And you know that how exactly?
Because all Trump’s military bros resigned when they heard his dip shit ideas on foreign policy?
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Yes, they are. And that won’t stop the Biden Administration from labeling them “moderates” out of realpolitik needs. That’s why I put quotation marks. And as @zecarlo correctly said, it’s happening much sooner than I personally thought.
This has been done before in Syria - former(?) ISIS members joined Islamists militias that nominally made up the FSA and were oficially designated as “moderates”.
You’ve got that infamous clip from Syria where former ISIS soldiers, supported in large part by US hardware, are going to battle supported by Turkish tanks and singing songs about their feats fighting the Americans in Tora Bora.
On a side note, this is a good summary of the clusterfuck:
“Fundamentalist jihadism” is a misnomer. The correct - and more disconcerting -answer is that they’re following the how-to guidelines from a 7th century holy book by the letter.
Clearly, it’s Trump’s fault.
Joe Biden is to blame for the botched Afghanistan withdrawal.
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 27, 2021
Don’t take it from us, take it from Obama-Biden administration officials. pic.twitter.com/MJirAO2ErY
Repeat a lie often enough
Actually, he changed that date.
And I’m not saying Biden didn’t do anything wrong, I’m saying that as a collective, military and intelligence advisors and the president, made mistakes. The biggest was not recognizing that the Taliban was going to take Kabul as fast as it did and not having measures in place to keep them out.
However, that is one mistake which is overshadowed by a 20 year money grab and thousands of dead and wounded soldiers who, through no fault of their own, helped to keep up the facade. A dozen or so troop were recently killed and it’s a tragedy but where were these people who are up in arms about it, and condemning Biden, the last years? Are the soldiers who were just killed more valuable than the dead soldiers who came before them?
My issue is turning a national disgrace, which both parties had a hand in, into a partisan issue. I’m sorry but the GOP and Fox won’t make me forget the role Republicans played in this 20 year fiasco. Not every American suffers from amnesia.
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Trust this man to know.
You forgot invading Afghanistan in the first place. Then you have invading Iraq. That would be Bush 2.
Bay of Pigs.
For Reagan you can add Beirut and the invasion of Grenada.
You could look at our policies regarding Native Americans. Andrew Jackson, for example.
Allowing the Reconstruction to end prematurely for political reasons. Hayes.
The screwed up pullout from Afghanistan is nothing compared to other presidential screw ups. But pat is mentally challenged, literally, so what would he know.
This.
Thank you for being a voice of reason, @zecarlo.
I get too damn pissed off to respond in a reasonable way.
Thanks for a conversational post. I don’t disagree with it, except:
At the end of the day, Biden is President and Commander in Chief. He could realize he made a mistake, call the Taliban out, and say "We are not leaving without our men, equipment, or our ‘partners’. The last l am ambivalent about, since l feel they should join that VP and fight their own battle.
He literally could make this and other decisions (Bagram). Without question, he is the final authority - Constitutionally, legally, historically.
But nope. He would rather capitulate.
Why?
@Mufasa My apologies for stooping to insults.
The fact that we fucked up going there and wasted trillions of dollars doesn’t in ANY way change the fact that the withdrawal is a complete clusterfuck and tragedy. And the withdrawal falls squarely on Biden. That’s not a bipartisan fuck up.
But it’s a good way for some people to avoid having to answer for 20 years of failure.
We capitulated years ago when it was all just a money grab. The Taliban knew we would one day leave; they won as soon as we put boots on the ground. What did Afghanistan cost us vs what it cost them?
This quote from this Canadian equivalent to the messed up Afghanistan withdrawal caught my attention:
In early July, three retired generals wrote to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, urging officials to move more quickly on re-settling Afghan allies. Among them was retired Maj.-Gen. Dave Fraser, who told the Post Friday that the government didn’t seem to have the impetus to respond until the Taliban began taking over.
“In this case, the government responded as it would normally to any situation by saying, ‘Fill out these four forms, and put your application in to IRCC and we’ll get back to you,’” Fraser said. “It doesn’t work for an Afghan who doesn’t have wifi or a cellphone, and definitely without a passport, and it doesn’t work very well when you’re running for your life.”
They did pay terribly in blood over all these years.
It’s nice to see the “same stuff on both sides” folks are hard at work performing the mental gymnastics needed to avoid talking about Joe Biden in the Joe Biden thread as he oversees the greatest foreign policy disaster of my lifetime.
