Biden Administration pulling out completely - leaving Americans behind
BREAKING: CENTCOM Commander Gen. McKenzie announces completion of U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan, ending 20 years of war.
— CBS News (@CBSNews) August 30, 2021
"No words from me could possibly capture the full measure of sacrifices and accomplishments of those who served," he says https://t.co/iVyRSHED1J pic.twitter.com/0aAF0y9hCW
Central Command Commander Gen. McKenzie estimates that the number of Americans left behind in Afghanistan are in "the very low hundreds" pic.twitter.com/Kfs2InHb34
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 30, 2021
Yes, because we had 14,000 and evacuated about 6500 and that leaves the number in the low hundreds, according to Biden math. At least they admitted that they left some people behind. I guess it would have been difficult to claim otherwise, since we will no doubt see proof of Americans still in Afghanistan. No way to block them from Social Media or block loved ones who are missing them back here.
But to say there are just a few hundred, allows for the idea that even if it seems like more people are saying they are still in Afghanistan, we can never really know the true number. I mean who is going to count and how are they going to count?
Best guess is that we left somewhere in the low thousands behind. That is an avoidable tragedy and forever a stain on the Biden legacy.
44 comments:
Disgusting.
Simply fucking disgusting.
Since when do we leave Americans behind in enemy territory?
THE U.S. HAS LEFT AFGHANISTAN AFTER 20 YEARS!!!
August 30, 2021 at 4:30 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 282 Comments
Taliban guard at Kabul airport says last American planes have flown out after two decades of war, the AP reports.
The FAA confirms:
“Effective immediately Hamid Karzai International Airport is uncontrolled. No air traffic control or airport services are available. Aircraft operating into, out of, or through Kabul should use extreme caution.”
Axios:
“The U.S. facilitated the evacuation of over 120,000 people, including 5,000 Americans, but a small number of Americans and thousands of Afghan allies are believed to still be in the country.”
Washington Post:
“The Taliban has agreed to allow foreign nationals and Afghans with relevant travel documents to leave the country safely after the international rescue mission ends Tuesday, the United States and dozens of other countries said Sunday.”
‘Small Number’ of Americans Still in Afghanistan
August 30, 2021 at 4:06 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard
“The White House said Monday that roughly 6,000 Americans have been evacuated from or otherwise left Afghanistan and that a ‘small number’ of U.S. citizens who want to leave remain in the country,” The Hill reports.
Impeachable -- putting the word out to the press that Biden will demolish the alliance between the UK and US if they continue merely noticing> that he's senile.
British newspapers reported that UK government officials said that Biden "looked gaga" at his press conferences, and seemed "doolally" -- old colonial-era slang for "out of one's mind."
Dementia is a progressive disease. No one just "gets better."
By the way: They also refer to him as "Sleepy Joe."
That's Trump's sobriquet for Biden, right?
So now Joe Biden is threatening the very relationship between the US and UK over feeling personally slighted by the British.
For noticing his obvious mental condition.
Didn't we impeach Trump -- twice! -- for far less?
I'm seeing so many norms restored I'm getting sick of all the norms being restored!
A mother of one of the Marines killed by Joe Biden's incompetent grabass scramble out of Kabul says Slow Joe's apologies are worth jack squat.
He once again brought up his dead son Beau as proof he knew what it was like to have a son die in combat. Beau Biden never saw combat in his life. He was in Iraq to train their prosecutors. He died of cancer, not of wounds.
From the Washington Post:
"One of [Lance Corporal Rylee] McCollum's sisters, Roice, said she and her sister and her father joined McCollum's wife, Jiennah McCollum, on the trip. But when it came time to meet with the president, they left the room, because she said they did not want to speak with the man they held responsible for McCollum's death.
Only Jiennah, who is expecting the couple's child next month, stayed. But she left disappointed, Roice said. The president brought up his son, Beau, according to her account, describing his son's military service and subsequent death from cancer. It struck the family as scripted and shallow, a conversation that lasted only a couple of minutes in "total disregard to the loss of our Marine," Roice said.
"You can't fuck up as bad as he did and say you're sorry," Roice said of the president. "This did not need to happen, and every life is on his hands."
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/395415.php
McKenzie conceded that hundreds of Americans were left behind in the country.
“I believe our State Department is going to work very hard to allow any American citizens that are left — and we think the citizens that were not brought out number in the low — very low hundreds,” he said.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/08/30/pentagon-announces-the-end-of-the-afghanistan-evacuation-mission-with-hundreds-of-americans-left-behind/
What a piece of shit.
A day early, the last us troops left Afghanistan. They are on there own now.
I will admit my own relatively minor failure: I voted for invertebrate-con Mitt Romney in 2012 and have spent the last nine years regretting it, but now I look at the saps who checked the box for that crusty old pervert who’s busy flushing our country down the crapper and I feel really bad for them. Well, at least for those Biden voters who weren’t dead when they cast their ballots.
