Yea, too bad it didnt happen under Trump. Then he and the Repubs could have taken the political fallout. The Republicans are going to have a political field day with this, not withstanding that Trump proposed the same thing, but was simply too inept to do it.So the Taliban are taking over as we withdraw. The country will likely be under their control within weeks after final withdrawal.
Afghanistan is disintegrating fast as Biden's troop withdrawal continues | CNN
Earlier this week, a lone Taliban gunman with a red skull cap and a rifle sauntered up to the gates of Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan's fourth largest city, and snapped a selfie.www.cnn.com
Which raises the question, if this was always going to happen, then why didn't we get out long ago. Also WTF have we been doing there training their military and police this whole time. Because clearly after 20 years it didn't take.
This was always going to happen. It just took us a couple $T to figure that out. Funny/not funny quote from the articleSo the Taliban are taking over as we withdraw. The country will likely be under their control within weeks after final withdrawal.
Afghanistan is disintegrating fast as Biden's troop withdrawal continues | CNN
Earlier this week, a lone Taliban gunman with a red skull cap and a rifle sauntered up to the gates of Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan's fourth largest city, and snapped a selfie.www.cnn.com
Which raises the question, if this was always going to happen, then why didn't we get out long ago. Also WTF have we been doing there training their military and police this whole time. Because clearly after 20 years it didn't take.
Uh, did someone actually believe that the Taliban was going to act in good faith??? At least this stupidity is coming to an end.nor the troops and air-power to counter the Taliban's bad faith.
Drug cocktails for PTSD??Big pharma must be upset
Drug cocktails for PTSD??
Military contractors had their big sad after we pulled out of Iraq (mostly).
The country is basically collapsing. Women have zero rights, the Taliban are brutes, they are likely to kill all the people who cooperated with Americans there if they aren't granted visas to get out, which appears uncertain. Seems that it's going to get worse and worse. It's one of a handful of the most pathetically deteriorated countries in the world. It's not like it was ever much better, AFAIK. I think the geography has something to do with it.
The country is basically collapsing. Women have zero rights, the Taliban are brutes, they are likely to kill all the people who cooperated with Americans there if they aren't granted visas to get out, which appears uncertain. Seems that it's going to get worse and worse. It's one of a handful of the most pathetically deteriorated countries in the world. It's not like it was ever much better, AFAIK. I think the geography has something to do with it.
Won every battle and lost the war. Just another in the long line of America fighting a war without knowing what we are trying to accomplish. Talk about the sunk cost fallacy.I think it's pathetic, and rather infuriating that we spent 20 yrs and tons of America taxpayer $$ and the country will collapse within weeks of our final departure.
Even in Vietnam, it took the NVA and VC almost 2 years to take over the south after we left.
What a waste of lives and money.
Won every battle and lost the war. Just another in the long line of America fighting a war without knowing what we are trying to accomplish. Talk about the sunk cost fallacy.
It is best that we are pulling out now instead of keep pumping more and more money and blood into it.
They all deserve the blame. Biden is the only one that gets a pass, and that is if he manages to finish pulling us out.Various people will try putting some blame on Obama, Trump or Biden but the truth is that the Bush admin screwed the pooch on its entire strategy there and everything else is a legacy of that.
They all deserve the blame. Biden is the only one that gets a pass, and that is if he manages to finish pulling us out.
The truth is we all deserve the blame. We became complacent about war. We let it not have much in the way of political repercussions for those we elect, it became easier to just let it go then to do something about it.
We should have been demanding that they answer some hard questions about what was going on and what out strategy was, and then vote their asses out (or better yet don't vote them in) if they can't or won't answer, or if their answers don't match their actions. We let it slide. It was just so much easier to forget that we were waging wars then to do something about it.
And the damn thing is, it is not likely to change. So we will keep doing this. Waging war forever, because no one cares enough to question why.
Still, at least some people made a lot of money out of it. Not really sure who - as I understand it an awful lot of funds intended for nation-building just disappeared.
It is hard to escape the conclusion that several administrations and the military drastically oversold the progress being made over the last 20 years. The Taliban was just kept suppressed though US might but not meaningfully degraded and the Afghan government/military overall isn't up to the task.
The options really were either perpetual US occupation or this. I think Biden is probably surprised how quickly it is all collapsing but not that is was going to.
Probably best to step up the evac of Afghans who helped the US given the likely outcome. Fly them to Guam like we did after Vietnam to await security checks.
