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Post by MojoJojo on Aug 16, 2021 20:59:57 GMT
Not to rely too much on levity but, I'm gonna miss this thread now that it's run its course.
Demo's foreign policy topic related threads are mainstays for me on LNF and now this one must die.
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demos
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Post by demos on Aug 16, 2021 21:01:20 GMT
^ We still have Iran.
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Post by demos on Aug 16, 2021 21:12:16 GMT
Please be kidding with this. Are you so naive to believe that if Trump was responsible for the Afghanistan fiasco, you and the other leftists would be working hard to make sure the blame is shared? I know exactly how I would respond. And if you actually read this thread, you'd know exactly how I would too as I've been quite clear from the beginning of this thread in 2020 that the generals were undermining the withdrawal efforts. You're so partisan that you seem to think everyone is like you. Back on the old forum, I supported Trump's efforts to talk with the Taliban and negotiate with them. It was the right call. His surge was a mistake, and I opposed that. Being protected? He's being blasted by everyone, including the very people who have been involved in the terrible decisions which ultimately led to this, which is rich. Pretty sure I saw Karl Rove being interview on Fox today. Might as well bring Bush on too while we're at it. Trump was quite clear about what he wanted to do and was in the process of doing - reducing troop levels to 2,500. It's also clear that military leaders opposed the withdrawal and tried to put the brakes on it under Trump and then Biden. |
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Post by atreyu on Aug 16, 2021 21:22:40 GMT
You're really gonna post a Wikipedia article in response to actual reports of fighting in October - December (while conveniently ignoring the rest of the post)? Here's another one about a Taliban offensive in November 2020: The Taliban is on the offensive. There has been a cyclical nature to fighting in Afghanistan over the years, but right now, you're just denying what's right in front of you, because you have some desperate need to blame Biden I guess. Biden IS to blame for the poor handling of the withdrawal. Are you denying this incompetence by the Biden team?
I agree Biden is poorly handling the refugees at this point, it's early and he does have time to rectify the situation. We should be taking on many that want or need to come to the U.S. I'm sure that's not the answer you wanted.
It wouldn't be near this dire if Trump hadn't fucked it up even worse.
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Post by atreyu on Aug 16, 2021 21:26:50 GMT
Not to rely too much on levity but, I'm gonna miss this thread now that it's run its course. Demo's foreign policy topic related threads are mainstays for me on LNF and now this one must die.
Demo's knows his shit about this stuff. I really enjoy it. Especially when it's contrasted against Paleoncon who wouldn't know Afghanistan from his asshole.
Fiddler while not contributing a whole lot also clearly understands the situation when talking about Afghanistan being tribal. They don't have a sense of ownership to the country as an entity. There's a rich and deep history going on that Paleocon can't begin to grasp.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 16, 2021 22:23:13 GMT
Biden IS to blame for the poor handling of the withdrawal. Are you denying this incompetence by the Biden team?
I agree Biden is poorly handling the refugees at this point, it's early and he does have time to rectify the situation. We should be taking on many that want or need to come to the U.S. I'm sure that's not the answer you wanted.
It wouldn't be near this dire if Trump hadn't fucked it up even worse. What fiction. You can't help it but to try to blame Trump now when his efforts were lauded when he was actually drawing down the troop levels during his term. All of us supported the withdrawal from Afghanistan, yet now after Biden screwed up the exit so badly, you turn on Trump who actually did everything right.
Biden messed up. THAT is the old fool's legacy....making Jimmy Carter great again, by comparison.
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Post by atreyu on Aug 16, 2021 22:47:22 GMT
I agree Biden is poorly handling the refugees at this point, it's early and he does have time to rectify the situation. We should be taking on many that want or need to come to the U.S. I'm sure that's not the answer you wanted.
It wouldn't be near this dire if Trump hadn't fucked it up even worse. What fiction. You can't help it but to try to blame Trump now when his efforts were lauded when he was actually drawing down the troop levels during his term. All of us supported the withdrawal from Afghanistan, yet now after Biden screwed up the exit so badly, you turn on Trump who actually did everything right.
Biden messed up. THAT is the old fool's legacy....making Jimmy Carter great again, by comparison.
I'm blaming both. You've went so cross eyed you can't even see it.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 16, 2021 23:16:30 GMT
What fiction. You can't help it but to try to blame Trump now when his efforts were lauded when he was actually drawing down the troop levels during his term. All of us supported the withdrawal from Afghanistan, yet now after Biden screwed up the exit so badly, you turn on Trump who actually did everything right.
Biden messed up. THAT is the old fool's legacy....making Jimmy Carter great again, by comparison.
I'm blaming both. You've went so cross eyed you can't even see it. You're half right, then. Trump did what a leader does; Biden didn't. |
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Post by atreyu on Aug 16, 2021 23:22:28 GMT
I'm blaming both. You've went so cross eyed you can't even see it. You're half right, then. Trump did what a leader does; Biden didn't.
Sure, and I'll take that in mind in proportion to your credibility.
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Post by jasmine on Aug 16, 2021 23:34:25 GMT
Just say NO to taking in any refugees. If we're going to make a break from Afghanistan, make it a clean break.
