It is interesting to watch as they continue to pull out larger numbers of people every day. I was one of those extremely critical of Joe's handling of this, and even more so his stupid remarks. Owning your mistakes is the first step in correcting them.
That said, the challenges are intriguing. Every night as i watch the reports on the news i find myself scratching my head. How the hell do you manage an evacuation when the guy who helped us and has his green card or proper paperwork shows up with 20 or 25 relatives? Seriously gang, what would you do? My immediate reaction is, his wife and kids, after that sorry.
Am i callous? Maybe. I am also a realist. We can't take everyone out. And as far as the October 1 deadline, tell them to blow it out their ass. Seriously, we don't leave till every American is out. I want the war to end like most other American's but the Taliban shouldn't be dictating to us and especially if they are prohibiting people from getting to the airport.
At some point we either are a super power or we aren't.
I know as a hardcore Socialist Democrat you only see this crisis as one of perception but it's not. It is an unmitigated disaster. This has nothing to do with Uncle Joe's foreign Policy, "Leading from Behind" is not the problem here. The problem is planning and execution and that is evident everywhere in this mess. You can hold out hope that this won't end with Taliban holding US Hostages and US and coalition fighting men and women dying to rescue them but even if that does not happen, this retreat was executed as well as the Jimmy Carter's Tehran rescue. Remember?
Lawrence, I thought about not dignifying this with a response, but the comment section here on the Racket has been a civil place so far. I consider "hardcore Socialist Democrat" to be a pejorative term since none of those three words describe me.
I advise you to tone it down. I'd hate to have for you to be the first commenter that we have to ban.
The issue is the withdrawal and the way it is being mishandled by the present administration. After we get through the upcoming hostage crisis, I would not have a problem discussing all of the problems we have created in and around Afghanistan since September 11th but right now we are stuck with how the present Democrat administration screwed America in this withdrawal.
You can't separate it, or lay it all at Biden's feet: this has to involve the mistakes (or deliberate actions) taken by the Trump administration as well, as those are intrinsically linked to today.
Of course you can separate the two. The problem is not leaving it is how you leave. Whatever plan was on the table when Biden finally got into the White House, through the back door as I recall, he had the ability to change it like all the other Trump plans that he changed. This is on the present administration and no body else. Now, what is he going to do about his buddies in the Taliban killing 4 American servicemen. That will be the telling factor.
Well, looks like we agree on something, Democrat is a pejorative term. Ban away if you think that is the answer to receiving comments you don't like. It's your world in here.
Anyways: the point is that the planning and part of the execution started in 2020 under Trump. Biden has plenty to own: just don't act like this is solely due to his actions.
Yeah, I guess I agree with Liz Cheney on Trump involving the Taliban in getting the withdrawal started. It was a bad idea but at least there were behavior expectations and time frames established.
Just remember when we add a “but” to a statement the but applies to both sides. But we knew the Taliban could not be trusted. But Biden thought we had time. But Trump thought he could please everyone. But….
There truly is a lot of blame to go around. Trump screwed up trying to get concessions from the Taliban which I'm convinced would never be honored. We can only speculate if Trump had a Plan B or if he could have effectively adjusted course. He was not reelected.
We do know that Biden and his team screwed up royally beginning with the premature shut down of Bagram. It only got worse from that point. No speculation.
Jennifer Griffin of Fox News convinced me that Trump, Biden and I along with a lot of other citizens were all wrong about withdrawal from Afghanistan being a good idea. Her argument was that it was no longer a war zone (no American loss of life in over a year) but an intelligence outpost and provided a way to move men and equipment into a landlocked strategic location in the middle east. Bagram was a location for launching drones and gathering intelligence on terrorist activity. It would have facilitated rapid deployment of reinforcements if needed.
It is interesting to watch as they continue to pull out larger numbers of people every day. I was one of those extremely critical of Joe's handling of this, and even more so his stupid remarks. Owning your mistakes is the first step in correcting them.
That said, the challenges are intriguing. Every night as i watch the reports on the news i find myself scratching my head. How the hell do you manage an evacuation when the guy who helped us and has his green card or proper paperwork shows up with 20 or 25 relatives? Seriously gang, what would you do? My immediate reaction is, his wife and kids, after that sorry.
