Current Affairs Afghanistan

[Ruairi77]

The ex-President apparently, despite laughing at Trump blaming Obama for everything.

It's ridiculous partisanship.

You think Trump, who invited the Taliban to camp David on sep 11 2019, bares no responsibility for this?

 

[peteblue]

I don't think anyone is letting Biden off the hook with the shambolic nature of the withdrawal but all I'm saying is that Trump put him in a terrible position. Pompeo basically conceded to the taliban. They then drew down thousands of troops and put no actual plan in place for the final withdrawal.
In order for biden to safely leave, he would have had to increase troop numbers, something that the Taliban would have resisted militarily. So he was left in the position of

A) increasing troops to facilitate a safe withdrawal and risking an escalation of the war
B) Extend the withdrawal deadline and put the lives of thousands of NATO and Afghani troops at risk
C) Ignoring Trumps Taliban agreement and continuing the war.
D) Rip off the bandaid and withdraw quickly before the deadline and hope the international community help with the evacuation process.

I'm really not sure what other options he had.

E) Keeping hold of the secure Bagram airfield with its two runways and not sneaking away at the dead of night without telling the Afghan government might have helped…..

 

[Tubey]

You think Trump, who invited the Taliban to camp David on sep 11 2019 bares no responsibility for this?

Not for the decision to withdraw by 31 August 2021, a decision made by Joe Biden after being in office since January 2021, no.

It's 100% Biden. Everything Trump did could have and indeed should have been overruled by Biden on office - again, he's not continuing Trump's stupid wall just because Trump started it; that's not how presidencies work.

 

[Ruairi77]

Not for the decision to withdraw by 31 August 2021, a decision made by Joe Biden after being in office since January 2021, no.

It's 100% Biden. Everything Trump did could have and indeed should have been overruled by Biden on office - again, he's not continuing Trump's stupid wall just because Trump started it; that's not how presidencies work.

no, you said for the withdrawal. not for the date of withdrawal.
Do you think Trump has no part to play in the withdrawal?

 

[wainy]

You don’t really understand this do you…

What don’t I understand? We’re saying we can’t rescue everyone because we can’t secure an airfield. As somebody who spent ten years in the military I find this highly embarrassing (as well as highly unlikely). So what don’t I get?

 

[Tubey]

no, you said for the withdrawal. not for the date of withdrawal.
Do you think Trump has no part to play in the withdrawal?

No. Because he's not President and hasn't been for eight months.

The withdrawal is happening now under a guy who made the call to withdraw now and had every opportunity not to withdraw now.

 

[Ruairi77]

Not for the decision to withdraw by 31 August 2021, a decision made by Joe Biden after being in office since January 2021, no.

It's 100% Biden. Everything Trump did could have and indeed should have been overruled by Biden on office - again, he's not continuing Trump's stupid wall just because Trump started it; that's not how presidencies work.

If Biden ignores Trumps deal with the taliban, he's effectively signing up for endless war.

 

[Ruairi77]

No. Because he's not President and hasn't been for eight months.

The withdrawal is happening now under a guy who made the call to withdraw now and had every opportunity not to withdraw now.

he doesn't have every opportunity, the puppet government crumbled.
If he extends it, NATO troops and many more Afghanis die.

 

[Tubey]

If Biden ignores Trumps deal with the taliban, he's effectively signing up for endless war.

Hahaha are you telling me that if Biden said "nah, we'll do it in 2022", then for some reason he couldn't do it then?

Come on. It's the Taliban - the only reason they've took the country back over is because they were literally unopposed. If the US stationed troops in there tomorrow they'd hide in the hills again until it was safe to come out.

No, he obviously could have ignored Trump's deal ffs.

 

[tsubaki]

Option A. Clearly.

And what escalation? It's been eight years since the Taliban killed over 100 US troops in a calendar year. This wasn't the Nazis penning the Allies in at Dunkirk.

A reminder to everyone that the Taliban were able to take over the entire country in slightly longer than a month (ironically like the Germans invading France in 1940), and that other killings matter, not just US troops (like the 2-3000 Afghan civilians killed every year since 2009).

 

[Ruairi77]

Hahaha are you telling me that if Biden said "nah, we'll do it in 2022", then for some reason he couldn't do it then?

Come on. It's the Taliban - the only reason they've took the country back over is because they were literally unopposed. If the US stationed troops in there tomorrow they'd hide in the hills again until it was safe to come out.

No, he obviously could have ignored Trump's deal ffs.

right, and the war goes on.
You're ignoring the fact that Trump released the leadership of the taliban and excluded the afghani govt from peace talks, rendering them useless.
The government was always going to fall and the only way to keep control after that would be to pour thousands more troops in to Kabul leading to another year of bloody war.

 

[Tubey]

A reminder to everyone that the Taliban were able to take over the entire country in slightly longer than a month (ironically like the Germans invading France in 1940), and that other killings matter, not just US troops (like the 2-3000 Afghan civilians killed every year since 2009).

Hahaha not because they were an elite blitzkrieg military force; it's because the Afghan army literally couldn't be arsed stopping them.

The Taliban aren't a 'traditional' military threat and they wouldn't be as long as the US stationed any semblance of a force there.

 

[Ruairi77]

E) Keeping hold of the secure Bagram airfield with its two runways and not sneaking away at the dead of night without telling the Afghan government might have helped…..

yeah, Biden is guilty of monumental screwups, this being one of them.
But this whole thing was written by Pompeo in Feb 2020.

 

[Tubey]

right, and the war goes on.
You're ignoring the fact that Trump released the leadership of the taliban and excluded the afghani govt from peace talks, rendering them useless.
The government was always going to fall and the only way to keep control after that would be to pour thousands more troops in to Kabul leading to another year of bloody war.

What 'bloody war'? 9 US troops died in the totality of 2020 - about as many people are killed by bloody wasps per year.

The Taliban were hiding in the hills, let's not pretend this had to happen by August 2021. It's ludicrous.

 

[tsubaki]

Hahaha not because they were an elite blitzkrieg military force; it's because the Afghan army literally couldn't be arsed stopping them.

The Taliban aren't a 'traditional' military threat and they wouldn't be as long as the US stationed any semblance of a force there.

They aren't a traditional military threat? They just kept fighting most of the West for twenty years and were still standing afterwards, that was after winning a civil war, and after taking part in a campaign that beat the Soviet Union.

How is it you have learned nothing from the past twenty years? Yes, throw some more troops in there, that will sort them out.