6 ms·

Your regular reminder that the Taliban offered to surrender in 2001, but Rumsfeld refused. https://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/07/news/rumsfeld-rejects-planto-allo

Your regular reminder that the Taliban offered to surrender in 2001, but Rumsfeld refused. https://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/07/news/rumsfeld-rejects-planto-allow-mullah-omar-to-live-in-dignity-taliban.html https://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/07/news/rumsfeld-rejects-pla...

drocer88 5y ago
It's still a humiliating defeat for Mr. Biden. Regardless of your partisan status. This does not look good. Even CNN is questioning the administration: https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/08/15/blinken-intv-biden-decision-on-afghanistan-withdrawal-taliban-tapper-sotu-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/top-news-videos/ https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/08/15/blinken-intv-... What do you think?
- dbbk 5y ago
  Not really, this was pretty assured to happen. The previous presidents just kicked the can down the road.
  - leereeves 5y ago
    > this was pretty assured to happen That's not what Biden said. Just over a month ago, on July 8th, he actually argued that the Afghan army could win: Q Is a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan now inevitable? THE PRESIDENT: No, it is not. Q Why? THE PRESIDENT: Because you — the Afghan troops have 300,000 well-equipped — as well-equipped as any army in the world — and an air force against something like 75,000 Taliban. It is not inevitable. ... I trust the capacity of the Afghan military, who is better trained, better equipped, and more re- — more competent in terms of conducting war. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/07/08/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-drawdown-of-u-s-forces-in-afghanistan/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/20...
    - asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
      What answer is he supposed to give to that question, even if he is relatively confident of an eventual Taliban victory? I don't mean to ask what the honest answer is. I mean to say, what is the sayable answer?
      - leereeves 5y ago
        An honest answer, perhaps? Why is an honest answer not sayable? And why tell a lie that will soon be disproven so spectacularly? (To be clear, I'm not arguing whether he lied or really believed what he said. I'm responding to "even if he is relatively confident of an eventual Taliban victory")
        asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
        It's a sad reality that there are some answers that the people are not ready to hear, even if they are true. If people rewarded politicians for being truthful, they would be more truthful. They are just responding to incentives, like everyone else. I wish it were different, but that doesn't mean I think it ever will be.
        leereeves 5y ago
        > I wish it were different Be the change you wish to see. If you think Biden was lying here, don't defend him for it. Even in terms of realpolitik this was clearly a mistake. He obviously didn't think his words would be disproven so quickly; it would be foolish to lie about what's going to happen almost immediately.
        asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
        > Be the change you wish to see. If you think Biden was lying here, don't defend him for it. Me criticizing Biden on an internet forum for offering comforting falsehoods will do nothing. He's responding to a tendency in human nature or perhaps American culture that is far too big to be moved significantly by so small an act, or even thousands or millions of such acts. So I'm happy to continue discussing this in realistic terms rather than idealistic ones.
  - throwawaysea 5y ago
    Consider the account of the former ambassador, who says this was avoidable, and not something assured: https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2021/aug/14/a-self-inflicted-wound-former-ambassador-to-afghan/ https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2021/aug/14/a-self-inflict... Or the account of this former Army colonel who mentions how poorly managed Afghanistan was all this time, with basically no real attempt at establishing institutions over the last twenty years: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/08/how-america-failed-afghanistan/619740/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/08/how-americ... Or the WSJ editorial board's suggestions to rescue Afghanistan from a few days ago: https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-rescue-plan-for-afghanistan-taliban-joe-biden-11628890626 https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-rescue-plan-for-afghanistan-t... There are plenty of ways this could have been handled better. It all comes down to having better leadership. The US hasn't had good leadership for a long time. Four different presidents came into office based on populist sentiments more than competence, and the result is they completely mismanaged all of this while we still incurred the immense expenses that a more successful plan would have required. Worst, they lied to the public and assured the public of how things were going well - this too came from multiple presidents.
