DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus Biden says US war in Afghanistan will end August 31

I've already said the lack of planning execution was horrible. However what Trump and Pompeo did here is important to understanding why Biden didn't slow this down OR how the Taliban were suddenly so bold. Come on man, you know damn good and well that everything Trump touched went to hell. It only makes good sense to look at what the Trump admin did here AS WELL AS hold Biden accountable for the planning and execution.

I don't objectively see the harm in looking into that either. There are two possible outcomes after you look at that:

1. There is something that Trump agreed to and Biden did have pressure to withdraw, or

2. Whatever Trump agreed upon was irrelevant or had no bearing on the decision to pull troops out, which would actually make Biden look far worse.

The President gives the marching orders.

He made the call, he owns it.

At the end of the day Joe Biden is president now not Trump. He's in charge of decision making.

I fully support the withdrawal and it should have been done 10+ years ago and it's a shame it wasn't. However, I just do not understand this method of withdrawal. I heard on the radio past generals talking about their war experiences and they all said they're standards for war withdrawal tand the US has done it many times before. So my question is what the hell happened this time?

I'm glad we're getting out but not happy to see it like this as one of my good friends did two tours there. I wonder how he's feeling at the moment... It's just sad.

No matter who is president, I hope this is the start of a non interventionist policy. That's part of the reason I voted for Trump so I'm impressed with Biden on that front but not how it occurred.

I know you want it to be simple like that so you can score hate points on Biden, but I want all the facts please, then I'll decide how I feel about the whole thing.

Oh I'm not arguing that it was Biden's call to make and the buck stops with him. I'd just like to know what kind of poison pill Trump and Pompeo schemed up in that deal to force the next POTUS to follow through. That's all I want more info on. Not too much to ask at all considering the HELL Trump has put the country through and how toxic everything he did was...

You sure as hell didn't do that with the last president. Just pointing out the obvious distinction. The guy you voted for dropped the ball, you don't like it, so you want to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Come on man.

I am in the same boat, had to be done, did not like the execution.

I believe it is the ultimate Catch-22. If you show that you are bailing, then all hell breaks loose. If you stay and are overtaken, then all hell breaks loose.

We chose to stay in Vietnam and Afghanistan, neither turned out well.

But if was absolutely the right decision. I hate the policy of going into other countries and creating or propping up a government.

Unprecedented Dishonor: UK Holds Biden in Contempt for 'Shameful' and 'Catastrophic' Afghanistan Withdrawal

By Michael Austin

August 19, 2021

President Biden’s mishandling of the Afghanistan withdrawal may yet prove to be the defining stretch of his administration.

The Taliban’s swift takeover of the country — which the president, only weeks prior, came just short of guaranteeing would not happen so quickly — has left between 10,000 and 15,000 American citizens forsaken within the borders of a country now controlled by terrorists.

The U.S. isn’t the only nation with a presence in Afghanistan, however. Abandoning the country with such haste has also left thousands of foreign citizens from our friends and allies at risk as well.
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The U.K. Daily Mail reported on Wednesday that “the UK faces a desperate race to evacuate 6,000 Britons and eligible Afghans amid scenes of stampeding crowds and Islamist fanatics.”

Because of this, on Wednesday, the British Houses of Parliament decided to hold Biden’s handling of the situation in contempt, with lawmakers condemning his withdrawal plan as “catastrophic” and “shameful,” according to The Telegraph.

https://www.westernjournal.com/unprecede...HUrhUkXH9Jks-EQ

Did the UK not have enough of their own troops there (they have some, my buddy deployed there several times and worked with them a little)? Did the US tell them they weren't allowed to send more? What are those British troops doing right now?

The country that sponsors the most Independence Day celebrations around the world probably shouldn’t be criticizing anyone on withdrawing from wars.

Hiding behind our troops.

Wow. Historic.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/08/18/parliament-holds-joe-biden-contempt-afghanistan/

As an American, I don't know whether highlighting the results of the democrats to educate their side, or to downplay the chaugrin-like results as to not pile on to
this awful situation which our whole country has to own, like it or not! is the more patriotic.

