I can’t tell if it is a matter of Biden being the one left holding the ball or not. I can only say this was a fuck up that happened on Biden’s watch. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a fuck up.
This is a derail, but your stream of opinions has grown into a torrent of falsehoods; for the sake of any ill-informed reading your posts, here I must challenge them.
When you start from “Slavs as a group do not exist”, your post cannot be taken seriously. For a start, consider the text “Слово о пълкѹ Игоревѣ/The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” and how much older it is than the USSR, and then go back farther into Byzantine records. Slavs as an ethnic group absolutely certainly exist.
Be it Covid or Climate Change or, in this case, ethno-linguistic identities and their relevance to Biden and Afghanistan, you frequently, incessantly, make bold, demonstrably incorrect statements with startling confidence. This is a recipe for permanent ignorance.
Long after your irritation at this message has passed, I hope the main point of it remains in your mind, and hopefully the mind of anyone else who reads it: metacognition is your friend, and intellectual humility is truly a virtue.
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Since this is supposed to be a “Biden” thread…it looks like Majorie Taylor Greene and her team are drafting Articles of Impeachment against Biden and his Administration. There’s that.
Then there is also talk of a “Trump/Greene” Ticket in 2024 (Even though my money…for what it’s worth…is on “Trump/Desantis”).
Speaking of a futile exercise. Do you guys think that the GOP will even bother having a Primary?
HAH! Impeach Biden over Afghanistan. Keep Trump in after witholding aid to a foreign country because they’ve refused to investigate a political rival of his… Then he tried to doxx the whistleblower and get the public to harrass the whistleblower…
What about the troops in Syria under Trumps watch? Or using the presidential twitter account to push conspiracy theories (flat out bullshit like obamagate or qanon) @Mufasa
If we are to impeach Biden for something, impeach him over cognitive decline… can you do that?
De Administrando Imperio written by Emperor Constantine VII somewhere around 950 AD elaborates in detail the then known history of each of the Slavic (Serbs, Croats, Bulgars) and non-Slavic (Venetians, Magyars, Lombards) tribes living north of the Byzantine border, so that predates the USSR by roughly 1068 years.
And that’s without getting into the whole Kievan Rus controversy.
Sorry for the derail.
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I don’t stay abreast of foreign policy the way I do domestic policy, and I’m not a combat commander or intelligence agent.
Politicians say things and politicians also do things, and these often clash. Sometimes, in the case of Trump reconsidering his position to pull out and actually not doing that, the outcome is good. We can see that now in hindsight. Same with Obama.
It is also important to understand that American Presidents have tremendous authority over foreign policy and there’s really nobody else to blame. Biden presumably had a bevy of options, regardless of what their predecessor’s position was. Same as Trump, same as Obama.
I can’t say how it should have been done, but I can only observe that this is a total disaster and the 100 percent opposite of what the Biden administration said would happen. The Taliban taking over was a given. All of the people in so much danger, all of the equipment falling into their hands and all of it happening at a blitzkrieg pace doesn’t seem like an unavoidable outcome to me. It seems like there’s no shortage of experienced people explaining how it could have been done differently.
Tying this back to the points I’ve been hammering since before the start of the thread, the disconnect between the words, policies and especially policy outcomes is rather galling to me. The same buffoons who want you to believe that the 2020 riots were “mostly peaceful”, that they weren’t the ones who defunded the police at all and that we need a transgender health secretary in the administration to make sure kids can get the vital hormones and mutilative surgery are the ones telling you now, like Biden, that he’s got a contingency plan for this worst possible outcome.
I’ll believe it when I see it.
This whole woke house of cards, where fact-free narratives are crafted by politicians and propagandists, is crashing against reality in real-time. Turn on your news in AUS if you don’t believe me. I believe the Democrats are racing against reality by trying to pass HR 1 with racist lies and putting the hammer down on social media censorship. Misleading voters and making sure the election system stays as murky as possible with as little local control as possible are actual Democrat policy priorities, easily seen in writing and rhetoric.
