It’s not my thread and you always post pertinent thoughts.
Like I said, you won’t respond to anything that references Trump in a negative way. Playing the troll card is your snowflake way out.
It is VERY much bullshit, partisan McCarthyism (speaking not of Joe, but the current House Minority Leader) to speak of the SCREWED UP, Ill PREPARED, HUMANITARIAN and POLITICAL END of the worst foreign Policy Disasters in U.S. history (the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars)…as the worst foreign policy disaster in U.S. history! (Let that sink in for a while…)
And read my lips on this one: THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION SCREWED THIS WITHDRAWAL UP ABOUT AS BADLY AS IT COULD BE!
God Bless all the Warriors who fought and died and/or were injured all those years. They deserve our thanks and gratitude for their sacrifices.
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I spent nearly 5 years in Afghanistan, so, the subject is very close to me. This article sums up my thoughts and angst toward the military’s command and Biden.
Are the Joint Chiefs of Staff Largely to Blame for This Afghanistan Fiasco?
Ultimately, the president is responsible but it’s easy to just blame him. This is especially true if you’re making an emotionally charged decision which is understandable given the current fiasco: 12 dead Marines and one Navy Corpsman, and our political duopoly that has us equally divided into two teams in America.
However, it’s not that simple.
U.S. military leadership at the top shares a large part, if not most of, the blame for decades of poor decision-making.
The highest-ranking military officer that advises the president and the secretary of defense on military affairs is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) Army General Mark Milley.
General Milley and the rest of the JCS staff are responsible for advising the president and his senior staff on Afghanistan, and I think it’s a fair assumption that their advice has been terrible given what’s unfolding in front of us right now.
President Biden at his press conference yesterday said, “There has been complete unanimity from every commander on the objectives of this mission and the best way to achieve those objectives.”
This is a stunning admission. There wasn’t a single commander who voiced a different opinion? Not one? The best military decisions tend to be those where dissenting views are sought out and considered carefully. If no one disagrees, something is often wrong with the way you picked people to advise you.
Did these same military leaders unanimously approve the decision to provide a complete list of American citizens Afghans who cooperated with the U.S. to the Taliban? You would think it would be impossible for a group of people to collectively do something this stupid and deadly dangerous, but it happened.*
The most powerful military fighting force the world has ever seen is not capable of pulling out Americans and Afghan loyalists in a dignified and orderly manner?
ership. Shame on the Joint Chiefs for the current debacle. And shame on you Mr. President for burying your head in your notebook in what was anything but an act of leadThe leader of the free world can never look this weak, shaken, and dispairing in front of our enemies, let alone the entire planet.
ver 20 years, two trillion dollars and thousands of American lives were sacrificed, and now 13 more names are added to a long list of U.S. warfighters lost to the Afghanistan meat grinder.
I find it hard to believe that President Biden is not doing what his military leadership, especially Chairman Milley, no stranger to Afghanistan, and the CIA Director (who apparently met with the Taliban in secret) are recommending to him.
In the video above General Milley says, “There is a possibility of a complete Taliban take over or a possibility of any number of other scenarios, breakdowns, warlordism, all kinds of other scenarios.”
Were the Joint Chiefs unable to pick the most likely scenario as the Taliban were advancing on Kabul at highway speeds or did they give that “scenario” equal weight to another possible “scenario” like an alien invasion from the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy landing in Kabul? The Joint Chiefs are supposed to assess the most likely scenario and advise the president on that, not just dream up endless scenarios to consider.
The president isn’t up all night moving pieces around on the Afghanistan chessboard and planning a withdrawal on his own. He has to rely on the advice of his senior military leadership on the best course of action, something they clearly failed to do in this case.
The same military leadership that has mistakenly advocated to stay in Afghanistan is still making the same poor decisions (now proven deadly) as we are just about how to leave.
If the JCS were a public company the leadership would be fired, and the business would be bankrupt and investigated by the SEC like ENRON.
So let’s try and keep things in perspective as the Afghanistan fiasco continues and the end game is now etched in stone contrary to General Milley’s statements in the YouTube video above.
Thinking lucidly about the root cause of what got us here in the first place and who did it will help hold the right people accountable and ensure Americans make better decisions. Especially when choosing who we elect in the future and choose to promote up the military chain of command.
There is room to find fault with President Biden for taking horrible advice from the Joint Chiefs, but that, “Buck That Stops Here” also crossed the desks of the Joint Chiefs, who gave him that advice.
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The partisan, tribalist sheep see this as an isolated incident when in reality, it’s simply the culmination of a 20 year policy disaster that transpired under the watch of both parties.
