Biden's policies debated ( formerly known as Biden outrage of the day )

[Kris]

I would point out that even Germany and Japan were very different from each other.

Regardless, the only truly helpful thing the US can do at this point, in my opinion, is take refugees in large amounts and make it easy to access that refuge.

+1.

[Tyler durden]

I would point out that even Germany and Japan were very different from each other.

Regardless, the only truly helpful thing the US can do at this point, in my opinion, is take refugees in large amounts and make it easy to access that refuge.

Agreed.

At this point though…

I mean we’re all playing Monday morning quarterback but this should have been done before now.

[MudPuppy]

Oh for sure, no discourse in this thread is changing the world.

[OzzieandHarriet]

Heather Cox Richardson's letter for today included this:

Already, Republicans are trying to blame the Taliban’s success in Afghanistan on Biden, ignoring former president Trump’s insistence that Biden speed up the exit because “getting out of Afghanistan is a wonderful and positive thing to do.” So eager are Republicans to rewrite history that they are literally erasing it. Tonight, Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel noticed that the Republican National Committee has scrubbed from its website a section celebrating the deal the Trump administration cut with the Taliban and praising Trump for taking “the lead in peace talks as he signed a historic peace agreement with the Taliban in Afghanistan, which would end America’s longest war.”   

Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), who served in Afghanistan and who opposed Biden’s plan for withdrawal, has been highlighting the past statements of pro-exit Republicans who are now attacking the president. “Do not let my party preten[d] to be outraged by this,” he tweeted. “Both the [Republicans] and [Democrats] failed here. Time for Americans to put their country over their party.”

[Tyler durden]

Heather Cox Richardson's letter for today included this:

Already, Republicans are trying to blame the Taliban’s success in Afghanistan on Biden, ignoring former president Trump’s insistence that Biden speed up the exit because “getting out of Afghanistan is a wonderful and positive thing to do.” So eager are Republicans to rewrite history that they are literally erasing it. Tonight, Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel noticed that the Republican National Committee has scrubbed from its website a section celebrating the deal the Trump administration cut with the Taliban and praising Trump for taking “the lead in peace talks as he signed a historic peace agreement with the Taliban in Afghanistan, which would end America’s longest war.”   

Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), who served in Afghanistan and who opposed Biden’s plan for withdrawal, has been highlighting the past statements of pro-exit Republicans who are now attacking the president. “Do not let my party preten[d] to be outraged by this,” he tweeted. “Both the [Republicans] and [Democrats] failed here. Time for Americans to put their country over their party.”

Biden is undoing every Trump policy he can think of and get his hands on, but for some reason he couldn't undo this timeline? That's laughable.

Regardless of Trump setting a timeline or not, the extraction the last few days has been a total clusterfark. Why? Why couldn't they have been slowly evacuating people over the last few months? where was the contingency if Kabul fell sooner than expected? This falls on the commander in chief.

Funny, lots of conservative  make fun of the media when things like this happen. A democrat screws up royally and the headline is "republicans pounce" instead of focusing on the screw up itself.

[PDXTabs]

Funny, lots of conservative  make fun of the media when things like this happen. A democrat screws up royally and the headline is "republicans pounce" instead of focusing on the screw up itself.

Media wise, I noticed that left leaning CNN just ran the headline Joe Biden is facing a crisis of competence.

[Davnasty]

Funny, lots of conservative  make fun of the media when things like this happen. A democrat screws up royally and the headline is "republicans pounce" instead of focusing on the screw up itself.

Media wise, I noticed that left leaning CNN just ran the headline Joe Biden is facing a crisis of competence.

I think Tyler is living in an alternate reality. I see criticism of Biden everywhere I look.

[MudPuppy]

It’s not a “Trump policy” it’s a signed peace agreement with the Taliban. We signed an agreement to gtfo by a certain date. If we had reneged on a peace agreement, I don’t even want to think about what implications that would have on global relations.

https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Agreement-For-Bringing-Peace-to-Afghanistan-02.29.20.pdf

[Tyler durden]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/08/16/republicans-criticize-biden/

Headline: How Republicans are slamming Biden on Afghanistan

Republicans pounce!!!!1!!

[Tyler durden]

It’s not a “Trump policy” it’s a signed peace agreement with the Taliban. We signed an agreement to gtfo by a certain date. If we had reneged on a peace agreement, I don’t even want to think about what implications that would have on global relations.

https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Agreement-For-Bringing-Peace-to-Afghanistan-02.29.20.pdf

Sure. And the taliban broke several stipulations in that peace agreement giving any administration the opportunity to change things. Yet here we are with thousand of our Afghan allies on the verge of slaughter due to incompetence

[PDXTabs]

It’s not a “Trump policy” it’s a signed peace agreement with the Taliban. We signed an agreement to gtfo by a certain date. If we had reneged on a peace agreement, I don’t even want to think about what implications that would have on global relations.

https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Agreement-For-Bringing-Peace-to-Afghanistan-02.29.20.pdf

Did you read part 2? Do you think that they are holding up their end of the bargain? I'm not sure, was the Afghanistan government one of our allies?

[Tyler durden]

It’s not a “Trump policy” it’s a signed peace agreement with the Taliban. We signed an agreement to gtfo by a certain date. If we had reneged on a peace agreement, I don’t even want to think about what implications that would have on global relations.

https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Agreement-For-Bringing-Peace-to-Afghanistan-02.29.20.pdf

Did you read part 2? Do you think that they are holding up their end of the bargain? I'm not sure, was the Afghanistan government one of our allies?

Yes I read it but I’d have to rely on the experts.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/biden-signals-tougher-line-taliban-n1256227

Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said on Thursday the Taliban were failing to abide by their pledges under the deal, which was supposed to open the door to a peace settlement between the insurgents and the U.S.-backed Kabul government.

