Biden faces mounting blame for Afghan debacle
The Taliban's stunning advances in Afghanistan threaten to be a stain on President Joe Biden's record, but he has stood firm on withdrawing US troops and believes the public is with him.
Twenty years of investment that cost $2 trillion and nearly 2,500 US lives were disintegrating within days as the Islamist insurgents seized two of the largest cities with little resistance and closed in on the capital Kabul.
Republican rivals predictably attacked Biden but he also faced the most critical coverage of his presidency, with television networks juxtaposing images of Afghanistan's collapse with his remarks a little more than a month ago that "the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely."
Joe Biden wearing a suit and tie: US President Joe Biden focuses a speech on lowering prescription drug prices amid chaotic scenes in Afghanistan © MANDEL NGAN US President Joe Biden focuses a speech on lowering prescription drug prices amid chaotic scenes in Afghanistan
In a scathing editorial, The Washington Post said that Biden had put at risk the real progress in Afghanistan since 2001 including education for girls, banned by the Taliban when they last ruled.
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"Afghan lives ruined or lost will belong to Mr. Biden's legacy just as surely as any US dollars and lives his decision may save," the newspaper wrote.
The United States was rushing back 3,000 troops -- roughly the same number removed in this month's final withdrawal -- to evacuate embassy staff and was flying out Afghans whose work with US forces puts them at risk.
But Biden, who through his decades in public life earned a reputation for empathy, has been unmoved when asked about Afghan losses and instead speaks of protecting US troops, a deeply personal matter as his late son Beau served in Iraq.
Both the former vice president and US opinion polls have shared his view for years. VoteVets, an advocacy group, hailed Biden for finally "having the strength to stand up to those who want endless war."
- Lack of planning? -
Biden argues that the United States long ago achieved its main goal of defeating Al-Qaeda after the September 11, 2001 attacks and had done more than enough by training 300,000 Afghan troops.
"They've got to fight for themselves, fight for their nation," Biden said Tuesday.
Administration officials say that delaying the pullout was only prolonging the inevitable.
But Andrew Wilder, an Afghanistan expert who visited in June, said the administration could have devoted more time to preparing for the expected effects and that it was not "an orderly and responsible withdrawal."
"I think it's hard not to conclude that, not the US withdrawal, but the way in which we withdrew had a critical role to play in this," said Wilder, vice president for Asia studies at the US Institute of Peace.
The US pullout also created "an air of inevitability" that sapped the Afghan will to fight, even if the Taliban remain unpopular.
"To me the psychological factor is what we didn't adequately factor in," Wilder said.
Top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell said Biden allowed a "massive, predictable and preventable disaster" and former president Donald Trump issued a statement denouncing the "tragic mess" and writing in all caps, "Do you miss me yet?"
But Trump himself set in motion the withdrawal with a February 2020 deal with the Taliban.
Critics have drawn parallels to the chaotic fall of Saigon in 1975 but the US president at the time, Gerald Ford, had been in office for less than a year and is rarely cast by historians as the sole to blame for the tortured US experience in Vietnam.
- US apathy -
Biden had cast Afghanistan as a costly side issue when the United States needs to focus on a larger challenge from China.
Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, wondered how Taliban gains would affect Biden's stated mission of defending democracy in the face of authoritarians.
But Katulis said it was unclear how much of a political price Biden would pay. The US withdrawal from Iraq in 2011, pushed by Biden, was popular until the rise of the Islamic State extremist movement.
"This really depends on how ugly it gets," Katulis said.
"If it's a series of atrocities just involving Afghans, you can look to Syria as an example where there is just a global shrug of indifference of saying there's nothing we can do," he said.
"But if Americans are involved, then all bets are off."
Biden's Afghan failure
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Biden's Afghan failure
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Re: Biden's Afghan failure
Opinion: Biden deserves blame for the debacle in Afghanistan
CNN-A group of religious warriors, riding on captured American military vehicles, vanquish a US-trained military, which relinquishes much of its power without a fight.
Sound familiar?
That's what happened in Iraq after the US withdrawal of troops from the country at the end of 2011. Within three years, an army of ISIS fighters was only a few miles from the gates of Baghdad and had taken many of the significant cities in Iraq.
It was then-Vice President Joe Biden who had negotiated the Obama administration's drawdown from Iraq.