And BTW, the Taliban is not banned on Twitter. And why should they be? It’s not like they’re a sitting US President.
What about the situation via trump and pulling troops out of Syria. Could you comment on this
Would this outcome
not be representative of what would’ve happened had Trump pulled troops out of Afghanistan?
I can’t… it’s all "there were six hundred cases in Sydney today! SIX HUNDRED! Kids are catching it… everyone is going to die. Don’t leave your home, don’t talk to ANYONE
Playgrounds? too much of a risk, you could DIE! You will die! The streets are running red with blood from those 600 cases. Did you know a few elderly people died? That could be YOU.,…" Meanwhile documentation pertaining to the pandemic and the effects lockdowns are having on the mental health of teenagers is being suppressed. FOI requests denied
Talked to a psychiatrist the other day. Inpatient facilities are getting booked out for months in advance, no one can really get in anymore. For those who manage to get in because prolonged isolation led them to suicidal ideation, they can finally get some respite through… continual isolation, can’t socialise in psychiatric wards anyone… covid is too much of a risk. How fucked is that? Suicidal people who are suicidal due to lack of human contact aren’t allowed to talk to other patients admitted because of covid. Fucking nanny state madness
Sorry for the de-rail… you asked about Aussie news, that’s the Aussie news. The most worrying aspect is that the public is on board with these “tough guy, harsh restrictions, covid zero” narrative
hell, a guy was JAILED for two months in NSW the other day for… taking a train ride without an apt reason to leave the home (only four reasons you can leave home). Recent video in (vic I think) of police pepper spraying and arresting a kid because… mask mandates
Keep in mind, federally Australia is under the rule of a right wing government. So you can’t blame our dumbass Covid zero narratives on democrat/left wing rhetoric.
stay home and don’t die (actually a slogan I’ve heard here)! Someone you know might have covid, which is the Black Death crossed with polio here!
Like I said, I don’t keep abreast of foreign policy the way I do domestic. I don’t portray myself as an expert in every topic at hand.
Judging from the synopsis, we’re talking about two vastly different situations ins scope, scale and circumstances.
I’ll also own up to my bias. I don’t know a great deal about the Syria situation or foreign policy more broadly. I do know that I was roughly your age when I watched images of helpless people falling from the sky in horrifying circumstances. The images I saw over the weekend hit me similarly.
You can’t woke-splain the Afghanistan situation away, but the Biden administration seems to be trying its best.
What is that creature hanging from the plane?
Is that a lizard person?
If we understand this then…
Should also have been a given.
This was predicted over a month ago. Note the date, June 5. Here’s one quote: “in recent weeks, the insurgents have overrun four districts, in some incidents reportedly sending Afghan forces fleeing without a fight.”
From an interview: " Biden referenced that the previous administration had negotiated an agreement to remove troops by May 1 in making his announcement. Can you speak a little bit more about that 2020 agreement with the Taliban?
The 2020 agreement with the Taliban was essentially a U.S. exit agreement. If you read through the public part of the agreement, which was signed after more than a year of negotiations, you will find that the two main issues agreed to were: 1. the withdrawal of U.S. and international forces by May of 2021"
May 1. People had an extra 4 months to leave and it was still chaos. What would it have been like had the withdrawal occurred on May 1?
"The Taliban has essentially been “running down the clock” until all U.S. troops have been withdrawn by September 2021. And why wouldn’t they? They are winning on the battlefield, are already in control of much of the rural areas, are in the suburbs of most urban centers and starting to take over cities, and are in control of most of the lucrative border crossings with Pakistan, Iran and even with the northern Central Asian States.
It is no wonder many Afghanistan analysts have compared the 2020 agreement with the Taliban to the 1973 peace deal that the U.S. made with the North Vietnamese Communist forces. The 1973 peace deal like the 2020 deal with the Taliban, led to President Nixon’s announcing the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Vietnam."
