Today In Biden Land

[Kirkland Laing]

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

[walrus]

Oh will Biden face his Suez Canal moment? Probably not but damn they givin Joe the finger
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.new...620051%3famp=1

[TIC]

here come the incubator type stories to pull the emotions. most likely to justify doubling tripling taxpayer dollars going to afghanistan

[Kirkland Laing]

Oh will Biden face his Suez Canal moment? Probably not but damn they givin Joe the finger
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.new...620051%3famp=1

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-47786324

April 2019



https://www.reuters.com/article/us-t...-idUSKCN25605V

August 2019

[Kirkland Laing]

https://twitter.com/JustinTLogan/sta...51586181013507

[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.

[Kirkland Laing]

Save the Children said Wednesday that it was “extremely concerned” about the possibility that children in the drought-stricken country would face a severe hunger crisis as aid organizations suspended work after the Taliban assumed control.


“Even before the Taliban advancement, Afghanistan had the second-highest number of people facing emergency hunger levels in the world. Half of all children under five were expected to suffer from acute malnutrition this year and require specialized treatment to survive,” the group said in a statement.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...270_story.html

And that's while we're there after having been there for twenty years pumping billions of dollars a year into the economy. This is clearly a spectacularly disfunctional country. Us being there creates at least as many problems as it solves eh.

Relatedly, these three twitter posts:

https://twitter.com/jbarro/status/1428471515645890574

If you're just relentlessly bombing these fuckers it's unlikely to gain you any support.



This is the most likely reason the Taliban are playing nice:

https://twitter.com/aahmady/status/1427883009164955649

Keep scrolling. Bottom line is they've got no money. If they can't attract some level of western aid then they're fucked and after their attempts at governing before 9/11 they're well aware of this. If they thought they'd be better off taking thousands of hostages and ransoming them off then they'd do it in a second.

Media coverage of the whole thing in America:



https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status...63331916599315



https://twitter.com/_waleedshahid/st...67357924696065



https://twitter.com/russciandra1/sta...67027224588292



The bomb threat guy today:



https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1428435915811209218



https://twitter.com/stevesilberman/s...54130683502593



related:



https://twitter.com/RexChapman/statu...49634158010369



https://twitter.com/BGrueskin/status...75463184572416


Fox News:



https://twitter.com/bad_takes/status...40702386147333



https://twitter.com/TristanSnell/sta...39300764086278

[Kirkland Laing]

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.

They definitely didn't plan to have thousands of potential American hostages all over Afghanistan at the mercy of the Taliban while they only controlled about half an airport. The whole thing is a gigantic fuckup no doubt about it. Lots of blame to go around here. The various factions, military, intelligence, White House, will be leaking their versions of events to the press over the coming days and weeks and it'll take a while to sift through it and work out exactly who did what and why. You would wonder why they wouldn't leave Bagram last of all. It surely is the most obvious place to keep hold of until the last minute. Even just for the runways. The Taliban can shut down the runways at Kabul airport in minutes with a few mortar rounds.

[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.

They definitely didn't plan to have thousands of potential American hostages all over Afghanistan at the mercy of the Taliban while they only controlled about half an airport. The whole thing is a gigantic fuckup no doubt about it. Lots of blame to go around here. The various factions, military, intelligence, White House, will be leaking their versions of events to the press over the coming days and weeks and it'll take a while to sift through it and work out exactly who did what and why. You would wonder why they wouldn't leave Bagram last of all. It surely is the most obvious place to keep hold of until the last minute. Even just for the runways. The Taliban can shut down the runways at Kabul airport in minutes with a few mortar rounds.

Has been proven many times, we here have nooooo problem getting ourselves neck deep in 'it'. It's the exit where we tend to fark it all up. There were legitimate wrongs that needed to be righted post 9-11 and scalps to be targeted. But then we went all Nation building and culture carving in another land we knew feck all about and the added Bush-Rumsfeld side-quest of distraction called Iraq. We had no business there and created a giant recruiting poster to perpetuate it all forward. We owe much more to our allies..we have a bad habit of screwing them over .. and on a closer note the countless number of vets now sitting there numb asking and all for what. Seen this movie before.

[Kirkland Laing]

Has been proven many times, we here have nooooo problem getting ourselves neck deep in 'it'. It's the exit where we tend to fark it all up. There were legitimate wrongs that needed to be righted post 9-11 and scalps to be targeted. But then we went all Nation building and culture carving in another land we knew feck all about and the added Bush-Rumsfeld side-quest of distraction called Iraq. We had no business there and created a giant recruiting poster to perpetuate it all forward. We owe much more to our allies..we have a bad habit of screwing them over .. and on a closer note the countless number of vets now sitting there numb asking and all for what. Seen this movie before.

I just bumped into this:


WASHINGTON—An internal State Department memo last month warned top agency officials of the potential collapse of Kabul soon after the U.S.’s Aug. 31 troop withdrawal deadline in Afghanistan, according to a U.S. official and a person familiar with the document.
The classified cable represents the clearest evidence yet that the administration had been warned by its own officials on the ground that the Taliban’s advance was imminent and Afghanistan’s military may be unable to stop it.
The cable, sent via the State Department’s confidential dissent channel, warned of rapid territorial gains by the Taliban and the subsequent collapse of Afghan security forces, and offered recommendations on ways to mitigate the crisis and speed up an evacuation, the two people said.


https://www.wsj.com/articles/confide...se-11629406993


Lots more articles like this to come. Every player here is going to get their own version of events out and make themselves look as good as possible. I'm sure this State Department cable was sent. It may have been buried in a bunch of State Department cables that said things are uncertain and we have no idea how they'll play out and others saying things are fine and the Afghan army should be able to hold up for years. Any investigations will just devolve into political bunfights unfortunately.