- gordon_gee1 5y ago
  No US president wants this media attention but frankly Biden is the president who should take the least flak for taliban controlled afghanistan. 3 presidents before him failed to either remove US troops or find an achievable goal in Afghanistan
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- dekhn 5y ago
  no, he was the first president in some time to finally have the courage to admit we made a huge mistake and get us out. there was no winning strategy.
  - OminousWeapons 5y ago
    Indeed. We should have been out of there long ago once it became clear that we did not understand the conditions for victory anymore / when we realized that we did not want to allocate the resources required to win. Staying this long was pure sunk cost fallacy combined with weak leadership. Kudos to Biden for having the balls to rip the bandaid off, as painful as it is.
  - logicchop 5y ago
    Of course there was a "winning strategy." China is about to embark on it. There must have been clear signs that the Taliban was capable of doing what they just did. Even if the goal is to exit Afghanistan (which we should have done a long time ago) you still need to build a bridge out and not simply let the cardboard government collapse on itself spontaneously. We should have been making concessions to the Taliban, acknowledging it is a legitimate political force in Afghanistan. At the very least we should have negotiated a permanent military base in Afghanistan while accepting Taliban control of the rest of the nation. We spent too long trying to do too much and ended up getting nothing and looking stupid.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - nradov 5y ago
      A single isolated military base would be untenable without reasonably secure land supply routes for fuel and other bulk supplies. The US military lacks the airlift capacity to fly in everything needed on a permanent basis.
  - RickJWagner 5y ago
    No, this was an unmitigated disaster. And Biden must own it. Look at the southern US border. Another disaster. Barack Obama himself said it: "Never underestimate Joe's ability to f** things up".
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
  There are two options that anyone has been able to figure out over the last twenty years: indefinite occupation, and eventual retaking of the country by the Taliban. There may have been some third way, but if so, nobody who had the power to influence the outcome was able to think of it. It's certainly a bad "look" for Biden, but the real error was going there in the first place. That was when this outcome was decided. Whoever finally pulled the plug was going to have a PR issue on their hands, but this is hardly Biden's defeat.
- notdarkyet 5y ago
  Why are people even downvoting this comment. Just the other day Biden stated Kabul would not fall. This is a failure. Don't downvote because of politics.
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  It was absolutely a humiliating defeat for Biden. There was no reason for him to declare a rapid pull out timeline and do it all so quick. Trump's Afghanistan deal last year would have incrementally pulled out as commitments were met by the Ghani government and the Taliban. Instead, the rug was pulled out from under the Afghan people with little planning. It was so poorly planned that there are numerous articles about the Taliban fighters raiding US weapon stores that were left behind and acquiring thousands of weapons, including military vehicles and helicopters. The whole thing was incredibly poorly managed. Obama's ambassador to Afghanistan mentioned that the Taliban's recent blitz was avoidable (https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2021/aug/14/a-self-inflicted-wound-former-ambassador-to-afghan/ https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2021/aug/14/a-self-inflict...). In the same interview he also says: > “I’m left with some grave questions in my mind about his ability to lead our nation as commander-in-chief,” [the former ambassador] said. “To have read this so wrong – or, even worse, to have understood what was likely to happen and not care.”
- nradov 5y ago
  Pres. Biden had to pull US troops out eventually. His real failure was in failing to protect Afghani translators and other local staff. They're now at extreme danger of being tortured and killed by the Taliban. That's 100% on Biden. He could have evacuated them and chose not to.
dlbucci 5y ago
Never knew that, but it doesn't surprise me. Christ, what a waste of 20 years and countless lives, but at least the rich got richer...
indy 5y ago
2 trillion dollars later...
- hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
  But it's not a waste for the Taliban though! They now have billions of dollars worth of military equipment kindly provided by the US government!
  - nradov 5y ago
    On the positive side the Taliban generally lack the technical skills and spare parts supply to maintain any of that equipment more sophisticated than trucks and small arms.
    - goalieca 5y ago
      Maintenance for modern military gear can be quite expensive and challenging. My armchair analysis thinks that it’s more likely this gear would be sold to other interested countries if it was captured.
      - powderpig 5y ago
        Like the Russians?
  - rich_sasha 5y ago