This is democratic leadership, on display.

The Brittish empire, gathered all the members of one of their congresses, back from recess, into the same room, because of Covid, for the first time, IN A YEAR! To condem the actions of the administrtion President of the United States.

(In 2000, The SNL mocking show made fun of Bush Jr. W. by impersonating him saying, " I broke the hoover dam."

Well if Biden, had actually in reality broken the Hoover Dam, it wouldn't have this much ramification.

He has opened the Mexican border.
He has attacked states rights on covid issues, issuing mandates
Iran is about to get nukes and missles to deliver them.
He is doing what appears to be surrender in Afghanistan
In 12 months the Democrats have surrendered Portland for 100 days and now Afghanistan
He has given away free money, devalued the dollar, soaring inflation.

If Biden were a General, he'd be removed, if he were a Govenor of California he'd be recalled.
Democrat leadership on display.

WHERE! are Nanci Pelosi, to take a break from stiring a cauldron to offer even a word of support, for the United States in this time.
Or, Chuck Schumur to emerge from the shadows for the same?
Democratic leadership on display.


Historicly bad day In less than a year.

If you don't know the democrats by now, you will never ever ever know them.

One thing that irks me is Germany criticizing us for leaving and the ramifications of it. What exactly have they done in the past 20 years to support this endeavor? Troops? Money? An atta boy.

Wasn't it like 5 minutes ago that the rest of the world was tired of us sending our troops into every conflict and getting into every 3rd world country's business like we had every answer (and it was always a new democratic govt propped up by us)?

I'll reiterate... resolving US's involvement in Afghanistan was never going to be easy or pretty. It was always going to be ugly. The execution of our withdrawal only added to the ish-show. So yeah, we deserve some criticism... but our allies scoring cheap political points (what does UK's parliament holding Biden in contempt actually mean?) does nothing more (for me) than to reinforce the notion that the US shouldn't be the world's police officer, and other nations need to step up and pull their own weight.

"They want us on that wall, they need us on that wall" then they complain about our involvement. It's become way too easy (and commonplace) to rely on the US to handle all the world's problems and b*tch about it all along the way, our own people do it, the ROW does it. Enough is enough.

j/c

I don't really care what foreign politicians or media spin or say ... For starters their politicians are the same opportunistic, morally bankrupt types that ours are ... plus the British press in particular are only after a salacious headline bordering on a mix of styles between reality TV and shock jock journalism. I used to read the Telegraph when I lived in England. I've moved over to the Guardian if I need/want to read a British paper - while it is unquestionably hard left leaning, it's better quality all round. The Telegraph really is a parody of a state run media outlet for the Tories.

Bottom line, it is always easier to sit on the outside and talk about the consequences and judge and dissect decisions after the fact than be involved in the process. Again drawing on knowledge of UK politics - the Labor Party for years and years has sat back and offered nothing on what and how to handle things like Brexit and Covid. . . the only thing they have done is wait till after decisions have been made, deals struck and issues arise ... then criticize. Truly 100% pathetic.

I reckon it probably only bothers some of us because Biden messed it up so badly and gave them a legitimate opportunity to pile on.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/only-trump-mike-pence-mike-091407562.html


Only Trump, Mike Pence, and Mike Pompeo seem to be defending Trump's 2020 Taliban peace deal

Peter Weber, Senior editor

Fri, August 20, 2021, 5:14 AM

Mike Pompeo, Taliban leader Patrick Semansky/Pool/AFP/Getty Images

Few people seem impressed with President Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan, a sooner-than-expected military-run airlift operation from Kabul's civilian airport. Biden says his options were limited by a February 2020 peace treaty former President Donald Trump's team signed with the Taliban in Doha requiring all U.S. forces to exit Afghanistan by May 1.

Trump, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and former Vice President Mike Pence have all said this week that if Biden followed Trump's Doha agreement better, Afghanistan wouldn't be such a mess. But they can't quite agree on why that's true, and few other high-ranking Trump national security officials seem to agree with them.

