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The Talibans are not technically terrorists.
Isn't the US now collaborating with then againt isis in afganistan?
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Accountability
Started by BLADEMDA
Isn't the US now collaborating with then againt isis in afganistan?
Trump's "deal" with the Taliban set the stage for Afghanistan's collapse
Warning signs came long ago—and top Trump officials knew.
www.motherjones.com
Hence the beginning of the end.
Biden fked up badly by letting the inertia of getting out override the events on the ground.
But boy howdy I'm lmao'ing at all the people calling for "accountability" when those same people were sitting there last year with their thumbs up their a$$es as trump was trying to invite the taliban for tea and a photo op at camp david.
But boy howdy I'm lmao'ing at all the people calling for "accountability" when those same people were sitting there last year with their thumbs up their a$$es as trump was trying to invite the taliban for tea and a photo op at camp david.
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deleted126335
It's a pity that we couldn't arm and train the Afghani women. I suspect that they would have a devotion to fighting that would have matched the Taliban.
every thought you can formulate has to include “but…trump”. So hard for you to have just left it with your first statement wasn’t it?
I thought that was a surgeon??
And so hard for you not to white knight your glorious orange one instead of just accepting that in reality multiple administrations going back 20 yrs share blame for this debacle. Seriously, you maga guys are like sad little puppies waiting for your master to get back.
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deleted126335
I thought that it meant ISIS with extra Potassium
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Haven’t mentioned trump once. Sad trump lives rent free In your head.
This thread isn’t about Trump. We went from a planned orderly withdrawal to a bungled emergency evacuation. The planning and execution was terrible.
We lost marines for no reason. We left allies behind. Now our enemies have 87 billion dollars of state of the art equipment to use against us or sell on the black market.
isis is back with a vengeance. Our Friends across the pond are disappointed with us. Our standing in the world has been diminished. This is a sad day for all of us and Especially for those in the military.
I am one of the few who believe we should have stayed for another 20 years with 5,000 troops and 50 pilots. The cost of leaving will be high in just a few years. Close the bases in Korea, Germany and Japan but leave Bagram open for business. Trump made an error in dealing with the Taliban and Biden gladly went along with it. Biden had no problem reversing Trump policies on immigration and climate change. Yet, Biden couldn’t change the deal with a terrorist organization?
The orange man was wrong on foreign policy and even more wrong on Afghanistan. That doesnot excuse Biden from agreeing with Trump then bungling the mass evacuation. Isis will now return in full force and they have the money and resources to kill many more Americans courtesy of Biden. The next time we invade Afghanistan the TaIlban will be ready and armed with our weapons. Thousands of Americans will die.
This is not
about party politics but about country first. Biden and his administration have dishonored the flag and everything it stands for. Shame on him and shame on Trump for making any deals with the Taliban.
You couldn't help yourself but to quote me cause I bothered to point out that this clustfk of a withdrawal in Afghanistan started with the floridaman you voted for, and for whom you were too busy cheerleading last year.
And just lol that he's living in my head. Another lame line along with the tired trump derangement schtick. Where is he truly living? Let's take a look at a poll of your dipsht party:
Right that's the best place to look for the pulse of America. The comments section on Fox News. 🙄
45 percent of America maybe 50 percent. That’s a lot of people. God bless Lt Col Scheller and every honorable marine.
If your stance is that we should have stayed in Afghanistan another 20 years, and that you disagreed with Trump on foreign policy and on Afghanistan, then fine- you do have a leg to stand on when criticizing the current administration's bungling.
It's just surprising to hear because what you've said almost non-stop for the last ten years is that Iraq and Afghanistan were (along with other things) costly national debt bombs.
i wish we never stayed in Afghanistan or ever entered Iraq. But once you break something you own it. Nation building was always a bad idea. It failed in Iraq and it failed in Afghanistan.
I wanted to stay in Afghanistan to keep isis and the taliban from having a base to commit terrorism. The same reason Trump went back into Iraq after Obama pulled us out. Trump is an idiot. We all know that fact. That doesn’t excuse Biden from his decision to leave Afghanistan in the hands of terrorists.
As for the cost of staying in Afghanistan I would pay for It by leaving Germany and Japan after 60 years.
