjoscelyn/s...01891162058752



https://twitter.com/ChrisMurphyCT/st...08053301596165



https://twitter.com/daveweigel/statu...18983379640323



https://twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/sta...22834644267009



https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status...72508921917440

[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.

[Beanz]