Afghanistan

[billy.pilgrim]

The Taliban harbored the people that took out the WTC/Pentagon and did nothing to bring them immediately to justice. I have zero sympathy for or solidarity with them.

War crimes? Gore would have invaded, too.
Screwed up the occupation = Bush disaster.
Obama escalation = Obama disaster. VP Joe abetted.
45SHOLE escalation = 45SHOLE disaster.
Being the one to turn out the lights = Joe disaster, whether fair and accurate or not. Honorable disaster mention to 45SHOLE for negotiating a May 2021 withdrawal.
20 years, 4 POTUSes = America's disaster. We suck.

.

20 years? Didn't we start illegally training terrorists in Afghanistan in the 80s?

"Harbored" by law they had to harbor what We created. I have zero sympathy for those involved in the radicalization and arming of terrorists in order to fight a secret war against the Soviets.

What makes you think Gore would have invaded? He didn't have an oil cabal cabinet "looking for an excuse into iraq". There would undoubtedly have been clearer heads. Special Ops teams could have had him in far far less time.

We had the world behind us, ready to cut them off from everything. We had almost no one behind us by the time we pulled our Iraq bait and switch.

[Vrede too]

20 years? Didn't we start illegally training terrorists in Afghanistan in the 80s?

Y'all were discussing the war, not the decades of fiascos that led up to it.

"Harbored" by law they had to harbor what We created.

What law?

I have zero sympathy for those involved in the radicalization and arming of terrorists in order to fight a secret war against the Soviets.

Agreed. The point is not what led up to 9/11, but rather what our inevitable response to it would be.

What makes you think Gore would have invaded? He didn't have an oil cabal cabinet "looking for an excuse into iraq". There would undoubtedly have been clearer heads. Special Ops teams could have had him in far far less time.

We weren't discussing Iraq. Special Ops teams don't overthrow govts and control countries afterwards, and they are invasion-lite, anyhow. I have no doubt that Gore would have invaded. Hopefully, he would not have made such a mess of what came after. Do you really believe that there's much difference between GOP and Dem foreign and military policy? I sure don't and neither do most of our adversaries. Hence, Obama accomplished nothing there in 8 years.

We had the world behind us, ready to cut them off from everything. We had almost no one behind us by the time we pulled our Iraq bait and switch.

We weren't discussing Iraq. I agree with you that Gore would not have invaded Iraq and that Cheney/Shrub's doing so was a war crime.

[billy.pilgrim]

20 years? Didn't we start illegally training terrorists in Afghanistan in the 80s?

Y'all were discussing the war, not the decades of fiascos that led up to it.

"Harbored" by law they had to harbor what We created.

What law?

I have zero sympathy for those involved in the radicalization and arming of terrorists in order to fight a secret war against the Soviets.

Agreed. The point is not what led up to 9/11, but rather what our inevitable response to it would be.

What makes you think Gore would have invaded? He didn't have an oil cabal cabinet "looking for an excuse into iraq". There would undoubtedly have been clearer heads. Special Ops teams could have had him in far far less time.

We weren't discussing Iraq. Special Ops teams don't overthrow govts and control countries afterwards, and they are invasion-lite, anyhow. I have no doubt that Gore would have invaded. Hopefully, he would not have made such a mess of what came after. Do you really believe that there's much difference between GOP and Dem foreign and military policy? I sure don't and neither do most of our adversaries. Hence, Obama accomplished nothing there in 8 years.

We had the world behind us, ready to cut them off from everything. We had almost no one behind us by the time we pulled our Iraq bait and switch.

We weren't discussing Iraq. I agree with you that it was a war crime and that Gore would not have invaded Iraq.

As cheney said in February 2001 - how do we get into Iraq?
As cheney said after 9.11, this could be our way into iraq

We have used special ops to overthrow and maintain governments several times

Agreed, there is usually little difference between dem and repug, but we had never had an oil administration that from day one wanted the Iraq war. They saw war in Afghanistan as a means towards their oil war. No other administration would have had that clear motivation for war. Compare Clinton's handling even after H.W. started the ball rolling to reagans secret wars or lil bush and Obama oil and gotta keep the economy going.