This is a sad time for those patriots among us and the price for leaving Afghanistan to Terrorists will be paid with more American lives
This is a sunk cost fallacy, and staying there indefinitely would cost wayyy more in blood and treasure than cutting our losses. Ridding Afghanistan of Bin Laden and old al Qaeda was the mission, right? It was accomplished, right? When will western states learn that Afghanistan is called the graveyard of empires for a reason?
Your notion that the "Terrorists" who will base out of Afghanistan will cost more American lives than leaving is baseless speculation. Not to mention we face threats from terrorist groups who reside in a whole mess of different countries around the world.
Also, leaving Germany and Japan is one of the worst ideas I've ever heard. I think @pgg can explain more eloquently than me why that is.
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Opinion | Afghanistan war critics need to look in the mirror
The tragedy’s primary cause was the decision to withdraw, not the way the withdrawal was conducted.
www.nbcnews.com
I’m not going to argue with you. The facts speak for themselves. I posted a link to an opinion piece from NBC not Fox. Read it. Biden owns this debacle and the terrorists will be back in full force with more money and more equipment than in 2001. Rather than arguing look at the facts. This is a disaster with real ramifications not just some argument about some progressive social program.
people will suffer as a result of this decision. The world is not a safer place because we left Afghanistan.
You posted a link to a bunch of speculation and hypothesizing from a warmonger in his opinion piece. Not exactly slam dunk evidence. There are two dozen other countries on earth which probably have as strong if not a stronger presence of ISIS and its sub branches. Should we invade and occupy all of those as well for nebulous security reasons?
Both trump and Biden were right to want to eventually withdraw from Afghanistan. The artificial deadlines of both administrations and the execution of this administration were the wrong parts.
IMO America should have just gone in and surgically taken out the Al-Qaeda targets. Invading Afghanistan was a mistake. Invading Iraq was an even bigger mistake.
I think this nicely sums up the situation.
The Taliban with our uniforms, weapons and equipment left behind.
Taliban 'FLIES Black Hawk amid fears fanatics will launch airstrikes'
TALIBAN have been spotted flying a US-made Black Hawk chopper amid fears the ruthless fanatics are set to unleash airstrikes on civilians. Footage shows a helicopter prowling the skies above Kabul …
www.the-sun.com
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Biden presides over an ignominious departure. Two decades ago, the United States invaded Afghanistan and, with local allies, toppled the Taliban government in Kabul, which had given sanctuary to terrorist group al-Qaeda. Twenty years later, the Taliban is once more in power, boosted by billions of dollars in U.S. military equipment left behind for an Afghan military that collapsed before the militants’ advance. As U.S. officials evacuated the embassy in Kabul, an internal memo directed them to burn sensitive items, including American flags, lest they fall into Taliban hands.
That last bleak act underscores an overarching reality in Afghanistan: The United States failed to defeat the Taliban, failed to establish a functioning democracy in a country into which it sank vast amounts of blood and treasure, failed to thwart (and arguably helped stoke) the spread of Islamist extremist outfits, and failed even to leave on its own terms.
That last bleak act underscores an overarching reality in Afghanistan: The United States failed to defeat the Taliban, failed to establish a functioning democracy in a country into which it sank vast amounts of blood and treasure, failed to thwart (and arguably helped stoke) the spread of Islamist extremist outfits, and failed even to leave on its own terms.
Or in the shorter Afghan proverb form: “Over an infidel, be happy with a weak Muslim.”
I mean that essentially underlines why we were always destined for failure over there.
The worst thing coming up that is rarely mentioned is that if/when Biden goes, we're stuck with Kamala. You want someone ill-prepared to be the "leader of the free world"? OMG! And then next in line (until a new VP is confirmed, which will also be an interesting fight) is Pelosi. Talk about scary!!!
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deleted126335
Old Bedouin Proverb: Me against my brother, me and my brother against my cousin, me my brother and my cousin against a stranger.
For too many Afghanis, the Taliban are cousins and we are strangers. That’s why we were not able to succeed.