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Pompeo told Fox News Sunday "we would have demanded that the Taliban actually deliver on the conditions that we laid out in the agreement," including engaging "in meaningful power-sharing agreement" talks, "before we completed our requirement to fully withdraw." ("The Taliban have not violated any of the written conditions of the four-page agreement signed in Doha," The New York Times notes.)

Pence argued in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that the Taliban only took over the country because Biden broke the Doha agreement by not withdrawing all U.S. forces by Trump's May 1 deadline.

On the other hand, Trump's first national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, said Pompeo "signed a surrender agreement with the Taliban" and traced Afghanistan's collapse "back to the capitulation agreement of 2020." Lisa Curtis, an Afghanistan expert on Trump's National Security Council, told The Associated Press "the Doha agreement was a very weak agreement" that gave the Taliban too much — including 5,000 released prisoners — and seriously weakened the Afghan government.

Trump's defense secretary during the Taliban negotiations, Mark Esper, told CNN Wednesday that Trump "undermined" his own deal by publicly pushing to withdraw all U.S. troops even if the Taliban didn't live up to its side of the treaty. Christopher Miller, Esper's successor, told Defense One that Trump never planned to withdraw U.S. troops and considered the treaty a "play" to get Afghanistan's president to negotiate a power-sharing deal with the Taliban.

"In many ways, this is an overdue conversation," Aaron Blake writes at The Washington Post. "Trump's negotiations with the Taliban weren't huge news outside foreign policy circles because the war wasn't front-of-mind at the time," mostly. Still, he said, "it's striking" that so many "people who served in high-ranking foreign policy roles in the Trump administration seem to recognize the rise of the Taliban isn't going to make Trump's decision look like a great idea."

The thing that you guys are missing is that this is the way these deals are supposed to be made but they haven't been for awhile now. We used to call such deals Treaties which the President had the authority to negotiate but the Senate had to approve it. I don't recall the last time I've even heard of the Senate approving any such thing.

The Legislative Branch has steadily ceded more of its authority to the Executive Branch regardless of (R) or (D). IIRC SCOTUS even recognized this when they took up the first ACA case.

There has long been a battle of power between the Executive and LEgislative branches of our government.

I don't know when it started (but clearly well before the ACA), the Legislative Branch has ceded power to Executive branch driven by each party trying to strengthen itself by propping up the President who is from their party.

Dems do it when there is a Democrat as President and Republicans do it when there is a Republican in office. Doing so does what is intended. It strengthens their party. Unfortunately it also weakens the government as a whole.

Foremost, I don't have a problem with wanting to look back to answer the question "How did we get here?". I'm totally fine with that.

But people have to be realistic here. Nation building didn't work and after 20yrs people were tired of holding their hands. Because the nation building didn't work, the situation was going to be bad no matter what after we left.

The Taliban aren't a formal gov't (yet). Biden was under no obligation to abide by any of the deal if he didn't choose to. Its not like the Taliban were going to impose sanctions or anything.

It was the coalition forces holding the Taliban back. As we reduce forces it gave them room. That's just a consequence. The reason the Taliban became so bold so quickly is because they pressed the advantage when they realized there would be no resistance whatsoever. Abandoned bases, abandoned equipment, etc...

That's your answer.

Now I will grant you this even though its irrelevant at this point: we don't know what Trumps logistical plan for getting these people out was either. Given his propensity for being bombastic however, I think at the very least here would have been a threat of force against the Taliban if they molested anyone while they were trying to leave.

Out of curiosity, what does holding Biden accountable look like in this situation?

Every nation has talking heads and sources with slants. Both sides have them. As an example, let me show you an article from the same site fish used, westernjournal.com...

Biden Admin Demands Americans Pay $2,000 for Flight out of Kabul or Live Under Taliban Rule: Report

So I suppose anyone can make what they want out of it. A slanted news source finds slanted politician from Britain that says what they want to report. News at 11:00.