Without them meeting their commitments to renounce terrorism and to stop the violent attacks against the Afghan National Security Forces, it's very hard to see a specific way forward for the negotiated settlement," said Kirby. "But we're still committed to that."

[MudPuppy]

No, I don’t think they have kept up their end, but undoing the whole thing doesn’t seem like the most logical way to react to that. Should we leave the troops there with unclear goals and at considerable risk to their safety?

[Travis]

No, I don’t think they have kept up their end, but undoing the whole thing doesn’t seem like the most logical way to react to that. Should we leave the troops there with unclear goals and at considerable risk to their safety?

The Taliban ignoring agreements is just the Taliban being the Taliban. They lived next door in Pakistan for 20 years and knew they had all the cards.  They were safe in Pakistan and could rebuild every year no matter how many we killed in Afghanistan.  We signed a treaty with North Vietnam just so we could say we tried to negotiate as we left. We knew they had no incentive to actually abide by an unenforceable piece of paper. This was no different. As soon as Trump started negotiating with them last year, they started chipping away at Afghan territory and security forces either through force or paying them since their own government rarely bothered to.

It should be clear to everybody by now that we were only ever propping up a building made out of popsicle sticks. Staying longer wasn't going to change anything. The last time I was there, NATO numbered 120,000 troops. For the last five years it's been closer to 5,000. This was enough to deter the Taliban, but not enough to accomplish anything else. They couldn't sort themselves out regardless of how big our presence was and staying longer was just delaying the inevitable.

All that said, we could have stretched this out for months ensuring everyone who we wanted to get out could do so.  We could have set up this withdrawal to happen in the dead of winter when the Taliban hibernates for lack of supply lines to Pakistan. We couldn't prevent the Afghan governments collapse, but we didn't have to sprint for the door either.

[nereo]

Funny, lots of conservative  make fun of the media when things like this happen. A democrat screws up royally and the headline is "republicans pounce" instead of focusing on the screw up itself.

Most of the response and coverage I’ve seen highlights how critical democrats are of this debacle. The responses from many in his own party have… not been kind.

[OtherJen]

I would point out that even Germany and Japan were very different from each other.

Regardless, the only truly helpful thing the US can do at this point, in my opinion, is take refugees in large amounts and make it easy to access that refuge.

Agreed.

Further agreed. It's the fucking least we can do.

[Tyler durden]

Funny, lots of conservative  make fun of the media when things like this happen. A democrat screws up royally and the headline is "republicans pounce" instead of focusing on the screw up itself.

Most of the response and coverage I’ve seen highlights how critical democrats are of this debacle. The responses from many in his own party have… not been kind.

I think you’re right on this one.

Seeing video now of Afghanis falling from the sky to their death as they clung to outgoing planes from Kabul airport… that’s tuff to defend even for the most partisan of media hacks.

[PDXTabs]

No, I don’t think they have kept up their end, but undoing the whole thing doesn’t seem like the most logical way to react to that. Should we leave the troops there with unclear goals and at considerable risk to their safety?

No, but that doesn't mean that we should have run away in the middle of the night without informing our Afghan allies so quickly that we had to redeploy 3,000 troops (in vain) now that the Taliban has billions of dollars of US military hardware. Meanwhile, our former translators and other allies are being executed. I'm not sure what we should have done, but I'm sure it isn't this.

Most of the response and coverage I’ve seen highlights how critical democrats are of this debacle. The responses from many in his own party have… not been kind.

I think that is to be expected. Not only are Democrats completely willing to criticize government, they expected better out of Biden IMHO. To put it another way, Trump was a buffoon but he wasn't my buffoon.

EDITed to add - one of my very smart friends pointed out that the professional press is full of professionals that have formed working relationships with their counterparts in Afghanistan. They are most likely personally upset about what is happening to them. They aren't going to hold back regardless of party preference.

EDIT2 - The US is re-deploying 5k troops to the airport to facilitate a more organized evacuation after multiple deaths. If that's not a tacit admission that they screwed up I'm not sure what is.

[FIPurpose]

So where does this put the 2022 election?

I was talking with my father earlier today. He's convinced that this will be a giant blight on the democrats. But he's also deep in the well of Fox News land. (Though I think it would also be difficult for GOP members to talk too much about it because there's plenty of easy retorts back to them as well).

I think that Americans deeply want to forget this ever happened and will want to stop talking about it 6 months from now. I think the sense of relief of us being completely out of Afghanistan will overwhelm the short lived negative press. There hasn't been any mass slaughter of American lives, so the negative press will already be somewhat limited to the same horrifying news that we've gotten from the Middle East for the past number of decades.

Even though I am all for complete and total removal from Afghanistan, there is still a feeling of regret in me. A mixture of sadness that we didn't really accomplish anything. There were so many lives wasted. But this was also the final nail in the coffin that America lost this war. And losing, even though I wanted us to stop 5-10 years ago, still has a lingering feeling of a national shame and sadness. Will people permanently associate this with Biden? Maybe. But I think most people, especially swing voters, will likely point to the past 4 administrations who've all made very poor decisions.

It's also possible that there was no way to do this that would've made this any better. Could we have left 5-10k troops in Kabul? Maybe, but then you'd be risking an attack by the Taliban looking to finish the job potentially losing 100's of US soldiers. Or perhaps the morale of the Afghani army was so bad that even with US troops there, they still would've given up and then we'd be looking at a city surrounded by Taliban with the 1000's of asylum seekers AND 1000's of US troops. I don't necessarily agree that there was some magical solution that Biden just failed to see. There will be plenty of people coming out of the woodwork who will claim to have known better or knew this was coming, but it's all conjecture at this point. And a military advisor who's been giving bad advice for 20 years suddenly wanting to take credit for "let's stay just one more year!" doesn't hold much water either imo.