    I suspect the kit will get bombed to smithereens by US et al too. Modern armies do it to their own hardware if it’s at risk of being captured by the enemy. I guess there are few secretive things the Afghans got, but even that isn’t for wider consumption.
    - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
      That demonstrably did not happen. Did you see the picture on the cover of all of the major news sites of the Taliban sitting in the presidential palace? At least according to Reddit (I'm not an expert on military weaponry) those rifles are American made M4s and M16s.
treeman79 5y ago
Wow what a way to pass blame for the current screw up on past administrations.
- nicoffeine 5y ago
  I believe there should be criticism on the current withdrawal. It is definitely a catastrophe in many ways. However, I remember the chorus of opposition when the Bush administration decided to send half a million troops to Iraq instead of Afghanistan. Rumsfeld wanted to try invading Afghanistan on the cheap so the US could afford two wars, and because Iraq had a legitimate military and “all the good targets.” They were so delusional they thought both would be over in months. Here we are twenty years later, with the same problems and 10 trillion dollars missing from the treasury. We tortured people and imprisoned them without trial or due process. We debased ourselves on so many levels and we have nothing to show for it. Dig into the origins of the Taliban, and you’ll find US and Saudi Arabian meddling in the 70s and the 80s exploiting that extremism to counter Russia and communism. Saudi Arabia needed a way to rid themselves of radical theocrats, and the US was looking for soldiers to counter Russian influence. So we helped them fund and train militants by building madrassas in Pakistan and Afghanistan. With haunting irony, Russia was trying to impose similar reforms by invading: gender equality, secularism, and their version of political freedom. Do you want to know why the second Bush Administration never investigated Saudi Arabia after 9/11? They were all the same people from the first Bush and Reagan administrations, and they knew the paper trail would lead right back to themselves. Meddling in the affairs of foreign nations always has unintended consequences. Democracy spreads through attraction, not enforcement. I sincerely hope the lesson we learn is not to blame the people who finally accept it, but the people who always think that this time will be different.
  - ikerdanzel 5y ago
    The problem would easily solved if they do what a typical conqueror would do: wiping fighting forces and re-education. USA successfully did that with Japan and to some extend Korea. But boy, absolutely shitted themselves with Vietnam, Iraq, Syria and Agfhan. Look at China and Rome past history how they subjugated their enemy. Look at Carthage, Xinjiang and Warring States. When USA invaded, they should have start depopulation, segragating the sheep and Talibans. Then proceed to hunt them like dogs and genocide them. Next, massive re-education to something like Jedi or Buddhism. When my friends asked USA is strongest and able to take on Russian and China easily, I reminded them, USA can win battles. USA won every battles in Vietnam. But when it comes to war, especially the #1 weakness of unable to sustain long term war, Russian and China handily will wipe USA 100% in every wars. Yup, the goat f*ckers just prove it by bringing USA to his knees.
AYBABTME 5y ago
To put things in context: at the time, the US wanted al-Qaeda and the Talibans to face justice, so this amnesty deal was not inline with that goal. It would have led to Taliban leaders walking without punishment aside from losing power. I'm not taking any position here, but I think the nuance is helpful.
steve76 5y ago
Back when Pakistan was harboring bin Laden. yeah. sure. Surrender translates more to armistice, a pause to rearm and mobilize. Don't recognize the Taliban's authority. After the flood of refugees destroy the region, sell land claims. Better yet, homestead it. The land's yours if you can get there and keep it. Sell heavy equipment and weapons. Marxist china? Imitation. Repetition. Oh no! Here's a coast full of hypersonic missiles and an electric arc from the sun that wipes out your entire hemisphere. Send in a bigger jerk than Bezos. His rocket touches down. When the natives go to greet him: > Thank you kind sir! Welcome to the path once walked by the prophet Mohammed!!! have him just plow right pass them, cursing them out under his breath: >... f** off jerk, pr*ck, dirtbag, retard ... ... get the hell off my land In summary, there's no changing people, no convincing or educating. Kill them all and steal their land. I need a place to dump my garbage.
moksly 5y ago
Or when Bin Laden was a hero in 1993. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/robert-fisk-osama-bin-laden-interview-sudan-1993-b1562374.html?amp https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/robert-fisk-os...
- twelve40 5y ago
  omg that's crazy. From mujahedin hero fighting the evil Russians to US enemy #1 and a pretense for two invasions no less.
yann2 5y ago
Real dearth in American leaders. Getting real hard to think of a someone in the past few decades who will go into the history books for having produced an actual outcome.
nwatson 5y ago
They would not have stayed surrendered.