A horrible exit strategy. Horrible execution of an exit strategy. He either had no clue or was lying about not knowing the Taliban would be taking over.

That's why the deal Trump struck was with the Taliban. Your claim seems to be, "They aren't a formal government", and while that's true, Trump knew who would be running that country and who you had to deal with in order to strike an agreement. I mean the Afghani government was on our side, so you certainly don't have to strike a deal with them.

Who else was one to strike a treaty with besides the "other side"? Once again you're making it seem as though it's a "Trump deal" rather than a deal entered into by The United states of America.

The country fell to the taliban that quickly because literally no one trusted the Afghan security forces.

From the jump, America installed a corrupt government, which allowed law enforcement to shake down normal civilians and exploit other aspects of society.

And it got to the point where the civilians couldn’t tell the difference between the taliban and the Afghan security forces backed by American taxpayers.

So when America leaves, this is what we see. This is exactly what happens to law enforcement who can’t be trusted by the people they’re sworn to protect. The population had no reason to support the few people in the Afghan forces that tried to fight off the taliban. None. Especially when it’s an undeniable fact that under American leadership, everything got worse for them, not better.

I want to remind the board that the ORIGINAL mission in Afghanistan wasn’t even the taliban. All of you guys need to remember that. When we went to Afghanistan, we had a clear mission: find osama bin laden and destroy al qaeda.

Not destroy the taliban, who were in charge of the country at the time. Al qaeda, which was also the enemy of the taliban. But instead, just like Iraq, we didn’t focus on al qaeda but everything else.

Instead of focusing on al qaeda, we focused on the taliban.

Instead of of focusing on al qaeda, we focused on saddam Hussein.

This is what happens when you have no truly defined mission and get into the business of nation building. It wasn’t never our place to remove the taliban or Saddam.

But watch, blood lust will rule over common sense sometime in the future, and this country will once again make the same dumbass decision it did 20 years ago.

Breaking news; every time America decides there needs to be a “war on <insert issue>”, go ahead and assume it won’t work.

I hear you, but in this case we're talking about Parliament (made up of the same bozos you're talking about... but a bunch of them). I'm not going to bother with the bias in the article (or how it conveniently glosses over how they're pissed with both Trump and Biden on the Afghanistan pullout), but with the event behind it (contempt vote).

Here is my question. There is the person philosophically responsible and the persons practically responsible.

Philosophically that person is Biden. He is the President, the final decision maker, the one who approved the plans. Ultimately he is responsible for this fiasco.


I would like to know who was practically responsible. Who devised and developed this plan? Who sold it as the best way to proceed, and who was responsible for implementing such plan?

The short answer is Biden.

The long answer is Biden or whoever else would’ve been president and made the decision.

For anybody to think this was gonna be any different under anybody else is someone who bought into the lie that somehow the Afghan security forces were competent.

So you could insert Obama, Trump, bush, or whoever else you want, the name might have been different, but the results would’ve still be the same.

Biden is responsible but he didn't sit down and craft the plan himself. Someone else did and sold it to him that this was the best way to proceed. Ultimately he agreed that this was the way to go.

What I want to know is, who did the grunt work devising this plan?

Well we all know the answer to that:

The same people that crafted the plan are the same people who didn’t want him to withdraw from Afghanistan in the first place: US generals and defense contractors.

And I’m not trying to come off as rude but the reality of situation is that there’s no one person or group we can point the finger to.

This disaster was 20 years in the making. Just like there was no definitive plan to destroy the enemy or nation build, there was no definitive plan to withdraw.

I certainly agree with you that "the end results" would have been the same. That the Taliban was going to take over in Afghanistan the same way they were in power before we entered Afghanistan.

I however do not believe that the exit strategy had to be this dysfunctional and botched up. You know far more about what's going on over there, so if I'm off base here, please fill me in. I'm always willing to learn from people who have been there.

