Taliban Reconquista

wags finger

I did not have diplomatic relations with that country

We probably read the same sources. In terms of “should the US take anyone who wants to leave?”

I’m not in favor of taking all the corrupt officials who profited while the money and supplies didn’t make it to the front line.

Now, figure out who’s who. I think the US soldiers on the ground who know interpreters face-to-face can identify some that we should take. After that, probably some similar situations that I haven’t thought about.

I think Biden makes a fair point. The tradeoff is to shirk the agreement with the Taliban and resume conflict, not to keep the gains of the agreement that included the US withdrawal without withdrawing. Not to mention the whole why on earth should US soldiers risk their lives for a nation whose soldiers wouldn’t do the same for their own country.

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https://thehill.com/policy/international/middle-east-north-africa/568003-central-command-chief-taliban-leaders-reached?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark

Hopefully this gives them time to get out those in most danger.

If the deal holds and we get everyone out safely, I think that is a win for Biden.

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we do not negotiate with terrists

“Death to America” - These fellers seem nice

China could move ~50 million Chinese people there, which I suspect is the only way to hold it.

A lot of things being written about Afghanistan in retrospect. Ignoring all the dumb takes, a few of those on the ground who saw events up close say the same thing: the Afghan government was exceedingly corrupt, our government knew it and enabled it, and the military had zero plans - maybe less than zero because “what if” was strictly forbidden from discussion - about how to extract ourselves or reverse the corruption we knew was going on and which we enabled. The eventual takeover by the Taliban wasn’t an “if”, it was a “when” and the speed at which it happened shouldn’t be a surprise at all.

Again, not sure how another 2 years, 20 years or 200 years was going to fix that while we were turning a blind eye to it all.

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Sounds sadly reminiscent of Viet Nam, 50 years ago. Military and political leaders passing along happy reports they knew to be false.

Same ending as well.

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are we the baddies

We are the dummies who think we could make the world better.

Hitler thought he could make the world better

Wow, you get the connection!

Summary:

  • 50% of respondents have “total support” (strongly support + somewhat support) for America to send troops back to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban.
  • 61% of respondents have “total support” for America completing its withdrawl of troops on schedule.

The sum of these answers for Democrats adds to … 125%. :thinking: We’re going to we get everyone over and set up, fight for maybe 24 hours, then recall them all home to meet the deadline, or something like that.

  • 68% of respondents have “total support” for the notion that the war in Afghanistan was going to end badly no matter when we left.
  • 51% of respondents “totally support” the idea of leaving troops there for another year.

:thinking: :thinking: So … it’s going to go bad, but let’s send troops back in anyway. No idea how that could go wrong.

  • 63% of respondents “totally support” the idea that "the rapid collapse of U.S.-trained Afghan forces and government is evidence why the U.S. should get out.

:thinking: :thinking: :thinking: But, send the troops back anyway to fight the Taliban … but get out … but not until the deadline … but …

The American people are struggling with the fact that the bill of goods we have been sold about ourselves is worse than worthless. We wanna be for freedom, and openness, and equality, and greatness. That’s how we define winning in our minds. Yet once again the facts bear out that we are about corruption, and profit for the few, and dregs and violence and death for the rest. People suffer, are miserable, and die so we can temporarily feel good about ourselves all while politicians of every ilk come and go and corporations and a select few wealthy individuals we have to work to figure out some of their names profit greatly.

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i was ignorant of all of this, until just watching msnbc right now. they are kind of bashing biden on this for abandoning the people who helped us to die there.

IMO Biden bit the bullet here. Somebody was going to have to eat this crap sandwich and he ate it. I applaud him for being willing to take the political hit. Trump was heading toward doing the exact same thing, but ran out of time. The bad decision was made in the GWB admin when we decided to conquer Afghanistan instead of find Bin Laden and bring him to justice. Nation building doesn’t work. That’s the lesson of the last 50 years of US Foreign policy. We can’t fight the Revolutionary War on behalf of other people, they have to do it themselves.

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Completely agree. This is why Trump was so successful at saying he isn’t to blame. Americans are too willing to let the prior POTUSes off the hook. Biden has been president for < 1 year and he is basically taking ownership of 18 years worth of a mistake. Sure, criticize the details of it, but he deserves a lot of credit for taking ownership and standing firm to make the best of a really shit situation. I’m just happy we’re back to having a guy who owns it and doesn’t say the reporters are all lying to you AND we’ll finally, truly, be out of Afghanistan.

Hmm well, he did spend 8 years as vice president so he was around for a big chunk of it as numero dos