Biden says he does not regret Afghanistan withdrawal as Taliban take over more towns
- Thread starter Dwarvenhobble
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As if Rumsfeld was going to give up his warboner for something as wimpy and unmanly as peace.
Also in 2001 the Taliban offered to hand over Osama Bin Laden to a neutral country if the US provided evidence of his involvement in 9/11 and stopped bombing Afghanistan and Bush refused. Obviously this would have left the Taliban undefeated which isn't ideal, but given that they're also undefeated in this timeline where there's been two decades of war and thousands of allied soldiers and civilians were killed or wounded in hindsight it seems like a pretty good deal.
I still don't know how we got that with so many level-headed people around him.
Oh no, Saigon, Saigon, Saigon. That's what the mainstream media keeps saying. I don't agree. You cannot be there forever. Whereas in the Iraq War despite the many blunders of the George W Bush administration. He got lucky and picked the majority Shias population who end up stabilizing the country with heavy US help. You could send the entire US airforce and navy near the area(Afghanistan), and it still wouldn't be stabilized. The US knows this too, and they have given it 90 days before Kabul falls. Does it suck for the women there yeah, but there are hundreds of millions if not billions of people under either a dictatorship or an undemocratic democracy including the US before the 1960s and arguably today due to gerrymandering, the electoral college, and voter suppression?
www.cnn.com
August 12, 2021: Afghanistan news
The US is sending about 3,000 troops to Afghanistan to evacuate American personnel amid Taliban gains in the country. Follow here for the latest news.
In the interests of fairness I do have to point out that the beginning of the US's stupid interference in the Soviet-Afghan war started under Jimmy Carter, which included getting the support of Pakistan's notoriously batshit secret service the ISI and Saudi Arabia. However, Reagan did accelerate it.
It's not exactly a sudden withdrawal, the US has been talking about leaving for years now and everyone knew the Taliban would try to come back. The US has also given a ton of money and weapons to the country. Talking about how the US trained some of the Taliban, that's nothing compared to how much they did for the current afghan government/army in term of training and gifting weapon/building infrastructure.
Ultimately its not the US role to preserve the country current government, if the afghan people themselves don't bother defending the current situation then I don't throw any of the blame to Biden for withdrawing. The alternative would be to make the country into a colony and don't let them self govern, and that doesn't exactly have a good track record.
Ultimately its not the US role to preserve the country current government, if the afghan people themselves don't bother defending the current situation then I don't throw any of the blame to Biden for withdrawing. The alternative would be to make the country into a colony and don't let them self govern, and that doesn't exactly have a good track record.
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We could try to resurrect the League of Nations mandate system, where we govern a country until we decide that they're able to govern themselves.
But, not to put too fine a point on this: we stopped that system for a good reason.
Some are now asking was Biden's fumbling of this matter intentional as he wants to stay there forever? He's just called for 5,000 more troops. https://news.yahoo.com/biden-increases-us-deployment-afghanistan-200126823.html
All the Taliban have to do is stand by and wave as the US withdraws with its tail between its legs.
Great.
Now just let the country govern itself as would its "godgiven right", or whatever mumbojumbo Americans tend to spout.
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Is that what you got from my post or are you asking just for shits and giggles?
Mind you, I find it fun to day dream about what could have been had America doubled down and forcefully colonized the country for the next 100 years, but I'm well in favor of America leaving the country.
And I don't mind the Taliban now being in charge of the country, as long as they play nice with other countries, or stay within their borders.
While life is hell for everyone in Afghanistan?
This isn't an argument for intervention, but let's be honest about what a Taliban-run Afghanistan means for the people living inside it.
Life was great under the kleptocratic regime propped up by the United States, of course.
No, but maybe the coalition should have realized that the usual formula of throwing guns at the problem doesn't work. No really, what did the coalition do in Afghanistan? Send troops, train troops of the Afghan Army, give them weapons and give them money to buy weapons and pay soldiers. As if having an army was the real problem... Sure having a standing army to fight the Taliban was needed, but what was needed even more is giving the Afghan people an incentive not to join the Taliban and be willing to put their lives on the line to fight them. A corrupt inept local government and having guns thrown at their faces doesn't provide that. instead of spending 1 trillion $ in military spending they should have invested in roads, water/energy supplies, funding anti corruption institutions, paying wages to civil servants to reduce the incentive to become corrupt, etc.
If Afghans were given the choice between fighting for a system which provided them with freedom and prosperity and violent cave men who want to disguise women as tents the choice would be easily made and also be worth taking risks. Now their choice is between inept corrupt pricks who put more money in their pocket than the population (and who weren't even able to provide security) and the cave men. While the former is still better, it's not sufficiently better to be willing to put your life at risk.
Sounds better than what we have been doing for the last 20 years. Why, one wonders, didn't we do better? And as we did not, I have to think we should have known to stay out of the area all together. Hit them for proving aid to Osama and leave.
Seeing how there was zero resistance, it appears that the people living inside it don't mind.
It pains my heart that people will suffer under the future, or present really, Taliban regime, but what is there to actively do about it?
Training the local army to fight did nothing, they all but welcomed the Taliban.
The best "we" could do at this point is sanction the country for their human rights violations.
But I doubt they would care too much.
I regret to inform everyone the Taliban now are in talks to take control of Afghanistan as the
www.itv.com
Taliban holding talks aimed at forming 'open, inclusive Islamic government' | ITV News
The Taliban says it is holding talks aimed at forming an “open, inclusive Islamic government”, after the militants captured almost all of Afghanistan. | ITV National News
www.itv.com
Blame goes like this: Bush 60%>Obama 20%>Trump 10% and Biden 10%.
The only thing that Trump and Biden can be blamed for is not even attempting to change the strategy. And how could they after 20 years? Everyone has forgotten the reason for being there in the first place. But I don't think they can be blamed for pulling out.
So, we have Trump who decided to pull out of Afghanistan and Biden who doubled down and did it in the worst way possible. But what if he hadn't? What if Biden decided to stay in Afghanistan? Nothing would have changed. The strategy would have remained the same and the result would be the exact same. The Taliban would take over in a matter of weeks. And who gives a flying fuck? Let that part of the world sort itself out or burn trying.