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The USA today article at 4 is amazing that they have gall to interview Liz Cheney, who for obvious reasons isn’t going to have an unbiased opinion here, but who

The USA today article at 4 is amazing that they have gall to interview Liz Cheney, who for obvious reasons isn’t going to have an unbiased opinion here, but who finds the time to blame nearly the whole thing on Trump. There is a lot that Trump did wrong, but Trump/Pompeo negotiating a set of conditions for withdraw, making a plan regardless of how good or bad in theory, then having Biden come in, ignore all of it, withdraw our forces including Bagram overnight without telling our allied Afghan Forces, waiting for no conditions to be met, and it not being clear that if the Taliban didn’t cooperate that we’d hit back hard - is Trump’s Fault - is beyond bias. It’s straight up a perversion of reality. USA Today should be embarrassed for such an obvious partisan twist, if you’ve been paying attention it would be expected of Cheney who seems to have been broken by Trump. Bad guy who tweeted the mean things or not, this isn’t on him, it’s square on the current administration and bureaucracy. 39 days ago Biden’s own press event completely shrugged this off as even a possibility, the idea we would have another Siagon. 6 days ago the intelligence community we’re told to respect revised a potential fall of Kabul from 90 days, to 72 hours, it fell in less than 24. Also … Those poor people holding on to the plane. All dead, they were sitting on the landing gear panel, that folds under on a C-117. It’s clear how bad things really are looking at how insecure the airstrip is. It shouldn’t be possible to grab onto a military plane in any scenario.

