Posted on 08/17/2021 8:08:40 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Democrats are defending Joe Biden’s actions that led to the debacle in Afghanistan by pretending the debate is about whether he was right or wrong in ending “The Forever War.” That’s a strawman argument. Very few people are arguing we shouldn’t have left Afghanistan. Most are arguing we should have left long ago.
The real debate about the tragedy in Afghanistan is whether competent leadership could have avoided it.
Biden defended his administration by pointing the finger at everyone else. It’s Trump’s fault because he “left a bare cupboard” in Afghanistan. Apparently, there was no plan by the Trump administration to evacuate from the Kabul airport if the Taliban took over.
Why there should have been a plan in the first place is a question that goes unanswered — especially since the endgame envisioned by most American policymakers during the Trump years was a gradual drawdown of American troops while the Afghan army “stood up” to replace them. That drawdown would have taken place simultaneously with the conclusion of a negotiated agreement between the Afghan government and the Taliban.
Biden’s rush to withdraw American troops gave the Taliban absolutely no incentive to negotiate. They attacked thanks to the opening given them by the Biden administration. The Afghanistan national army, seeing that they had been abandoned by the United States, realized the hopelessness of their plight and skedaddled.
Why would Biden expect that Afghan army to stand and fight when he had signaled loud and clear to the Taliban that the U.S. would politely step aside and let the Taliban pass?
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
Trump had it set up for an orderly withdrawal. He would have bombed the living daylights out of the Taliban if they so much as made a move toward US troops and Kabul.
RE: He would have bombed the living daylights out of the Taliban if they so much as made a move toward US troops and Kabul.
So, you’re saying that Kabul, the Capital would have been protected, but not the rest of Afghanistan?
Trump tried to get us out of there. There was a way to do it. This was not the way to do it.
If there isn’t 100 percent agreement on ‘This was not the way to do it’, well that’s interesting too I guess.
Much of the Taliban movement has happened under Biden.
The media has a hand in the Afghanistan tragedy they pimped to s.o.b now look at what we have.
China and Russia plans can now go into motion.
“So, you’re saying that Kabul, the Capital would have been protected, but not the rest of Afghanistan?”
That is what it sounds like.
Did Biden stop all close air support for the Afghanistan military?
Trying to figure out why the Afghan military roll over so quick.
Trump did make plans for a halfway decent, orderly withdrawal, but it was hotly denounced by the media and the perfumed princes because (what else?) Orange Man bad.
You have to define “the Afghanistan tragedy” before you can answer the question.
IF the Taliban decide to facilitate the removal of Westerners from their country, the only “tragedy” is Afghans getting to live the way they want to.
Of course, an 1842-style retreat from Kabul is possible, in which case the meaning of “tragedy” would be undisputed.
If this triggers a regime crisis in the US, “US tragedy” is certainly possible. But I bet the fraction of the US population that would support regime change here is growing fast.
Children can rationalize anything. Their thinking is child-like.
At root, the error that pervades their decision-making stems from their worldview, which is Pagan.
All lil’ Joe had to do was drop a few bombs at the first Taliban group out there and then tell the Afghanis to mop up the rest.
Problem solved (for a while).
Not avoidable. It’s planned, and nothing can stop it.
BidAn has his role - regime appears incompetent, BidAn appears incompetent, BidAn will go bye-bye (25A, resign?), and false flags will occur and escalate.
Don’t know what’s next... war in the Middle East? Taiwan? Maracopa?
In one way or another it would have happened even if Trump had been reelected and pulled out in May. But I don’t think it would have been the disorganized mess that Biden is overseeing.
There is never anything quietly and orderly in Afghanistan.
As they did with Biden, the Taliban would have waited until after Trump had pulled all the U.S. troops out. Would he have then sent troops back in or launched air strikes? I doubt it. Would he have done a better job of getting the U.S. people out? Almost certainly.
It’s useful to look at the difference between Obama’s withdrawal from Iraq and Trump’s. Obama announced a sudden withdrawal on date certain, and handed 2/3 of the country over to ISIS along with enormous stores of modern weaponry. Trump destroyed ISIS and started a musical chairs withdrawal that left several garrisons there including a major one in eastern Syria which protects the Kurds and secures the oil for them while giving us options throughout the region. He otherwise kept us out of the Syrian civil war.
This is likely a model for how he would have conducted our withdrawal from Afghanistan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fighting_Season
From a veteran of Afghanistan:
In a criminal lack of judgment, Joe Biden announced and began the unilateral American withdrawal at the start of the fighting season in April. Even worse, Biden planned the complete pullout during the height of the Taliban offensive in August. This meant that the most substantial change of the war, the removal of critical American support, was made at the height of the Taliban surge.
The Puddin Pop Puppet and Willie Brown's Mattress really did it this time.
Bottom line, we should never have been there.
There was a circuitous relationship between what Trump said and exactly how he would carry it out, allowing for changes on the ground.
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