Bottom line - the public wanted osama's head on a pike and could have been made to realize that an invasion would have resulted in something similar to what actually happened, whereas small groups and Intel could deal with him best - similar to what actually happened.

[Vrede too]

I think the bloodthirsty American public wanted to severely punish anyone associated with ObL and would not have settled for minor sabotage and covert ops. The Taliban had about a month to turn on AQ entirely. It blinked and thus sealed its fate in the near term, regardless of POTUS.

We never "won" Afghanistan with a massive occupation. I don't see it ever happening with a few SEALs, and I don't see any reason to ascribe extraordinary restraint to Gore.

Iraq came later. Again, we agree that Shrub screwed up the Afghan occupation, for whatever reasons.

[GoCubsGo]

Those poor desperate people.

[billy.pilgrim]

I think the bloodthirsty American public wanted to severely punish anyone associated with ObL and would not have settled for minor sabotage and covert ops. The Taliban had about a month to turn on AQ entirely. It blinked and thus sealed its fate in the near term, regardless of POTUS.

We never "won" Afghanistan with a massive occupation. I don't see it ever happening with a few SEALs, and I don't see any reason to ascribe extraordinary restraint to Gore.

Iraq came later. Again, we agree that Shrub screwed up the Afghan occupation, for whatever reasons.

Gore saw combat in Vietnam, no extraordinary restraint involved understanding what war does.

Cheney/bush did not - they were too busy chasing dollars to gain any real sense of war.

Hard for one, easy for the other.

[billy.pilgrim]

Those poor desperate people.

Same old story. Wars are so easy in other countries. When it goes wrong, we just leave.

[neoplacebo]

I realize that the US has a moral obligation to the Afghans who worked for us as interpreters and in other capacities; talk is that there's several thousand of them. Just a couple of days ago I was wondering how many in that group will, when and if they get here, commit acts of terrorism. The other day I estimated that less than a dozen would do so. Now I feel that it's possible a lot more of them might.

[Ulysses]

By the same token, I wonder how many Trump supporters might in future commit acts of domestic terrorism.

[neoplacebo]

By the same token, I wonder how many Trump supporters might in future commit acts of domestic terrorism.

Well, several hundred of them already have. I attribute this to the sad fact that they have no interpreters of bullshit, ignorance, and lies and because of that, they believe and act on bullshit, ignorance, and lies.

[Vrede too]

... Obama escalation = Obama disaster. VP Joe abetted....

Or not.

Biden in 2010 reportedly told a US diplomat 'f--- that' when asked if the US should stay in Afghanistan to prevent a humanitarian crisis

Instead, there was 11 more years of combat humanitarian crisis, now followed by the noncombat humanitarian crisis that was so predictable and inevitable all along.

[Vrede too]

As has happened so many times before, we just armed the Taliban with tens (hundreds?) of billions of dollars in captured military equipment. Of course, this will necessitate the purchase of vast amounts of new military equipment in order to contain the threat from our own guns and bombs.

Feed the Pentagon and merchants of death, nothing else matters.

Don't forget the factional militias in Iraq that we've heavily armed and wished best of luck.

Yup.

Taliban accumulate massive amounts of U.S.-supplied firepower after Afghan collapse

:!:

[Vrede too]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/42-percent-r ... 50844.html

A new poll revealed that 59 percent of registered voters "support the plan to withdraw all troops" from Afghanistan by the end of August, Politico reports via a survey with Morning Consult. Only 25 percent of respondents said they were opposed.

The support more specifically includes 76 percent of Democrats, 59 percent of independents and 42 percent of Republicans....

I also supported the plan to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan by the end of August 2002, but no one asked me that.