In 2014, after ISIS began ethnic cleansing in Iraq and murdering American journalists and aid workers, then-President Barack Obama reversed that decision and sent additional military support -- upping the troop presence to 2,900.
Now Biden is presiding over a debacle entirely of his own making in Afghanistan -- and one that has unfolded more swiftly than even the most dire prognostications.
Since Biden announced a total US withdrawal in April, the Taliban have taken over more than one-third of the 34 provincial capitals in Afghanistan, and they now control more than half of the country's some 400 districts.
The Taliban have also seized control of much of northern Afghanistan, far from their traditional strongholds in the south and east of the country, demonstrating a well-thought-out military strategy. In fact, the Taliban now control the key cities of Herat and Ghanzi, the latter of which is less than 100 miles from Kabul and is located on the most important road in the country -- the Kabul to Kandahar highway.
The US State Department is urging all US citizens to leave the country "immediately," and the Pentagon announced it will send an additional 3,000 troops to assist in US diplomats' departures and evacuations. Meanwhile, the US government is also considering moving its embassy to Kabul airport. Apparently, the Biden administration doesn't want a replay of the iconic images of the hasty evacuation of the US Embassy in Saigon in 1975.
Just as ISIS had done in Iraq, the Taliban is also attacking prisons across Afghanistan and releasing fighters who are joining the insurgency. The Afghan government has said most of these inmates, however, are criminals -- sentenced for offenses ranging from drug smuggling to armed robbery.
The Taliban 'peace' fantasy
For Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, the key US negotiator with the Taliban, and academics like Professor Barnett Rubin at New York University, both of whom promoted the fantasy that the Taliban would seek a genuine negotiated peace deal with the Afghan government, a harsh reality is setting in. The chances of such a deal are next to none.
Khalilzad traveled to Doha this week where he has led "peace" negotiations with the Taliban for the past three years "to help formulate a joint international response to the rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan."
Good luck with that. During the last rounds of negotiations that started under the Trump administration, Khalilzad entered into agreements with the Taliban that stated in exchange for a total US withdrawal, they would break with al Qaeda and enter into genuine peace talks with the Afghan government. The Taliban have reneged on those agreements, according to the United Nations and the Afghan government.
Meanwhile, Khalilzad agreed to pressure the Afghan government to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners, several of whom simply rejoined their old comrades on the battlefield once they were released. It's hard to recall a more failed and counterproductive diplomatic effort. Maybe British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's attempt to reach a lasting peace agreement with Adolf Hitler in 1938 in Munich on the cusp of World War II?
The withdrawal date of US troops from Afghanistan was initially supposed to be September 11, 2021, but the Biden administration seems to have realized that removing all troops on the 20th anniversary of 9/11, which was masterminded by al Qaeda from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, would not be a PR triumph, and so the new date for the completion of the US withdrawal is August 31.
Nonetheless, when the 20th anniversary is memorialized at the World Trade Center and elsewhere in the US, the Taliban will surely be celebrating their great victory in Afghanistan.
According to reporting by CNN, one US intelligence assessment estimates that the Afghan capital Kabul may be fully surrounded by the Taliban come September 11 -- and that it could fall shortly after that.
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Re: Biden's Afghan failure
Amazing we didn't have weekly Trump failure threads from Biker
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Re: Biden's Afghan failure
You think the results of our withdrawal would be any different under a second Trump Administration?
Ballwashing faggot
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Re: Biden's Afghan failure
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Re: Biden's Afghan failure
Animal wrote: ↑Fri Aug 13, 2021 7:14 pmYou can bet your ass if they were exactly the same you would have started a much worse thread about it.
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Re: Biden's Afghan failure
Another faggotBigRedRetard wrote: ↑Fri Aug 13, 2021 7:19 pmThe f word again
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Re: Biden's Afghan failure
The most damning question is why is the Shit Show Joe administration surprised?
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Re: Biden's Afghan failure
Why would this have anything to do with Biden? The draw down was started under trump and his timeline was out by May and you all clapped. Are we supposed to stay forever? Cause that is the only way the Taliban doesnt reassert itself. We gave the Afghanistan's the equipment the training and the intelligence to continue on their own and if they don't have the will to do it then that's their problem.
Last edited by Stapes on Fri Aug 13, 2021 9:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I blame Biker.
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Re: Biden's Afghan failure
The Taliban already controlled over half the country before Biden's inauguration. Not sure why anyone is surprised by these results.
