As always…thanks, @loppar.
(Yeah…sorry about that. You have written a lot about the Saudi/ISIS connection).
Do you think ISIS and the Taliban are destined to have a Civil War in Afghanistan?
Weird I thought it was navy seals … my b
Weird, I thought it was Robert Oneill… my b.
Wasn’t he a Navy Seal?
You guys are fixating on my postulating.
I haven’t said Taliban doesn’t want military out.
But they are doing all they can to keep military there, when they obstruct civilians from leaving.
Plus the US is notorious for giving away the farm to get Americans back.
Saying l could see ISIS behind this is just thinking out loud. It’s not like you can trust 1 word they say.
Not likely. The Taliban will wipe them out (again), unless Saudis start offering some serious money to Taliban commanders to change sides to make up for opium smuggling profits.
Mark my words, in a couple of months, the Taliban will be labeled “moderates” and receive at least clandestine intel from the US and probably some (financial and military) support for fighting ISIS-K.
Threats? Like what? We’ll invade again, stay for 20 years, and waste lives and money?
To make us look weak, I mean weaker than Trump already did.
That would be a change for the third time. We put them in a position where they feel strong enough to make demands. What Trump did with his deal was a de facto surrender. We threw in the towel, admitted we can’t win, admitted we don’t have the will to win and told the Taliban that Afghanistan was theirs. Why wouldn’t they feel strong enough to make demands?
Ha! Afghanistan was a military industrial complex welfare state for 20 years, 8 under a Democrat. The thing I find silly, although very American, is to find someONE to blame. We were in Afghanistan for 20 years and now we are suddenly upset about American lives over the course of a few days? Where was this concern for the 20 years leading up to this?
This is an American disgrace and by this I mean the entire 20 year fiasco that probably made a few people wealthier. However, the whole blame Biden thing is a politicization of the war as if one side of the political aisle is somehow less culpable than the other. Focusing on Biden and the pullout is a distraction from facing the reality of what really was going on for 20 years over there.
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They probably already are.
Well, my father (a raging yellow dog dem) and l have agreed on 1 thing for decades - we hate foreign entanglements.
I have bitched and railed against rinos with their nation building for dozens maybe hundreds of posts here.
But Biden has fucked up this withdrawal alone.
We don’t pay for the release of hostages. How long were Americans held prisoner in Iran?
"Either way, the U.S. government itself did not pay the sum. In fact, the day Endicott was kidnapped, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with the families of Americans detained abroad and reiterated U.S. ransom policy, urging them not to pay.
“Please remember that any payment to a terrorist or a terrorist regime gives money so that they can seize more of our people. We cannot accept that risk. You wouldn’t ask that of us,” Pompeo told the families during public remarks after their meeting."
The intelligence and military advisors had nothing to do with it?
You could google
Did Biden overrule military in Afghanistan
Or the same for intelligence, and see the largest news organizations laying the blame on him.
Or you could turn on the TV and just see it.
He overruled generals on staying in Afghanistan? Good. This would also mean Trump overruled them as well.
No one predicted the collapse of the Afghan military to happen as quickly as it did.
This is the kind of thinking Biden, and Trump, rejected:
No one besides the State Department?
Second, the consequences of a rapid exit are both predictable and unacceptable. 9/11, the worst terrorist attack in our history, was planned and directed from Afghanistan because that country was ruled by a government that gave comfort and shelter to terrorists. A hasty withdrawal would create a vacuum that terrorists, including ISIS and al Qaeda, would instantly fill, just as happened before September 11th.
And, as we know, in 2011, America hastily and mistakenly withdrew from Iraq. As a result, our hard-won gains slipped back into the hands of terrorist enemies. Our soldiers watched as cities they had fought for, and bled to liberate, and won, were occupied by a terrorist group called ISIS. The vacuum we created by leaving too soon gave safe haven for ISIS to spread, to grow, recruit, and launch attacks. We cannot repeat in Afghanistan the mistake our leaders made in Iraq.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/08/21/politics/read-trump-speech/index.html
Two Questions:
-
We left “too soon” in Iraq and Afghanistan. What conditions would have made it the “right” time to withdraw? What additional Blood and Treasure would it take to create those conditions?
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What exactly was Trump’s “tough guy/“we” are there to win!” Speech supposed to prove, especially since he was the one who initiated our eventual withdrawal from Afghanistan?
Let me take a wild guess at something:
Trump has been on Conservative Media talking about what a mess the withdrawal has been (which it has been by any measure) while absolving himself of any and all responsibility?
Am I close?
Nice try, but you missed where I wrote as quickly as it did. Note that your sources predicted it would collapse soon after we left, not before.
And negotiated with the very people he said he would wipe out.