Posted on 08/27/2021 8:17:09 AM PDT by Kaslin
As the world watches in horror, the leaders of history's mightiest country are begging a terrorist group not to harm defenseless Americans left in a crumbling, trillion-dollar trap of our own design. Considering we hold all the receipts, it's worth asking how we got here. The main problem, of course, is President Joe Biden's botched withdrawal. It's scary that the people running our country can be that incompetent. Pulling out American troops before the safe withdrawal of American citizens would be a hilarious concept if it weren't what actually happened. Leaving sophisticated American military technology for these terrorists is equally mind-boggling.
If America has any hope of moving beyond its current depressed state, we each need to look introspectively at the role we have had in our own decline. In Afghanistan, as with most issues, there's plenty of blame to go around. The two opposite sides of the Afghanistan debate are the nation-building crowd and the "no forever wars" crowd. Biden's blunder aside, there are questions each side should be asking themselves that they probably aren't.
First, those who pushed for nation building in Afghanistan should explain how the past 20 years were worth the money and, more importantly, the lost lives. After 9/11, America had a right, even an obligation, to target al-Qaida and remove the Taliban government that supported it. However, the failed democracy-building exercise in the wake of that justified action cost too much money and left too many American soldiers killed and injured. It was never going to work.
In his memoir, President George W. Bush said we "had a strategic interest in helping the Afghan people build a free society," because "a democratic Afghanistan would be a hopeful alternative to the vision of the extremists." The problem, now proven, is America does not have the ability to create liberty-loving democracies out of whole cloth. Bush himself said this during the 2000 election, when he specifically campaigned against nation building. The idea of trying it out in a place as complicated, divided and corrupt as Afghanistan was borderline insane. For America to move forward, those who pushed the nation-building policies should be willing to engage directly on what happened and on what they have learned about America's limitations.
On the other extreme is the crowd railing against "forever wars." After the blunders in both Iraq and Afghanistan, most Americans want a reduced role overseas. The risk is that the reaction to excessive American interventionism is excessive American isolationism. The post-World War II era, defined by muscular U.S. leadership and advanced U.S. troop deployment in many places around the world, has been successful by historic standards. The world is always a mess. But you can't look at the past 70 years compared with the 70 prior and argue that U.S. leadership hasn't added stability and saved lives. U.S. leadership has not been perfect, but it has been better than any other alternative.
After spending too many years, lives and dollars, the U.S. war in Afghanistan largely ended during the Trump administration. Since then, we have had a very small number of U.S. troops involved primarily in advisory and coordinating roles. This doesn't excuse the years of mistakes or make the losses worthwhile, but the gains were worth preserving. In the past year or so, the situation in Afghanistan had largely stabilized with as few as 2,500 American troops on the ground. The Afghan army that the U.S. trained, the one that folded like a tent once we withdrew, was largely able to hold its own with guidance, coordination and leadership from the U.S. They had serious issues with corruption and leadership, but their biggest problem was their complete dependence on U.S. technology. The U.S. military trained them that way. It's in America's interest to disrupt groups like al-Qaida and ISIS; having an Afghan army to do it for us (with U.S. coordination) so American troops don't die doing it is better than a lot of alternatives.
The U.S. has thousands of troops stationed all over the world. Europe is still full of U.S. troops. Parts of Asia are as well. Yet nobody is claiming World War II or the Korean War are forever wars. When did zero American troops on the ground become the standard, and is that a standard we really want? Those are questions the "no forever wars" crowd needs to answer. If we could have held a small base in Afghanistan and kept 2,000 troops as advisers to hold off the Taliban, would that have been better than what we have now? On the flip side, if we do face a renewed terrorist threat in Afghanistan after full U.S. withdrawal, are we going to be able to counter it effectively? Will cruise missiles from thousands of miles away really be enough? We can't fly our bombers over without risking conflict with a neighboring country. None of that is easy.
Well Biden isn’t a well man to say the least.....Dems never should have supported his run and knew his health was declining long before he ran. Add that to basically he’s like a court jester on a good day.....his Presidency could only play out just as we’re seeing it. And I don’t think it matters to him at all how foolish he looks and sounds.
Bush had no interest in getting Bin Laden. It was all about Nation Building from Day One.
It was money first and last.
What was the number in billions that we spent on military aid to the Afgans? Some $83 billion? In other words it was money to the military contractors here in the US and in other countries where we the taxpayers paid for say the Brazilian helicopters.
Their military doing jumping jacks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKfIujZjoHA
Biden’s Build Back Better aka BBB really stands for Biden’s Blank Brain.
Who is to blame?
Well, Mohammed actually. Then everyone else who stuck their oar in. The Brits a longtime ago. Russia in the 80s Most recently BushI, Bush II, Clinton and Obama. Biden is just there to finish the job. Next up is the Chinese. They will fail to, no matter what China’s toadies claim.
The republican state legislators and governors in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, And Michigan
They must get out of the way and allow the United States to operate as a constitutional republic and not a minion of foreign enemies of state. The situation in Afghanistan is an arm of The operation these paid off republican state officials are preferred to do
It seems.