It's a bad headline, but I just don't see anyone caring in about 6 months. The Gaddafi assassination and rise of Islamic extremism didn't end Obama's reelection, and I don't see this really making a dent in Biden's either. At worst, it might be a small nudge for Biden to not run for re-election, but that's still another 3 years away.

[PDXTabs]

So where does this put the 2022 election?
...
At worst, it might be a small nudge for Biden to not run for re-election, but that's still another 3 years away.

I tend to agree that the situation in Afghanistan should not impact the midterms. I'm far more willing to say that pandemic response might.

[Travis]

No, I don’t think they have kept up their end, but undoing the whole thing doesn’t seem like the most logical way to react to that. Should we leave the troops there with unclear goals and at considerable risk to their safety?

No, but that doesn't mean that we should have run away in the middle of the night without informing our Afghan allies so quickly that we had to redeploy 3,000 troops (in vain) now that the Taliban has billions of dollars of US military hardware.

Evacuation from outposts and districts was done with proper handovers with Bagram being the last base to leave. From what I've been told they were concerned about an attack while they were all getting on the plane if the Afghans were tipped off. Insider attacks and our plans being betrayed were not unheard of and this was the last military outpost before pulling back to the airport.  The reinforcements are because the Afghan army went home and instead of a two month orderly withdrawal we're concerned about a siege and a mob storming the final flights out...which has happened.

[six-car-habit]

 I read an interesting quote from a Taliban member yesterday.

  It went something like this - " The opposition [ previous Afghani gov't]  lost the fight because they do not have an ideology that resonates with the people.  Their only ideology was fleecing the Americans... "

[GuitarStv]

So where does this put the 2022 election?
...
At worst, it might be a small nudge for Biden to not run for re-election, but that's still another 3 years away.

I tend to agree that the situation in Afghanistan should not impact the midterms. I'm far more willing to say that pandemic response might.

Depends how long it will be for Al Qaeda to plan another significant attack on US soil.  There's no question in my mind that the attack is coming, but the timing is very politically important.

[FIPurpose]

So where does this put the 2022 election?
...
At worst, it might be a small nudge for Biden to not run for re-election, but that's still another 3 years away.

I tend to agree that the situation in Afghanistan should not impact the midterms. I'm far more willing to say that pandemic response might.

Depends how long it will be for Al Qaeda to plan another significant attack on US soil.  There's no question in my mind that the attack is coming, but the timing is very politically important.

That's a completely different question. Al Qaeda has been operating for the past couple decades despite our presence in Afghanistan. I don't know what their current capability to plan an attack is now, but I'm not sure that our presence in Afghanistan was actually a deterrent.

[ncornilsen]

So where does this put the 2022 election?
...
At worst, it might be a small nudge for Biden to not run for re-election, but that's still another 3 years away.

I tend to agree that the situation in Afghanistan should not impact the midterms. I'm far more willing to say that pandemic response might.

Depends how long it will be for Al Qaeda to plan another significant attack on US soil.  There's no question in my mind that the attack is coming, but the timing is very politically important.

I'm not sure how to do the calculus to determine if it was "worth it," but I always saw a benefit of our presence in Afganistan as a way to keep the terrorists spending their efforts on attacking us there, versus plots to attack citiczens here. 

[CodingHare]

Yeah, I don't see this really hurting Biden long term.  Trump campaigned on Blood and Treasure, the left hasn't been happy with the never ending war since it began.  It was always going to be a political hit to whichever president was left holding the bag.  Americans have very short memories for international news.

Ultimately, the blame for the situation goes to Bush for getting us into a war with no exist plan.  The winners are all the military contractors like Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed, and Northrop Grumman who made billions off the war.

As for the rest of the Democratic party, they have been falling over themselves to distance themselves from any fallout by criticizing Biden.  Plus they are claiming the moral highground of "See, we spent the last 16 years telling everyone this was a bad idea."  And what are the Republicans going to do going forward, campaign on reinvading?  We will probably get another "Her Emails!!!" style campaign from them, but that's about it.

What remains to be seen is whether or not we'll learn anything from this.  My money is on no and that we will invade something else within the next 10 years, in response to another trumped up terrorist threat.

[Tyler durden]

I think its premature to say how this would effect Biden or democrats politically.

For starters this shit show is not over

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/16/biden-must-rescue-thousands-us-citizens-trapped-afghanistan/

An administration official who was not authorized to speak on the record told me that there are an estimated 10,000 U.S. citizens in the country, with the vast majority in or near Kabul. Some are residents, journalists or aid workers who may not want to leave. Most are scrambling to escape. Some are dual nationals or children of Americans who may not have the proper passport or visas, but the State Department has not told them how to fix their paperwork.

The State Department and the Defense Department basically have two options: negotiate safe passage for American citizens with the Taliban, if possible, or send the U.S. military out into the city to bring Americans back to the airport before the Taliban gangs find them. Officials working on these cases inside the government told me they have no clear guidance from the White House and not enough support.

I would add...

Americans like the withdrawal from Afghanistan and polls support that. Americans don't like national humiliations, which is what is happening in Kabul right now. This could be a mix of the fall of Saigon with an Iranian style hostage crisis.

[nereo]

I think its premature to say how this would effect Biden or democrats politically.

For starters this shit show is not over

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/16/biden-must-rescue-thousands-us-citizens-trapped-afghanistan/

An administration official who was not authorized to speak on the record told me that there are an estimated 10,000 U.S. citizens in the country, with the vast majority in or near Kabul. Some are residents, journalists or aid workers who may not want to leave. Most are scrambling to escape. Some are dual nationals or children of Americans who may not have the proper passport or visas, but the State Department has not told them how to fix their paperwork.

The State Department and the Defense Department basically have two options: negotiate safe passage for American citizens with the Taliban, if possible, or send the U.S. military out into the city to bring Americans back to the airport before the Taliban gangs find them. Officials working on these cases inside the government told me they have no clear guidance from the White House and not enough support.