drocer88 5y ago

It's still a humiliating defeat for Mr. Biden. Regardless of your partisan status. This does not look good. Even CNN is questioning the administration: https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/08/15/blinken-intv-biden-decision-on-afghanistan-withdrawal-taliban-tapper-sotu-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/top-news-videos/ https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/08/15/blinken-intv-... What do you think?

dbbk 5y ago
Not really, this was pretty assured to happen. The previous presidents just kicked the can down the road.
- leereeves 5y ago
  > this was pretty assured to happen That's not what Biden said. Just over a month ago, on July 8th, he actually argued that the Afghan army could win: Q Is a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan now inevitable? THE PRESIDENT: No, it is not. Q Why? THE PRESIDENT: Because you — the Afghan troops have 300,000 well-equipped — as well-equipped as any army in the world — and an air force against something like 75,000 Taliban. It is not inevitable. ... I trust the capacity of the Afghan military, who is better trained, better equipped, and more re- — more competent in terms of conducting war. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/07/08/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-drawdown-of-u-s-forces-in-afghanistan/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/20...
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
    What answer is he supposed to give to that question, even if he is relatively confident of an eventual Taliban victory? I don't mean to ask what the honest answer is. I mean to say, what is the sayable answer?
    - leereeves 5y ago
      An honest answer, perhaps? Why is an honest answer not sayable? And why tell a lie that will soon be disproven so spectacularly? (To be clear, I'm not arguing whether he lied or really believed what he said. I'm responding to "even if he is relatively confident of an eventual Taliban victory")
      - asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
        It's a sad reality that there are some answers that the people are not ready to hear, even if they are true. If people rewarded politicians for being truthful, they would be more truthful. They are just responding to incentives, like everyone else. I wish it were different, but that doesn't mean I think it ever will be.
        leereeves 5y ago
        > I wish it were different Be the change you wish to see. If you think Biden was lying here, don't defend him for it. Even in terms of realpolitik this was clearly a mistake. He obviously didn't think his words would be disproven so quickly; it would be foolish to lie about what's going to happen almost immediately.
        asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
        > Be the change you wish to see. If you think Biden was lying here, don't defend him for it. Me criticizing Biden on an internet forum for offering comforting falsehoods will do nothing. He's responding to a tendency in human nature or perhaps American culture that is far too big to be moved significantly by so small an act, or even thousands or millions of such acts. So I'm happy to continue discussing this in realistic terms rather than idealistic ones.
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  Consider the account of the former ambassador, who says this was avoidable, and not something assured: https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2021/aug/14/a-self-inflicted-wound-former-ambassador-to-afghan/ https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2021/aug/14/a-self-inflict... Or the account of this former Army colonel who mentions how poorly managed Afghanistan was all this time, with basically no real attempt at establishing institutions over the last twenty years: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/08/how-america-failed-afghanistan/619740/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/08/how-americ... Or the WSJ editorial board's suggestions to rescue Afghanistan from a few days ago: https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-rescue-plan-for-afghanistan-taliban-joe-biden-11628890626 https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-rescue-plan-for-afghanistan-t... There are plenty of ways this could have been handled better. It all comes down to having better leadership. The US hasn't had good leadership for a long time. Four different presidents came into office based on populist sentiments more than competence, and the result is they completely mismanaged all of this while we still incurred the immense expenses that a more successful plan would have required. Worst, they lied to the public and assured the public of how things were going well - this too came from multiple presidents.
