Afghanistan

[KLB]

Point is very few people over there appreciate what we gave them. They would rather live like they did in the 1700's.

And who are we to tell them they have to live like us instead?

Good riddance.

 

[rob63]

Well of course it`s all Trump`s fault...this buffoon is a freaking imbecile:

Biden sends 5,000 troops to Afghanistan, blames Trump for Taliban resurgence

President Joe Biden released a statement Saturday from the White House blaming his decision to surge U.S. troops to Afghanistan to combat the Taliban's surging land acquisition on the policies of former President Donald Trump.

www.yahoo.com

I have no idea what the correct course of action might have been, and I seriously doubt Trump had any better ideas than me. However, considering that throughout his term in office there were an endless stream of articles assuring us that the professionals throughout the government and military were ignoring him to limit the damage he could do, he is the one President in the last 20 years that one can make a case had little to do with the outcome.

 

[rooster]

We built these people a huge 335 electric power plant and it supplies Kubal. They are so behind the times they only use about 1% of the energy it can produce, we also spent 100 million upgrading another plant that was already there. This is all going to the taliban.

We've built them new hospitals and furnished them as well as rebuilt older ones. All going to the taliban.

State of the art water plants.
The list goes on and on.

Point is very few people over there appreciate what we gave them. They would rather live like they did in the 1700's.

That sounds like an elaborate way to funnel taxpayer $ into the hands of contractors and then have some of that $ be funneled back into re-election campaigns

 

[DadSmith]

And who are we to tell them they have to live like us instead?

Good riddance.

Exactly! We should never take on rebuilding and winning hearts and minds. We should kill our enemies and if they run and hide that's good too. Then leave the country. If they start crap again go over take out the enemies and leave. No rebuilding or reimbursement to our enemies.

 

[KellyinAvon]

I guess the taliban don’t want any spooks sticking around after the “withdrawal”

Is this iran's Ron Burgundy?

 

[rooster]

This reeks of fake news. He says he can see the taliban driving by for some reason what he can see with his bare eyes can’t be seen by the camera with a zoom lens. Wtf

 

[rooster]

This is from the Snapchat snap map. Seems more orderly and less violent than our news would have us believe

Less social media. More Snapchat.

Chat, send Snaps, explore Stories, and try Lenses on desktop, or download the app on mobile! See how to connect & create with friends on Snapchat, wherever you are.

map.snapchat.com

 

[bwframe]

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Obama 2.0

Obama the Droner In Chief? Lol, no, lets give credit where it's due even if we don't like him. He had the military bombing/drone striking in some half-a-dozen countries, massively increased troop levels on the ground, etc. I'm not arguing it's a good thing, obviously, but he continued to seek a military resolution and was not a party to a peace deal with the Taliban like the last two POTUS.

No, this is not Obama 2.0 regardless of it that's good or bad. Not to harp on Clinton again, but this isn't even Clinton 2.0. This is everyone else dealing with the effluence storm that he let brew and then Bush steered the ship directly into...and what else could he do on the topic of Afghanistan at that time (not hindsight, remember what you felt like immediately post 9/11). This is Bill's legacy and, to a lesser extent, SecDef Hillary's.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Not surprising to me. As soon as the pull out started many were probably making deals to stay alive. I imagine the majority joined the taliban.

They almost certainly allied with them, just like the allied with us, just like they allied with the Russians, just like they allied with their homegrown king, etc. Like I said, warlords gonna warlord and there's no apparently no cultural taboo against mercenary behavior or switching sides as the winds blow.

 

[BugI02]

Special Forces and Airpower worked for both the USSR and the US. It's when it went conventional the quagmire began.

We fought to a stalemate in the ROK in 1953. 35 years later the Summer Olympics were hosted in Seoul. Does anybody think this bunch could host the 2036 games? Or the 2136 games?

The trajectory was the same for the western-held portions of Germany. Are you saying we should partition Afghanistan? Not into East and West but perhaps 20th century and 10th century? The RoKs and the Bundeswehr were willing to fight for their freedom, I see no such faction in Afghanistan and west is too distracted by whether their women or children have every 'right' that a corrupt, dissipated, woke America believes they should have. Time to concentrate on getting our own house in order, everybody else needs to hold on until we're done or go it alone

 

[BehindBlueI's]

I have no idea what the correct course of action might have been, and I seriously doubt Trump had any better ideas than me. However, considering that throughout his term in office there were an endless stream of articles assuring us that the professionals throughout the government and military were ignoring him to limit the damage he could do, he is the one President in the last 20 years that one can make a case had little to do with the outcome.

Trump tweets 2012-13:

“It is time to get out of Afghanistan. We are building roads and schools for people that hate us. It is not in our national interests.”

“Why are we continuing to train these Afghanis who then shoot our soldiers in the back? Afghanistan is a complete waste. Time to come home!”

“I agree with Pres. Obama on Afghanistan. We should have a speedy withdrawal. Why should we keep wasting our money — rebuild the U.S.!”