Keep it up guys, I expect you’ll have a lot more work ahead of you. I hope I’m wrong about that.
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I don’t think the Taliban see it that way.
This is so silly and why no one takes you seriously on here anymore. The 20 years we were in Afghanistan is not as bad as a screwed up withdrawal? The invasion of Iraq, and the subsequent attempt at nation building, based on a lie about WMDs wasn’t a policy disaster greater than a screwed up pullout?
Negotiating with the Taliban and letting them have Afghanistan wasn’t the policy disaster that set this disaster in motion? The fact that I can say Biden should have done things differently but you are too scared to even address what Trump did shows how much of a partisan sheep you are.
And we know you won’t respond to any of this because you are a fragile baby who can’t go against his team.
[quote=“twojarslave, post:2314, topic:271740”]
talking about Joe Biden in the Joe Biden thread
I am not deliberately trying to derail your thread, but, it seems it has grown into an Afghanistan / Biden offshoot. I am not helping this morning by posting two sources of information. After this, I will get out of everyone’s way.
Mr. Maher and I are polar opposites on the political spectrum, however, that doesn’t mean I don’t pay attention to his commentaries.
Bill Maher blasts ‘woke’ left for losing ‘perspective’ on ‘real oppression’: ‘We’re not the bad guys!’
'If you think America is irredeemable, turn on the news,’ Maher scolded ‘woke’ liberals
*“Real Time” host Bill Maher closed his show on Friday night by teaching liberals the “lesson of Afghanistan” amid the ongoing turmoil in the Asian nation. *
“Blind hatred of America is just as blinkered as blind love. And we Americans should really get some perspective about where we live,” Maher began his monologue. "Watching this s— go down in Afghanistan, I was reminded lately of every conversation I’ve ever had with an immigrant, almost all of which if we got to really talking, included the notion, ‘Oh, you people have no idea. All you do is b---- about and badmouth your own country, but if you knew about the country I came from, you’d stop s----ing on your own.’"
Last week, the Taliban murdered a comedian," Maher said, referring to Afghan comedian Nazar Mohammad, who was tortured and executed. "A comedian, a thing like that really hits close to home for me. I’ve had two presidents up my a–. … Neither experience was pleasant, but I never had to worry about being dragged 'til I’m dead behind a Toyota Tacoma. Have a little perspective about the stuff we howl about here."
I’m sorry your professor said something you didn’t like. That won’t be a problem with the Taliban because you’re not allowed to go to school. In Saudi Arabia, grown women can be jailed for doing the kind of things we think of as routine without the permission of a male guardian. China rounds you up if you’re the wrong religion and puts you in camps," Maher said before listing several other injustices around the world.
“We’re not the bad guys. Oppression is what we were trying to stop in Afghanistan. We failed, but any immigrant will tell you we’ve largely succeeded here. And yet, the overriding thrust of current ‘woke’ ideology is America is rotten to the core, irredeemably racist from the moment it was founded and so oppressive, sexist and homophobic we can’t find a host for the Oscars or ‘Jeopardy!’” Maher exclaimed.
And this is where your new [Afghan] roommates that you took in will prove so valuable because they’ll turn to you and say ‘Have you people lost your f—ing minds?!?.. Have you ever heard of honor killings, public beheadings, throwing gay men off of roofs, arranged marriages to minors, state-sanctioned wife-beating, female genital mutilation, marriage by capture? Because we have.'"
“What’s the lesson of Afghanistan. Maybe it’s that everyone from the giant dorm room b---- session that is the internet should take a good look at what real oppression looks like,” Maher continued. "Ask your maid, ask your Uber driver, ask the Asian woman giving you a massage. … America may not be the country of your faculty lounge and Twitter dreams, but no one here tries to escape by hanging on to an airplane. No, we wait 'til we get inside the plane to fight – and only because they cut off the beverage service."
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I know I said I was done replying to trolls, but this is too rich to pass up.
I’ve got more likes than posts with a good chunk of my posts being in my multi year workout log on that three people read.
You’re a DYEL? forum troll with three times as many posts as likes, which is unsurprising for someone who will make dozens of posts defending the merits of a utility bill as a form of voter ID.
Or dozens of posts defending the shocking ineptitude of this administration.
Carry on.
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