They thought that mean tweets and dating Playboy models was so outrageously awful that they needed to exchange him for a half-wit plagiarist with busy hands and a slothful mind. He was no prize before he put the “d” in “dementia.” Prior to allegedly being elected president, this dork was, as Democrat Robert Gates famously put it, “wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” The same genius who thought capping Bin Ladin was a bad idea also thought ditching Bagram was a good one. Well, at least he’s consistent.
Look around, at the $5 gas and the hobos pooping in our parks, at the constantly shifting vaccine/mask goalposts and the cat ladies/public school teachers determined to inject Ibram X. Kendian race hustling into your kids’ cerebellums. Look at the flag-draped caskets coming off the planes at Dover.
You did that, non-dead Biden voters.
You.
This is your failure.
Own it.
Electing Joe Biden was an essentially unserious act by essentially unserious people applying essentially unserious criteria. And these entirely predictable consequences flowed from that failure on the part of people who refused to demand a real candidate instead of this exceptionally dumb ventriloquist dummy. None of the Democrats were prizes, but this guy can’t find his left slipper on his own, much less lead our country.
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2021/08/30/own-your-failure-biden-voters-n2594924?300
Almost 90 Retired Flag Officers Demand Mark Milley, Lloyd Austin Resign After Afghanistan Debacle
https://thefederalist.com/2021/08/30/almost-90-retired-flag-officers-demand-mark-milley-lloyd-austin-resign-after-afghanistan-debacle/
Resign?
Fuck that.
FIRING SQUAD.
"I'm here to announce the completion of our withdrawal from Afghanistan and the end of the military mission to evacuate American citizens, third country nationals, and vulnerable Afghans. The last C-17 lifted off from Hammet Karzai international airport pm August 30, this afternoon, at 3:39PM east coast time and the last manned air craft is now clearing the air space above Afghanistan. We will soon release a photo of the last C-17 departing Afghanistan with Major General Chris Donoghue and the U.S. Ambassador to Aghanistan, Ross Wilson, aboard.
While the military evacuation is complete, the diplomatic mission to ensure additional U.S. citizens and eligible Afghans who want to leave continues. And I know that you are going to hear more about that from the State Department shortly.
Tonight's withdrawal signifies both the end of the military component of the evacuation but also the end of the nearly twenty year mission that beganin Afghanistan shortly after September eleventh two thousand one. It's a mission that brought Osama bin Laden to a just end along with many of his Al Queda co-conspirators. It was not a cheap mission. The cost was two thousand four hundred and sixty-one U.S. service members and civilians killed, and more than twenty thousand who were injured. Sadly, that includes thirteen U. S. service members who were killed last week by an Isis-K suicide bomber. We honor their sacrifice today as we remember their heroic accomplishments.
No words from me could possibly capture the full measure of sacrifices and accomplishments of those who served, nor the emotions they are feeling at this moment. But I will say that I am proud that both my son and I have been a part of it. As for reflections, I'm sure I will do that in the future, but right now I am pretty much concerned with the operational tasks at hand.
REPORTER: Message to Americans and Afghan allies who were left behind?
a s . cico ne tizens. iyr phou3iT5 ist ii, inmpleamb = fr. air force base t. C
As of yesterday afternoon we had about 500 left American citizens today they are here
Statement by President Joe Biden
AUGUST 30, 2021STATEMENTS AND RELEASES
I want to thank our commanders and the men and women serving under them for their execution of the dangerous retrograde from Afghanistan as scheduled – in the early morning hours of August 31, Kabul time – with no further loss of American lives. The past 17 days have seen our troops execute the largest airlift in US history, evacuating over 120,000 US citizens, citizens of our allies, and Afghan allies of the United States. They have done it with unmatched courage, professionalism, and resolve. Now, our 20-year military presence in Afghanistan has ended.
Tomorrow afternoon, I will address the American people on my decision not to extend our presence in Afghanistan beyond August 31. For now, I will report that it was the unanimous recommendation of the Joint Chiefs and of all of our commanders on the ground to end our airlift mission as planned. Their view was that ending our military mission was the best way to protect the lives of our troops, and secure the prospects of civilian departures for those who want to leave Afghanistan in the weeks and months ahead.
I have asked the Secretary of State to lead the continued coordination with our international partners to ensure safe passage for any Americans, Afghan partners, and foreign nationals who want to leave Afghanistan. This will include work to build on the UN Security Council Resolution passed this afternoon that sent the clear message of what the international community expects the Taliban to deliver on moving forward, notably freedom of travel. The Taliban has made commitments on safe passage and the world will hold them to their commitments. It will include ongoing diplomacy in Afghanistan and coordination with partners in the region to reopen the airport allowing for continued departure for those who want to leave and delivery of humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan.
