I have been pleased with most of what Biden has done, but Afghanistan? I have to break with him,

[Stinky The Clown]

Last edited Wed Aug 11, 2021, 11:00 PM - Edit history (1)

People are literally dying in the wake of our (IMHO) precipitous withdrawal.

I am so far from my time in service, I have no clue based on that experience as to what to do.

As an observer it seems to me we need to stay at some serious level of in-country troops to see to the SAFE evacuation of the Afghans who supported us. In a word, we OWE these people our support - those who directly worked with us and their families.

I recognize there is no simple answer to this and my words about should not be taken as my definitive view of what to do.

What IS clear to me is that we cannot abandon our friends. And friends - in the diplomatic sense - are exactly who we seem to be hanging out to dry.

Edit to add the text of post 36, below:

To be clear, the OP is about abandoning our friends, not the idea of getting out.

It is about HOEW we are getting out.

It is about abandoning locals who were, in practice, members of our American contingent.

It is about abandoning those people's families.

It is about our reputation next time we ask for help.

The OP is not espousing keeping our troops there. It IS about keeping our troops there until the evaluations are complete.

[Oneironaut]

1. Unfortunately, we've been there 20 years.

When people fighting in a war weren’t even alive when the war started, it’s time to end it.

We’ll still be fighting the Taliban on and off. However, nation building there was doomed to failure, and we’d be just postponing the inevitable.

[iemanja]

2. It's a tough issue

I wonder if this wouldn't have happened even if we stayed for another decade?

[rampartc]

27. another century, another trillion dollers, another 10.000 american lives

whatever we were doing there was never going to happen.

[EX500rider]

46. It has not been 10,000

A total of 2,312 US military personnel in Afghanistan have died since 2001.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

3. I wish I had an answer.

I am so far from my time in service, I have no clue based on that experience as to what to do.

Nor I.

[RKP5637]

4. It seems it's a Catch-22. n/t

[wcmagumba]

5. Feels a little like our exit from Vietnam to me...

excepting no helos on the roof to save a few, this time we just left in the night...(I know the military said it was strategically necessary for US troops safety but,)

[Caliman73]

6. Regarding the advisors and translators, I 100% agree.

Though it was Trump who actually started the withdrawal of troops, the idea that those translators, guards, guides, etc... who were working with the military and are now targets of the Taliban, were not streamlined for evacuation, is ridiculous. Those people should have been on a fast track to be the first out. Our troops have weaponry and the threat of annihilation for the Taliban if they attack. The Afghani civilians have no protection whatsoever, and are surely on a kill list.

We did them wrong.

[Stinky The Clown]

14. This is my central point.

[Caliman73]

18. The worst thing is, we knew we were going to leave eventually...

There should ALWAYS, ALWAYS be a plan to get our people (and they are our people) out. We should have been planning for this contingency since we went in.

[Stinky The Clown]

35. Amen!

[rickyhall]

7. Whenever we leave it'll be the same.

[Moostache]

8. 20 years is long enough to know that it is "unwinnable"...

I joined millions in protesting the start of this massacre, if anyone is now feeling like someone needs to be held to account for this, head to Texas first, not the White House today.

[Grasswire2]

12. think of the fortune that Cheney made off Halliburton from wars.

And the Bush family was part of the Carlyle Group:

[link:https://www.plaintruth.com/the_plain_truth/2021/05/when-war-is-swell-the-carlyle-group-and-the-middle-east-at-war-by-jeffrey-st-clair.html|

[stillcool]

9. where empires go to die...sounds appropriate.

[Chainfire]

10. Yes people are dying. It will happen whether we are there or not.

The Afghans are going to have to decide how they are going to live with each other. We have tried for 20 years and it seems as if we are no closer to "winning" a peace then we were back then. How much longer would you propose that we continue in our adventure over there? Afghans, like all people, are going to get the government that they deserve. Perhaps that should be a warning to us as well.

[Scrivener7]

11. 20 years is not precipitous.

[msongs]

13. what's going on there is all about religion and its imposition nt

[totodeinhere]

15. No, I disagree. No matter how long we stay we will have to leave eventually.

And when we leave what you described will happen. So we may as well get it over with.

[Pantagruel]

16. Humans have transformed religion

into the greatest evil on the planet.
As a species, we probably don't deserve to survive and that's where we're heading.

[luv2fly]

21. +1

The source of so many evils and helping push us on our transformation into whatever humans become next.

[Buckeyeblue]

17. We should have never gone there.

But we can't stay forever. This would have eventually happened regardless of how long we were there.

[maxsolomon]

29. We should not have pursued Al Queda after 9/11?

Is that what you meant?

Or did you mean we shouldn't have overthrown the Taliban?

The Taliban re-conquering that is underway was not a foregone conclusion in 2002.

[Buckeyeblue]

37. Going into Afghanistan was reactionary.

We could have continued to target Al Queda without a full scale invasion.

W got caught asleep at the switch and had to make up for it. Clinton warned him. He didn't come in taking the residency serious. He wanted to send puff out his chest and waste the Clinton surplus by sending out checks.

I hate W.

[maxsolomon]

39. Ok so pursuing Al Queda with force was OK, occupying the country was a mistake.

I don't disagree. I do think the Taliban deserved it, though.

