A strategic withdrawal in the face of the enemy is one of the most difficult maneuvers to pull off. We did not succeed.
The Taliban has said they will declare an Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan from the Presidential Palace in Kabul as militants posed in the office and the country’s president fled for Tajikistan, with thousands of Afghan nationals now racing to Pakistan to escape Islamist rule.
Taliban fighters stormed the ancient palace on Sunday and demanded a ‘peaceful transfer of power’ as Kabul descended into chaos, with US helicopters evacuating diplomats from the embassy in scenes echoing the 1975 Fall of Saigon which followed the Vietnam War.
US-backed Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country for Tajikistan, effectively ceding power to the Taliban in a move signaling the end of the 20-year Western intervention begun after the September 11 attacks, while thousands of Afghan nationals rushed to the Pakistan border.
I continue to think that ending the war in Afghanistan was the correct policy choice. I do think we could have maintained a force there for some time – like in South Korea or Germany – as a means of keeping active in a global hotspot for our own security. But the absolute debacle of this withdrawal and the speed at which the Taliban took power is the manifestation of bad policy and bad leadership. From the White House to the Chiefs of Staff, they blew it. Completely and utterly. And America bears the shame of a lost war and the sacrifice of our local allies. We will feel the reverberations of this for many, many years to come.
As a veteran, I am pissed as how this played out. It’s like the people who served there and suffered injuries and those who died, you have to wonder why it was worth it, fighting in the Taliban.
This is totally on Biden and the other nations there.
They claim they support women’s rights but apparently they do not.
There is going to be a lot of blood on Truck Driver Joe hands and shows he doesn’t really are about women.
With the border crisis where women and being raped and children being raped (Le Roi’s wet dream) and now in Afghanistan, where women will be slaves, Truck Driver Joe owns this.
This is what happens when there’s nothing but Democrats on the Presidential ballot.
Didn’t the taliban endorse trump last October? Didn’t trump and pompeo cut a deal with the taliban, and leave out the Afghan government ?
There goes Pervert Boy Le Roi living in the past.
President Trump us not president, moron.
Truck Driver Joe is president now, idiot.
And he fucked up badly.
Just like the pervert judge, you adore, Le Roi, who watches babies being raped. He fucked up badly.
You own Senile Joe, and now you have to get the ridicule that comes with supporting your hero, Pervert Boy Le Roi.
BTW, where is Senile Joe?
Oh, he’s on vacation at Camp David on Zoom calls, supposedly.
More likely, he’s just sleeping and getting his diaper changed and eating his oatmeal, without raisins. Choking Hazzard,you know…..
Unless he is tube fed.
@ Nord: Didn’t the taliban endorse trump last October?
Yes indeed, they did. To troll low information types like you into voting for Biden. And it probably worked when absentee ballots were harvested in Home Depot parking lots – if anyone hesitated to sign the ballot put under their snout, they could be told “the Taliban terrorists want Trump to win so that they can take over Afghanistan, and then attack the United States.”
I think their troll worked. They just needed a “20 million vote” margin to make sure it worked. The first part of the troll has been achieved.
So the taliban supported trump in the election, trump and his SoS cut a deal with them, and you guys are whining about Biden. Looks like just more sour grapes from the losing side.
Wasn’t your idol supposed to be reinstated by now?
Proving once again there is absolutely nothing that Democrats don’t fuck up.
Nazi Nort sneers:” So the taliban supported trump in the election..”
The CCP and Revolutionary Communist Party USA endorsed Biden. What’s your point, numbnutz?
Nazi Nort eyeballs CNN: ” trump and his SoS cut a deal with them…”
You obviously have no clue what that deal encompassed and was it intended to accomplish. Just some rant you read on Facebook, eh?
And the guy you cheer outed five intel agents to the entire world yesterday for stupid photo op.
Meanwhile, hundreds of not thousands of Americans and other nationalities are trapped Afghanistan and now depend on the Taliban to get out.
Good job by Truck Driver Joe.
