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The Afghan military surrendered over a week ago. While we were still in a position to decommission equipment, instead it was left behind to the Taliban. Also c

The Afghan military surrendered over a week ago. While we were still in a position to decommission equipment, instead it was left behind to the Taliban. Also curious on your hot take of this—the unusually effective suicide bombings that took place last week, (y’know the ones that killed our servicemen and about a hundred innocent civilians?), were very likely composed of the very same high explosives that we left behind.

unclebucknasty 5y ago
>The Afghan military surrendered over a week ago. While we were still in a position to decommission equipment I don't know what you're defining as being "still in a position" or what your basis is for that determination, but we all witnessed that chaos ensued quickly upon the collapse of the Afghan govt/military. At that point, it seems the priority was on saving lives and extricating human beings which was meeting with significant difficulty to say the least. That's a much more plausible explanation for why decommissioning the equipment was not prioritized. The situation is bad. The 20-year occupation itself was horrible foreign policy. But just making unfounded allegations of "corruption" is FUD.
unclebucknasty 5y ago
>Also curious on your hot take of this—the unusually effective suicide bombings (y’know the ones that killed our servicemen and about a hundred innocent civilians?) were very likely composed of the very same high explosives that we left behind. I found the "y'know..." bit a little flip, given the tragic circumstances. In any case, my "hot take" on that narrow point is that it's another unfounded assertion that reads like more FUD. On the broader point, there are many people politicizing this and working overtime to assign as much blame as possible to the current administration, including what you appear to be doing here. And, my hot take on that broader point is that it's divisive and uses the tragic deaths of our fallen military and the grief of their families as political props. The unbridled glee in their political attacks is palpable, even as our country and military are experiencing a significant setback that includes the loss of life. It's disgusting and, whatever they think they're rooting for, it's not America.
- polartx 5y ago
  >On the broader point, there are many people politicizing this and working overtime to assign as much blame as possible to the current administration 8 months in office and practically unlimited resources (human and material), and this is the best they could come up with. Joe Biden was a senator when Saigon was evacuated. No there’s not enough work here to go into overtime.
  - unclebucknasty 5y ago
    >No there’s not enough work here to go into overtime Yet, here you are. But, congratulations to you though. The fact that a 20-year foreign policy blunder culminated on the 8-month watch of a president you don't like clearly somehow seems like a personal victory for you, even if it comes at the expense of American and Afghan lives. Those of us who are actually rooting for America are disappointed in some aspects of the withdrawal, as well as the fact that we'd been there for so long in the first place. And, glad to finally have a president with the courage to get us out, thus finally ending the unfortunate expenditure of American blood and treasure going forward.
    - polartx 5y ago
      > And, glad to finally have a president with the courage to get us out, thus finally ending the unfortunate expenditure of American blood and treasure going forward. Trump negotiated the exit strategy to ‘get us out’, Biden just couldn’t execute it. > But, congratulations to you though. The fact that a 20-year foreign policy blunder culminated on the 8-month watch of a president you don't like clearly somehow seems like a personal victory for you, even if it comes at the expense of American and Afghan lives. There is no victory here for anyone, except America’s enemies. You know, there are people in the world, that are able to criticize terrible leadership, without relishing said leaderships failures. It’s binary thinking like yours that keep us in this two-party partisan nightmare.
      - unclebucknasty 5y ago
        >Trump negotiated the exit strategy to ‘get us out’, Biden just couldn’t execute it. If you want to continue making this a partisan thing, then at least be consistent. If Trump wanted the political credit for actually executing the plan, then he should have executed it. After all, he ran on that as a promise and had 4 years to execute it, whereas Biden was only there for 8 months, as you've pointed out. A negotiated date is not an exit plan in any case, and many believe only served to box in the incoming administration. >There is no victory here for anyone, except America’s enemies. Glad to hear you say that. But, if you want people to believe that you actually believe it, then you should temper your obvious hyper-partisan glee and stop with the politicization of our service-members' deaths; to include peddling unfounded conspiracy theories regarding imagined "corruption" yielding the materials used to attack our troops. This is exactly the kind of disinformation that our enemies use to diminish our standing on the world stage, demoralize our military and citizenry, and divide us further. Criticizing our leadership is one thing, and I've expressed my disappointment in some of the execution here as well. But, peddling propaganda and conspiracy theories against your own country is taking up the role of useful idiot, at best.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

