Posted on 08/16/2021 12:52:23 PM PDT by Onthebrink
The Taliban have captured Kabul and the twentieth anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks will coincide with their triumphant return to power in Afghanistan. Blame for a defeat in a conflict waged over two decades can be assigned to a multitude of decision-makers; whether they will be held accountable is a separate story. When this war ends, the real fighting will come to the United States — one side will assert America should have withdrawn years ago and one side will argue America’s withdrawal snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
(Excerpt) Read more at 19fortyfive.com ...
All staying would have done was increase profits for the war profiteers.
Not only where is Joe, but where is W? Where is Dick Cheney. Where are David Frum, David Brooks, Paul Wolfowitz, and the rest of the gang? We know on McCain. Where is Mitt Romney? Nothing to say? That would be rare. What was the real plan in Afghanistan? Not the one you told W, but the real plan.
It’s not that we left. It’s HOW we left that matters.
...and it matters
I think what has people upset is the utter fiasco that the drawdown and exit became. Everyone was ready for the war to end. But everyone was expecting the exit to be orderly and under some sort of plan. Even if the National Army that we’d been building for almost two decades folded quickly.
We didn’t need to stay.
But we didn’t need to suck either.
Where will the demented vegetable in the white house try to nation build next? Place your bets!
Another example of misdirection.
The issue is NOT whether we should have stayed or whether we should have left. (We should have left.) Also, it is Not about who “lost” Afghanistan. This is wholly and totally about dementia Joe completely screwing up the withdrawal. This dolt removed all intelligence assets in July. He then removed all military personnel in the dead of night. But he left untold number of American civilians completely defenseless and at the whim of the Afghans and the Taliban.
The issue is Biden is mentally incompetent to be president. Invoke the 25th Amendment, now.
Victory is not necessary. An ongoing stalemate with a near-zero body count is vastly better than this.
I agree. We pulled out of Bagram Air base in the middle of the night leaving Afghanistan troops wondering what happened. There will be a blood bath like hasn’t been seen since Stalin took power.
Agree. There is a basic difference between a withdrawl and a disorderly rout.
Agreed. But lost in all of it is a lack of messaging. We should be sending a loud message reminding everybody in the middle east that many, many, many more of them were killed than there were Americans killed -- even counting the Sep 11 victims. Thus attacking America hurts them way more than it hurts us.
Them celebrating Sep 11, 2001 makes about as much sense as them celebrating Sep 11, 1683 (when the west won the Siege of Vienna).
It is said that a well executed withdrawal is as good
as a victory.
This is a rout.
Traditionally this is when the majority of casualties
occur. We have yet to count the cost.
Who ever said the goal was to “win”? If we were serious about actually “winning” there would only have been one way: Kill every man, woman and child within the country’s borders. And even then we would not have won.
I see all of those muslim countries not as places to “win”, but places to put heavily fortified bases to keep the areas in check - indefinitely - until we can fully man them with drones and robots. And that day is coming soon.
It's also a lie to say there wasn't a strategic interest in staying to combat Islamic radicals.
It’s not that we left. It’s HOW we left that matters.
...and it matters
While I would not disagree with the larger theme - could not have “won” - I would disagree that the current outcome had to be the only outcome possible.
Many tactical and strategic changes along the way could have resulted in a different outcome as far as the Afghan government and its forces, and continued a status quo of “no winners” for a longer time, possibly till where the final roles were reversed, with the Taliban suing for peace. That that is not to be today, is the result of dozens of errors in policies and mistakes over the 20 years.
I think one of the essentials was that “what can we do” was designed by no-nothings in the White House, under all four administrations, and those White House folks listened and believed what the State Department and DOD bureaucrats advised, and the generals were just yes men who did not know how to tell anyone their ideas were bogus. Up from those ranks is how we got the present military leadership uber-focused on CRT. “white supremacy” and other crap.
G-d forbid China tries to start WWIII with Biden and the current generals in charge.
Will this be the next shoe to drop ?
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202108/1231636.shtml
This is a warning shot over the bow of the USA. The Global Times is a mouthpiece for the CCP.
The invasion of Taiwan could be the next catastrophe for the very weak Biden administration and it won’t end well for Taiwan or the USA. The US has a knack for abandoning their friends and this doesn’t instill trust or plays well internationally. Unfortunately it all leads back to a nation which has become morally and spiritually bankrupt, where even its own people can no longer trust their own government and the same dishonesty permeates their foreign affairs.
Probably true. But that isn’t the point. You can make an orderly drawdown or a chaotic exit. Emperor Xiden (like his mentor BO) chose chaos in order to make his predecessor look bad . . . or merely because he was incompetent.
Contractors to work on the government’s airplanes were pulled, then the US did not offer air support. The government was left dead in the water.
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