And Pinhead Le Roi says President Trump had a deal.
So what?
Senile Joe is in charge along his minders and he could have and did change the plans and he fucked up big time.
Assuming Senile Joe knows what he is doing.
BTW, if this had happened under President Trump, I would be just as pissed.
Even CNN is ripping on Truck Driver Joe.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/16/politics/afghanistan-joe-biden-donald-trump-kabul-politics/index.html
And you guys are still whining. Your guy lost, move on.
@ Nord: And you guys are still whining. Your guy lost, move on.
Says the dumb **** who can’t express a thought without somehow circling back to ” but Trump”.
Yeah, “move on” Take a vacation:
Biden admin, which is currently on vacation, disregarded assessments of several intelligence agencies that consistently predicted the rapid Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, U.S. officials tell ABC.
Unsourced, but probable.
Shade War going hot – Kamala refused a request to do a presser today. Said she was focused on Haiti not Afghanistan. Now staffers for the rival teams have been openly fighting all day, per WH official
Biden went to sleep earlier than usual tonight, per WH official. ‘He was confused by all the conflicting intel reports’
Ron Klain wanted Biden to rush back to DC yesterday afternoon to the Situation Room but Jill stepped in saying that Biden could ‘project his leadership’ from anywhere, per WH official.
Good news for WI Dells next summer – plenty of seasonal help will be available – The Department of Defense could be housing 30,000 Afghan refugees in locations like Fort McCoy in Wisconsin and Fort Bliss in Texas
Whine, whine, whine.
Senile was vice president for 8 years plus 6 months this year.
And Senile Joe did what?
He fucked it up of course.
Pervert Boy Le just cannot admit that liberals can do no wrong..
Like his adoration for the pervert judge who watches babies being raped and distributes kiddie porn. He is in jail after agreeing to a plea deal.
But hey, Pervert Boy Le lives him.
Damn, should be Pervert Boy Le Roi loves the pervert judge.
Birds of a feather stay together, right Pervert Boy Le Roi?
Pussy Nord going to squeal like a pig when things get real. The whining will come later.
[Biden] disregarded assessments of several intelligence agencies that consistently predicted the rapid Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, U.S. officials tell ABC.
I don’t believe that for a minute. US Intel completely missed the call on this, as they have on nearly everything else (remember the Invincible Soviet Economy?) since VietNam.
Those “sources” are pushing it onto Biden. Granted, he’s a moron and is advised by a Cabinet full of Communists, anarchists, Globaloney Eaters and just-plain-money-sucking grifters. But it’s not ALL Joe’s fault.
-Shade War going hot – Kamala refused a request to do a presser today.
Willie Brown’s unheeded advice to run from the VP offer has been especially prescient. You have to wonder if she doesn’t regret agreeing to be the lipstick on the pig.
Dad is absolutely correct. Biden has always been an affable idiot, but he’s surrounded by advisors with the collective cognitive abilities and skills of a wooden toothpick. The country is being run by toddlers.
Come on Merlin, stop insulting toddlers.
Toddlers Merlin? No…kool-aid drinking indoctrinated idealists with no grip on reality, yes. Don’t give toddlers such a bad name.
And once again Le Roi has to introduce Trump into the conversation to say anything political at all. Just let the grown-ups talk Nord.
Dang, Mar, beat me to it!
If breathing wasn’t autonomic the dumb bastards would perish. Democrats are in full cascade failure mode and incapable of getting out of their own way. The scale of failure across the board is already epic and shows no signs of abating any time soon.
Something that I saw quoted today:
You can criticize the humiliating botched withdrawal while generally supporting ending the war effort in Afghanistan. Only a child could not understand this.
Nord would be the “child”.
Mark, you are being way, way to generous.
This is a failure by the Biden administration. But also that failure goes back 20 years. Not a single president has handled the middle east well. And it was a republican president that got us into this mess in the first place.