"Some people" (who were always considered authorities by Trump, and who include me) said back in 2002 that after the initial Taliban-stompin' that invading Afghanistan was a fool's errand. To kick a few Taliban asses is one thing, but to try to make over a country in your own flawed image is something else. If after say, five years of giving them billions in weaponry, billions in ummmm "training" and direct support in the field didn't show a lot of progress, one might guess it ainagonnahappen. And now, these well-equipped and "trained" elite Afghan government forces are apparently rolling over like a yellow lab when the Taliban shows up, giving them all the military goodies and hauling ass. And it's been 20 effin' years! If the US stayed for another 20, it still wouldn't matter. They won't eliminate the Taliban socially/culturally, and the Taliban won't give up, so all would be the same in another 20 as now, and as it was 20 years before after the Russians had wisely given up after only 12 years.

Great minds . . .

https://www.yahoo.com/news/mikhail-gorb ... 46613.html

"They should have admitted failure earlier. The important thing now is to draw the lessons from what happened and make sure that similar mistakes are not repeated."

We did not learn that "Graveyard of Empires" lesson after Vietnam or after the USSR's Afghanistan experience. Americans are too bloodthirsty and think too shallowly, and even losing wars are too profitable.

"[The US campaign] was a failed enterprise from the start even though Russia supported it during the first stages. Like many other similar projects at its heart lay the exaggeration of a threat and poorly defined geopolitical ideas."

-- Mikhail Gorbachev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991

These prominent Republicans loved Biden's Afghanistan withdrawal plan. Until they didn't

... Most prominent was former President Donald Trump. In April, the 45th president called Biden's plan to withdraw a "wonderful and positive thing to do" but insisted that Biden's original deadline of Sept. 11 be moved up to earlier in 2021.

While still in office, Trump had set May 1 as a final Afghanistan withdrawal date, in addition to criticizing the United States's presence in Afghanistan dating back to 2012, and he argued in a statement this past April that Biden's timeline was "way too long."

... Yet, on Monday, Trump put out three new statements directly attacking Biden's handling of the situation.

"He surrendered to the Taliban, who has quickly overtaken Afghanistan and destroyed confidence in American power and influence," he wrote in the first. "The outcome in Afghanistan, including the withdrawal, would have been totally different if the Trump Administration had been in charge. Who or what will Joe Biden surrender to next? Someone should ask him, if they can find him."

... Trump's former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz both also supported Biden's original withdrawal timeline but issued scathingly critical attacks against the administration over the past week.

In July, Pompeo told the Associated Press that he applauded Biden's decision to continue with Trump's plan to withdraw despite pushing back the timeline and said he was "confident" in the current administration's past assessments that the Afghan Security Forces and citizens would "fight" to prevent a full Taliban takeover.

However, in an op-ed written over the weekend, Pompeo argued that the current situation in Afghanistan "is a result of poor planning and poor leadership in attempting to execute an operation that had been set up for success by the Trump administration."

Similarly, Cruz responded in April to Biden's original announcement by stating he is "glad the troops are coming home" and that "it should not be the job of the U.S. military to engage in nation building," but on Monday, he called the withdrawal "an incoherent & precipitous abandonment."

... A number of other Republicans, including Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Wyoming Sen. Cynthia Lummis, and former Secretary of State James Baker III, all also praised Biden's plan but have yet to voice criticism amid Taliban advances....

An even larger number of Republicans fully supported Trump's May 1 withdrawal deadline, including Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, Utah Sen. Mike Lee, Florida Reps. Gus Bilirakis and Matt Gaetz, and Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs, the chairman of the staunchly conservative House Freedom Caucus.

It's funny that some Repugs are claiming that the withdrawal would have magically been better organized on May 1. Hey dummies, it's the same people on the ground doing the work. Nothing would have been better under former PINO.

[neoplacebo]

They have been too long eating the shit of trump and have become addicted to it. Rational thinking will never visit them again. They must now eat shit or regurgitate shit or just shit on facts when all else fails.

[Vrede too]

They have been too long eating the shit of trump and have become addicted to it. Rational thinking will never visit them again. They must now eat shit or regurgitate shit or just shit on facts when all else fails.

Overall, Americans aren't as gullible.

