Why Biden is pulling the US -- and NATO -- out of Afghanistan

[Jaskalas]

Lindsay Graham already hinted that they will blame Biden for creating conditions that helped accelerate the Taliban’s rise to power, allowing weapons to fall into hands of terrorists and making the entire region unsafe for years to come. They will say America is less safe under Biden’s watch. Remember, there is no hypocrisy too great for these bad faith statesmen.

Yeah, I am not going to go there. Republicans will always act in bad faith. I give Biden credit for ending it. Though it seems he was following the arrangement Trump established. I do give Biden some flak for some pretty stupid statements just one month ago. I think whoever gave him intel needs to clean out their desk. Their assessment was ridiculous.

Americans just do not understand armed conflict. We have a massively powerful military machine and we can use it effectively. But when it comes to how other nations win wars.... we only build losers - and there is a fundamental failure with us nation building. We hold them up to fight in our method but we seem to forget they do not have our technology. They do not have our resources. They need to fight their own way. And we aren't going to like it, but that's how the world works.

I do not think it is natural for humans to go from tribes to democracy. We should have built something strong, and we did not. Americans are delusional in our hubris.

 

[JEDI]

Trump put this in motion by pulling out all the majority of troops. I believe Biden took over with 2500 troops remaining. Biden was in a no win situation. There was no way the US could have held a restarted Taliban insurgency with only the 2500 troops. So, Biden has to either add more Troops to keep the 2500 safe or pull them all out so there is no chance of being drawn into a larger war. No easy decisions.

But facts don't matter when the GOP are craven. They do a real disservice to our country.

biden could have just left the 2500 troops there.
Afganistan was relatively stable till Biden announced in June that the US was leaving in a couple of months.

then all hell broke loose and city after city fell QUICKLY.

 

[senseamp]

There there, we'll do better next time we blow trillions on defense contractors and thousands of lives. Believe it.

 

[Fenixgoon]

we have been there 20 years. 20. for what, exactly, at this point? we got bin laden. he was our objective. and the only reason we could do what we did in the first place was because afghanistan lacked the stability of other countries. we wouldn't have bulldozed our way into say...china or russia, had Bin Laden hypothetically taken refuge in either of those places.
the human toll from the whole war on terror has been catastrophic. and it is a war on an idea, which fundamentally cannot be won.

semi-related note: i found out one of my colleagues was from iraq, and i wanted to apologize to her for the utter devastation the US has caused in her homeland. i have to wonder if she ended up where she is now because of the US invasion in the first place. i am assuming she is roughly the same age as me, which means she would have been in high school around that time.

 

[pauldun170]

biden could have just left the 2500 troops there.
Afganistan was relatively stable till Biden announced in June that the US was leaving in a couple of months.

then all hell broke loose and city after city fell QUICKLY.

Um...no
Why don't you bring up the 2020 map of Taliban controlled districts and compare with prior year.

For fucks sake did you not wonder why talks excluded the Afghan government and it was just us and the Taliban at the table in 2020?

 

[UNCjigga]

So, any bets on how strong the Iraqi government is right now? They gotta be in better shape after defeating ISIS…. Right?

 

[shortylickens]

we have been there 20 years. 20. for what, exactly, at this point? we got bin laden. he was our objective. and the only reason we could do what we did in the first place was because afghanistan lacked the stability of other countries. we wouldn't have bulldozed our way into say...china or russia, had Bin Laden hypothetically taken refuge in either of those places.
the human toll from the whole war on terror has been catastrophic. and it is a war on an idea, which fundamentally cannot be won.

semi-related note: i found out one of my colleagues was from iraq, and i wanted to apologize to her for the utter devastation the US has caused in her homeland. i have to wonder if she ended up where she is now because of the US invasion in the first place. i am assuming she is roughly the same age as me, which means she would have been in high school around that time.

This is what I am saying my brother!

We spent 20 years NOT bringing freedom and democracy to a messy nation while our own country has been slowly falling apart. It is phenomenal evidence the United States needs to stop meddling in foreign affairs, mostly because we're incompetent but also because it causes a cascade of other issues.

 

[brycejones]

less than a month after Biden withdraws most troops from Afghanistan, the Taliban is on the verge of taking over.
All but the capital city of Kabul is under Taliban control and it looks like they'll take it soon, VERY soon. (The Afgan Preisdent fled the capital today.)

WTF only a month to fall?!
how does the entire country fall in less than a month to a ragtag bunch of extremists?
what went wrong with the Afgan army that the US was training for the past 20years?!?!
WTF?!?!

Afghanistan has been at war for more than 40 years. Calling the Taliban “rag tag” is completely ignoring that history.

Fucking educate yourself before spouting off.

 

[Sunburn74]

biden could have just left the 2500 troops there.
Afganistan was relatively stable till Biden announced in June that the US was leaving in a couple of months.

then all hell broke loose and city after city fell QUICKLY.

I think that's the thing. People keep saying oh we spent 20 years there. But the troop presence has been pretty small of recent. We have more troops in lots of other countries that are accomplishing less. The cost of keeping the troops longer and have a better pullout where you're not arming the Taliban with American munitions was a small cost. Now you're rushing to evacuate and people on the US side will probably be left behind and die.