Trump was idiotic and should have never agreed to the withdraw and is actually fortunate he isn’t in office for this, because it would not have gone any better for him. But Biden did not need to follow through on the Trump plans either. This is apparently what “America First” gets us.
Not a great day for the US of A.
“Trump was idiotic and should have never agreed to the withdraw and is actually fortunate he isn’t in office for this, because it would not have gone any better for him.”
That is unknowable, at best.
I highly doubt it could get worse, though it is a possibility.
But President Trump already laid out his plan for in which he forced the Taliban to behave or else they would be bombed into the stone age…..wait, the Taliban are the stone age.
But you know what I mean.
Mark, I would rather have the Aghans at Fort McCoy than illegal aliens there.
At least the Aghans have shown loyalty to this country,unlike illegal aliens.
Aghans.
Gotta change or Nazi spelling police officer Le Roi will have a sissy fit that would make RuPaul proud
Jonnyv, I fully agree with this:
“This is a failure by the Biden administration. But also that failure goes back 20 years. Not a single president has handled the middle east well. And it was a republican president that got us into this mess in the first place.”
However, for me the caveat falls on Obama. He generated a significant voting block from being anti-war and earned a peace prize for it, but Bush already had the plan in place to pull out of Iraq and it had already started when Obama took over. Mr. anti-war should have gotten us right out of Afghanistan. No one else ran on peace so I give him the heaviest burden. What did he get a peace prize for, allowing us to continue pulling out of Iraq or escalating the war in Afghanistan? It is a liberal world with liberal blinders on.
“earned a peace prize for it,”
One of the biggest jokes of all time.
because it would not have gone any better for [Trump
And you know this ……..how?
Have you ANY idea of what Trump’s plan was? HINT: it did NOT begin with abandoning a secure military airfield in favor of one in downtown KaBoom–amid the nice tall buildings perfectly placed for rocket-fire.
And that’s just Step One.
Mar: unlike illegal aliens.
Unlike NFL and BB players who take a knee; unlike the (D) members of Congress and the State Legislatures; unlike (D) Mayors anywhere they’re found; ………we could go on.
ISLAMABAD – The Afghan Taliban warned Friday that they would be “compelled” to continue their war against international forces in Afghanistan, should the United States and NATO decide against withdrawing their troops from the country by May 1.
The insurgent group’s warning came a day after U.S. President Joe Biden said that 2,500 American troops might still be in Afghanistan beyond the May deadline.
…..
Biden cited “tactical reasons” for the possible delay but said that even if Washington did not meet the deadline, he could not envision the U.S. military staying in the South Asian nation past next year. On Friday, when asked about the U.S. withdrawal, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters the president was still considering a timeline for a troop pullout.
The Taliban described Biden’s remarks as “vague,” in their formal written response issued Friday. The group insisted that the Doha pact “is the most sensible and shortest path” for the United States to end the two-decade-long Afghan war.
The American side will be considered to have violated the accord if there is a delay to the agreed upon foreign troop withdrawal deadline, the group asserted. It added that the insurgents “will be compelled” to continue their “armed struggle” against foreign forces to “liberate” Afghanistan.
……
The insurgents ceased attacks on U.S. and allied forces after signing the deal with Washington, and there have been no U.S. military casualties since then in Afghanistan.
….
The Biden administration initiated a review of the February 2020 U.S.-Taliban deal shortly after the president took office. The review has yet to be completed.
Earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote a strongly worded letter to the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, urging him to “accelerate peace talks” and move “quickly toward a settlement.”
The letter said the United States had asked Turkey to host a high-level meeting between Afghan parties to the conflict to “finalize a peace agreement.”
The Biden administration has proposed establishing an interim government in Kabul along with a 90-day reduction in Afghan violence to sustain political reconciliation efforts.
Taliban officials have suggested they may agree to a 90-day violence reduction if Washington sticks to the troop withdrawal deadline, pressures Kabul to release the remaining 7,000 Taliban prisoners and ends the U.N. terror designations of senior Taliban leaders, as stipulated in the Doha agreement.