It is hard to escape the conclusion that several administrations and the military drastically oversold the progress being made over the last 20 years. The Taliban was just kept suppressed though US might but not meaningfully degraded and the Afghan government/military overall isn't up to the task.
The options really were either perpetual US occupation or this. I think Biden is probably surprised how quickly it is all collapsing but not that is was going to.
Probably best to step up the evac of Afghans who helped the US given the likely outcome. Fly them to Guam like we did after Vietnam to await security checks.
It's really hard to understand how Biden could not have known how badly this was going to go. Did we have absolutely intelligence over the past year?? The Taliban has been getting ready for America's departure and has bought up (or been given) some serious weaponry in advance (well, by third world standards). Anyway, the Taliban are back to killings, forcing young women into marriage, etc., etc. They have also begun killing ex-Afghan 'soldiers' who surrendered - shocking . Somehow someone thought that the Taliban wasn't going to act like the Taliban, WTH?
As you noted, it was either a 100 years of military support or this. Personally, even though the suffering will be horrific, I'm glad we are nearly out. Too much American blood has been shed for nothing. Too much American treasure has been spent to no effect. I really wish we would learn our lesson. If you want to punish a Podunk country for harm to the US, and the military is the only useful option - go in, kick ass and leave.
That's the thing. For the last 15 years, military advisers and trainers were always saying the NEXT YEAR or maybe in TWO years, the Afghan forces will be able to stand on their own, but time and time again that's been shown not to be true. I'm sure all the trainers were hoping that at some point they could leave with confidence but they must have seen the hopelessness of their position. I'm sure plenty of those Afghan forces meant well too and have tried their best, but when everything at the top is being held together with corruption and bribes, it's bound to collapse. Vietnam showed us that decades ago. I can't find the article now, but a number of US military senior officers are pissed because they instructed the Afghan commanders on where to put their troops and how to use their airpower because they knew this could be the scenario and none of their recommendations were carried out.It is hard to escape the conclusion that several administrations and the military drastically oversold the progress being made over the last 20 years. The Taliban was just kept suppressed though US might but not meaningfully degraded and the Afghan government/military overall isn't up to the task.
The options really were either perpetual US occupation or this. I think Biden is probably surprised how quickly it is all collapsing but not that is was going to.
Probably best to step up the evac of Afghans who helped the US given the likely outcome. Fly them to Guam like we did after Vietnam to await security checks.
That's the thing. For the last 15 years, military advisers and trainers were always saying the NEXT YEAR or maybe in TWO years, the Afghan forces will be able to stand on their own, but time and time again that's been shown not to be true. I'm sure all the trainers were hoping that at some point they could leave with confidence but they must have seen the hopelessness of their position. I'm sure plenty of those Afghan forces meant well too and have tried their best, but when everything at the top is being held together with corruption and bribes, it's bound to collapse. Vietnam showed us that decades ago. I can't find the article now, but a number of US military senior officers are pissed because they instructed the Afghan commanders on where to put their troops and how to use their airpower because they knew this could be the scenario and none of their recommendations were carried out.
It's not that everyone was overselling. On the ground, and in actual meetings with locals, they all reported being better off, and it was to an extent. The United States was funding virtually everything, and SOME of that money helped a few people.It is hard to escape the conclusion that several administrations and the military drastically oversold the progress being made over the last 20 years. The Taliban was just kept suppressed though US might but not meaningfully degraded and the Afghan government/military overall isn't up to the task.
The options really were either perpetual US occupation or this. I think Biden is probably surprised how quickly it is all collapsing but not that is was going to.
Probably best to step up the evac of Afghans who helped the US given the likely outcome. Fly them to Guam like we did after Vietnam to await security checks.
It's not that everyone was overselling. On the ground, and in actual meetings with locals, they all reported being better off, and it was to an extent. The United States was funding virtually everything, and SOME of that money helped a few people.
One issue is most Americans don't speak more than a few phrases of Pashto or Dari. Another is the arrogance of the American forces being almost breathtaking at times. They (not me)assumed that personal freedoms and living standards should be what they would be in Ohio, not a third-world nation. I was generally happy if the cops actually tried to arrest a bad guy, and was generally pleased if local authorities acted a bit less like douche nozzles. Small victories add up quick.
It would be rather easy for an Italian mob-like rule to set up under the Taliban. ANY rules that can bring stability and predictability are generally welcomed by the majority of inner-city Afghans.