For now, I urge all Americans to join me in grateful prayer tonight for three things. First, for our troops and diplomats who carried out this mission of mercy in Kabul and at tremendous risk with such unparalleled results: an airlift that evacuated tens of thousands more people than any imagined possible. Second, to the network of volunteers and veterans who helped identify those needing evacuation, guide them to the airport, and provide support along the way. And third, to everyone who is now – and who will – welcome our Afghan allies to their new homes around the world, and in the United States.
REPORTER: Message to Americans and Afghan allies who were left behind?
So, the military phase of this operation has ended. The diplomatic sequel to that will now begin. And I believe our Department of State is going to work very hard to allow any American citizens that are left -- and we think think that the citizens who were not brought out number in the low, very low, hundreds. I believe that we are going to work with...
Finally, I want to end with a moment of gratitude for the sacrifice of the 13 service members in Afghanistan who gave their lives last week to save tens of thousands: Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Darin T. Hoover, Marine Corps Sgt. Johanny Rosariopichardo, Marine Corps Sgt. Nicole L. Gee, Marine Corps Cpl. Hunter Lopez, Marine Corps Cpl. Daegan W. Page, Marine Corps Cpl. Humberto A. Sanchez, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. David L. Espinoza, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Jared M. Schmitz, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Rylee J. McCollum, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Dylan R. Merola, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Kareem M. Nikoui, Navy Hospitalman Maxton W. Soviak and Army Staff Sgt. Ryan C. Knauss.
They were not suckers or losers like the bone spurs draft dodging sob
Seig Heil Mr Twitter Hitler
How wonderful to have such fitting words spoken against the backdrop of negativity so inappropriately expressed here.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. has completed efforts to evacuate its remaining civilians and troops from Afghanistan, effectively ending the longest war in American history, the Pentagon said Monday.
“I’m here to announce the completion of our mission in Afghanistan,” Marine Corps General Kenneth McKenzie told reporters in a virtual briefing. "The last C-17 took off at 3:29 pm."
The departure of the last U.S. plane from Afghanistan capped a bloody and chaotic end to the conflict. In the war's final weeks, fighting and terror attacks amid the scramble to evacuate thousands of Americans and Afghans left 13 service members and hundreds of civilians dead. The U.S. is not expected to have any diplomatic or military presence in the country after this point, officials said.
President Joe Biden has faced some of the harshest criticism of his presidency from both Republicans and Democrats since the Taliban took control of the country on Aug. 15. But he has stood behind his decision to pull all U.S. troops out of the country by the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, saying it was no longer in America's interest to keep troops on the ground in Afghanistan.
If The Taliban has made commitments on safe passage and the world will hold them to their commitments history will say that it was the best decision in history
The past 17 days have seen our troops execute the largest airlift in US history, evacuating over 120,000 US citizens, citizens of our allies, and Afghan allies of the United States. They have done it with unmatched courage, professionalism, and resolve. Now, our 20-year military presence in Afghanistan has ended.
The Daily Caller is another example of right wing nutcase websites asshole Scott Johnson schizophrenia
Last U.S. troops leave Afghanistan, ending the United States’ longest war
Yahoo News
After nearly 20 years, the last U.S. troops have left Afghanistan, concluding the United States’ longest war and the largest non-combatant evacuation mission in U.S. military history.
Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command, announced the completion of the U.S. military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan at the Pentagon on Monday afternoon.
“Tonight’s withdrawal signifies both the end of the military component of the evacuation, but also the end of the nearly 20-year mission that began in Afghanistan shortly after Sept. 11, 2001,” McKenzie said. “It’s a mission that brought Osama bin Laden to a just end, along with many of his al-Qaida co-conspirators.”
“It was not a cheap mission,” he continued. “The cost was at 2,461 U.S. Service members and civilians, and more than 20,000 injured. Sadly, that includes 13 U.S. service members who were killed last week by an ISIS-K suicide bomber.”
Islamic State Khorasan, or ISIS-K, the terrorist group’s affiliate in Afghanistan, has posed a significant threat to U.S. troops in the final days of the military’s withdrawal, as U.S. and coalition forces raced to evacuate as many people as possible from the country. In total, McKenzie said 123,000 civilians were evacuated in the massive airlift operation, including over 6,000 American citizens.
In a statement released early Monday evening, President Biden gave thanks for the sacrifices of American service members over the course of the conflict, including the 13 troops who were recently killed in a terror attack at the Kabul airport.
"I want to thank our commanders and the men and women serving under them for their execution of the dangerous retrograde from Afghanistan as scheduled – in the early morning hours of August 31st, Kabul time – with no further loss of American lives," the president said.
