The situation in Afghanistan

[Twinblade★ 3,990]

Im not going to try and obsessively pick one side or the other. I think its necessary that terrorist groups like Taliban not be allowed to have foothold anywhere, as that allows other groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS to come alive again and regain their numbers/resources and then make more attempts to attack the U.S and our interests.

 

However at the same I don't think its the U.S.'s responsibility to have to secure other countries to keep that from happening. 10 years ago it was reported that the Taliban had around 35000 fighters. Even if that number managed to double today (not including those who died in combat) we could estimate there being around 70,000 total.

 

On the other side the Afghan Military and police combined are 300,000 strong (confirmed by Biden admin). They outnumber the Taliban 4:1 AT LEAST so I don't understand how they're losing so much territory and being overrun so easily. If they really cared about their country and livelihood, they should really not being having this much trouble fighting back against a worse equipped, and worse trained army.

 

Regardless, the way the Biden Administration pulled out of there is going to go down as one of the worst foreign policy disasters in history. He had no plan whatsoever, and publicly announcing the withdrawal of troops a whole month before did nothing but empower the Taliban and give them more time to plan and begin their offensive.

 

I was watching a retired general sound off on Biden claiming that any withdrawal should have been completed during the winter, as thats when the Taliban return to the mountains and would give the Afghan army a better chance to prepare their defenses and maybe even proactively seek out the Taliban to thin their numbers. That makes sense, and I would be shocked if the military didn't suggest a similar plan. But of course, Biden likely made the decision on his own because he has no clue what hes doing.

 

This poorly thought out, haphazardly managed retreat might very well end up being the biggest mistake of his political career.

[Twinblade★ 3,990]

 

Holy shit....they've already gotten to the Presidential Palace in Kabul. The entire country has basically fallen

 

All while Biden is on vacation....and of course during one of his few addresses on the subject he decides to pin the blame on Trump, even though Trump is the only one who actually had a plan in the works for both Afghanistan's democracy and the Taliban.

 

20 years of American blood, sweat, and tears undone in a matter of weeks. The whole world is laughing at us and its all because of Biden's terrible leadership.

 

Can't wait to see how much his popularity/approval dips after this shitstorm. Republicans are pretty much guaranteed to win in both 2022 and 2024 at this point.

 

 

[Twinblade★ 3,990]

Just saw footage of several attempted afghan stowaways falling to their deaths from a cargo plane hundreds of feet in the air.

 

You really see just how desperate they are to get away from the Taliban.

 

Even the media has been universal in its condemnation of Biden's actions. Not even CNN will put a positive spin on this.

 

Maybe we should have listened to Obama 'dont underestimate joe's ability to fuck things up'

[Twinblade★ 3,990]

Biden on the situation the Afghan people currently find themselves in: 'Fuck that'

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9901577/F-k-Biden-told-Obamas-special-representative-Afghanistan-obligations.html

 

I guess thats the empathy & sympathy that i've been hearing so much about.

[Twinblade★ 3,990]

Watching Biden trying to address this. Jesus…the man is barely conscious to start, but all he’s doing is the same continuous damaging controlling and making excuses for everything. It’s sad to see the most powerful country in the word being run by such a weak leader.

[Twinblade★ 3,990]

Jesus....

 

 

The Taliban just mocked generations worth of Americans dead and alive by replicating the Iwo Jima image while decked out in AMERICAN equipment and weaponry. This is a insult of the highest degree

 

The Biden administration will never recover from this, and deservedly so.  We're not only the laughing stock of the entire world now, but our biggest rivals including China and Russia now feel more empowered than ever before. Our many allies including the UK now know we're a country that can no longer be relied on when it comes to Security and anti-terrorism.

 

To make matters worse, the embassy is now telling Americans NOT to go to the Kabul airport due to an ongoing 'security situation' INVOLVING ISIS. This basically confirms their resurgence already. Thousands of Americans and American allies are now stuck behind enemy lines, with no semblance of when or how they're going to be rescued. We may very well be seeing the biggest hostage situation in history soon.

 

I'd say Biden should really just resign at this point (not just for this but also because of his increasingly degrading mental state), but then I realize that the next people in line for the presidency are Kamala and Pelosi. So we're pretty much screwed for the foreseeable future....

[Hot Sauce 2,743]

Biden distanced himself from an unwinnable conflict to focus on America and to protect actual American lives, but somehow it's now his fault whenever random people in those areas happen to die.

 

The middle east has always been violent. Try coming up with a better argument next time.

[Cooke 2,041]

2 hours ago, Hot Sauce said:

Biden distanced himself from an unwinnable conflict to focus on America and to protect actual American lives, but somehow it's now his fault whenever random people in those areas happen to die.

 

The middle east has always been violent. Try coming up with a better argument next time.

I agree. But it could have been handled better don't you think? 

[Twinblade★ 3,990]

5 hours ago, Hot Sauce said:

Biden distanced himself from an unwinnable conflict to focus on America and to protect actual American lives, but somehow it's now his fault whenever random people in those areas happen to die.

 

The middle east has always been violent. Try coming up with a better argument next time.