gordon_gee1 5y ago
No US president wants this media attention but frankly Biden is the president who should take the least flak for taliban controlled afghanistan. 3 presidents before him failed to either remove US troops or find an achievable goal in Afghanistan
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
dekhn 5y ago
no, he was the first president in some time to finally have the courage to admit we made a huge mistake and get us out. there was no winning strategy.
- OminousWeapons 5y ago
  Indeed. We should have been out of there long ago once it became clear that we did not understand the conditions for victory anymore / when we realized that we did not want to allocate the resources required to win. Staying this long was pure sunk cost fallacy combined with weak leadership. Kudos to Biden for having the balls to rip the bandaid off, as painful as it is.
- logicchop 5y ago
  Of course there was a "winning strategy." China is about to embark on it. There must have been clear signs that the Taliban was capable of doing what they just did. Even if the goal is to exit Afghanistan (which we should have done a long time ago) you still need to build a bridge out and not simply let the cardboard government collapse on itself spontaneously. We should have been making concessions to the Taliban, acknowledging it is a legitimate political force in Afghanistan. At the very least we should have negotiated a permanent military base in Afghanistan while accepting Taliban control of the rest of the nation. We spent too long trying to do too much and ended up getting nothing and looking stupid.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - nradov 5y ago
    A single isolated military base would be untenable without reasonably secure land supply routes for fuel and other bulk supplies. The US military lacks the airlift capacity to fly in everything needed on a permanent basis.
- RickJWagner 5y ago
  No, this was an unmitigated disaster. And Biden must own it. Look at the southern US border. Another disaster. Barack Obama himself said it: "Never underestimate Joe's ability to f** things up".
asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
There are two options that anyone has been able to figure out over the last twenty years: indefinite occupation, and eventual retaking of the country by the Taliban. There may have been some third way, but if so, nobody who had the power to influence the outcome was able to think of it. It's certainly a bad "look" for Biden, but the real error was going there in the first place. That was when this outcome was decided. Whoever finally pulled the plug was going to have a PR issue on their hands, but this is hardly Biden's defeat.
notdarkyet 5y ago
Why are people even downvoting this comment. Just the other day Biden stated Kabul would not fall. This is a failure. Don't downvote because of politics.
throwawaysea 5y ago
It was absolutely a humiliating defeat for Biden. There was no reason for him to declare a rapid pull out timeline and do it all so quick. Trump's Afghanistan deal last year would have incrementally pulled out as commitments were met by the Ghani government and the Taliban. Instead, the rug was pulled out from under the Afghan people with little planning. It was so poorly planned that there are numerous articles about the Taliban fighters raiding US weapon stores that were left behind and acquiring thousands of weapons, including military vehicles and helicopters. The whole thing was incredibly poorly managed. Obama's ambassador to Afghanistan mentioned that the Taliban's recent blitz was avoidable (https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2021/aug/14/a-self-inflicted-wound-former-ambassador-to-afghan/ https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2021/aug/14/a-self-inflict...). In the same interview he also says: > “I’m left with some grave questions in my mind about his ability to lead our nation as commander-in-chief,” [the former ambassador] said. “To have read this so wrong – or, even worse, to have understood what was likely to happen and not care.”
nradov 5y ago
Pres. Biden had to pull US troops out eventually. His real failure was in failing to protect Afghani translators and other local staff. They're now at extreme danger of being tortured and killed by the Taliban. That's 100% on Biden. He could have evacuated them and chose not to.