Do you think a lot of the Afghani defense forces are basically going to join the armed forces for the Taliban now? I mean that's the part that is the kicker jn all this. Not just the weaponry, vehicles, and aircraft. The tactics and training too..
You do realize that Trump freed the current Taliban leadership last year for essentially nothing.
You clutch your pearls at Biden but ignore that Trump set this into motion. He wanted to withdraw in 2020 then decided against it when the optics of a photoshoot with the Taliban at Camp David ended up looking bad.
This is 20 years of mismanagement, to blame it on Biden only makes you come off as a Maga die hard, especially when you support the words of a mutineer and subordinator. In the 40s, they would have executed Lt Col jackoff for saying things like that.
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deleted126335
It's obviously an issue. I have no idea how big an issue. Underestimating them would be a mistake.
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You mean kind of like how resident physicians should fight for accountability within the infrastructure of the ACGME?
How can you fight for accountability when every egregious failure is solved with intimidation and threats or settlements and non-disclosure agreements?
Nah, that's not the residents responsibility. Certainly, they should report missteps, breaking the rules type situations, but this marine was not the equivalent of a resident at all.
He is simply a fool for his social media tirade that ultimately serves zero purpose. All of those he accuses in this public forum will not give one iota of attention to this middle rank unhinged individual that is completely missing the big picture. This guy believes any withdrawal is failure, regardless if Afghanistan doesn't belong to the American military. He fortunately saved the American taxpayer some big bucks by his resignation. Oorah!
Not mismanagement. This was 20 years of a lot of (American) companies making alot of $$. 3 trillion dollars spent with almost no accounting or accountability.
Yeah, if the Afhgan National Army couldn't competently use all that stuff after we trained them, what chance does the Taliban have? The equipment might as well have been thrown in the ocean.
We've been down this road more than once before.
Maybe the most egregious example was in the 1970s, when we sold eighty F-14s to the Shah in Iran ... who was promptly ousted by a regime that proceeded to be generally hostile to the USA for the next 40 years. When Iran went to war with Iraq in the 1980s, most couldn't fly, but the few they could get flying were very effective. Keeping them operational took an intense effort involving stripping the other planes for spare parts, covert deals with Reagan for Phoenix missiles and bomb racks, and genuine ingenuity by their engineers.
The Taliban ain't no Iran. They're not going to accomplish **** with all that gear. They won their insurgency with rusty old AKs and old fashioned brutality. Posing on a pile of captured US-made gear is a propaganda coup and an embarrassment to us, but let's not get carried away wringing our hands about their new "capabilities" ...
I read that the gear the Taliban is most likely to use against special forces is night vision. We gave away a huge tactical advantage to the Taliban by leaving them thousands of night vision goggles. Now, when the Seals run a mission in Afghanistan at night they no longer have that huge tactical advantage. The Taliban now have M4 rifles, ACOG and night vision goggles courtesy of the US taxpayer.
There is a more immediate concern about some of the easier- to-use weapons and equipment, such as night-vision goggles.
Since 2003 the United States has provided Afghan forces with at least 600,000 infantry weapons including M16 assault rifles, 162,000 pieces of communication equipment, and 16,000 night-vision goggle devices.
"The ability to operate at night is a real game-changer," one congressional aide told Reuters.
Votel and others said smalls arms seized by the insurgents such as machine guns, mortars, as well as artillery pieces including howitzers, could give the Taliban an advantage against any resistance that could surface in historic anti-Taliban strongholds such as the Panjshir Valley northeast of Kabul.
U.S. officials said the expectation was that most of the weapons would be used by the Taliban themselves, but it was far too early to tell what they planned to do - including possibly sharing the equipment with rival states such as China.
Andrew Small, a Chinese foreign policy expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, said the Taliban was likely to grant Beijing access to any U.S. weapons they may now have control over.
www.reuters.com
Since 2003 the United States has provided Afghan forces with at least 600,000 infantry weapons including M16 assault rifles, 162,000 pieces of communication equipment, and 16,000 night-vision goggle devices.
"The ability to operate at night is a real game-changer," one congressional aide told Reuters.
Votel and others said smalls arms seized by the insurgents such as machine guns, mortars, as well as artillery pieces including howitzers, could give the Taliban an advantage against any resistance that could surface in historic anti-Taliban strongholds such as the Panjshir Valley northeast of Kabul.