Am i callous? Maybe. I am also a realist. We can't take everyone out. And as far as the October 1 deadline, tell them to blow it out their ass. Seriously, we don't leave till every American is out. I want the war to end like most other American's but the Taliban shouldn't be dictating to us and especially if they are prohibiting people from getting to the airport.
At some point we either are a super power or we aren't.
https://twitter.com/TheValuesVoter/status/1430978946171027462/photo/1
"Joe Biden may pull off the pullout"
It's looking less likely.
The first will be an interesting day.
I know as a hardcore Socialist Democrat you only see this crisis as one of perception but it's not. It is an unmitigated disaster. This has nothing to do with Uncle Joe's foreign Policy, "Leading from Behind" is not the problem here. The problem is planning and execution and that is evident everywhere in this mess. You can hold out hope that this won't end with Taliban holding US Hostages and US and coalition fighting men and women dying to rescue them but even if that does not happen, this retreat was executed as well as the Jimmy Carter's Tehran rescue. Remember?
Lawrence, I thought about not dignifying this with a response, but the comment section here on the Racket has been a civil place so far. I consider "hardcore Socialist Democrat" to be a pejorative term since none of those three words describe me.
I advise you to tone it down. I'd hate to have for you to be the first commenter that we have to ban.
Suicide bombing at the Kabul airport. This is just the beginning. Blood on the hands of Democrats across the country.
'cause reducing our personnel from 13k pre-Doha to 2500 as of Jan 15, or the Doha agreement as a whole, had nothing to do with this.
There's a lot of blame to go around for both parties, if you're willing to be open-eyed and not just a partisan on the issue.
The issue is the withdrawal and the way it is being mishandled by the present administration. After we get through the upcoming hostage crisis, I would not have a problem discussing all of the problems we have created in and around Afghanistan since September 11th but right now we are stuck with how the present Democrat administration screwed America in this withdrawal.
You can't separate it, or lay it all at Biden's feet: this has to involve the mistakes (or deliberate actions) taken by the Trump administration as well, as those are intrinsically linked to today.
Of course you can separate the two. The problem is not leaving it is how you leave. Whatever plan was on the table when Biden finally got into the White House, through the back door as I recall, he had the ability to change it like all the other Trump plans that he changed. This is on the present administration and no body else. Now, what is he going to do about his buddies in the Taliban killing 4 American servicemen. That will be the telling factor.
Well, looks like we agree on something, Democrat is a pejorative term. Ban away if you think that is the answer to receiving comments you don't like. It's your world in here.
Anything is a pejorative, depending on how it's used.
https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1427394730887811074
Let's add a little mitigation to the mix.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6790279-US-Taliban-Agreement
Trusting the Taliban?
Anyways: the point is that the planning and part of the execution started in 2020 under Trump. Biden has plenty to own: just don't act like this is solely due to his actions.
Yeah, I guess I agree with Liz Cheney on Trump involving the Taliban in getting the withdrawal started. It was a bad idea but at least there were behavior expectations and time frames established.
Just remember when we add a “but” to a statement the but applies to both sides. But we knew the Taliban could not be trusted. But Biden thought we had time. But Trump thought he could please everyone. But….
I'm not sure I agree with your grammar logic.
There truly is a lot of blame to go around. Trump screwed up trying to get concessions from the Taliban which I'm convinced would never be honored. We can only speculate if Trump had a Plan B or if he could have effectively adjusted course. He was not reelected.
We do know that Biden and his team screwed up royally beginning with the premature shut down of Bagram. It only got worse from that point. No speculation.
Jennifer Griffin of Fox News convinced me that Trump, Biden and I along with a lot of other citizens were all wrong about withdrawal from Afghanistan being a good idea. Her argument was that it was no longer a war zone (no American loss of life in over a year) but an intelligence outpost and provided a way to move men and equipment into a landlocked strategic location in the middle east. Bagram was a location for launching drones and gathering intelligence on terrorist activity. It would have facilitated rapid deployment of reinforcements if needed.
That's my "butless" comment today.
And we followed those time-frames even when the Taliban violated the agreement.
There's a lot of blame to lay at a lot of people's feet over the past 18 months.