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Re: Taliban control of Afghanistan on the 20th Anniversary of 9/11
Axl S wrote:You can’t escalate this further and start shooting.
The United States negotiated a deal with the Taliban that they would leave by August 31st, excluding their ally the Afghan government from those negotiations. The Taliban are sticking to the date because they hold all the cards and have all the leverage as the US gave up all theirs.
The only way the US regains leverage is with incredible levels of bloodshed, levels that they’re probably not willing to accept.
The withdrawal was screwed with the terms of the deal negotiated, screwed when it wasn’t renegotiated, screwed in that it was time based not condition based and screwed with the execution of the withdrawal operation.
The main fuckup is with the execution. Biden is president. He came up with 8/31, not Trump, not his Generals. Joe has put America in a very bad spot because of his 9/11 exit date bullshit so he could take credit. That was a selfish reason to put our troops in harms way. We can blame trump all we want, but Joe had like 7 months of prep time to get this right. They failed at almost every level. Then, they come on TV and lie about it every fucking day. We can’t keep saying “Trump caused this with the deal” but Joe wanted this. This was bi partisan. Everyone wants out, but just like the fvcking border, there appears to be no plan what so ever to actually execute it.
You need to cool it with the Trump defense, it's a total deflection and you're being blind if you think his admin are blameless. You'll note I specifically just referred to the US, not a particular admin. It's a series of errors that spanned both admins and if you look at Western intervention in Afghanistan - it's been plagued by errors across every admin that's held the ball.
Everyone would like to be out. It would be nice to be out of everywhere and not be involved in any conflicts anywhere.
Why the exit was timebased and not conditions based though is beyond me. The exit being time based was negotiated under the Trump admin. The Biden admin got final agreement on an exact date.
Why the exit was so total and lacked thinking is also beyond me. Why spend years training and prepping the Afghan army to combat the Taliban in a certain way - using air support - and then as part of your withdrawal remove all the contractors you had aiding them with maintenance of all their planes thus removing their air support. It's decisions like that, that leave them hung out to dry - and it's insulting to totally write them off as cowards who dropped their weapons. The entirety of how they had been set up to combat the Taliban got flipped on it's head. They didn't just lose US troop presence with the withdrawal, they lost access to key tools in their arsenal.
- Randall Flagg
- Rep: 139
Re: Taliban control of Afghanistan on the 20th Anniversary of 9/11
The Taliban lacked air coverage completely, and were significantly outarmed and outnumbered by the Afghan military. Saying the Afghan Army fell because they lacked mechanics to keep their airforce operating is ignoring that countless Afghan pilots have flown out (deserted) of the country in that aircraft during the last week. I'm not defending Biden's withdrawal plan, but if you outnumber and outarm the enemy, and lose without a significant fight, you don't get to blame that on anyone but the Army who failed to setup a simple perimeter defense. Riddle me this, how many Taliban and Afghani soldiers died in the preceding 11 days before the fall of Kabul?
80k Taliban versus 300k Afghani Soldiers. And the Taliban had a decisive victory without a formal military structure and intelligence support from NATO nations.
Re: Taliban control of Afghanistan on the 20th Anniversary of 9/11
bigbri wrote:Smoking Guns wrote:Put Trump on this situation and you think he is letting Tali’s call the shots? No fvcking way. Hi ass would be opening up Bagram Air Force base and sending a message.
This doesn’t make any sense for a number of reasons. The first one being that he negotiated with them to get out. Why withdraw from a country but go back just because you don’t like what happened after you left?
We left. I agree on principal with that. It’s going to suck there now without US presence. You either accept that or stay there forever. Nobody wanted to stay forever.
We all want out. We are leaving. But we need to dictate the timeline. Not the Taliban. Joe is the one that said 8/31 not them. What happened to September 11? That was his original time line. So if he needs until 9/5 so be it. Are they going to attack us? Ha. Let’s see how that works out for them.
I don't think this is a situation where we can strut in there like Ronald Reagan and start issuing triple dog dares.
It's time to get out....so shake some speed on it and beat the deadline.
Only in a worst case scenario should we do anything drastic....and we're not at that point yet.
Re: Taliban control of Afghanistan on the 20th Anniversary of 9/11
I know saying anything that absolves Biden or Trump of responsibility will be met with resistance here, but I was just reading that the State Department has been telling Americans to get out of Afghanistan since April.
Just like vaccines and just like the Afghan army, you can't make people do things if they really don't want to. People weren't leaving like they were advised. People don't take vaccines as advised. The Afghan army doesn't fight like it was advised.
Individuals do actually make decisions for themselves that create ripple effects.
Yes, I'll add the caveat before someone else does, the exit has been fucked up. That's clear and we've covered that. But it's a combination of many things, and Americans not leaving as advised is a small part of it.