It’s funny how not being biased and holding both parties accountable makes one a troll but being biased and defending one’s tribe is seen as being honest.
And this is what I’ve been saying but some are sucking so hard on GOP and Trump nuts they can’t see it. The American people. The American military members who put their lives on the line, some of whom lost them. We’re screwed by American politicians. Not Republicans. Not Democrats. American politicians. But go on with trying to make it a partisan issue and have that us vs them perspective. That’s what they want.
@idaho: Thanks for the Maher thoughts and the thoughts on the Joint Chiefs…and I will ALWAYS honor and respect the Warrior…thank you for your service.
@treco…back at you, my Brother. My apologies.
I have been in a “Political Funk” for sometime now…and nothing gets me more angry than Blind Partisanship.
It’s also quite pathetic, @zecarlo…
On the off chance this is directed at me, I’d encourage you to re-read the Trump threads I posted in. I expressed plenty of Trump criticism and explained many times that he’s not my first choice or anything more than a sub-mediocre President at best.
In fact, I can’t think of any participants here who are blindly partisan.
I didn’t participate in the make-believe story hour narratives where everyone imagined what they thought Trump was really up to. I often called that out for what it is. Now I can enjoy it when trolls go out of their way to deliberately mischaracterize my arguments and resort to insults, as if I’d actually be insulted by their lame lies about words that are still there for anyone to read.
Back on topic, Trump is not the President anymore. I was told the adults are back in charge and that my concerns of Biden’s mental fitness for the job were overwrought.
This is obviously not the case. Hopefully they can get it together soon. Hopefully they fire every woke joke in power and get serious people instead.
What it boils down is picking the side that screws the other tribe. People like Trump because of liberal tears, for example. In the end, you are supporting someone or some party that is screwing other Americans, your neighbors, people you may depend on whether you agree with their politics or not. Is a MAGA drone going to ask the ER doctor who is going to save his life, who he voted for? I won’t support any politician who wants me to look at half the nation as my enemy. It’s why, when Hillary said her whole deplorables thing, I would never vote for her as she showed just how she feels about the average American. And it’s how most of those in power feel.
Look at Ashli Babbit; unarmed and killed by a cop. Who on the woke side is calling for an investigation? She was an American and even if you disagree with her beliefs, she is entitled to the same protections as a violent criminal like George Floyd.
United States of Amnesia. The world doesn’t base how it works on a reset every four years. It has a long memory. That’s why we fail in the Middle East. It’s also why we have ghettos. Americans seem to think we get a do over every election.
This. (Finally…!)
The actions of a President can literally last DECADES (current case in point); and even CENTURIES (Lincoln comes to mind).
They certainly have effects within the few years after they have been voted out of office.
Awesome whataboutism here. Biden has totally fucked up the withdrawal and gotten Americans killed. We could have kept Bagram and done this much more safely but he overrode his generals’ advice. So what? Biden shouldn’t be held accountable because it was as a republican who got us into Afghanistan 20 years ago.
At this point history will judge Bush and Obama for getting in/keeping us in Afghanistan. But Biden can be held accountable now and America can be protected from the coming years of foreign policy disasters that are inevitable with him.
Is there a reason you left out Trump? Hmmmm…
Where are you getting that Biden over-rode his generals’ advice? I have seen you say this a few times, but haven’t really seen this reported.
Their advice was to not leave Afghanistan. In other words, go back on the deal, such that it is, Trump made with the Taliban.
Interestingly, all of the Trump worshipers on here, such as twojar, are afraid to even acknowledge that Trump negotiated with terrorists and handed over Afghanistan to them.
I wonder what the narrative would have been had Biden left a few thousand US troops in Afghanistan while the Taliban and ISIS-K carried out terroristic operations in response to American going back on Trumps negotiated withdrawl plans (100% would have happened). We need to up troop presence or we appear to be weak and capitulating to terrorists? We need to get our troops out ASAP and why the hell is Biden going back on Dear Leader’s great plan to remove all troops by summer 2021?
I really don’t see any way this withdrawl doesnt become messy, so why not just rip that bandaid off. People were always going to be hurt and killed, the taliban was always going to take over, and revenge killings of pro-american Afghanis were going to happen. Its fucking awful, but it was inevitable.
Because he was getting us out
Bush, Obama, Trump all planned to get us out, but actually had troop surges, probably in large part because they knew there was no good way to leave and didnt want this CF as a stain on their legacy. Biden is the only one who actually pulled the trigger on getting us out.