Insider poll: Most Americans believe the US should have exited Afghanistan during the Bush years

... 16.6% wanted out in 2001, the very year the US entered Afghanistan

29.5% thought we should have left during the first term of President George W. Bush

12.6% said the US should have left during Bush's second term in office

14.3% thought we should have left during the first term of President Barack Obama

4.5% said the US should have left during Obama's second term in office

4.6% thought we should have left during President Donald Trump's tenure in office

1.8% thought we should have left during President Joe Biden's first year in office, 2021

11.4% of respondents said the US should have left Afghanistan "sometime after 2021"

21.4% of respondents said they don't know when the US should have left Afghanistan ...

Count me among the 29.5%. Having gone in, it would have been great to leave in 2001, but it seems unrealistic to me. I also support the 14.3%. Obama had a chance to not prolong the Shrub disaster.

Americans rank George W. Bush as the president most responsible for the outcome of the Afghanistan war: Insider poll

... nsider surveyed 1,105 respondents from August 16-17 through SurveyMonkey Audience. Respondents were asked to rank nine entities in order of how responsible each were for the outcome of the War in Afghanistan. Here is the ranking, based on the percentage of people who placed each entity in their top three:

The Taliban, 55% ranked among top three most responsible

Afghan Leadership, 48%

Afghan Military, 41%

George W. Bush, 34%

United States Military Leadership, 31%

Joseph Biden, 29%

Barack Obama, 21%

Donald Trump, 22%

United States Military, 20%

I'm gratified to see so much disfavor for United States Military Leadership.

Looking strictly at the four presidents in the survey, 38% of respondents ranked Bush as the president most responsible for the outcome, 27% Biden, 19% Trump and 12% Obama.

I would not rank Biden so high, but people always tend to focus on the current POTUS. History may have a different view.

Bush ordered the US invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks. The Taliban, which controlled the country at the time, had allowed Afghanistan to become a safehaven for Osama bin Laden and his terror group Al Qaeda. The US aimed to destroy Al Qaeda, which was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, via the invasion. Shortly after the 2001 invasion, Bush rejected an offer by the Taliban to discuss handing over bin Laden in exchange for the US to stop bombing Afghanistan.

By December 2001, the Taliban was in retreat and bin Laden fled to Pakistan. The terror leader would eventually be killed by US Navy SEALs in an operation in Pakistan in 2011 under the Obama administration, but America's war in Afghanistan continued for another decade as the Taliban waged an insurgency against the US and its allies.

Obama oversaw a massive surge in US troops in Afghanistan during his first term. He sought to bring US troops home by the end of his second term, but failed to accomplish this.

Trump in February 2020 brokered a deal with the Taliban to see the US withdraw troops within 14 months, which emboldened the militants and left Afghan forces demoralized. By the time Trump left office, there were roughly 2,500 US troops left in Afghanistan....

I think the outcome was inevitable. The 45SHOLE deal put a date certain on it.

[neoplacebo]

It never should have become a massive military effort but should have been an ongoing special operations project; send in the special operators when a drone or other intelligence source provides a definite target. Those forces would not even have to be based in Afghanistan. But if they did that, the trillion dollars that resulted in (1) nothing, (2) big bucks for defense contractors, and (3) provisioning the enemy would not have happened. Just think; it could have been an additional tax cut for corporations and the wealthy so they can "create jobs" or purchase their own stocks.

[Ulysses]

I got it!

Build an impregnable wall around Afghanistan so that nobody can get in, or out.

That will teach them!

[Vrede too]

It never should have become a massive military effort but should have been an ongoing special operations project; send in the special operators when a drone or other intelligence source provides a definite target. Those forces would not even have to be based in Afghanistan. But if they did that, the trillion dollars that resulted in (1) nothing, (2) big bucks for defense contractors, and (3) provisioning the enemy would not have happened. Just think; it could have been an additional tax cut for corporations and the wealthy so they can "create jobs" or purchase their own stocks.

Just to be clear, I agree with you and billy.pilgrim that special ops would have been preferable to invasion and occupation. I just don't think that Gore or any other POTUS would have been so restrained. The moment that blame was fixed for 9/11 I was sure that the US response would be massive and ultimately bad for Afghanistan, the US and the world, and not just because Cheney/Shrub were in charge. It's what we do. No one would have predicted 20 years of misery, though.