Once we negotiated with the Taliban, we legitimized them as the rightful ruler of Afghanistan. Once we set a withdrawal date, we let them know we were done and on the way out. That emboldened them to move forward and start conquering the country before we even left. We can say we should have done this or that but months before the official withdrawal date, the Taliban was already killing people and establishing its authority over large parts of the country.
The US handed over control of bases to the Afghans well over a month ago.
Caught off guard? Afghans knew what was coming and some had already been leaving, months ago.
Here’s an explanation for that:
“Even though the U.S. has said for years it would withdraw its troops, Mr. Biden’s announcement caught many Afghans by surprise. So did the meltdown of Afghanistan’s U.S.-equipped and trained security forces. Afghan soldiers surrendered en masse in recent weeks, handing over their weapons and Humvees to the Taliban, who have conquered about a third of the country’s districts since April and now surround several major cities.”
Apparently the Taliban is stating they’ll adopt a more progressive mindset, as progressive as shariah law can get…
Yet they’ve already been taking the widowed women of fighters and/or women in any way related to political resistance they’re and killing them
Barbaric scum. Now we have multiple countries/areas either partially or fully governed by terrorist organisations. Hezbollah (Lebanon), Hamas (Gaza), Afghanistan (Taliban). Very sad
State sponsored terrorism is different kettle off fish altogether. Iran, Syria, Cuba, North Korea etc situate in that kettle… Palestine should be too, but “woke” politics leaves that country untouched from scrutiny despite having a martyr fund (and MANY other policies that cater towards funding terrorism)
People trying to escape a shithole country? Maybe we should build a wall.
Seriously, what did people expect? The previous president, rightly or wrongly, negotiated with the Taliban as if they were a legitimate political entity. He gave them Afghanistan. He set a date. At that moment they were the de facto rulers of Afghanistan, and it could be argued that was the case the past 20 years. But we officially recognized them as other countries like China and Russia have done, I believe. Once they took over what was expected? It’s the Taliban.
It should have been smoother? Smoother for whom? The Taliban was already in control of much of the country months ago. They were already executing people. People there knew when we were leaving. They knew the Taliban was already in control in much of the country. They knew what to expect once the Taliban had complete control. But now, for political reasons, suddenly we are supposed to care about the poor Afghan people. We didn’t care for the past several months when they were taking over the country and killing anyone they thought worked with the West. We didn’t care about Afghanistan once the Soviets left, followed by a civil war, and then the Taliban eventually took over. It wasn’t until 9/11 it became an issue.
How about instead of blaming Biden for what is going on we blame the actual people who are committing acts of violence and crimes against humanity, you know, the Taliban? Or how about the majority of Afghans who support the Taliban? How about Pakistan? How about us, as a nation, who handed the country over to the Taliban?
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I thought as of 2019 that number had decreased to like 1 in 6 (still a startlingly high figure)
Good point.
I agree with this to an extent. It is certainly happening on his watch and for better or worse that’s just the way we judge Presidents.
At the same time if anyone thinks it would be significantly different I don’t think they understand the situation much. It was very much accepted that the Taliban would take over very quickly. Most didn’t think it would be this quick, but they knew it would be quick. That part doesn’t matter because an exit is an exit. Don’t blame how quick they took over on Biden. Blame it on the 20 years we spent there without more progress.
If people truly have a problem with the Taliban taking over as quick as they did then they shouldn’t be supporting us leaving in the first place. This was absolutely known to happen.
I would have been open to us doing (and even bringing in) people from there. That’s the part we could have done better. That’s the part Biden needs to own. But most of the people taking joy in hammering him over this wouldn’t have wanted to bring anyone in or spend significant money to help as that goes against the America First agenda. They can’t all backtrack now and expect me to believe it.