What would be happening differently if Trump was still calling the shots. The US signed an agreement with the Taliban under Trump and without an Afghan envoy present during talks.
Sounds like it is going just as intended.
What would be happening differently if Trump was still calling the shots. The US signed an agreement with the Taliban under Trump and without an Afghan envoy present during talks.
Sounds like it is going just as intended.
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Re: Biden's Afghan failure
My guess is that Cheezy and Biker agree with the decision to withdraw. And both understand that this was exactly what was going to happen. But both being partisan hacks….Burn1dwn wrote: ↑Fri Aug 13, 2021 8:29 pm The Taliban already controlled over half the country before Biden's inauguration. Not sure why anyone is surprised by these results.
What would be happening differently if Trump was still calling the shots. The US signed an agreement with the Taliban under Trump and without an Afghan envoy present during talks.
Sounds like it is going just as intended.
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Re: Biden's Afghan failure
I voted for the guy, dipshitspudoc wrote: ↑Fri Aug 13, 2021 8:52 pmMy guess is that Cheezy and Biker agree with the decision to withdraw. And both understand that this was exactly what was going to happen. But both being partisan hacks….Burn1dwn wrote: ↑Fri Aug 13, 2021 8:29 pm The Taliban already controlled over half the country before Biden's inauguration. Not sure why anyone is surprised by these results.
What would be happening differently if Trump was still calling the shots. The US signed an agreement with the Taliban under Trump and without an Afghan envoy present during talks.
Sounds like it is going just as intended.
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Re: Biden's Afghan failure
I agree we needed to get out but I think disappearing overnight and leaving all of our equipment there was a pretty questionable decision.
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Re: Biden's Afghan failure
it was a hell of a mistake by the Russians. You would think we would have learned from that lesson. That's exactly what got Bin Laden's guys started in the first place.peterosehaircut wrote: ↑Fri Aug 13, 2021 9:32 pm I agree we needed to get out but I think disappearing overnight and leaving all of our equipment there was a pretty questionable decision.
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Re: Biden's Afghan failure
That and all the materiel we supplied the Mujahedin Freedom Fighters.Animal wrote: ↑Fri Aug 13, 2021 9:41 pmit was a hell of a mistake by the Russians. You would think we would have learned from that lesson. That's exactly what got Bin Laden's guys started in the first place.peterosehaircut wrote: ↑Fri Aug 13, 2021 9:32 pm I agree we needed to get out but I think disappearing overnight and leaving all of our equipment there was a pretty questionable decision.
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Re: Biden's Afghan failure
What happened to the Afghan army? Haven't we been training them for 20 years?
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Re: Biden's Afghan failure
Propping them up more than training them, apparently.peterosehaircut wrote: ↑Fri Aug 13, 2021 11:46 pm What happened to the Afghan army? Haven't we been training them for 20 years?
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Re: Biden's Afghan failure
Afghanistan has been chewing up Superpowers for 2,500 years going back to Alexander and before. Don't know why we expected it to be any different this time.
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Re: Biden's Afghan failure
well,we had 20+ years to develop new weapons and fighting skills so now it's time to go. if the Afgans get run over after we completely leave they have nobody to blame but themselves. There have been almost two generations that experienced free will,by their standards,thanks to Europeans and US ,and they apparently prefer to be dominated than fight . So,fuk them. They're welcome to all the equipment ,good luck getting spare parts.
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Re: Biden's Afghan failure
The main thing about Afghanistan going way back into prehistory, they were always a "crossroads". Trading routes( China-Middle East/ Europe)/ (Indian Ocean/ Caucus/ Russia), rampaging armies marching through toward somewhere else, endless sectional fighting. No country will come to their defense because they have nothing of value other than their land.
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Re: Biden's Afghan failure
they have rare earth metal reserves and massive amounts of poppy fields and just 'OK' hash .It's one country with half dozen districts that prefer to rule themselves and none of them recognize a central government-ever. So the USA left as did every other country that tried to tame it for over 300 yrs.Nobody will come to their defense because it's senseless and they want a keeper not a defender. fuk them.CentralTexasCrude wrote: ↑Sat Aug 14, 2021 2:28 am The main thing about Afghanistan going way back into prehistory, they were always a "crossroads". Trading routes( China-Middle East/ Europe)/ (Indian Ocean/ Caucus/ Russia), rampaging armies marching through toward somewhere else, endless sectional fighting. No country will come to their defense because they have nothing of value other than their land.