I've long thought that we should exit Afghanistan, provide purely humanitarian aid and threaten special ops and/or bombing if their nuttiness crossed their border. Now may be that time. One good thing about the rapid collapse is that we won't be sending indefinite military aid to the former Afghan govt and army.

[neoplacebo]

It never should have become a massive military effort but should have been an ongoing special operations project; send in the special operators when a drone or other intelligence source provides a definite target. Those forces would not even have to be based in Afghanistan. But if they did that, the trillion dollars that resulted in (1) nothing, (2) big bucks for defense contractors, and (3) provisioning the enemy would not have happened. Just think; it could have been an additional tax cut for corporations and the wealthy so they can "create jobs" or purchase their own stocks.

Just to be clear, I agree with you and billy.pilgrim that special ops would have been preferable to invasion and occupation. I just don't think that Gore or any other POTUS would have been so restrained. The moment that blame was fixed for 9/11 I was sure that the US response would be massive and ultimately bad for Afghanistan, the US and the world, and not just because Cheney/Shrub were in charge. It's what we do. No one would have predicted 20 years of misery, though.

I've long thought that we should exit Afghanistan, provide purely humanitarian aid and threaten special ops and/or bombing if their nuttiness crossed their border. Now may be that time. One good thing about the rapid collapse is that we won't be sending indefinite military aid to the former Afghan govt and army.

Yeah, the groundswell of public outrage after 9/11 pretty much dictated what the response would be from the US. Whoever was president would have HAD to do something or suffer political suicide.

[Vrede too]

Yeah, the groundswell of public outrage after 9/11 pretty much dictated what the response would be from the US. Whoever was president would have HAD to do something or suffer political suicide.

It's not like we had allies in DC.

The only member of Congress to reject invading Afghanistan in 2001 said she almost wishes she had been wrong about her lone vote

Rep. Barbara Lee had only been in Congress three years when the September 11, 2001, attacks changed the world forever.

In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, Lee delivered a stirring speech on the House floor, urging her colleagues to think twice before rushing into war.

"Our country is in a state of mourning," she said in 2001. "Some of us must say, 'Let's step back for a moment. Let's just pause, just for a minute, and think through the implications of our actions today, so that this does not spiral out of control.'"

But when the vote was taken, just three days after the towers fell, Lee found herself alone. The House voted 420-1 to approve the Authorization for Use of Military Force which gave the president authority to use all "necessary and appropriate force" in combating and targeting anyone involved with the terrorist attacks.

The almost unanimous vote paved the way for the 20-year "Forever Wars" - Lee's name for America's involvement in the Middle East for the past two decades.

Now, nearly twenty years later, as the world watches in shock as the Taliban takes control of Afghanistan with haste and ease following the drawdown of US forces and the collapse of the US-backed Afghan government, Lee's vote looks eerily prescient.

But that doesn't mean the California lawmaker feels vindicated.

"I almost wish, in many ways, that I had been wrong," she told The Washington Post. "Because what's taking place today is terrifying."

For years, she told the outlet, she faced harassment, hate, and threats for her solitary vote on Afghanistan. But as the years went on, and US soldiers remained in the region fighting a seemingly never-ending war, Lee said people began to approach her and apologize.

One man brought his son to a campaign event in 2019, where with tears in his eyes, he asked her forgiveness for vilifying her vote all those years ago, she told The Post.

"What you did, I hated you," he told her. "But I understand now exactly what that was all about. I came here because I want to personally apologize and I want my son to see me apologize to you for that."

Lee said it was her background in psychology and psychiatric work that guided her decision back in 2001.

"We learn in Psychology 101: You don't make hard decisions when you're emotional, when you're feeling fear, anger, pain, anxiety," she told the outlet.

As you say, neoplacebo.

... "One lesson that I hope people have learned," she said, "is that central to our democracy is the right to dissent and that right has to be protected."

It's on shaky ground these days. I voted for Lee in 2000 and thus indirectly for this lone NO vote, but was no longer in Oakland when 9/11 happened.