dlbucci 5y ago

Never knew that, but it doesn't surprise me. Christ, what a waste of 20 years and countless lives, but at least the rich got richer...

indy 5y ago

2 trillion dollars later...

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
But it's not a waste for the Taliban though! They now have billions of dollars worth of military equipment kindly provided by the US government!
- nradov 5y ago
  On the positive side the Taliban generally lack the technical skills and spare parts supply to maintain any of that equipment more sophisticated than trucks and small arms.
  - goalieca 5y ago
    Maintenance for modern military gear can be quite expensive and challenging. My armchair analysis thinks that it’s more likely this gear would be sold to other interested countries if it was captured.
    - powderpig 5y ago
      Like the Russians?
- rich_sasha 5y ago
  I suspect the kit will get bombed to smithereens by US et al too. Modern armies do it to their own hardware if it’s at risk of being captured by the enemy. I guess there are few secretive things the Afghans got, but even that isn’t for wider consumption.
  - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
    That demonstrably did not happen. Did you see the picture on the cover of all of the major news sites of the Taliban sitting in the presidential palace? At least according to Reddit (I'm not an expert on military weaponry) those rifles are American made M4s and M16s.

treeman79 5y ago

Wow what a way to pass blame for the current screw up on past administrations.

nicoffeine 5y ago
I believe there should be criticism on the current withdrawal. It is definitely a catastrophe in many ways. However, I remember the chorus of opposition when the Bush administration decided to send half a million troops to Iraq instead of Afghanistan. Rumsfeld wanted to try invading Afghanistan on the cheap so the US could afford two wars, and because Iraq had a legitimate military and “all the good targets.” They were so delusional they thought both would be over in months. Here we are twenty years later, with the same problems and 10 trillion dollars missing from the treasury. We tortured people and imprisoned them without trial or due process. We debased ourselves on so many levels and we have nothing to show for it. Dig into the origins of the Taliban, and you’ll find US and Saudi Arabian meddling in the 70s and the 80s exploiting that extremism to counter Russia and communism. Saudi Arabia needed a way to rid themselves of radical theocrats, and the US was looking for soldiers to counter Russian influence. So we helped them fund and train militants by building madrassas in Pakistan and Afghanistan. With haunting irony, Russia was trying to impose similar reforms by invading: gender equality, secularism, and their version of political freedom. Do you want to know why the second Bush Administration never investigated Saudi Arabia after 9/11? They were all the same people from the first Bush and Reagan administrations, and they knew the paper trail would lead right back to themselves. Meddling in the affairs of foreign nations always has unintended consequences. Democracy spreads through attraction, not enforcement. I sincerely hope the lesson we learn is not to blame the people who finally accept it, but the people who always think that this time will be different.
- ikerdanzel 5y ago
  The problem would easily solved if they do what a typical conqueror would do: wiping fighting forces and re-education. USA successfully did that with Japan and to some extend Korea. But boy, absolutely shitted themselves with Vietnam, Iraq, Syria and Agfhan. Look at China and Rome past history how they subjugated their enemy. Look at Carthage, Xinjiang and Warring States. When USA invaded, they should have start depopulation, segragating the sheep and Talibans. Then proceed to hunt them like dogs and genocide them. Next, massive re-education to something like Jedi or Buddhism. When my friends asked USA is strongest and able to take on Russian and China easily, I reminded them, USA can win battles. USA won every battles in Vietnam. But when it comes to war, especially the #1 weakness of unable to sustain long term war, Russian and China handily will wipe USA 100% in every wars. Yup, the goat f*ckers just prove it by bringing USA to his knees.

AYBABTME 5y ago

To put things in context: at the time, the US wanted al-Qaeda and the Talibans to face justice, so this amnesty deal was not inline with that goal. It would have led to Taliban leaders walking without punishment aside from losing power. I'm not taking any position here, but I think the nuance is helpful.

steve76 5y ago

Back when Pakistan was harboring bin Laden. yeah. sure. Surrender translates more to armistice, a pause to rearm and mobilize. Don't recognize the Taliban's authority. After the flood of refugees destroy the region, sell land claims. Better yet, homestead it. The land's yours if you can get there and keep it. Sell heavy equipment and weapons. Marxist china? Imitation. Repetition. Oh no! Here's a coast full of hypersonic missiles and an electric arc from the sun that wipes out your entire hemisphere. Send in a bigger jerk than Bezos. His rocket touches down. When the natives go to greet him: > Thank you kind sir! Welcome to the path once walked by the prophet Mohammed!!! have him just plow right pass them, cursing them out under his breath: >... f** off jerk, pr*ck, dirtbag, retard ... ... get the hell off my land In summary, there's no changing people, no convincing or educating. Kill them all and steal their land. I need a place to dump my garbage.

moksly 5y ago

Or when Bin Laden was a hero in 1993. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/robert-fisk-osama-bin-laden-interview-sudan-1993-b1562374.html?amp https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/robert-fisk-os...

twelve40 5y ago
omg that's crazy. From mujahedin hero fighting the evil Russians to US enemy #1 and a pretense for two invasions no less.

yann2 5y ago

Real dearth in American leaders. Getting real hard to think of a someone in the past few decades who will go into the history books for having produced an actual outcome.

nwatson 5y ago

They would not have stayed surrendered.