- Randall Flagg
- Rep: 139
Re: Taliban control of Afghanistan on the 20th Anniversary of 9/11
I know saying anything that absolves Biden or Trump of responsibility will be met with resistance here, but I was just reading that the State Department has been telling Americans to get out of Afghanistan since April.
Just like vaccines and just like the Afghan army, you can't make people do things if they really don't want to. People weren't leaving like they were advised. People don't take vaccines as advised. The Afghan army doesn't fight like it was advised.
Individuals do actually make decisions for themselves that create ripple effects.
Yes, I'll add the caveat before someone else does, the exit has been fucked up. That's clear and we've covered that. But it's a combination of many things, and Americans not leaving as advised is a small part of it.
Excellent point. The State Department doesn't know how many Americans are even there, and alerts were sent to all Americans to get out in the week leading up to Kabul's fall. Anyone living in Afghanistan during this withdrawal had to be aware of the risks. If they chose not to have an exit plan and didn't immediately run to the embassy when the Taliban was outside the city gates, they have culpability in this. They're not all victims, and I know many of them are business folks who wanted to profit off the situation. America has a responsibility to rescue its citizens, but at what point do we risk American Soldiers' lives to rescue people who didn't heed any warning cause they thought they could ride it out.
Some pundit called this Biden's Katrina. I disagree with that analogy for several reasons, most among them is the people left in Katrina made that decision and were told to get out by their mayor and governor. You can't force people to make the right decision, and people are accountable for their choices.
- Randall Flagg
- Rep: 139
Re: Taliban control of Afghanistan on the 20th Anniversary of 9/11
Looks like the Taliban has told Biden that no extension beyond August 31st will be permitted. I don't know how many citizens our allies have left in the country, but I hope the Americans who are waiting this out have a plan, cause god only knows what happens on September 1. I'd be concerned the Taliban will start to force Americans and Europeans out of the country at that point, but if the rumors of ISIS and Al Qaeda types flocking to the region are true, could be quite a problem. Those dudes would want nothing more than to force the US to respond militarily.
- Smoking Guns
- Rep: 330
Re: Taliban control of Afghanistan on the 20th Anniversary of 9/11
They may have told them to leave but the mixed message that was he Afghan army had everything under control and Kabul wouldn’t fall probably didn’t give people any sense of urgency. It’s like “you should leave, but if you don’t, don’t worry because there are 300,000 Afghan troops well trained by the US and you should be fine.”
- Randall Flagg
- Rep: 139
Re: Taliban control of Afghanistan on the 20th Anniversary of 9/11
They may have told them to leave but the mixed message that was he Afghan army had everything under control and Kabul wouldn’t fall probably didn’t give people any sense of urgency. It’s like “you should leave, but if you don’t, don’t worry because there are 300,000 Afghan troops well trained by the US and you should be fine.”
No one told them that. Sure, Biden may have said that to the press a month before the fall of the nation, but the State Department has daily updates on the situation. If you sat there in Kabul for weeks watching the Taliban strategically capture the nation, and still thought "man, this is all gonna blow over soon, I'm fine", you have culpability for your choices. I understand leaving at the drop of a hat is an inconvenience, but we're talking about life or death here. And the Air Force isn't going to let Americans pack up all their property to be flown on a C-17.
ID brought up the cost thing the other day, but if you can't afford $2k, what fucking business do you have being in Afghanistan if you're not a government employee.
- Smoking Guns
- Rep: 330
Re: Taliban control of Afghanistan on the 20th Anniversary of 9/11
Smoking Guns wrote:They may have told them to leave but the mixed message that was he Afghan army had everything under control and Kabul wouldn’t fall probably didn’t give people any sense of urgency. It’s like “you should leave, but if you don’t, don’t worry because there are 300,000 Afghan troops well trained by the US and you should be fine.”
No one told them that. Sure, Biden may have said that to the press a month before the fall of the nation, but the State Department has daily updates on the situation. If you sat there in Kabul for weeks watching the Taliban strategically capture the nation, and still thought "man, this is all gonna blow over soon, I'm fine", you have culpability for your choices. I understand leaving at the drop of a hat is an inconvenience, but we're talking about life or death here. And the Air Force isn't going to let Americans pack up all their property to be flown on a C-17.
ID brought up the cost thing the other day, but if you can't afford $2k, what fucking business do you have being in Afghanistan if you're not a government employee.
Agree, who the fvck would willingly be there right now. Crazy!
- Randall Flagg
- Rep: 139
Re: Taliban control of Afghanistan on the 20th Anniversary of 9/11
Off topic, but why do you choose to spell profanities incorrectly? We all know the word you intend to use, it appears to be the correct word on quick glance by your design, and no one is offended by it?