ericmay 5y ago
I'm usually one for "let's not blame all of the world's problems on Trump", but Trump (or his admin) negotiated a May pullout of Afghanistan with the Taliban. I'm not sure why you're asserting that Biden "ignored all of it" and "pulled out overnight". What conditions were or weren't met? In what ways did the Taliban not agree to the Doha Accord? Be specific. And what do you think telling the commander of Bagram that we were leaving was going to accomplish? First, they knew we were leaving. Obviously we're not sending them an invitation to join us. And if they didn't do anything and were "surprised" by the US pulling out... I mean did he not notice forces packing up? Incompetence. You can't fix that. Second, do you think this would have changed the entire ANA folding? No. It's a boogeyman with no consequences whatsoever. > Also … Those poor people holding on to the plane. All dead. It’s clear how bad things really are looking at how insecure the airstrip is. It shouldn’t be possible to grab onto a military plane in any scenario. Well it's either that or the US forces unleash machine gun fire on civilians. Many more would be dead. The truth is there's no scenario in which you can secure a perimeter that large without massive forces when a population decides to just storm the fence, unless of course you want to just indiscriminately kill people. Anyway. My real "enemy" here is the exact same media who has for years been complaining about Afghanistan, publishing article after article about US imperialism in Afghanistan, how it's a failed war, all of that and then when we say fine you're right, they turn right around and start talking about how pulling out is the wrong move blah blah blah. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Might as well save money. The geopolitical ramifications are overstated too. Yet again MSM working on trying to drum up war scenarios. This frees US attention from Afghanistan and the Middle East to worry about other areas. Afghanistan has no way to extract resources. There are no ports. No roads. No mines. No machines. All of this "China is going to get all the resources" stuff is just fear-mongering nonsense. We spent 20 years and $2 trillion+ trying to get Bin Laden and create a good government in Afghanistan. It didn't work. The government collapsed in a week. Spending another 10 years there would have changed nothing. Should have left earlier anyway. -edit- Re: Saigon pictures. You know what's funny? People were talking about getting those exact pictures to make the comparison before the evacuation even began. Gotta get those clicks!
- nanis 5y ago
  > We spent 20 years and $2 trillion+ trying to get Bin Laden and create a good government in Afghanistan. How much money did the U.S. spend trying to defend and rehabilitate Germany? Yet, recently as the 00s, the Nazis were burning people alive[1] and killing them with collaboration from the police[2]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Solingen_arson_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Solingen_arson_attack [2]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/15/neo-nazi-murders-revealing-germanys-darkest-secrets https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/15/neo-nazi-murde...
DarknessFalls 5y ago
How is this any different than Trump's sudden departure from Syria, abandoning our allies, the Kurds? That happened so quickly, the Russians were able to overrun our bases and get access to our intel.
- wonderwonder 5y ago
  There are 10's of thousands of US and European citizens currently trapped in Kabul. That's a pretty big difference.
rrss 5y ago
What were the conditions to withdraw? My understanding is that the terms of the Doha agreement were 1) Taliban stops attacking US troops, 2) Taliban doesn’t shelter al Qaeda, and 3) US military leaves Afghanistan by May 2021. Were there other conditions that have not been met? The Afghan government wasn’t even a party to the Doha agreement.
- SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
  So I’m confused, are you saying that a secret overnight withdrawal of Bagram, this new Saigon situation and imagery, people clinging to transport planes, in the US leaving 10,000 to 20,000 American citizens in a now hostile country happened under Trump? It basically doesn’t matter what the plan was. Good or bad, it wasn’t executed by the new guy. Instead, seemingly no plan was used and here we are. 20 years and trillions of dollars, effectively wiped out in one month. Not even getting into the arms an ordinance, Humvees and MRAPs, helicopters and drones we left that are now Taliban owned. It’s not all bad, I’m sure we left a stack of 4473 forms so there would be background checks for the hundred thousand or more actual assault rifles we just handed out. Biden literally celebrated this was his plan and it our trained allies had everything under control: https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1427261422208233478 https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1427261422208233478
  - rrss 5y ago
    I asked a question, which you did not answer. I did not say anything about whose fault it is. EDIT: FWIW, I think it is manifestly obvious that Biden and the current administration is responsible for the current situation. No need to convince me of that.
    - SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
      Sorry, I didn't understand how questions you asked were relevant, no offense. They never came to fruition under Trump. IIRC, his timetable had big mile markers for major withdraws in June, he was out in Jan. While not ignoring you with a "At this point what difference does it make?" esp when that was said, the answer was actually "all the difference". In this case, I thought you were asking rhetorically. My point was it is beyond-the-pale to blame Trump's plan that wasn't followed by Biden, IC, and Bureaucracy failures here. Biden spent a year saying this was his choice and his plan. Him and his press secretary are on vacation this week, so we'll have to wait and see if that's still the case. I think a difference I'm seeing in my head is that during Vietnam, we were pushing UH-1 Hueys helos into the ocean to make room for evacuees on our carriers. In these linked videos, we're leaving people so desperate they clung to a C-117 and are almost certainly all dead now, and leaving 10-20k American citizens behind at this moment. I know literacy and formal education among Afgans is low (but was getting a lot higher), but you have to understand you can't hang on to C-117 or sit on the landing gear panel for a minute let alone hours. The cruise speed for a C-117 is ~200 knots (200-250mph depending on model). Not to mention that the young generation in Afghanistan, up to 25 years old or so, have never known anything but US protections. That just changed in 1 week. To ignore all that and instead use your platform to "blame Trump", Liz, and USA Today, that's disgusting to me. Vile and deceitful, even considering the last 5 years of reality bending nonsense for political effect.

ericmay 5y ago

I'm usually one for "let's not blame all of the world's problems on Trump", but Trump (or his admin) negotiated a May pullout of Afghanistan with the Taliban. I'm not sure why you're asserting that Biden "ignored all of it" and "pulled out overnight". What conditions were or weren't met? In what ways did the Taliban not agree to the Doha Accord? Be specific. And what do you think telling the commander of Bagram that we were leaving was going to accomplish? First, they knew we were leaving. Obviously we're not sending them an invitation to join us. And if they didn't do anything and were "surprised" by the US pulling out... I mean did he not notice forces packing up? Incompetence. You can't fix that. Second, do you think this would have changed the entire ANA folding? No. It's a boogeyman with no consequences whatsoever. > Also … Those poor people holding on to the plane. All dead. It’s clear how bad things really are looking at how insecure the airstrip is. It shouldn’t be possible to grab onto a military plane in any scenario. Well it's either that or the US forces unleash machine gun fire on civilians. Many more would be dead. The truth is there's no scenario in which you can secure a perimeter that large without massive forces when a population decides to just storm the fence, unless of course you want to just indiscriminately kill people. Anyway. My real "enemy" here is the exact same media who has for years been complaining about Afghanistan, publishing article after article about US imperialism in Afghanistan, how it's a failed war, all of that and then when we say fine you're right, they turn right around and start talking about how pulling out is the wrong move blah blah blah. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Might as well save money. The geopolitical ramifications are overstated too. Yet again MSM working on trying to drum up war scenarios. This frees US attention from Afghanistan and the Middle East to worry about other areas. Afghanistan has no way to extract resources. There are no ports. No roads. No mines. No machines. All of this "China is going to get all the resources" stuff is just fear-mongering nonsense. We spent 20 years and $2 trillion+ trying to get Bin Laden and create a good government in Afghanistan. It didn't work. The government collapsed in a week. Spending another 10 years there would have changed nothing. Should have left earlier anyway. -edit- Re: Saigon pictures. You know what's funny? People were talking about getting those exact pictures to make the comparison before the evacuation even began. Gotta get those clicks!

