In The News

[Baron Von Marlon]

https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1426719143655624711

https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1426918387372990468

[Local Trouble]

https://twitter.com/NoLieWithBTC/status/1427050609266540545

Biden's Statement

When I came to office, I inherited a deal cut by my predecessor—which he invited the Taliban to discuss at Camp David on the eve of 9/11 of 2019—that left the Taliban in the strongest position militarily since 2001 and imposed a May 1, 2021 deadline on U.S. Forces. Shortly before he left office, he also drew U.S. Forces down to a bare minimum of 2,500. Therefore, when I became President, I faced a choice—follow through on the deal, with a brief extension to get our Forces and our allies' Forces out safely, or ramp up our presence and send more American troops to fight once again in another country's civil conflict. I was the fourth President to preside over an American troop presence in Afghanistan—two Republicans, two Democrats. I would not, and will not, pass this war onto a fifth.

[Huggs]

Was this near Huggsville?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HarPBoMscE

Fortunately no.

[Local Trouble]

Those two dudes in the beginning conjured this memory...

[Huggs]

They're being very rude.

[Local Trouble]

Is that from Clarice?

[Baron Von Marlon]

https://twitter.com/NoLieWithBTC/status/1427050609266540545

Biden's Statement

When I came to office, I inherited a deal cut by my predecessor—which he invited the Taliban to discuss at Camp David on the eve of 9/11 of 2019—that left the Taliban in the strongest position militarily since 2001 and imposed a May 1, 2021 deadline on U.S. Forces. Shortly before he left office, he also drew U.S. Forces down to a bare minimum of 2,500. Therefore, when I became President, I faced a choice—follow through on the deal, with a brief extension to get our Forces and our allies' Forces out safely, or ramp up our presence and send more American troops to fight once again in another country's civil conflict. I was the fourth President to preside over an American troop presence in Afghanistan—two Republicans, two Democrats. I would not, and will not, pass this war onto a fifth.

Not sure if this is a supposed to be response to my post.
Anyway, point is both Trump and Biden are lying, cheating con men. They say this yet do that and in the end all they care about is themselves.

[Huggs]

Is that from Clarice?

It should've been.

[Shinawi]

I remember how it was like in 2001-2003. People were very upset about the terrorist attacks. I was accused of being unpatriotic and a coward for saying that the war in Afghanistan won't be easy, and especially when I opposed the war in Iraq. I was not only thinking of the Afghans and the Iraqis. I was also concerned about the lives of our soldiers. The impression on war that many in my generation had was mainly from the war that occurred in 1991. The later wars during the early phase did go well and quickly like in 1991, but I didn't expect it to end quickly. (I read a lot of history books and documentaries. And I learned a lot from the older generations who experienced the earlier wars). The only person in my classrooms who agreed with me was my old professor. In around 2004, I saw a peaceful anti-war protest in San Francisco. I joined them. The protesters filled the streets. The people in their cars cheered for us. That was the first time I realized that not only were we not the few, we could actually be the majority.

That being said, I disagree with the sudden and wasteful way that the withdrawal was done this year. The Afghan government should've been informed and given time to prepare. Even if the Afghan military outnumbered the Taliban, regions left suddenly undefended could leave separate units of the Afghan military vulnerable and surrounded. It seems that the Afghans had to cover a large area to defend. And the embassy and the US military vehicles and supplies should've been given time to be withdrawn early on. The US Air Force had to bomb the abandoned vehicles later on to prevent these from falling into Taliban hands. Now the US troops are being sent to Kabul to defend the embassy. This withdrawal was too rushed and disorganized. Also, I think people from outside the US will think twice before trusting and helping the US after this debacle. It'll become harder to employ foreign translators for example.

[Local Trouble]

Was there ever a withdrawal scenario that didn't end with the Taliban taking over again?  We've been killing them for nearly 20 years, but they're like HYDRA at this point.

[Huggs]

Also, I think people from outside the US will think twice before trusting and helping the US after this debacle. It'll become harder to employ foreign translators for example.

We won't need foreign translators if we're not wasting money and blood somewhere we don't belong.

[Shinawi]

Was there ever a withdrawal scenario that didn't end with the Taliban taking over again?  We've been killing them for nearly 20 years, but they're like HYDRA at this point.

I'd rather have us not involved in any wars. But we already got involved in Afghanistan, and being allied to that country, we should've at least warned them that we'd withdraw and give them time to prepare. Our government didn't expect Afghanistan to fall so quickly, made a sudden withdrawal, and now has to worry about our diplomats and our military equipment left behind there. This withdrawal was done in a clumsy manner. This will make the other countries rely on the US less. They'll try to appease the other powerful countries/factions closer to them, but at least one of those powerful countries could be our enemy. We'll see how badly this will turn out in the long run. It's even more sad because in reality, many people there were on our side.

I don't think the Taliban taking over was an inevitable thing if the Afghans were given the right chance, though I don't think the other result would've been inevitable either. It's hard to tell because it would've depended on the decisions of the Afghan government and military, and we don't know what those decisions would've been. If given the right chance, I even think South Vietnam could've lasted much longer. In fact, the South Vietnamese military was actually more stronger and advanced than the northern one, but due to various other factors, South Vietnam fell faster than expected (although their resistance against North Vietnam after our withdrawal lasted longer than the Afghans did against the Taliban). There was actually a time when the US thought about withdrawing from Korea when the war wasn't going well. Fortunately, the South Koreans learned how to defeat the Communists in a battle. Now there are much more South Korean soldiers in Korea than there are US soldiers there. The current number of US soldiers stationed there is now a tiny fraction to the US military involvement during 1950-1953.

We won't need foreign translators if we're not wasting money and blood somewhere we don't belong.

I'm not talking about just foreign translators. And I don't think we won't be involved in another war in the future. Our country had a lot of anti-war people for a long time, even before WWII, and yet we got involved in numerous wars historically. In some of these wars, our country got attacked first.

[SiL]

The withdrawal date was set back in 2019. There was time to prepare.

From everything I'm reading, the willingness, however, was not.

[Shinawi]

There was talk about a withdrawal, but the Afghans claim that they still didn't expect it when it happened because it was done suddenly, with a lot of vehicles and equipment left behind.

[Kimarhi]

My thoughts are so conflicted on this. 


We needed to leave, but the optics for this look absolute dogshit and are a definitive black eye for the US Government and Military. 


Only way US could've won is to have stayed for fifty years and Americanized the shit out of a generation of Afghanis and their children to where a centralized government seemed ok, and taliban stranglehold felt bad. 

I've been hearing our plan of leaving behind a Afghani military capable of standing on its own was going to fail since the moment I joined in 2011, but nobody I knew thought it was fail so spectacularly.  Most people thought that they would run into trouble logistically and be unable to keep up with an taliban war machine that had been in operation since before 9/11, but nobody thought that the afghani forces with superior numbers and equipment.........would just bail on their own defense.

I'd always heard that the only two Afghani military fields that were trustworthy were their pilots (which are incapable of being used without support but that is any group of pilots in any military) and their SOF guys, who did the most fighting and dying for Afghanistan when the Taliban push started. 

It was a huge goat f**k that should shame the USA into getting into that kind of conflict again for a long time............but it won't.  If your objective was Osama, should've done it the long route with cia tracking and delta force killing him on a mountain top somewhere. 

I know some of the guys who I served with are really feeling the sting of this one.  Nobody likes to dedicate years of their lives, and lose friends to an absolute failure of a mission. 

Also, because the US goverment just abandoned millions upon millions of dollars of gear in afghanistan, they should not ever make a joe pay for lost gloves and boonie caps again.  f**king bullshit.