U.S. officials said the expectation was that most of the weapons would be used by the Taliban themselves, but it was far too early to tell what they planned to do - including possibly sharing the equipment with rival states such as China.
Andrew Small, a Chinese foreign policy expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, said the Taliban was likely to grant Beijing access to any U.S. weapons they may now have control over.
Planes, guns, night-vision goggles: The Taliban's new U.S.-made war chest
About a month ago, Afghanistan's ministry of defense posted on social media photographs of seven brand new helicopters arriving in Kabul delivered by the United States.
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PGG is wrong about the Taliban. They now have a lot of lethal weapons to use against any resistance.
Courtesy of the USA taxpayer:
Rifles, Humvees and ammo: Taliban celebrate their new American arsenal
US national security officials are working to account for more than 20 years worth of weapons provided to the Afghan military as images of Taliban fighters brandishing American-made rifles and riding in abandoned Humvees are raising concerns about what else was left behind.
Initial estimates suggest the Taliban may now also possess several Black Hawk helicopters and other US-funded military aircraft, according to a congressional source familiar with early assessments provided by defense officials.
That potentially includes roughly 20 A-29 Tucano attack planes, the source said, noting there are some indications that only a small number of aircraft were relocated from a base in Kandahar before it was overrun by the Taliban.
"We are also concerned that some may end up in the hands of others who support the Taliban's cause," the congressional source told CNN. "My biggest fear is that the sophisticated weaponry will be sold to our adversaries and other non-state actors who intend to use it against us and our allies."
So, I'll concede the night vision goggles are probably the worst of it. Gen 3 night vision is an amazing tool. But even there - let's not get carried away with the idea that we've just birthed a breed of supervillains. Effective night ops are 95% training and tactics and skilled teamwork, enabled by night vision equipment. The goggles are necessary but not sufficient.
The whole thing has shades of the concern people express over China building aircraft carriers, not understanding that it's just a boat with a flat top (and a ramp 🙄) and that they haven't got a single bit of the other 923 things crucial to sending a carrier group to the other side of the planet.
And what are they going to do with them? I'll tell you - they're going to dominate and brutalize their fellow Afghans. Which they were already doing. Nothing's changed there.
They're not going to field a battalion of crack paratroopers and Blackhawk swoop them into Kuwait City and steal China's oil. So what are we worried about?
Don't get me wrong, it's a debacle. But let's not get too anxious about their new capabilities. The Taliban have been successful because they're simple and brutal and patient, and enough of the population is either too afraid of them to resist, or ambivalent/supportive of their rule. They already won. The things they grabbed are trophies.
Let's say for a second that I give this knownothing concern trolling pissant GOP congressional intern the benefit of the doubt and pretend he's not a knownothing concern trolling pissant GOP congressional intern............even without our leftover weapons was literally anybody out there thinking that the Taliban faced any sort of real resistance in Afghanistan? Did we forget that a *186,000 member* Afghan Armed Forces essentially folded overnight?
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How would 5000 troops make a big difference? We were losing ground to the taliban already with a full US presence. Military command wanted more troops. It would have continued until only a few areas remained under our control. Then Kabul would have been threatened and we’d be choosing between getting out and massively surging troops.
Short of taking equipment away from the ANC there wasn’t a way this ended without our equipment in taliban hands after the last 20 years. There’s a lot i hate about trump, but Actually give him props about starting out withdrawal process and props to Biden for following through with it.
I believe the President did receive good advice and recommendations from military leaders, but he chose to ignore it. Joe wanted to take credit for ending a war, that effectively ended a few years ago. We weren't taking casualties. We were in Afghanistan as an occupying presence. We still maintain a large presence in Germany, Japan and S. Korea. This is almost equivalent to Biden removing our troops from Germany and Japan, and taking credit for ending WW2. I'm sure Biden was told to create a long lasting presence in Bagram. We could have had a secure Air Base in a country bordering China, Russia, Iran and Pakistan. He simply wanted to crow about ending the war. The Biden administration is heavily influenced by the liberal arm of Congressional Democrats.