I would add...

Americans like the withdrawal from Afghanistan and polls support that. Americans don't like national humiliations, which is what is happening in Kabul right now. This could be a mix of the fall of Saigon with an Iranian style hostage crisis.

how many Americans will see this as a humiliation though?  Don't under-estimate the power of deflection.  "it's the cowardice Afghans" and "the system held until we left" will be common refrains.

[FIPurpose]

I think its premature to say how this would effect Biden or democrats politically.

For starters this shit show is not over

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/16/biden-must-rescue-thousands-us-citizens-trapped-afghanistan/

An administration official who was not authorized to speak on the record told me that there are an estimated 10,000 U.S. citizens in the country, with the vast majority in or near Kabul. Some are residents, journalists or aid workers who may not want to leave. Most are scrambling to escape. Some are dual nationals or children of Americans who may not have the proper passport or visas, but the State Department has not told them how to fix their paperwork.

The State Department and the Defense Department basically have two options: negotiate safe passage for American citizens with the Taliban, if possible, or send the U.S. military out into the city to bring Americans back to the airport before the Taliban gangs find them. Officials working on these cases inside the government told me they have no clear guidance from the White House and not enough support.

I would add...

Americans like the withdrawal from Afghanistan and polls support that. Americans don't like national humiliations, which is what is happening in Kabul right now. This could be a mix of the fall of Saigon with an Iranian style hostage crisis.

The situation in Kabul is showing the giant failure and humiliation of the last 20 years, not a busted withdraw strategy. We had more than a decade to build up a legitimate army and government. Why is it that as soon as we start to withdraw troops that everyone in the Afghan government gives up? That's a failure of the last 3 presidents. Biden's withdraw strategy may have been the best option and it was simply his lot to take on the bad press, because the last 3 presidents were all cowards when it came to a full withdraw because they all saw the writing on the wall that this is exactly how it would all go down.

Biden didn't mess anything up in Afghanistan, he merely showed it for what it actually was and the big pot of lies our military was feeding us about the progress they were making in building up a national police and army.

[PDXTabs]

Biden didn't mess anything up in Afghanistan, he merely showed it for what it actually was and the big pot of lies our military was feeding us about the progress they were making in building up a national police and army.

I think that's a strong statement. In particularly we had to redeploy first 3k, then 5k troops to help with the evacuation. Furthermore, have you checked the UK coverage of these events? They seem very surprised by the outcome and very concerned with what comes next. They recalled Parliament over it. Either we got our intelligence wrong (which I suspect) or we didn't share it with them (which seems unlikely, given that they are in the Five Eyes) or they are playing dumb (which I doubt).

EDITed to add - I guess that there is a different option which is the military intelligence community knew exactly what would happen and Biden overruled them. That's probably the most damning option.

[FIPurpose]

Biden didn't mess anything up in Afghanistan, he merely showed it for what it actually was and the big pot of lies our military was feeding us about the progress they were making in building up a national police and army.

I think that's a strong statement. In particularly we had to redeploy first 3k, then 5k troops to help with the evacuation. Furthermore, have you checked the UK coverage of these events? They seem very surprised by the outcome and very concerned with what comes next. They recalled Parliament over it. Either we got our intelligence wrong (which I suspect) or we didn't share it with them (which seems unlikely, given that they are in the Five Eyes) or they are playing dumb (which I doubt).

I think the miscalculation here that Biden is responsible for is that the fall of Kabul happened in 2 weeks rather than 2 months. And this is the really dumb part about this. The media are pretending as if there was some magic formula where you could stay in Afghanistan for what? an extra 5 months and magically we'd have an Afghan army that has all of its morale back? Or worse, media figures who are pretending like everything in Afghanistan was completely fine until Biden came in and poked the house of cards left by the last 3 people. This was always going to be a retreat from an aggressive enemy and thinking that the Afghan army (who also saw that Kabul wouldn't last to the end of the year) was going to protect the American retreat and sacrifice their own lives out of the goodness of their own hearts was a very stupid mistake.

It's exactly why Trump and Obama failed to withdraw from Afghanistan. The withdraw was always going to have this giant pain point of "This army is going to crumble as soon as we leave." If you have no one protecting your exit, how can you ever retreat without a giant mess on your hands?

But pointing to the administration recalibrating the number of troops in the situation as a "mess up" I think is an incorrect interpretation. A "mess up" would be if they needed more troops but wouldn't have them on standby to actually get there in time. That looks more like a standby plan that they had to enact given certain situational outcomes.

[Samuel]

Biden didn't mess anything up in Afghanistan, he merely showed it for what it actually was and the big pot of lies our military was feeding us about the progress they were making in building up a national police and army.

I think that's a strong statement. In particularly we had to redeploy first 3k, then 5k troops to help with the evacuation. Furthermore, have you checked the UK coverage of these events? They seem very surprised by the outcome and very concerned with what comes next. They recalled Parliament over it. Either we got our intelligence wrong (which I suspect) or we didn't share it with them (which seems unlikely, given that they are in the Five Eyes) or they are playing dumb (which I doubt).

EDITed to add - I guess that there is a different option which is the military intelligence community knew exactly what would happen and Biden overruled them. That's probably the most damning option.

That was a silly statement. The wisdom of finally pulling the plug is separate from how the plug pulling was executed. Diplomats should probably leave before the troops, for example.

[Tyler durden]

Biden didn't mess anything up in Afghanistan, he merely showed it for what it actually was and the big pot of lies our military was feeding us about the progress they were making in building up a national police and army.

I think that's a strong statement. In particularly we had to redeploy first 3k, then 5k troops to help with the evacuation. Furthermore, have you checked the UK coverage of these events? They seem very surprised by the outcome and very concerned with what comes next. They recalled Parliament over it. Either we got our intelligence wrong (which I suspect) or we didn't share it with them (which seems unlikely, given that they are in the Five Eyes) or they are playing dumb (which I doubt).