 

Most people are in agreement about the fact that the U.S. eventually needed to leave Afghanistan, but Biden did EVERYTHING wrong with how he handled the withdrawal. He went against the advice of people far more knowledgeable and experienced on that subject, and simultaneously created both a humanitarian and security crisis while in pursuit of his political agenda. And his reasoning is absolutely as political as it gets. He has little interesting in protecting either the Americans or Afghan allies who were left in the middle of the mess he created. His sight was set on one thing: Becoming known as the president that pulled the U.S out of Afghanistan. and reaping the political brownie points that would come with that.

[Hot Sauce 2,743]

2 hours ago, Cooke said:

I agree. But it could have been handled better don't you think? 

 

Those are Twinblade quotes about Trump removing troops from Syria. I'm just poking fun at the change in tone.

 

I think it's an absolute joke that we didn't do a better job of evacuating people before ramping down and every person that aided the US who doesn't make it out has their blood on Biden's hands, but the Taliban taking over was always going to happen. Blaming Trump and/or Biden for walking away from Afghanistan with nothing to show for it is dumb. We spent 20 years fighting a pointless war and the blame should be put on the 15 years of Bush and Obama where we were lied to about the effectiveness of the Afghanistan government so military contractors could make bank.

[Cooke 2,041]

1 minute ago, Hot Sauce said:

 

Those are Twinblade quotes about Trump removing troops from Syria. I'm just poking fun at the change in tone.

 

I think it's an absolute joke that we didn't do a better job of evacuating people before ramping down and every person that aided the US who doesn't make it out has their blood on Biden's hands, but the Taliban taking over was always going to happen. Blaming Trump and/or Biden for walking away from Afghanistan with nothing to show for it is dumb. We spent 20 years fighting a pointless war and the blame should be put on the 15 years of Bush and Obama where we were lied to about the effectiveness of the Afghanistan government so military contractors could make bank.

Ugh yes. And then all that propping up of Bush by the media and celebrities while Trump was president just because he's likable and not Trump. The guys a fucking war criminal with hundreds of thousands of deaths on his hands. 

[Goukosan 2,283]

13 hours ago, Twinblade said:

 

Most people are in agreement about the fact that the U.S. eventually needed to leave Afghanistan, but Biden did EVERYTHING wrong with how he handled the withdrawal. He went against the advice of people far more knowledgeable and experienced on that subject, and simultaneously created both a humanitarian and security crisis while in pursuit of his political agenda. And his reasoning is absolutely as political as it gets. He has little interesting in protecting either the Americans or Afghan allies who were left in the middle of the mess he created. His sight was set on one thing: Becoming known as the president that pulled the U.S out of Afghanistan. and reaping the political brownie points that would come with that.

 

You're literally arguing against yourself. Hotsauce used your exact words from when Trump pulled out of Syria.  

[Twinblade★ 3,990]

Well, it’s over for Biden and the administration. 4 marines were just killed in ISIS suicide bombings at the airport. We had a long streak of almost no U.S deaths in Afghanistan for a long time under Trump, the country was stable, and ISIS had been defeated. Now they’re back and killing Americans thanks to Biden’s botched withdrawal plan. If he has any dignity left he will resign soon.

 

edit: death toll for Americans just rose to 12....

[Cooke 2,041]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/afghanistan-kabul-airport-terrorist-attacks-1.6153844

 

60 dead

[Hot Sauce 2,743]

Yesterday's NYT podcast had their pentagon reporter on talking about how ISIS-K was poised to do something like this because of how high profile such an attack would be given the current conditions at the airport. Can't imagine this will be the end of it, either. What a shitshow.

[Twinblade★ 3,990]

Biden's speech right now is pathetic. He sounds like hes about to fall asleep, I can't believe we elected this guy.

[Cooke 2,041]

I think at this point Biden would be better off replaced by a hologram of himself run by an algorithm and speech software

[Twinblade★ 3,990]

18 minutes ago, Cooke said:

I think at this point Biden would be better off replaced by a hologram of himself run by an algorithm and speech software

 

I think its obvious that a lot of moderate democrats recognize the many issues wrong with Biden and his leadership and are going to vote red next year. Its just been failure after failure with this administration and we're only 7 months in. They better hope that the economy at least starts picking up soon, because thats the only lifeline Biden has at this point.

[Twinblade★ 3,990]

Trump was right once again, a whole 3 years ago he could have seen this coming

[Twinblade★ 3,990]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9941207/Taliban-Air-Terrorists-fly-captured-6million-Black-Hawk-helicopter-Kandahar.html#comments

The Taliban giving us a preview of what we can expect while they're in power. Dangling a person tied to one of our very expensive choppers, just a small piece of the $85 billion in U.S. military equipment they possess. We turned the Taliban into one of the most well equipped military organizations in the middle east. The biggest unintentional arms deal in history, one where we got nothing in exchange except humiliation on a global level.

 

And you know what one of the worst parts of this is? A lot of that stuff will 100% end up in the hands of Russia and China....Many of our military secrets are going to be absorbed into our biggest rivals, just insane.