nanis 5y ago
> We spent 20 years and $2 trillion+ trying to get Bin Laden and create a good government in Afghanistan. How much money did the U.S. spend trying to defend and rehabilitate Germany? Yet, recently as the 00s, the Nazis were burning people alive[1] and killing them with collaboration from the police[2]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Solingen_arson_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Solingen_arson_attack [2]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/15/neo-nazi-murders-revealing-germanys-darkest-secrets https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/15/neo-nazi-murde...

DarknessFalls 5y ago

How is this any different than Trump's sudden departure from Syria, abandoning our allies, the Kurds? That happened so quickly, the Russians were able to overrun our bases and get access to our intel.

wonderwonder 5y ago
There are 10's of thousands of US and European citizens currently trapped in Kabul. That's a pretty big difference.

rrss 5y ago

What were the conditions to withdraw? My understanding is that the terms of the Doha agreement were 1) Taliban stops attacking US troops, 2) Taliban doesn’t shelter al Qaeda, and 3) US military leaves Afghanistan by May 2021. Were there other conditions that have not been met? The Afghan government wasn’t even a party to the Doha agreement.

SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
So I’m confused, are you saying that a secret overnight withdrawal of Bagram, this new Saigon situation and imagery, people clinging to transport planes, in the US leaving 10,000 to 20,000 American citizens in a now hostile country happened under Trump? It basically doesn’t matter what the plan was. Good or bad, it wasn’t executed by the new guy. Instead, seemingly no plan was used and here we are. 20 years and trillions of dollars, effectively wiped out in one month. Not even getting into the arms an ordinance, Humvees and MRAPs, helicopters and drones we left that are now Taliban owned. It’s not all bad, I’m sure we left a stack of 4473 forms so there would be background checks for the hundred thousand or more actual assault rifles we just handed out. Biden literally celebrated this was his plan and it our trained allies had everything under control: https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1427261422208233478 https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1427261422208233478
- rrss 5y ago
  I asked a question, which you did not answer. I did not say anything about whose fault it is. EDIT: FWIW, I think it is manifestly obvious that Biden and the current administration is responsible for the current situation. No need to convince me of that.
  - SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
    Sorry, I didn't understand how questions you asked were relevant, no offense. They never came to fruition under Trump. IIRC, his timetable had big mile markers for major withdraws in June, he was out in Jan. While not ignoring you with a "At this point what difference does it make?" esp when that was said, the answer was actually "all the difference". In this case, I thought you were asking rhetorically. My point was it is beyond-the-pale to blame Trump's plan that wasn't followed by Biden, IC, and Bureaucracy failures here. Biden spent a year saying this was his choice and his plan. Him and his press secretary are on vacation this week, so we'll have to wait and see if that's still the case. I think a difference I'm seeing in my head is that during Vietnam, we were pushing UH-1 Hueys helos into the ocean to make room for evacuees on our carriers. In these linked videos, we're leaving people so desperate they clung to a C-117 and are almost certainly all dead now, and leaving 10-20k American citizens behind at this moment. I know literacy and formal education among Afgans is low (but was getting a lot higher), but you have to understand you can't hang on to C-117 or sit on the landing gear panel for a minute let alone hours. The cruise speed for a C-117 is ~200 knots (200-250mph depending on model). Not to mention that the young generation in Afghanistan, up to 25 years old or so, have never known anything but US protections. That just changed in 1 week. To ignore all that and instead use your platform to "blame Trump", Liz, and USA Today, that's disgusting to me. Vile and deceitful, even considering the last 5 years of reality bending nonsense for political effect.