I think the miscalculation here that Biden is responsible for is that the fall of Kabul happened in 2 weeks rather than 2 months. And this is the really dumb part about this. The media are pretending as if there was some magic formula where you could stay in Afghanistan for what? an extra 5 months and magically we'd have an Afghan army that has all of its morale back? Or worse, media figures who are pretending like everything in Afghanistan was completely fine until Biden came in and poked the house of cards left by the last 3 people. This was always going to be a retreat from an aggressive enemy and thinking that the Afghan army (who also saw that Kabul wouldn't last to the end of the year) was going to protect the American retreat and sacrifice their own lives out of the goodness of their own hearts was a very stupid mistake.

It's exactly why Trump and Obama failed to withdraw from Afghanistan. The withdraw was always going to have this giant pain point of "This army is going to crumble as soon as we leave." If you have no one protecting your exit, how can you ever retreat without a giant mess on your hands?

But pointing to the administration recalibrating the number of troops in the situation as a "mess up" I think is an incorrect interpretation. A "mess up" would be if they needed more troops but wouldn't have them on standby to actually get there in time. That looks more like a standby plan that they had to enact given certain situational outcomes.

Biden didn't mess up anything? You think what were seeing play out right now was the plan all along? I haven't heard one person say that. Leaving behind all those Afghani people who helped us to die. Not talking Afghan army but the interpreters etc. Also the 10,000 plus US citizens still there? That is all part of Bidens plan and was the best that could be done, according to you.

Im sorry but I dont even believe you believe that.

Your doing the same thing Biden did during his speech. Your creating a straw man argument. No one I hear is advocating we should have stuck around for another 5 months or 5 years. We can leave, just not leave allies to die and having people clutching to planes and falling to their deaths.

[PDXTabs]

I think the miscalculation here that Biden is responsible for is that the fall of Kabul happened in 2 weeks rather than 2 months.

I agree.

And this is the really dumb part about this. The media are pretending as if there was some magic formula where you could stay in Afghanistan for what? an extra 5 months and magically we'd have an Afghan army that has all of its morale back? Or worse, media figures who are pretending like everything in Afghanistan was completely fine until Biden came in and poked the house of cards left by the last 3 people.

I disagree. The front page of the WSJ is currently this article about how the US maintains control of the airport but our allies can't get to it through all the Taliban checkpoints: Taliban Consolidate Control in Afghanistan’s Capital as Thousands Remain Stranded.

[MudPuppy]

I think the only criticism that we the geopolitical scientists of mmm (apologizes any actual geopolitical experts on the forum) have mentioned that seem to generate any actual food for thought in my opinion is @Travis point about the timing and the supply lines.

[FIPurpose]

I think the miscalculation here that Biden is responsible for is that the fall of Kabul happened in 2 weeks rather than 2 months.

I agree.

And this is the really dumb part about this. The media are pretending as if there was some magic formula where you could stay in Afghanistan for what? an extra 5 months and magically we'd have an Afghan army that has all of its morale back? Or worse, media figures who are pretending like everything in Afghanistan was completely fine until Biden came in and poked the house of cards left by the last 3 people.

I disagree. The front page of the WSJ is currently this article about how the US maintains control of the airport but our allies can't get to it through all the Taliban checkpoints: Taliban Consolidate Control in Afghanistan’s Capital as Thousands Remain Stranded.

The article you posted was updated to say that the Taliban will now let civilians through to the airport to leave. Admittedly, you can't ever know if the Taliban would've let people through and that's a big risk. But the Taliban seem at this point want the US out; they don't want to give the US any reason to stay any longer than they have to.

[PDXTabs]

The article you posted was updated to say that the Taliban will now let civilians through to the airport to leave.

They also pinky-swore to a bunch of stuff in our withdrawal agreement that I'm pretty sure they have already broken. Also, who gets to decide if they're a civilian, the Taliban militiaman at the checkpoint?

EDITed to add this article from the BBC: Biden's speech on Afghanistan fact-checked which includes the fact that "there had been high demand for a US visa programme for those facing danger in Afghanistan and the scheme was plagued by delays. There are an estimated 18,000 applicants stuck in the backlog, affecting thousands more of their relatives."

[FIPurpose]

The article you posted was updated to say that the Taliban will now let civilians through to the airport to leave.

They also pinky-swore to a bunch of stuff in our withdrawal agreement that I'm pretty sure they have already broken. Also, who gets to decide if they're a civilian, the Taliban militiaman at the checkpoint?

EDITed to add this article from the BBC: Biden's speech on Afghanistan fact-checked which includes the fact that "there had been high demand for a US visa programme for those facing danger in Afghanistan and the scheme was plagued by delays. There are an estimated 18,000 applicants stuck in the backlog, affecting thousands more of their relatives."

Sure, I wouldn't trust the Taliban either, but there's a difference between a document laying out what you will do in the future and reporting what the Taliban is currently doing. If there is reporting that the Taliban is currently letting people through, then it doesn't matter if they're habitual liars. Lying is only relevant to future actions, not current actions.

And it all seems to be pointing towards the Taliban's goal: they want the US gone. Having thousands of civilians that are of interest to the US trapped in the city would run counter to their goal of wanting the US gone. They've won. They've seen the signs that the US no longer cares if they win. They don't want to do anything to ruin that. There will almost certainly be stories of families here or there who were killed mercilessly, but for the large majority of people, it looks like the US will have time to at least displace most of them from Afghanistan.

[sixwings]

isnt the afghanistan retreat really trumps plan? He signed the agreement like almost 2 years ago that dictated the withdrawal schedule that Biden then stuck to? I doubt there was any plan before Biden took over, because it's Trump.