The Taliban is mostly made up of rural Pashtuns so they enjoy support in those areas. Who responded to the poll? Was it mostly more urbanized Afghans? You also have to consider how people think about Islamic rule vs a western style democracy. They may not like the Taliban as such, but they prefer it over western decadence. I saw the demographics for one of these polls and the total number of respondents was only around 15,000. Half were women. Over 20% lived in a city, mostly Kabul. I don’t think it represents the vibe of the entire nation.
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From what I’ve read, many dragged their asses when it came to the process of applying to leave. I think many waited until the last minute because they didn’t think the last minute would come as quickly as it did. How many Americans were surprised by how little of a fight Afghan troops put up? Perhaps they saw the inevitability of a total Taliban victory and didn’t want to fight for a lost cause. Also, and this could be significant, the Afghan government lost almost 75,000 troops and police during the US occupation. It’s possible that one reason they didn’t put up a fight is that their best men were already dead.
The issue of the Afghanistan exit is highly political and thus subject to a lot of spin as to what should have been expected, what could have been done, and who knew what when. However, I think there are a couple facts that are plain.
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For over 12 years, the POTUS has been advocating for an exit from Afghanistan. If after 12 years this is the result, it’s not reasonable to expect that a better plan and execution or waiting longer would have fundamentally changed the end result. I think there is possibility for improving at the margins by being better prepared to evacuate people, not letting equipment fall to the Taliban, better predicting what was going to happen (and how fast), and just having a little more organization. But ultimately, you can’t blame Biden for letting the Taliban take over and do whatever it wants in Afghanistan if you think that leaving was the correct answer. Our only options were to stay for the foreseeable future (decades, probably) or leave and let the Taliban take over.
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Biden owns this. Per point 1, I don’t think the result is really that bad compared to the expected result, but let’s leave Trump out of this. Yes, Trump had a plan to leave and his date was sooner than Biden’s. However, it’s not as if Biden hasn’t been perfectly willing to back out of the deals that Trump made. He left the Keystone people and the wall contractors and various others holding the bag because he didn’t like the agreement that Trump made. Why would he draw the line at screwing over the Taliban. Even if we ignore the fact that Trump’s deal required actions from the Taliban that were reportedly not taken, Biden could have easily invented a pre-text for backing out without anyone really caring. Biden pulled out of Afghanistan because it is the action he thought was best and he should own that.
The fact that we had NO plan to get 10 to 15 thousand U.S. citizens out of the country is mind-boggling to me. “Get to the airport if you can and we may have a plane to get you out” Holy shit. There is no way to blame that on Trump or the Afghans or anyone other than Biden.
Have you read the Original? Or you are refering to the Russian historical modern translations. The fact that Bulgars are presented as Slavic (not very often white skin, dark hair, dark eyes) and Serbians as well, doesnt make you question what is written. Bulgars are in fact with Asian roots. And the Balkans have been populated with Thrakians (meditarenian looking people - darker skin, dark eyes). I have been in every South East European country by the Black Sea. You start noticing white skin blond hair people North of Odesa. Even south of Ukraine is populated with Besarabian Bulgars and Moldova is basically Romanians and Besarabs. So you dont say there are Slavs in the Balkans. There are almost none. Thus the claim that the Slavs are perhaps a made up USSR propaganda. To clarify Slavs on the Balkans are not Slavs in Russia and Ukraine. There is nothing in common. Thus my denial for the existence of the commonly known meaning of Slavs.
Sure in the past if Slavs exist at all, there may have been some Slavic tribes, but they have been consumed long ago. I am questioning the Slav propaganda also due to the language. Greeks influnced the Balkans with religion and language. They created the alphabet for the Besarabian Bulgars in Moldova and Ukraine, but after it was refused, the Bulgars took the alphabet and the language when they create their country in order to unite the Bulgar tribes with the local Thrakians. Then it goes all the way to Russia due to the influence of the Bulgars after creating their country.