For his part, Ghani has voiced strong opposition to any interim Afghan government, saying he would transfer power only through elections.
-Voice of America, March 26, 2021
So, while Trump prevented American and NATO casualties Biden fiddled and broke the agreement (12 days after Babblin’ Joe’s April 13 withdraw extension announcement the Taliban began it’s surge) and the power hungry Afghan “President” abandoned his country, suitcases full of cash in hand.
C’mon, man! The Democrat propaganda arm is actually showing video from Kabul not flattering to Hidin’ Biden. Apparently images of Afghans falling from the landing gear of departing C-17s and dead uniformed Afghan troops on a tarmac are too much to pass up.
Merlin, the LEFTSM can show those videos with impunity because they have already programmed their base that it is all really Bush and Trump’s fault. Look at the liberal responses here. The videos won’t change anybody’s mind about anything. Conservatives and Republicans will call Biden senile and his coterie idiots for their pathetic pullout and libs will continue to blame Bush and Trump.
I’ll bet that more people were killed in liberal run cities in the US than the those killed in Afghanistan this week.
T:
This one is already running an atypical course. VIPs having had direct involvement in Afghan affairs (Gates, Panetta, Petraeus, etc.) have already publicly put distance between themselves and Biden. These folks are not going to sacrifice their own legacies to prop up Biden’s clusterfuck. They all know that the coming optics are going to be long lasting and horrific. There won’t be any hiding from it. They will justify the nation building because they were all a part of it. They will defend the concept of an orderly drawdown without crediting Trump, because it’s the only defensible position they can take. The disastrous withdrawal they’ll leave to Biden. Who’s going to absorb the arrows for Biden? Not Obama, Hillary, or Lurch. They helped create a well-funded and well-armed Afghan government that has devolved into a well-funded and well-armed Taliban.
It won’t be long before the Gen. Milley-types start distancing themselves from responsibility for the Afghan collapse. Something along the lines of their advice not being taken seriously or the infamous excuse of simply following orders… or both. Expect the same bullshit from an ‘intelligence community’ with Benghazi highlighting their resume. Add to all of that the diplomatic dumpster fire Biden has created with allies the world over. I fully expect the 25A calls to start abroad.
This fuckup has global consequences they wouldn’t be able to fashion into a palatable altered reality even if they wanted to. The lefty vulture media won’t pass on the opportunity to sensationalize the coming gore and misery just to spare Joe Biden. Trump is already flaming Biden and calling for his resignation before the really ugly events even begin, so successfully using Trump as a scapegoat is unlikely. A couple of news cycles at best.
This might be the event where Biden’s usefulness finally expired. Ninety days from now you might not be able to find an influential Democrat who admits ever having known Joe Biden.
@ Mar I’ll bet that more people were killed in liberal run cities in the US than the those killed in Afghanistan this week.
Not quite the same, but the other day it was noted at The Other McCain that 2010 was the worst year for U.S. combat fatalities in Afghanistan.
440 U.S. troop fatalities 2010.
In Chicago, year to date as of 8/13/21 it is 474. 4.5 months to go – and Chicago has already blown past A’s worst year.
Merlin, I hope you are right, but I’ll believe it when I see it. The only way Biden falls in the eyes of his programmees, uh, I mean adoring fans is is when LEFTSM is given the green to play the senile unfit for duty card. And I do believe that will come. Then they will blame Biden’s ‘illness’ for everything at once to get it out of the way so they can begin to adore the first female President of the USA. I also think you underestimate just how much capacity to blame Trump that the left has. They do not need facts, just a few well placed facebook stories. I think it will play until Biden can take the fall. I do not think he can last 3 more years even hiding behind the curtain.
“When Stephanopoulos asked about the heart-rending scenes at the Kabul airport, including Afghans falling from the sky from an American aircraft they had tried desperately to cling to, Biden interrupted testily: “That was four days ago, five days ago.””
No, it was just 2 days ago.
Senile Joe strikes again.