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James
 Rep: 664 

Re: Taliban control of Afghanistan on the 20th Anniversary of 9/11

James wrote:

Yeah that is wacky.  It's a huge risk and could cause an escalation....such as the mission going tits up and needing our regular forces backing them up.

It could also lead to other scenarios.... mercenaries acting as death squads. Hell...it may come to that....but I'd rather that type of action come from the top and not some unsanctioned group.

misterID
 Rep: 475 

Re: Taliban control of Afghanistan on the 20th Anniversary of 9/11

misterID wrote:
Axl S wrote:

To clarify what I've been saying: Trump tee'd it up, Biden took the ball ran and ran with it.

At the end of the day whilst mistakes clearly made prior to Biden, he had ample opportunity to reverse course. He chose not to and then executed it poorly. I've said that all along and not sure why some of you are trying to say I haven't. It feels like 20%/80% blame share to me for the Trump/Biden admins respectively. And that's as far as US blame goes. As for other NATO allies they do seem like thumb twiddlers on all this until shit hit the fan.

It's not both sidesing this. It's looking at the history of this withdrawal from deal through to execution and seeing the points where it went wrong.

The only excuse Biden sort of has is that to renege on the deal means a proactive decision to re-engage. Something that he seems to have seen as untenable. After that though, it's on him to handle it and it's been handled very poorly.

Yeah, and I'm pretty sure he thinks if we get out, people will forget about it in a few months. I don't think that's going to work, though.

James
 Rep: 664 

Re: Taliban control of Afghanistan on the 20th Anniversary of 9/11

James wrote:

People probably will forget about it....the news cycle is constantly moving.

The problem is that during election season, this shit will play on a loop.

I also doubt it's the last time we witness his incompetence.

Like with Trump, his bullshit is going to build into an avalanche even with the media going above and beyond the call of duty to protect him.

Axl S
 Rep: 112 

Re: Taliban control of Afghanistan on the 20th Anniversary of 9/11

Axl S wrote:

People will forge it as a topic. But the feeling, "vibe", reputational damage will stick.

Or it could be like Clinton and Benghazi. Come election time opponents just keep going "Kabul! Kabul! Kabul!"

I think this all sticks no matter what.

The post mortem coverage of all this is going to playback badly in two weeks time. And then again the following year. And the year after that. And so on.

misterID
 Rep: 475 

Re: Taliban control of Afghanistan on the 20th Anniversary of 9/11

misterID wrote:

There are going to be a lot of hearings. And we may not have seen the worst yet.

Randall Flagg
 Rep: 139 

Re: Taliban control of Afghanistan on the 20th Anniversary of 9/11

misterID wrote:

There are going to be a lot of hearings. And we may not have seen the worst yet.


Definitely, after the two impeachment hearings the House put a show on the past 2 years, Biden is definitely going to be impeached when the GOP gets the House next year.  Except they'll have plenty of military officers as witnesses and not a chow thief whose now making the rounds on CNN.

Smoking Guns
 Rep: 330 

Re: Taliban control of Afghanistan on the 20th Anniversary of 9/11

Smoking Guns wrote:
Randall Flagg wrote:
misterID wrote:

BREAKING @ABC — US special operations vets carried out daring mission to save Afghan allies — 500 smuggled into Kabul Airport on Weds night in complex, heart-pounding op by Americans determined not to leave comrades behind
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-spec … d=79670236

I don't know how I feel about this.  Rogue Black Ops isn't something I think I can get behind.  I understand their passion and desire to do something the current Administration is incapable of doing, but non-active military operating without SecDef approval sets a very, very bad precedent.

This Pineapple Express operation will be a movie in not time. 500 people, badass!!

Smoking Guns
 Rep: 330 

Re: Taliban control of Afghanistan on the 20th Anniversary of 9/11

Smoking Guns wrote:
Randall Flagg wrote:
misterID wrote:

There are going to be a lot of hearings. And we may not have seen the worst yet.


Definitely, after the two impeachment hearings the House put a show on the past 2 years, Biden is definitely going to be impeached when the GOP gets the House next year.  Except they'll have plenty of military officers as witnesses and not a chow thief whose now making the rounds on CNN.

What impeachable offense took place? We need to stop weaponizing impeachment. Better to let Biden and his admin be fully exposed.

Axl S, I am not trying to be pro Trump here, but even Biden says the reason there were no attacks for so long was Trump’s deal. Trump’s blame pretty much stops at “he made a deal to get out”. A deal that in principle most other people were fine with at the time. The vibe of America and our Military is different with Biden over Trump. Do you think we would have needed the Pineapple Express if Trump was president? The answer is no.

Smoking Guns
 Rep: 330 

Re: Taliban control of Afghanistan on the 20th Anniversary of 9/11

Smoking Guns wrote:

https://www.foxnews.com/media/pompeo-bi … withdrawal


MIKE POMPEO: We were clear with the Taliban that we had this understanding--but you were going to live up to it. And we had a conditions-based withdrawal plan and we executed that. We were down from about 15,000 to a little over 2,500. And for the last 13 months of our administration, we didn't have a single American attacked or a single American killed.

It wasn't because of the piece of paper, that was the set of understandings. It was because the Taliban understood that if they acted against Americans and took on actions that were inconsistent with what they had promised to do, we'd respond and we did. We did it multiple times. When they pushed on us and the Trump administration, we responded with American power and American might, and we made clear to the Taliban that deterrence was going to be maintained. The difference was when the Biden administration came in, when the Taliban pushed, they withdrew. They showed weakness. The Taliban rolled it up. They put our military in an incredibly difficult position because they weren't prepared to defend the conditions and then decided to withdraw when the conditions weren't right.

President Trump wanted to get all of our folks out. No one disputes that the right thing to do was to get these folks home. But we never found the conditions right to execute what President Biden chose to do. President Trump wanted everyone out from January of 2017. We never found the conditions right to be able to do that. So we withdrew from 15,000 to about 8,600 then to about 4,500, each time along the way thoughtfully making sure that we understood that we had deterrence maintained, that we had an order that we could protect Americans. And we did so every single day

misterID
 Rep: 475 

Re: Taliban control of Afghanistan on the 20th Anniversary of 9/11

misterID wrote:


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