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Post by demos on Aug 17, 2021 14:04:11 GMT
SourceSee, no one who was responsible for the last 20 years is being held accountable. This guy gets to wax on about his sadness. The other responsible parties are all over tv, newspapers and social media pointing fingers while accepting no blame for their role in this tragedy.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 17, 2021 14:19:36 GMT
It's interesting that nobody is pointing out that Biden's "failure" here is that he listened to his experts.
You know. The people who've spent the last 5 years waging a Pyrrhic scorched earth campaign on the American people in the name of "trusting" the experts.
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Post by demos on Aug 17, 2021 14:24:03 GMT
It's interesting that nobody is pointing out that Biden's "failure" here is that he listened to his experts. Which ones? The military has been pushing Biden to stay in Afghanistan and have been trying to stop the withdrawal. Same as they were doing under Trump. The cynic in me says they were hoping for this outcome so they could convince the President to stay. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 17, 2021 14:32:31 GMT
It's interesting that nobody is pointing out that Biden's "failure" here is that he listened to his experts. Which ones? The military has been pushing Biden to stay in Afghanistan and have been trying to stop the withdrawal. Same as they were doing under Trump. The cynic in me says they were hoping for this outcome so they could convince the President to stay.
Welcome to the world I live in then demos. As your cynical observation is one I made to someone yesterday but didn't want to muddy the waters here.
But on that note, which members of "the military" were publicly slowwalking and shelving Biden's requests for an exit plan? Didn't see anything about his SecDef shelving drawdown plans in the news 6 months ago this time. Perhaps because ... using the same logic as your cynical observation ... a backdoor exploit for populists needed to be closed and the only real disagreement was in how it should be done?
And I'll celebrate when we're actually out and the hubbub of "expert" opinions in the media dies down. There's no way Biden can walk this back. But a Harris might find it politically expedient to go back in after the "experts" have sufficiently softened up the American left about Afghani women.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 17, 2021 14:33:51 GMT
Is now a good time to point out, we're not getting out of Syria?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 17, 2021 14:36:25 GMT
All I know is my son is in the military.
I am completely uninterested in sending him to fight and possibly die for the rights of a little girl in Afghanistan when her own father won't do it himself.
The dirty little secret nobody will acknowledge is even the most liberal, westernized Afghani muslim is a big fan of throwing gay people off buildings and caning wives who misbehave.
Vypr nails this entire debacle.
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Post by demos on Aug 17, 2021 14:39:23 GMT
But on that note, which members of "the military" were publicly slowwalking and shelving Biden's requests for an exit plan? Milley is the most prominent one. He was explicitly arguing against it - both under Trump, then Biden. There are a couple different articles in this thread several pages back that have his comments. Others weren't named specifically - just referred to on background. Not sure about Austin. His public comments were in support of the withdrawal. But there seems to have been a gulf between the civilian leadership and the military leadership, even going back to last year when Esper eventually got the boot and Trump installed a new SecDef who supported withdrawal. I just look back at what happened with Syria, and I think they really wanted this outcome - to some extent - so they could justify staying in Afghanistan. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 17, 2021 14:42:04 GMT
But on that note, which members of "the military" were publicly slowwalking and shelving Biden's requests for an exit plan? Milley is the most prominent one. He was explicitly arguing against it - both under Trump, then Biden. There are a couple different articles in this thread several pages back that have his comments. Others weren't named specifically - just referred to on background. Not sure about Austin. His public comments were in support of the withdrawal. But there's seems to have been a gulf between the civilian leadership and the military leadership, even going back to last year when Esper eventually got the boot and Trump installed a new SecDef who supported withdrawal. I just look back at what happened with Syria, and I think they really wanted this outcome - to some extent - so they could justify staying in Afghanistan.
I edited above to add this:
And I'll celebrate when we're actually out and the hubbub of "expert" opinions in the media dies down. There's no way Biden can walk this back. But a Harris might find it politically expedient to go back in after the "experts" have sufficiently softened up the American left about Afghani women.
We're not out yet. There's still time for a Gulf of Tonkin incident.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 17, 2021 15:46:49 GMT
And for the record, these are the experts I'm referring to.
As Afghan security forces battle Taliban fighters near several major cities on Thursday, U.S. intelligence officials warned that Afghanistan’s capital city and the seat of its government, Kabul, could fall to the Islamist militant group within 90 days
You know. The experts the Modern Left sold its soul to lionize.
That was just last Thursday. Biden listened to them. And to nobody who has ever paid attention's surprise, they were wrong.
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Post by demos on Aug 17, 2021 15:58:24 GMT
And for the record, these are the experts I'm referring to.
As Afghan security forces battle Taliban fighters near several major cities on Thursday, U.S. intelligence officials warned that Afghanistan’s capital city and the seat of its government, Kabul, could fall to the Islamist militant group within 90 days
That was just last Thursday. Biden listened to them. And to nobody who has ever paid attention's surprise, they were wrong.
I'd wait until we get the full story on the intelligence. For example, there are people saying the following: "There absolutely was intelligence reporting that it could happen this fast. This was not a surprise." ( Source) Remember the bounty story. There was disagreement among the intelligence community on that, and if you read deep enough into the stories, you saw that some of those intelligence estimates were based on admittedly weak intelligence. There was likely disagreement on this as well. You also had the military lying to Congress and the public for years about the strength of the Afghan army (even when they knew better), so they were probably lying to the President as well. I also think Biden was hoping the army could hold that long. |
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