The bottom line is that there's no way they would have let themselves get into this situation if they knew for certain it was going to happen. They thought the Afghan army would hold the fort at least until they all got out and when the government eventually fell it'd be months down the line and nobody in America would give a shit by then. Ha.

As far as screwing your allies over I think twenty years and trillions of dollars not to mention thousands of American lives given for a country that ultimately gave up without a fight isn't screwing them over. Maybe allies should know that there are limits on just what they can expect and be expected to produce something in return or it's just an abusive relationship.

We'll only be able to get a handle on it when the dust settles but there are endless aspects to this that are full of interest and import. The geopolitics of it, the military goals and whether they were militarily achievable and so on and so on.

As for the veterans, fuck. I went to a funeral in Sunderland ten or so years ago. You know how you look at a row of gravestones and you check the ages, he had a good innings, she did well and so on. I'm working my way along a row. Late seventies, eighties, eighties and so on until I get to eighteen. Eighteen! Killed in Afghanistan. Some mother's son who could have been me dead in the ground while still a baby and for fucking nothing. It was obvious back in the late aughts I think this was that there was zero fucking point to us being there. That one really stuck with me. If anything comes out of this it would be good if we didn't rush into military adventures in the future if they're not necessary and if the military isn't a solution to the problem and if we do have to use the military maybe look after the poor fuckers who have to fight in it if they make it out alive. Of course neither of these things are ever going to happen are they.

[Kirkland Laing]

https://www.axios.com/taliban-war-ch...alibanwarchest

Look at all this. These fuckers armed with all this shit gave up overnight to a bunch of cunts in pickup trucks armed with AKs.

[palmerq]

This is the most likely reason the Taliban are playing nice:

https://twitter.com/aahmady/status/1427883009164955649

This is a pretty good thread, good posting...

So what will China do here? Surely they will be concerned about the Taliban inciting stuff in west China maybe? And the Chinese do like their belt and road iniative but if the Taliban reportedly bugger all money so surely the Chinese can't loan em that much, but they also have a lot invested in the famously calm Pakistan and if the Taliban start rabble rousing there maybe the Chinese will pay/help them to behave?.. This can't be good for China though, which of course would be good for America.

Also in continuation of the mindless ramblings @Kirkland Laing there is a Canadian election coming up and the economy is of course the big talking point, now you know about this stuff is there any reputable economist gits(bit like krugman) who write about the Canadian economy that you know of? I'm as clueless about these matters as usual.

[X]

here come the incubator type stories to pull the emotions. most likely to justify doubling tripling taxpayer dollars going to afghanistan

​Manny Pacquiaio doesn’t exist

[TitoFan]

All I know is Trump fans are having a field day with what's going on in Afghanistan. Not that they need much encouragement to throw rocks at Biden.

The truth of the matter in a nutshell is that the U.S. has fukked up in Afghanistan since Day One. Biden's horribly planned (or lack thereof) retreat has had a terrible human cost... and more is yet to come.

The basic difference between a few years ago and now is that some of us can criticize Biden when it's merited, without holding back.

A few years ago... the incumbent walked on water and could do nothing wrong.

[Kirkland Laing]

This is the most likely reason the Taliban are playing nice:

https://twitter.com/aahmady/status/1427883009164955649

This is a pretty good thread, good posting...

So what will China do here? Surely they will be concerned about the Taliban inciting stuff in west China maybe? And the Chinese do like their belt and road iniative but if the Taliban reportedly bugger all money so surely the Chinese can't loan em that much, but they also have a lot invested in the famously calm Pakistan and if the Taliban start rabble rousing there maybe the Chinese will pay/help them to behave?.. This can't be good for China though, which of course would be good for America.

Also in continuation of the mindless ramblings @Kirkland Laing there is a Canadian election coming up and the economy is of course the big talking point, now you know about this stuff is there any reputable economist gits(bit like krugman) who write about the Canadian economy that you know of? I'm as clueless about these matters as usual.

China don't give a shit about authoritarian regimes and will happily deal with the Taliban. Lots of lithium and other minerals in Afghanistan, China will want first dibs on all of it. The Taliban are basically a creature of the Pakistan intelligence service, they're not going to do anything to upset Pakistan, China or anybody else. They'll be looking to make commercial deals with both of them and gain at least two allies. The last thing they want to do is upset either of them.


Canadian politics don't really matter as you have nice moderate parties and nice moderate policies. The liberals get in for a while and shift things a little to the left then the conservatives get in and shift things a little to the right and they just basically take turns at running the country. No drama and good results.

You fuckers dodged a bullet by not being a big enough market for Rupert Murdoch to turn up and fuck your politics up. Out of the English speaking countries you, Ireland and New Zealand got lucky. Australia, Britain and especially the United States got the poison. You did have Conrad Black but he's nothing compared to what Murdoch does to your politics.