1) Trump signed an agreement that included a withdrawal schedule
2) Trump and Pompeo do jack shit since that agreement was signed except cry about the election
3) Biden takes over in January and then has only a few months to plan the withdrawal
4) Biden honors trumps agreement and withdraws and everyone then panics about how Bidens plan didn't work.

Sure, in the last few months Bidens team could have planned a little better, but Trump could have been planning and getting 10,000 american citizens to withdraw throughout 2020. But of course, it's Trump so he did nothing and now just whines about Biden.

This is really a collosal historical failure all around, not really Bidens fault IMO.

[CodingHare]

Sure, I wouldn't trust the Taliban either, but there's a difference between a document laying out what you will do in the future and reporting what the Taliban is currently doing. If there is reporting that the Taliban is currently letting people through, then it doesn't matter if they're habitual liars. Lying is only relevant to future actions, not current actions.

And it all seems to be pointing towards the Taliban's goal: they want the US gone. Having thousands of civilians that are of interest to the US trapped in the city would run counter to their goal of wanting the US gone. They've won. They've seen the signs that the US no longer cares if they win. They don't want to do anything to ruin that. There will almost certainly be stories of families here or there who were killed mercilessly, but for the large majority of people, it looks like the US will have time to at least displace most of them from Afghanistan.

Plus this gets rid of opposition to their new government, while also letting them claim that they are a new, moderate Taliban.  The Taliban is acutely aware of world politics.  They want aid money from non-US countries flowing to them, and the more reasonable they look on the world stage the easier it will be to maintain legitimacy and power.

isnt the afghanistan retreat really trumps plan? He signed the agreement like almost 2 years ago that dictated the withdrawal schedule that Biden then stuck to? I doubt there was any plan before Biden took over, because it's Trump.

1) Trump signed an agreement that included a withdrawal schedule
2) Trump and Pompeo do jack shit since that agreement was signed except cry about the election
3) Biden takes over in January and then has only a few months to plan the withdrawal
4) Biden honors trumps agreement and withdraws and everyone then panics about how Bidens plan didn't work.

Sure, in the last few months Bidens team could have planned a little better, but Trump could have been planning and getting 10,000 american citizens to withdraw throughout 2020. But of course, it's Trump so he did nothing and now just whines about Biden.

This is really a collosal historical failure all around, not really Bidens fault IMO.

Well, Trump did negotiate to release 5000 Taliban prisoners right before our planned exit.  I'm sure that helped with winning.

Edit: RNC removed the page on their website touting the historic peace deal Trump negotiated with the Taliban.  Hmmm, wonder why.

[six-car-habit]

Biden didn't mess anything up in Afghanistan, he merely showed it for what it actually was and the big pot of lies our military was feeding us about the progress they were making in building up a national police and army.

I think that's a strong statement. In particularly we had to redeploy first 3k, then 5k troops to help with the evacuation. Furthermore, have you checked the UK coverage of these events? They seem very surprised by the outcome and very concerned with what comes next. They recalled Parliament over it. Either we got our intelligence wrong (which I suspect) or we didn't share it with them (which seems unlikely, given that they are in the Five Eyes) or they are playing dumb (which I doubt).

I think the miscalculation here that Biden is responsible for is that the fall of Kabul happened in 2 weeks rather than 2 months. And this is the really dumb part about this. The media are pretending as if there was some magic formula where you could stay in Afghanistan for what? an extra 5 months and magically we'd have an Afghan army that has all of its morale back? Or worse, media figures who are pretending like everything in Afghanistan was completely fine until Biden came in and poked the house of cards left by the last 3 people. This was always going to be a retreat from an aggressive enemy and thinking that the Afghan army (who also saw that Kabul wouldn't last to the end of the year) was going to protect the American retreat and sacrifice their own lives out of the goodness of their own hearts was a very stupid mistake.

It's exactly why Trump and Obama failed to withdraw from Afghanistan. The withdraw was always going to have this giant pain point of "This army is going to crumble as soon as we leave." If you have no one protecting your exit, how can you ever retreat without a giant mess on your hands?

But pointing to the administration recalibrating the number of troops in the situation as a "mess up" I think is an incorrect interpretation. A "mess up" would be if they needed more troops but wouldn't have them on standby to actually get there in time. That looks more like a standby plan that they had to enact given certain situational outcomes.

Biden didn't mess up anything? You think what were seeing play out right now was the plan all along? I haven't heard one person say that. Leaving behind all those Afghani people who helped us to die. Not talking Afghan army but the interpreters etc. Also the 10,000 plus US citizens still there? That is all part of Bidens plan and was the best that could be done, according to you.

Im sorry but I dont even believe you believe that.

Your doing the same thing Biden did during his speech. Your creating a straw man argument. No one I hear is advocating we should have stuck around for another 5 months or 5 years. We can leave, just not leave allies to die and having people clutching to planes and falling to their deaths.

 You seem to be forgetting that a large portion of this country does not now, -and did not previously, -want thousands of non US-citizen muslims coming to the USA to start new 'better' lives. 

   What constitutes enough "help" given to US personnel by an Afghani on an individual basis, that gets them a ticket to USA  ?
  Is it the interpreter who worked 40 hours a week at a fixed salary.  Is it the local cheiftan who pointed out where Taliban / AlQueda had a hideout.  Is it the fellow who drove a truck to a US base to deliver Pepsi + Fritos .  Is it the person who signed up for the Afghan army or national police, where the USA had effectively been paying their salaries, which in turn was supposed to help our countries objectives ??

  Curious as to where you draw the line on who is deserving of assisted escape and path to becoming a USA citizen ?
  [ or do we leave the refugees in a limbo like "dreamer" status, with the ever present threat of being sent back to Afghanistan because a future gov't has deemd the situation 'improved' enough for them to be herded onto a plane and flown back to Kabul in a few years ]

[FIPurpose]

isnt the afghanistan retreat really trumps plan? He signed the agreement like almost 2 years ago that dictated the withdrawal schedule that Biden then stuck to? I doubt there was any plan before Biden took over, because it's Trump.