Then he kind of got stuck with the same poo everyone else did and couldn't (or didn't) figure out a palatable way to extricate us so he kept using military strategies to work it out. Then in Feb of 2020 we get what the media called a peace deal, but is really more a framework for a peace deal, with the Taliban:

https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Agreement-For-Bringing-Peace-to-Afghanistan-02.29.20.pdf

So yeah, maybe not ideal but not exactly terrible, either. Still just what's the least bad decision.

 

[KellyinAvon]

Obama the Droner In Chief? Lol, no, lets give credit where it's due even if we don't like him. He had the military bombing/drone striking in some half-a-dozen countries, massively increased troop levels on the ground, etc. I'm not arguing it's a good thing, obviously, but he continued to seek a military resolution and was not a party to a peace deal with the Taliban like the last two POTUS.

No, this is not Obama 2.0 regardless of it that's good or bad. Not to harp on Clinton again, but this isn't even Clinton 2.0. This is everyone else dealing with the effluence storm that he let brew and then Bush steered the ship directly into...and what else could he do on the topic of Afghanistan at that time (not hindsight, remember what you felt like immediately post 9/11). This is Bill's legacy and, to a lesser extent, SecDef Hillary's.

When you referred to Hillary as SECDEF it took a moment to get the direction of your comment. I was AD for all eight years of the Clinton Admin and was at No-Hope-Pope when Hillary decided we'd send forces to a country in Africa with which we had no SOFA (Status Of Forces Agreement.)

About 30 minutes after I got a call from an Aircraft Maintenance supervisor to discuss the deployment, it became a "Classified Deployment" (can't have the people knowing the unelected/unappointed Hillary was ordering the deployment of forces.)

 

[KellyinAvon]

The trajectory was the same for the western-held portions of Germany. Are you saying we should partition Afghanistan? Not into East and West but perhaps 20th century and 10th century? The RoKs and the Bundeswehr were willing to fight for their freedom, I see no such faction in Afghanistan and west is too distracted by whether their women or children have every 'right' that a corrupt, dissipated, woke America believes they should have. Time to concentrate on getting our own house in order, everybody else needs to hold on until we're done or go it alone

No. Just comparing and contrasting.

 

[BugI02]

I will state up front that I am talking completely out of my hat, I have not studied the region, the conflict, or anything else that qualifies me to say anything about it.

If you haven't read it, I can recommend Steve Coll's Ghost Wars, one of the most disheartening things about it is how few of the names of the warlords (or their families) have changed in the history of the place or since 2004, when it was written

That said, just a guess based on what I see of the idiots in our government. I bet we spent a great deal of blood, time, and treasure attempting to build a society acceptable to us when our goal should have simply been building a society acceptable to them that wasn't hostile to us.

This is spot on, if we HAD to get involved in nation building. Better still to not go there at all

 

[BehindBlueI's]

When you referred to Hillary as SECDEF it took a moment to get the direction of your comment. I was AD for all eight years of the Clinton Admin and was at No-Hope-Pope when Hillary decided we'd send forces to a country in Africa with which we had no SOFA (Status Of Forces Agreement.)

About 30 minutes after I got a call from an Aircraft Maintenance supervisor to discuss the deployment, it became a "Classified Deployment" (can't have the people knowing the unelected/unappointed Hillary was ordering the deployment of forces.)

Yeah, you nailed it but I maybe should have spelled it out a bit more. She wasn't literally SecDef but from the little I know it sure seems like she operated as a second one, not as the counterbalance role Sec of State should have been.

Anyway, one last parting shot as a reminder of Bill's involvement in where we are today:

Philip D. Zelikow, the executive director of the 9/11 report, actually identifies nine key moments in Clinton’s presidency when a different decision might have led to bin Laden’s death. “On every one of these nine choices there are people who believe the President could have made a different choice,” Zelikow said. “And, in each case, there are people who believe the President made the right call.”

 

[DragonGunner]

Former 11B from the 80's.....didn't like the idea of being over there for that long, knew in my heart it would never change things, felt sick for all the guys fighting it. My son then decided he wanted to join and go....we had a talk and then later he decided not to join. His reason at the time was it was stupid, if the enemy was shooting at you then put his gun down you couldn't engage and shoot, I remember that nonsense and glad my son didn't go. This wasn't a war, war is when you kill everything and everyone need to be killed and yes even sometime the innocent, take over completely. America doesn't have "wars" anymore....just police actions with lots of rules. I think Trump would of handled it different, but only to the extent that the Taliban would of only waited until we were all the way out, then same results. These people had 20 years to train every man woman and child to carry a AK and fight to the death against the Taliban. They didn't and it was never up to us to make them do what they don't want, lost cause before it ever started. But hey the politicians made their $$$ under the table.

 

[BugI02]

When I was VERY new to the USAF I heard the phrase, "nuke em til they glow, use their arses for runway lights." It would require a lot of will [one SSBN or a couple of ALCMs] to do that, and I don't [wish I could] see Harry Truman [Curtis LeMay] walking through that door.

Fixy

 

[BugI02]

Be interesting to see if the chinese will do any better running the place, and what the US departure will do to the balance between India and Pakistan.

'Interesting' as in 'May you live in interesting times', yes?

 

[printcraft]

Obama 2.0

bidet is making that POS look good.