Bush made horrible choices. War Crime choices. Dumb choices. Easy choices.

I said at the time, the Christian thing to do was Drop the Love Bomb. Shower the Muslim world with America-funded sewage systems, water supply systems, solar power systems. Buy their good will with Civil Engineering. Start where we weren't hated yet.

[Buckeyeblue]

48. I said at the time that we should have held the Saudi's accountable

We should have said this is on you. Fix it. And if they didn't fix it, we bomb them. But, as you know, that was never going to happen.

I like your idea about helping to improve the region but they would have hated us for that, as well. Ultimately they just want left alone.

I read where China is going to take a run at Afghanistan. Let's see how that goes.

[maxsolomon]

50. They'll try what they're doing throughout the developing world

Improving infrastructure; building ports, railroads. They DGAF about human rights, obviously, only markets and money. Afghanistan probably has Lithium.

There really isn't a way through the Wakhan Corridor currently. They'll have to tunnel a rail line through.

Wait till the Taliban find out they're Atheists!

[Doodley]

19. If our objective is peace and for Afghans to self-govern and improve human rights, then how is this

achieved by abandoning the mission? IMO, we shouldn't have been there in the first place, but if we think we can act as international policemen and march into other nations and drop bombs, then we have to accept responsibility for the long-term.

[luv2fly]

20. It's so hard to read and watch about this

Watching these families is heartbreaking, and yet it's also true that horrible things are happening in other countries all the time, and only so much can be done I suppose.

It doesn't help when many of the Afghan armies are surrendering in droves, and the Taliban simply advances on towards Kabul, using equipment from the United States.

[mcar]

22. I appreciate your perspective, Stinky

But it's been 20 years. If the Afghan government hasn't got its wits about it by now, it never will.

The looming humanitarian crisis and the threat to women and girls is horrifying to contemplate. Why aren't the Afghan leaders leading? What about all the troops we trained/armed?

It's a terrible situation.

[bluedigger]

23. We gave an entire generation the opportunity to embrace our ideology.

It has failed to root, and it's now time for us to be about our business, and for Afghanistan to choose their own way.

[maxsolomon]

30. It rooted in many Afghanis.

those people (largely non-Pashtun) are not going to get to "choose their own way"; they'll be oppressed or killed.

[BannonsLiver]

42. Well said.

Enough is enough. I tend to think after thousands of years in which little to nothing has progressed they are who they want to be.

[Tumbulu]

24. I feel the same way

Thanks for expressing it so well.

[Rustyeye77]

25. OMG !! I'm not alone!!

THANK YOU
THANK YOU
THANK YOU

[Submariner]

26. It's a country of ultra-conservative uneducated tribes that hate each other

almost as much as they hate foreign invaders in their country.

They will kill each other to "own the west" just like their american counterparts "own the libs". Kill and hate....it's what they do...Kill. They don't build anything. They just destroy and kill. The Afghan army just runs away.

[roamer65]

28. Its Iran, China and Pakistan's problem now.

China is going to be in there soon.

[lindysalsagal]

43. Only if they can make profits after paying the war expenses

And that doesn't appear likely.

[Raine]

31. I'm with you on this

I'm really concerned about what will happen to the women, the girls and all their family members.

[Rustyeye77]

34. You just don't even know .

I’ve been slammed for the past few days for the saying the same thing.

[maxsolomon]

32. America needs to accept many times more refugees than Nativist Americans will want.

On the order of 250K in the next 5 years. Assuming the Taliban will even let them out.

Who knows what would have happened if Bush the Lesser had not invaded Iraq, and had concentrated on pacifying Afghanistan?

[a kennedy]

33. I know......am sick of what is going on there now......😢 😢 😢

[Stinky The Clown]

36. To be clear, the OP is about abandoning our friends, not the idea of getting out.

It is about HOEW we are getting out.

It is about abandoning locals who were, in practice, members of our American contingent.

It is about abandoning those people's families.

It is about our reputation next time we ask for help.

The OP is not espousing keeping our troops there. It IS about keeping our troops there until the evaluations are complete.

[Rustyeye77]

49. Me too.

Nothing anyone can do.

[BlueIdaho]

38. Afghanistan- the graveyard of nations...

Every country that has gone in to “fix” Afghanistan has left precipitously in failure. We are just one of many who have learned the hard way that stabilizing this place is a chaotic impossibility.

[lindysalsagal]

44. Wish you were wrong. But you're not.

It's hopeless. We can't even get our own citizens to stop fighting.

[BlueIdaho]

52. I wish I was wrong to... nt.

[WarGamer]

40. How many American lives is it worth?

50 a year?

500 a year?

[Stinky The Clown]

41. Post 36. 2 Above this one

[WarGamer]

47. I saw that. I guess I'm speaking in more general terms.

But of course we should evac the translators

[Carlitos Brigante]

45. Gotta admit I misread this. But yes, there had to be an evacuation plan in

place. Whether it took month, a year. These people and their families were hung out to dry.

[RobinA]

51. I Wish The News

were talking more about this than the latest raucous school board meeting over whether masks should be mandatory. Everything I read and hear about Afghanistan, what little there is, it just sounds like Vietnam circa 4/75, but with sand. I graduated from high school then.