For reference we have 26,000 troops in South Korea. We have 10000 in the UK and 35000 in germany. We have 10,000 troops in Saudi Arabia Bahrain and Kuwait. It's hard to argue that the 2500 to 3,000 troops have kept in Afghanistan over the last few years is a more expensive expenditure than what we're doing in South Korea or elsewhere. It's hard to argue that they are less valuable to American interests thethe 10,000 troops hanging around the British isles. Certainly the cost of rearming the Taliban for American munitions and destroying all the intelligence capabilities we have in the country are probably higher than what we're spending to have thousands of us troops simply sitting around in the UK and in Germany.

Look im not saying we shouldn't get out but no one can say that if intelligent minds were to plan this, this is the outcome they would have planned and hoped for. They would never have planned it this way.

 

[woolfe9998]

I wake up to this headline.

TALIBAN IN KABUL AS PRESIDENT FLEES

Knew this would happen. Didn't think it would be this fast. 20 years training Afghan forces and there basically aren't any.

 

[kage69]

Abdul Rashid Dostum's swank palace cooks a mean goat I bet. Break up this kind of gig? Yes.

https://imgur.com/dEgNwKn

We were fighting, and set back by, entrenched corruption, not just the Taliban, Haqqani Network, elements of the ISI and foreign powers offering cash incentives for dead Americans.

Joe Biden is doing the right thing, but I still have plenty of problems with how Afghan allies have been made to wait so long for the protection they have earned. Relocation to Qatar or some other country should have wrapped up months ago. Interpreters and their family members have already been killed, this is as bad or worse than Trump shitting on the Kurds in Syria. Good people are dying right now and it's our fault.

 

[senseamp]

You never win fighting directly in those places, especially by trying to build democracy in a tribal society. You need to find your thug and help him become the biggest thug.

 

[emperus]

biden could have just left the 2500 troops there.
Afganistan was relatively stable till Biden announced in June that the US was leaving in a couple of months.

then all hell broke loose and city after city fell QUICKLY.

Huh? The troops were reduced to 2500 in January right before Trump left office and there was a Trump agreement that they would all leave by May 2021. That's why it was "relatively" stable. Biden pushed it till Sept.

 

[woolfe9998]

All that training and the Afghan forces took bribes from the Taliban to surrender.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/15/afghanistan-military-collapse-taliban/

However much blame Biden gets for this withdrawal, I hope this is our final lesson in the futility of nation building.

 

[cytg111]

Considering Taliban are afghans…

Are they though?

 

[cytg111]

All that training and the Afghan forces took bribes from the Taliban to surrender.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/15/afghanistan-military-collapse-taliban/

However much blame Biden gets for this withdrawal, I hope this is our final lesson in the futility of nation building.

I mean, you can take the bribe and live OR…

 

[K1052]

NATO says commercial traffic into/out of KBL is suspended. Military airlifts only.

 

[BUTCH1]

biden could have just left the 2500 troops there.
Afganistan was relatively stable till Biden announced in June that the US was leaving in a couple of months.

then all hell broke loose and city after city fell QUICKLY.

True, but the Taliban were just biding their time when trump made a deal for withdrawal last year. Why mess with genuine US army if all you had to do was wait. Most of the troops were removed within last year I recall.

 

[Fenixgoon]

All that training and the Afghan forces took bribes from the Taliban to surrender.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/15/afghanistan-military-collapse-taliban/

However much blame Biden gets for this withdrawal, I hope this is our final lesson in the futility of nation building.

Agreed. Genuine economic partnership is much better for everyone

 

[K1052]

True, but the Taliban were just biding their time when trump made a deal for withdrawal last year. Why mess with genuine US army if all you had to do was wait. Most of the troops were removed within last year I recall.

The US and Afghan gov (such as it was) had also been steadily loosing control of the country for several years while Trump's negotiations talked in Doha.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/numbers-afghanistan-are-not-good-n842651

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42863116

 

[IronWing]

You never win fighting directly in those places, especially by trying to build democracy in a tribal society. You need to find your thug and help him become the biggest thug.

You mean like how we conquered Afghanistan in the first place, hiring the Northern Alliance?

 

[kage69]

All that training and the Afghan forces took bribes from the Taliban to surrender.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/15/afghanistan-military-collapse-taliban/

However much blame Biden gets for this withdrawal, I hope this is our final lesson in the futility of nation building.

Agreed. Unfortunately for Biden it's 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' really. Perhaps those payoffs from the Taliban will help many Americans finally understand the futility of continuing our presence there.

 

[ondma]

I think withdrawing the rest of the troops was the right thing to do. The only problem I have is that is seems the withdrawal was too sudden. We should have made sure all non-military personnel, documents, and military equipment were removed or destroyed before the withdrawal. Also should have made more provisions to protect our Afgan allies. Looks (and probably is) a cluster fuck of epic proportions to have such a panicked withdrawal and have to send troops back in to secure our civilian personnel.

 

[Zorba]

Are they under your bed yet?

I'm sure they made his bed.

 

[pauldun170]

So is the story now that Afghan security forces and officials just abandon their posts and that why the Taliban are casually wandering through Kabul instructing everyone to stay inside?

Crap