1) Trump signed an agreement that included a withdrawal schedule
2) Trump and Pompeo do jack shit since that agreement was signed except cry about the election
3) Biden takes over in January and then has only a few months to plan the withdrawal
4) Biden honors trumps agreement and withdraws and everyone then panics about how Bidens plan didn't work.

Sure, in the last few months Bidens team could have planned a little better, but Trump could have been planning and getting 10,000 american citizens to withdraw throughout 2020. But of course, it's Trump so he did nothing and now just whines about Biden.

This is really a collosal historical failure all around, not really Bidens fault IMO.

Biden is President, so he has full capacity to do whatever he wants in honoring Trump's agreement or not. However, Biden cannot magically undo the administrative destruction that Trump did however in under a year. Trump purposefully reduced the government's ability to process VISA's and rebuilding that would take at least a couple years. Trump's administration also saw a huge number of State Department officials quit due to the insanity of Trump's foreign policy decisions.

So there were some things that are 100% in Biden's control. But there are effectively also things Trump did are 100% out of Biden's control. Nor does Biden have the ability to choose the time when to end the war. He can only choose to end the war in his window of being president. He could delay, but having bad PR at the beginning of your presidency is much better than at the mid-terms or ramping up into the general. His ability to choose timing on this is far more limited than I think most people want to admit.

[Tyler durden]

isnt the afghanistan retreat really trumps plan? He signed the agreement like almost 2 years ago that dictated the withdrawal schedule that Biden then stuck to? I doubt there was any plan before Biden took over, because it's Trump.

1) Trump signed an agreement that included a withdrawal schedule
2) Trump and Pompeo do jack shit since that agreement was signed except cry about the election
3) Biden takes over in January and then has only a few months to plan the withdrawal
4) Biden honors trumps agreement and withdraws and everyone then panics about how Bidens plan didn't work.

Sure, in the last few months Bidens team could have planned a little better, but Trump could have been planning and getting 10,000 american citizens to withdraw throughout 2020. But of course, it's Trump so he did nothing and now just whines about Biden.

This is really a collosal historical failure all around, not really Bidens fault IMO.

Biden is President, so he has full capacity to do whatever he wants in honoring Trump's agreement or not. However, Biden cannot magically undo the administrative destruction that Trump did however in under a year. Trump purposefully reduced the government's ability to process VISA's and rebuilding that would take at least a couple years. Trump's administration also saw a huge number of State Department officials quit due to the insanity of Trump's foreign policy decisions.

So there were some things that are 100% in Biden's control. But there are effectively also things Trump did are 100% out of Biden's control. Nor does Biden have the ability to choose the time when to end the war. He can only choose to end the war in his window of being president. He could delay, but having bad PR at the beginning of your presidency is much better than at the mid-terms or ramping up into the general. His ability to choose timing on this is far more limited than I think most people want to admit.

Biden has been in charge for over half a year. Biden is the commander so he could have done anything he wanted with the timeline. If it looked to be like a disaster he could have delayed withdrawal by a few months. Who would or could have stopped him?

Nope he did none of those things and now this mess. 

[FIPurpose]

isnt the afghanistan retreat really trumps plan? He signed the agreement like almost 2 years ago that dictated the withdrawal schedule that Biden then stuck to? I doubt there was any plan before Biden took over, because it's Trump.

1) Trump signed an agreement that included a withdrawal schedule
2) Trump and Pompeo do jack shit since that agreement was signed except cry about the election
3) Biden takes over in January and then has only a few months to plan the withdrawal
4) Biden honors trumps agreement and withdraws and everyone then panics about how Bidens plan didn't work.

Sure, in the last few months Bidens team could have planned a little better, but Trump could have been planning and getting 10,000 american citizens to withdraw throughout 2020. But of course, it's Trump so he did nothing and now just whines about Biden.

This is really a collosal historical failure all around, not really Bidens fault IMO.

Biden is President, so he has full capacity to do whatever he wants in honoring Trump's agreement or not. However, Biden cannot magically undo the administrative destruction that Trump did however in under a year. Trump purposefully reduced the government's ability to process VISA's and rebuilding that would take at least a couple years. Trump's administration also saw a huge number of State Department officials quit due to the insanity of Trump's foreign policy decisions.

So there were some things that are 100% in Biden's control. But there are effectively also things Trump did are 100% out of Biden's control. Nor does Biden have the ability to choose the time when to end the war. He can only choose to end the war in his window of being president. He could delay, but having bad PR at the beginning of your presidency is much better than at the mid-terms or ramping up into the general. His ability to choose timing on this is far more limited than I think most people want to admit.

Biden has been in charge for over half a year. Biden is the commander so he could have done anything he wanted with the timeline. If it looked to be like a disaster he could have delayed withdrawal by a few months. Who would or could have stopped him?

Nope he did none of those things and now this mess.

You think this would've ended differently with a few additional months? Why do you think both Obama and Trump failed in being able to completely withdraw from Afghanistan? There has never been any foundational support built over any of the years to allow us to safely withdraw from the country. I don't see any evidence that additional months or time would've 100% created a safer withdraw.

[PeteD01]

...

Biden has been in charge for over half a year. Biden is the commander so he could have done anything he wanted with the timeline. If it looked to be like a disaster he could have delayed withdrawal by a few months. Who would or could have stopped him?

...

I don´t know, but delaying things a little bit and maybe putting a few more soldiers over there sounds very familiar - next thing you know it´s another twenty years.

Who could have stopped him? Only the Commander in Chief could have done that, and he did not and the war is over.

And now there are negotiations, money changing hands, threats and more negotiations, faces to be saved, and more negotiations and more deals.

