International Taliban parade with US equipment

PrinceOfPain said:
I agree largely. Like most, I think getting out was the right thing for Americans to do.
What I mean by abandoning them in the middle of the conflict is that, while the Afghans must have known that the end was coming soon, the actual manner of the withdrawal left them and everyone else completely flat-footed.

Afghans were arriving at empty bases without having been warned that they were going to be empty that morning - thus looting took hold without them having the forewarning to do anything about it. Likewise, Afghan commanders were calling for air support, unaware that it had been withdrawn basically overnight, so they often didn't have time to make tactical adjustments to their new reality.
The Americans also scrapped the deal made with the Taliban in the first place, and completely gave what leverage over the Taliban that deal gave them.

I'm not saying the Afghans covered themselves in glory, but the US' abandonment of the Doha Agreement, and the frankly disgusting and fumble-fucked manner of their withdrawal basically necessitated and made inevitable a rapid Afghan surrender.
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I guess it almost comes down to a chicken or the egg argument. Was it the US withdrawing that led to the rapid collapse of the Afghan army, or did the US start the clusterfuck of a withdrawal because they knew the Afghan army wasn't going to be able to stand up to the Taliban. I'm not sure. But I do agree that it was a "fumble-fucked" (great term) operation no matter what metric you use.

Biden bears the stain of this no matter what anyone says, and I say that as someone who absolutely despises Trump.
 
jk7707 said:
I guess it almost comes down to a chicken or the egg argument. Was it the US withdrawing that led to the rapid collapse of the Afghan army, or did the US start the clusterfuck of a withdrawal because they knew the Afghan army wasn't going to be able to stand up to the Taliban. I'm not sure. But I do agree that it was a "fumble-fucked" (great term) operation no matter what metric you use.

Biden bears the stain of this no matter what anyone says, and I say that as someone who absolutely despises Trump.
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I actually support Trump. But I think he needs to be a part of a line-up of accountability that started with Bush.
I think Bush and Biden, as the book-ends of the conflict, likely bear disproportionate responsibility for the mess (Bush more so). But Obama had 8 years to fix the situation, and while Trump doesn't bear most of the blame that some are actually trying to assign to him, he did make direct contributions to the mess in his own way.

I'm not saying any of them should be put against the wall, but I don't think it would be a waste for each to come forward, acknowledge some of the specific miscalculations he made, and to apologise at least to the American people and their allies.

A naive fantasy, for sure. But a man can dream. Lol.
 
PrinceOfPain said:
I actually support Trump. But I think he needs to be a part of a line-up of accountability that started with Bush.
I think Bush and Biden, as the book-ends of the conflict, likely bear disproportionate responsibility for the mess (Bush more so). But Obama had 8 years to fix the situation, and while Trump doesn't bear most of the blame that some are actually trying to assign to him, he did make direct contributions to the mess in his own way.

I'm not saying any of them should be put against the wall, but I don't think it would be a waste for each to come forward, acknowledge some of the specific miscalculations he made, and to apologise at least to the American people and their allies.

A naive fantasy, for sure. But a man can dream. Lol.
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I give Trump credit for pulling some troops out, but he didn't have the political will to finish it despite saying he would. I'm sure he feared something like this happening as part of that decision. But yea, it's a pipe dream to think any of the OG's of the war will admit they were wrong. Tony Blair has been all over NPR and other stations saying how dumb it was to pull out of Afghanistan, and I'm sure a lot of that has to do with his integral role as PM during the beginning of the war.
 
To everyone complaining about leaving the stuff behind, we left it for the Afghan Army. Who promptly laid everything on the ground and ran away.

We should have seen that coming but to leave them with nothing would have been way worse optics.
 
Things they never would have built in a century or more... Almost as if giving all the supplies to an enemy of the west was intentional...
 
I, for one, welcome our new Taliban overlords.
 
grimballer said:
no masks

no social distancing

no vaccine passports

taliban are screwed when they get hit by delta variant...
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They'll be fine.

They aren't pussies, face coverings don't cripple them.

17152877621.jpg
 
Loiosh said:
They'll be fine.

They aren't pussies, face coverings don't cripple them.

17152877621.jpg
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who would've thought taliban would be so much ahead of everybody else when it comes to public health?

18298787_303.jpg


those are real face coverings, not the pussy western ones
 
A reminder that, it was the Trump administration who made that deal with the Taliban to begin with, so Trump should share the blame of the situation along with Biden.

Also, let's be honest. A huge number of the far right who are crying out about Kabul wouldn't give that much of a sh** about Afghan civilians dying if this happened during Trump's tenure.
 
The Elemental O said:
A reminder that, it was the Trump administration who made that deal with the Taliban to begin with, so Trump should share the blame of the situation along with Biden.

Also, let's be honest. A huge number of the far right who are crying out about Kabul wouldn't give that much of a sh** about Afghan civilians dying if this happened during Trump's tenure.
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but... but... trump

cant these ppl get any more pathetic?

they made a deal, but they didn't make poorly executed exist strategy.

thats on senile joe and incompetent buffoons in his administration.

remember how trump and his team were clueless and with joe things are gonna go back to normal?

that didn't age well, did it?
 
The people that voted for Biden are the reason Taliban have billions of dollars worth of American weapons.
 
TR0UBLE SH00TER said:
I mean, did Biden have to leave them the fucking keys to?
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Keys, operators manuals, full tanks of gas, lots and lots of ammo, pallets and pallets of fresh crisp hundred dollar bills. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if many of the Americans left behind and the names given were helicopter and Humvee mechanics/maintenance personnel LoL
 
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