First I think giving a date for total withdraw emboldens your enemy. We saw Taliban forces advance rapidly as soon as troops were preparing to leave. Yes, Trump too gave a firm date of May 1st but I think in both cases it shows how politicians should be less concerned about headlines and appeasement and more concerned about military strategy.

Secondly, we should have been lazer focused on getting the Afghani people who helped us in the war to designated extraction points and gotten them to the airport before pulling our troops out. Once more of the provincial capitals began to fall into the hands of the Taliban and they were in control of more and more territory, the harder it was gong to be in order to accomplish getting them out.

Then there was what I considered to be the foolishness of the timeline in regards to how long Afghanistan's military would prevent the Taliban from taking over Kabul. You yourself have explained why the Afghans wouldn't fight and from everything I've learned I certainly agree with you. This in and of itself led Biden to have at least a certain amount of confidence in his exit strategy on which I have no idea what he based that belief on.

So as to the end results of the Taliban being in control of Afghanistan I had little to no doubt. I do not however feel our withdraw strategy, or the lack there of, was handled in any type of competent manner.

I'm not quite sure what your point is. Obviously the Taliban are consequential enough to have to deal with. Its not like we are trying to pull out of Germany.

I don't think anyone is disagreeing with leaving there, and I don't see anyone saying we should have waited longer either. And yes, I guess I am essentially framing it as a "Trump deal" because a) that's how it's been framed by the media so far and b) that's exactly how OCD has framed it. And unless there's something to it that you can point to that somehow Constitutionally bound Biden to it (which isn't likely since he could arbitrarily play with the withdrawal dates) it functionally was a Trump deal.

I think trying to frame it as a U.S. dealnow is mostly an attempt to water down the responsibility the Biden Admin has in this debacle. Its an attempt to change the optics.

In any event, I really am curious as to what holding the Biden Admin accountable for this looks like.

I explained that directly above your post.

And you either believe a deal made by The United States is binding or you don't. no matter how "you frame it".

when it comes to things dealing the military, this is where i tend to be far more pessimistic than others when it comes to planning and executing.

so, first. the date isn't for the enemy. the date is for our allies to hurry up and figure out their own exist strategies while we're taking on the main mission of executing a full withdrawal. for example, i was deployed when obama ordered the withdrawal in 2011. so that entire year, we was running convoy security out of kuwait into iraq to escort americans and our allies personnel and equipment out of iraq. so we were running mission 2-3 weeks at a time, coming back to kuwait for like 3 days, then back out on the road.

the unfortunate reality is that when it comes to these sort of things, there's way more than just americans you have to consider. there's plenty of other countries that helped us and lost good men and women too, and their people also want to know the dates.

this is why there's such an emphasis on logistics. coordinating logistics is already hard enough as it is in a combat zone WITH firm dates. good luck not botching one when you don't have any.

and we're talking big military equipment and personnel. typically with things like this, there's no point in NOT having a date cause your enemy already knows when you're bouncing, anyway. they watch us all the time, they know our convoy routes, our strategies on the ground, etc.

the logic makes sense if we're entering a war, moving high value items, or conducting more urban style operations. however, it doesn't really make sense for a withdrawal date.

to your 2nd point, i agree in general. and i just want to be clear here, just in case; Biden and the rest of the clowns screwed it up. my thing is just that there was always gonna be some aspect of the withdrawal that was gonna go sideways.

but your 2nd point also ties in to the 1st point: we announce the dates so that others have time to get their crap together.

the afghan forces didn't do that.

one of the reasons the withdrawal from iraq went far better (still kinda jacked it up) than afghanistan is the people there.

surprisingly enough, we actually did a better job trying to nation build there than afghanistan. but a HUGE part of that has to do with the Kurds. we already had a huge ally in that region that was capable of defending themselves. so when we left, the Kurds and the iraqi army helped us a lot with the process because the iraqi army was at least KINDA competent and i love my kurds, man. so much respect for them dudes, straight up.