We will have to see how it is going to work out but the Taliban leadership and the US have a common interest in that mass casualties have to be avoided. The Taliban now have to prove that they can maintain discipline and hold up their end of the bargain.

[Tyler durden]

isnt the afghanistan retreat really trumps plan? He signed the agreement like almost 2 years ago that dictated the withdrawal schedule that Biden then stuck to? I doubt there was any plan before Biden took over, because it's Trump.

1) Trump signed an agreement that included a withdrawal schedule
2) Trump and Pompeo do jack shit since that agreement was signed except cry about the election
3) Biden takes over in January and then has only a few months to plan the withdrawal
4) Biden honors trumps agreement and withdraws and everyone then panics about how Bidens plan didn't work.

Sure, in the last few months Bidens team could have planned a little better, but Trump could have been planning and getting 10,000 american citizens to withdraw throughout 2020. But of course, it's Trump so he did nothing and now just whines about Biden.

This is really a collosal historical failure all around, not really Bidens fault IMO.

Biden is President, so he has full capacity to do whatever he wants in honoring Trump's agreement or not. However, Biden cannot magically undo the administrative destruction that Trump did however in under a year. Trump purposefully reduced the government's ability to process VISA's and rebuilding that would take at least a couple years. Trump's administration also saw a huge number of State Department officials quit due to the insanity of Trump's foreign policy decisions.

So there were some things that are 100% in Biden's control. But there are effectively also things Trump did are 100% out of Biden's control. Nor does Biden have the ability to choose the time when to end the war. He can only choose to end the war in his window of being president. He could delay, but having bad PR at the beginning of your presidency is much better than at the mid-terms or ramping up into the general. His ability to choose timing on this is far more limited than I think most people want to admit.

Biden has been in charge for over half a year. Biden is the commander so he could have done anything he wanted with the timeline. If it looked to be like a disaster he could have delayed withdrawal by a few months. Who would or could have stopped him?

Nope he did none of those things and now this mess.

You think this would've ended differently with a few additional months? Why do you think both Obama and Trump failed in being able to completely withdraw from Afghanistan? There has never been any foundational support built over any of the years to allow us to safely withdraw from the country. I don't see any evidence that additional months or time would've 100% created a safer withdraw.

OK maybe were talking about 2 different things. I dont think staying 5 months or 5 years longer would have done anything more to improve the Afghan government or Army for the long haul. I'm sure it would have fallen apart eventually.

If Biden and his team looked at the plan withdrawal happening right now, and determined it would be a mess, they could have kept soldiers there a few extra weeks/months to make sure the people who were supposed to be evacuated got evacuated. Then bail, then let it fall apart. As it stands people are stranded there with no safe passage to the airport.

Why didnt Biden simply delay the full withdrawal until whoever needed to get out safe got out safe? That is what people are asking and upset about.

He changed everything Trump set up from immigration/border to climate change etc. He could have easily delayed the withdrawal for a little bit if need be and changed this as well right?

And again Biden is in charge of Visas so yeah... he can get as many of those Special immigration Visas as he wants. hes in charge. Failing to do it because republicans dont like it is no excuse.

[PeteD01]

...

Why didnt Biden simply delay the full withdrawal until whoever needed to get out safe got out safe? That is what people are asking and upset about.

...

How was this supposed to work? AFAIK there were only 2500 US soldier on the ground. There are many thousands of evacuees and any large scale evacuation would have prompted the melting away of the government forces who likely had already negotiated their bailout.
How would a necessary surge would have looked to the Taliban other than an escalation and a breach of agreements?
Now we have to rely on the Taliban to follow through on their promise on allowing safe passage. If they can maintain discipline, they probably will follow through - if not they are going to have major problems.

[By the River]

isnt the afghanistan retreat really trumps plan? He signed the agreement like almost 2 years ago that dictated the withdrawal schedule that Biden then stuck to? I doubt there was any plan before Biden took over, because it's Trump.

1) Trump signed an agreement that included a withdrawal schedule
2) Trump and Pompeo do jack shit since that agreement was signed except cry about the election
3) Biden takes over in January and then has only a few months to plan the withdrawal
4) Biden honors trumps agreement and withdraws and everyone then panics about how Bidens plan didn't work.

Sure, in the last few months Bidens team could have planned a little better, but Trump could have been planning and getting 10,000 american citizens to withdraw throughout 2020. But of course, it's Trump so he did nothing and now just whines about Biden.

This is really a collosal historical failure all around, not really Bidens fault IMO.

Yeah, that's the thing that I like most about Biden is that he left all of Trump's agreements and executive orders in place.   (obviously sarcasm based on the 400 executive orders signed in the first week.)

[gentmach]

Biden didn't mess anything up in Afghanistan, he merely showed it for what it actually was and the big pot of lies our military was feeding us about the progress they were making in building up a national police and army.

I think that's a strong statement. In particularly we had to redeploy first 3k, then 5k troops to help with the evacuation. Furthermore, have you checked the UK coverage of these events? They seem very surprised by the outcome and very concerned with what comes next. They recalled Parliament over it. Either we got our intelligence wrong (which I suspect) or we didn't share it with them (which seems unlikely, given that they are in the Five Eyes) or they are playing dumb (which I doubt).

EDITed to add - I guess that there is a different option which is the military intelligence community knew exactly what would happen and Biden overruled them. That's probably the most damning option.

You can add Germany to the list of dismayed countries.

https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-reacts-bidens-afghanistan-withdrawal/

[PDXTabs]

Classified assessments by American spy agencies over the summer painted an increasingly grim picture of the prospect of a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and warned of the rapid collapse of the Afghan military, even as President Biden and his advisers said publicly that was unlikely to happen as quickly, according to current and former American government officials.
- NYT: Intelligence Warned of Afghan Military Collapse, Despite Biden’s Assurances