unclebucknasty 5y ago

>The Afghan military surrendered over a week ago. While we were still in a position to decommission equipment I don't know what you're defining as being "still in a position" or what your basis is for that determination, but we all witnessed that chaos ensued quickly upon the collapse of the Afghan govt/military. At that point, it seems the priority was on saving lives and extricating human beings which was meeting with significant difficulty to say the least. That's a much more plausible explanation for why decommissioning the equipment was not prioritized. The situation is bad. The 20-year occupation itself was horrible foreign policy. But just making unfounded allegations of "corruption" is FUD.

unclebucknasty 5y ago

>Also curious on your hot take of this—the unusually effective suicide bombings (y’know the ones that killed our servicemen and about a hundred innocent civilians?) were very likely composed of the very same high explosives that we left behind. I found the "y'know..." bit a little flip, given the tragic circumstances. In any case, my "hot take" on that narrow point is that it's another unfounded assertion that reads like more FUD. On the broader point, there are many people politicizing this and working overtime to assign as much blame as possible to the current administration, including what you appear to be doing here. And, my hot take on that broader point is that it's divisive and uses the tragic deaths of our fallen military and the grief of their families as political props. The unbridled glee in their political attacks is palpable, even as our country and military are experiencing a significant setback that includes the loss of life. It's disgusting and, whatever they think they're rooting for, it's not America.

polartx 5y ago
>On the broader point, there are many people politicizing this and working overtime to assign as much blame as possible to the current administration 8 months in office and practically unlimited resources (human and material), and this is the best they could come up with. Joe Biden was a senator when Saigon was evacuated. No there’s not enough work here to go into overtime.
- unclebucknasty 5y ago
  >No there’s not enough work here to go into overtime Yet, here you are. But, congratulations to you though. The fact that a 20-year foreign policy blunder culminated on the 8-month watch of a president you don't like clearly somehow seems like a personal victory for you, even if it comes at the expense of American and Afghan lives. Those of us who are actually rooting for America are disappointed in some aspects of the withdrawal, as well as the fact that we'd been there for so long in the first place. And, glad to finally have a president with the courage to get us out, thus finally ending the unfortunate expenditure of American blood and treasure going forward.
  - polartx 5y ago
    > And, glad to finally have a president with the courage to get us out, thus finally ending the unfortunate expenditure of American blood and treasure going forward. Trump negotiated the exit strategy to ‘get us out’, Biden just couldn’t execute it. > But, congratulations to you though. The fact that a 20-year foreign policy blunder culminated on the 8-month watch of a president you don't like clearly somehow seems like a personal victory for you, even if it comes at the expense of American and Afghan lives. There is no victory here for anyone, except America’s enemies. You know, there are people in the world, that are able to criticize terrible leadership, without relishing said leaderships failures. It’s binary thinking like yours that keep us in this two-party partisan nightmare.
    - unclebucknasty 5y ago
      >Trump negotiated the exit strategy to ‘get us out’, Biden just couldn’t execute it. If you want to continue making this a partisan thing, then at least be consistent. If Trump wanted the political credit for actually executing the plan, then he should have executed it. After all, he ran on that as a promise and had 4 years to execute it, whereas Biden was only there for 8 months, as you've pointed out. A negotiated date is not an exit plan in any case, and many believe only served to box in the incoming administration. >There is no victory here for anyone, except America’s enemies. Glad to hear you say that. But, if you want people to believe that you actually believe it, then you should temper your obvious hyper-partisan glee and stop with the politicization of our service-members' deaths; to include peddling unfounded conspiracy theories regarding imagined "corruption" yielding the materials used to attack our troops. This is exactly the kind of disinformation that our enemies use to diminish our standing on the world stage, demoralize our military and citizenry, and divide us further. Criticizing our leadership is one thing, and I've expressed my disappointment in some of the execution here as well. But, peddling propaganda and conspiracy theories against your own country is taking up the role of useful idiot, at best.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]