we didn't have that in afghanistan. im 100% with you that we should've focused on getting all our people out and the afghani's that helped us out. the problem is that the corruption level was so ingrained...i hate to say it man but there was a far high level of possibility that we end up importing terrorist from afghanistan than iraq. the level of corruption from the top down in afghanistan will never be truly appreciated for what it is.

and so from that standpoint alone it gets so much more complicated.

and i cant stress this enough bro: its hard to have a competent plan when the people you need to plan and execute the plan didn't want to withdrawal in the first place. you gotta remember: half the world, including people in our own country, didn't even think we were seriously gonna withdrawal.

that lack of seriousness is reflected in this withdrawal, isn't it? its like a bunch of kids who didn't do their chores properly cause they didn't think mom and dad was gonna notice or follow through with the punishment.

a lack of credibility from all directions is what led to what we're seeing right now.

combine that with a military industrial complex thats about to watch the golden goose die off, well...

The New York Post reported the $2,000 for evacuation out of Kabul and Politico did also.

https://nypost.com/2021/08/19/state-dept-scraps-plan-to-bill-kabul-evacuees-2k-for-flights/

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/national-security-daily

Guess you didn't look very hard


Business Insider
Lindsey Graham threatens Biden with impeachment if US troops don't stay in Afghanistan past August and 'accept the risk' of Taliban attacks


Sen. Graham said on Friday the US military should extend its withdrawal deadline in Afghanistan.

Graham and retired Gen. Keane wrote in the WSJ that the US should extend operations outside Kabul.

Biden "must be willing to accept the risk that the Taliban will attack our forces," they wrote.

See more stories on Insider's business page.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and one of the Senate's most outspoken war hawks, said in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Friday that the US military should extend its withdrawal deadline in Afghanistan and risk being attacked by the Taliban.

Graham, who's long supported indefinite American occupations abroad, and his op-ed coauthor, retired Gen. Jack Keane, said the US government must not fully withdraw until thousands of Afghan allies are evacuated. They urged President Joe Biden to keep US troops in Afghanistan past his August 31 withdrawal deadline and create pathways for Afghan allies to travel from across the country to the Kabul airport for evacuation.

"President Biden must keep forces in place long enough to evacuate those to whom we owe a great debt," they wrote. "He must be willing to accept the risk that the Taliban will attack our forces."

They said it would be "dishonorable" to apply anything less than the "full force" of the US military to the effort.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley said this week that the US military would stay in the country until it had evacuated every American who wants to leave Afghanistan. Milley and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told the press on Wednesday that they didn't have the capability to send troops into Kabul or anywhere else in the country to help bring people to the airport.

Because of chaos and insecurity in Kabul, the military has so far been unable to meet its goal of moving 5,000 to 9,000 people through the Kabul airport and out of the country every day.

The president is set to deliver a speech on Friday with more information about the evacuation effort.

In a tweet on Friday morning, Graham insisted that Biden should be impeached for "dereliction of duty" if the US military fails to evacuate any Americans or Afghans who worked with US forces.

"If we leave any Americans behind, or if we leave thousands of Afghans who fought bravely alongside us behind, President Joe Biden deserves to be impeached for a High Crime and Misdemeanor of Dereliction of Duty," he tweeted.

Biden has been clear that he doesn't believe the effort to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan justifies the loss of additional US soldiers.

"After 20 years - a trillion dollars spent training and equipping hundreds of thousands of Afghan National Security and Defense Forces, 2,448 Americans killed, 20,722 more wounded, and untold thousands coming home with unseen trauma to their mental health - I will not send another generation of Americans to war in Afghanistan with no reasonable expectation of achieving a different outcome," Biden said in a speech last month.
https://news.yahoo.com/lindsey-graham-th...sycsrp_catchall

follow the money, every one.

You left out the part where they would be reimbursed which will make these flights free.

Biden! has secured the airport.

After surrendering the entire country.
Which was secure at the start.

No American had died there in 18 months.
Biden has only been President for about 8 months, Janurary 20 - August 20 today.

I was commenting on the zeitgeist of American societal sentiment. I typically don't count the predictable politician.