Afghanistan was nothing of the sort. The worst year for U.S. combat deaths in Afghanistan was 2010 — NINE YEARS after the U.S. military campaign began, and SIX YEARS after the “victory” in Afghanistan was sufficiently complete for the country to adopt a new constitution.
Ask yourself what the political climate in the U.S. would have been if the U.S. military forces in South Korea suffered more casualties in 1960 than in 1950. I’m going to speculate that there would have been plenty of Americans calling for the president and every member of Congress to be rounded up and dropped into North Korea from 30,000 feet — with no parachutes.
19 suicide bombers attacked us almost 20 years ago. Yesterday at least one suicide bomber attacked us. What have we accomplished in 20 years? You can say it didn’t occur in our country but it is coming given our open borders.
The sad part is people will give up their freedoms to be “safe” just like taking the jab. They will insist, beyond all reason, that you have to take the jab as well so they will be safe in their minds.
The problem is the basic level of competence of those ruling us.
Afghanistan and Iraq could have been successful wars, but the Bush crew followed by Obama’s worse lot we incapable of devising an implementing a strategy that would bring victory.
After 20 years the withdrawal was necessary. The war had to end, but because Biden was in charge that too has been disastrously mishandled.
Why was the United States in Afghanistan?
Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, Taliban harboring terrorists and 911.
Why was Bin Laden in Afghanistan?
Because he was protected by the Taliban and Pakistan.
How Did Bin Laden get to Afghanistan?
Because Bill Clinton (in his own words) didn’t take him into custody after multiple Al Qaeda attacks, including US embassies.
Why did we Stay in Afghanistan?
Because Barack Obama and Joe Biden both campaigned that it was the “War that had to be won” while criticizing George Bush on the Iraq invasion during the campaigns. As Obama said “I won”, and his agenda was enacted. Multiple famous personalities joined the bandwagon with Obama and Biden, most of which are very silent now.
Why did we not get a stable government in Afghanistan?
Because we don’t understand the people there, and we cannot bring ourselves to use tactics that have been successful there in the past-—See Genghis Khan.
Why are we having problems leaving if Trump made a deal?
Because Donald Trump had “contingency points” in the agreement, which everyone believed he would enforce. Joe Biden immediately broke the original agreement, and expected the opposite side to continue to honor that agreement. Nobody expects Joe Biden to act boldly if the Taliban don’t follow the agreement, and he didn’t. Further, the Taliban are clearly friendly with Iran and China, whom are enemies of the United State but have financial state in the US failure. Joe Biden and his son clearly have financial deals with the Chinese.
What is going to happen next?
First, dis-ingenuous people will not accept responsibility for Joe Biden, are going to blame Trump, including Joe Biden!! Next, your going to see democrats come out and say we need to reboot the war. We have to go back in because....’pick a reason’. If you can’t think of one, it will first be the torture, hostage crisis, and murder, of US citizens left behind by Biden. Then it will be a replay of terrorists staging out of Afghanistan.
Learning points. The current generation doesn’t learn from mistakes (see Whoopy Goldberg statements—ironic isn’t it), doesn’t accept blame, and really doesn’t understand the fundamentals of warfare, history, or even cause and effect. Put in another way, there will be no learning and no adapting. The learning point is that the people that ‘know better’ have been silenced by those Biden supporters, government agencies, and media ensuring the same disastrous outcomes over and over again.
The US position in the ME up to Bush 1 and the Gulf War was the US would maintain an “over the horizon” position on the ME. Our plan was to go in if we had to to stop the Soviets, or anyone else, grabbing the ME oil. We were not, in any situation, to maintain a presence on the ground in the ME outside of NATO ally Turkey.
Reagan quickly learned the error of troops on the ground in the ME when “for humanitarian reasons” we deployed troops on the ground in Lebanon. I would love to know what role then VP Bush 1 had in the decision to deploy troops to Lebanon.
Bush 1, mainly because Colin Powell threw a fit, stopped Desert Storm too early. We should of taken out Saddam, Declared victory, and turned rebuilding Iraq over to the UN and the Arab League. We should never of been stationing troops on the ground in the ME. That was a major blunder.
The failure of rational US policy in Gulf War 1 lead to everything that has happen since. Because we, for the 1st time, maintained forces in the ME to enforce the No Fly Zone, everything we done since in the ME had to be done.
Trump is mostly right, going into the ME, and staying there, was a mistake. We fought a 30 years war that is now ending badly, in Kabul because of that error.
All we get out of it in the end are hundreds of thousands of Turd-World Refugees.
Dumbya has gone mute again.
When it comes to Afghanistan there is a refusal not only by the media and the so called (in name only) democratic party but by Christian leaders like Pope Francis to approach redressing the Taliban for it being a theocracy following the sharia creed which denies free will and their claim they are authorized by Our Creator to execute non believers.
If that was done and the emphasis was placed on Our Savior’s activities bringing in the New Covenant there would be more conversioms.
Technically we are still in a state of war in Korea.🤔
Very simple - you can lay it at the feet of islam who is at war with the rest of the world..
Sure would be nice to have a base on that side of Iran, just in case....
Obama. He wanted the Taliban to be in charge there, so he had Joe make it happen.
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