And Biden also just deployed 1k 82nd soldiers with another 3k on the way to maintain the Afghani government. So he’s not doing what Obama did. I don’t know what the future holds, but we either leave an indefinite force in every nation we conquer, or we don’t and the power vacuum is filled by the the strongest force.

We just spent the past 15 years or so saying we’re going to pull out shortly. Trump wanted us out by last Christmas. Biden just delayed it  by 8 months.

Yes, President’s overrule generals every day. That’s how it’s supposed to work. I know the far left was giddy at the idea the Joint Chiefs would ignore Trump and refuse his withdraw order last fall. But people not bound to partisan idiocy generally agree civilian control of the military is a good thing.

Trump used a MOAB on the Taliban, the biggest bomb since Nagasaki dropped in a military conflict. I’m hoping Biden will prevent the complete collapse of the Afghan government, but as someone who worked first hand with Afghani officers (and other officers from the Middle East) I can’t say I have a very high opinion of them or their military’s capability. So how does the US prevent the Nuclear capable Pakistan’s puppets in the Taliban from gaining complete control over Afghanistan?  And what weapons are we allowed to use to accomplish this?  The Biden administration won’t stop tens of thousands of Covid positive illegals entering our county each week, so my hopes aren’t high they’ll handle Afghanistan right. But he certainly showed a willingness to protect the Afghani government by authorizing another 4k combat troops. I just don’t want to see several hundred Americans die while Democrats decide how long they’ll wait before tossing in the towel eventually.

Vale wrote:

monkeychow wrote:

I hope this single does ok though. I want this band to be successful now so we get more new music. Last thing we need is this single failing and the band going into a 20 year reboot mode.

If they were truly aiming for success they should have chosen a different song. Hard School or Perhaps. The general public and the casual concert attendees who want to hear SCOM and NR won't dig this track. The song won't get any radio airplay with these lyrics.

Don't get me wrong, I like the song and I'm glad they finally put something out, but they surely can't expect it to be the next Paradise City or Jungle...

They should call the album Not In This Lifetime, cuz this being the first single with Duff and Slash back in the band is a bigger surprise than the reunion tour itself. It's literally the most absurd thing they could have done for a release..

Agreed, they went with this song for a reason and that reason wasn’t so it could be a #1 smash hit. Who knows what the actual reason is. Monkey laid out a few good options. Maybe they just like the aggressiveness of the song when they performed it? For the first time in a long time it seems as though there’s a plan. I would expect Hard School will be unveiled later on this tour. It could just be a coincidence, but they unveiled Absurd in Boston & announced the single in NY, two major cities. In this day and age I’m not sure how much that matters when everything finds its way to the internet anyway, but maybe the plan is to debut Hard School in another large city. The LA show is in a few weeks, so that might be too soon? Chicago next month?