"The past 17 days have seen our troops execute the largest airlift in US history, evacuating over 120,000 US citizens, citizens of our allies, and Afghan allies of the United States. They have done it with unmatched courage, professionalism, and resolve. Now, our 20-year military presence in Afghanistan has ended."
________
McKenzie:“While the military evacuation is complete, the diplomatic mission to ensure additional U.S. citizens and eligible Afghans who want to leave continues,” McKenzie said, noting that Secretary of State Antony Blinken would provide more information on that diplomatic effort later in the afternoon.
Come together with pride, America!
Those half staff flags fluttering in our hearts are not just for the thirteen recently killed, but for the so very, very many over two decades who died and were wounded in this in this attempt to do what is right for the men and women, old and young, girls and boys, children and infants, of Afghanistan.
https://redstate.com/streiff/2021/08/29/thatll-teach-em-us-drone-strike-targeting-suicide-bombers-in-kabul-kills-family-of-nine-including-four-kids-under-age-five-n435012
Pravda under Trump
With malice toward none,
with charity for all,
with firmness in the right
as God gives us to see the right,
let us strive on to finish
the task we are in,
to bind up the nation's wounds,
to care for him and for her
who shall have borne the battle,
and for their spouses,
and for their orphans,
to do all that may achieve and cherish
a just and lasting peace
among ourselves and with all nations.
https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house
Our troops returning from this war
will not be spat upon and disdained
the way those were who returned from Vietnam.
No! Never!
They will be welcomed as heroes
of an impossible attempt we put them in,
but heroes nonetheless.
They will be honored and revered.
Columbia weeps for them.
Scott asshole they said that between 100 to 200 were left behind.
Not what you're crazy mothrf***r websites
I gave this in school hundreds of times.
With malice toward none,
with charity for all,
with firmness in the right
as God gives us to see the right,
let us strive on to finish
the task we are in,
to bind up the nation's wounds,
to care for him and for her
who shall have borne the battle,
and for their spouses,
and for their orphans,
to do all that may achieve and cherish
a just and lasting peace
among ourselves and with all nations.
We need to take care of America!
Nobody is going to spit on veterans like in Vietnam
rrb wants concentration camps for liberal Democrats
Asian American advocates fear new attacks on women and older adults after COVID-19 origin report
“We want our communities to be prepared,” so the Asian American Foundation issued a toolkit on how victims and witnesses can respond.
Orion Rummler
Breaking News Reporter
Published
August 30, 2021, 9:00 a.m. PT
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Violent attacks against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders coincided with the start of the pandemic, and although media attention has waned, reports haven’t stopped.
And Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) advocacy groups are worried that the COVID-19 origin report, released Friday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, may drive a new rise in attacks against the community, especially against women and older people who are seen as more vulnerable targets. They also fear officials may not take victims’ reports seriously unless people are speaking out regularly and emphatically.
The report’s inconclusive results come after scientists involved in the research reportedly said that time is running out to find reliable information on the virus’ origin — and as the White House continues to pin the lack of results on government officials in China not cooperating with investigations.
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The potential blowback from this reminder of the virus’ roots in China, and the difficulty investigators have had with obtaining information, is what the AAPI groups are bracing for.
“We wanted our communities to be prepared,” said Sonal Shah, president of the Asian American Foundation, explaining why the recently formed philanthropic group released a toolkit last week. The kit encourages victims of hate crimes or similar incidents to call for help in the moment, write down details later and file a police report. It also encourages people to seek legal representation if necessary.
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SurveyMonkey data cited by the Asian American Foundation’s toolkit found that a majority of Asian Americans are worried about being attacked again or bringing unwanted attention to their family if they report a hate crime.
Reported physical assaults against AAPI people, mostly adults and seniors, have increased by nearly 6 percent since last year, according to data released this month by the advocacy group Stop AAPI Hate. Reports of vandalism and online hate have also increased, while verbal harassment has decreased compared to 2020.
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Yushu Fu, who moved to the United States from China 10 years ago, told The 19th that after the pandemic started — and as former President Donald Trump frequently referred to the coronavirus “the Chinese virus” and “Kung-flu” — she felt like she was being held responsible for a crisis that she had nothing to do with.
“You kind of feel like you got a little shorter,” said Fu, who lives in Delaware and now holds U.S. citizenship. “I remember when I go to the store I would always put a hat on and a mask.” Either consciously or unconsciously, she said, she just wanted to cover herself up.
Fu said that her father-in-law, who is White, eventually advised her last year not to go anywhere by herself — or to take her son, who is now 3 years old, out alone.
“That kind of put a weight on me,” she said. “I realized, okay, it’s not just in my head.”
The Biden administration nimbly adapted its plans, ramping up the airlift and sending additional troops into the country to aid crisis teams and to enhance security. Around-the-clock flights came into and went out of Afghanistan. Giant cargo planes departed, a number of them packed with as many as 600 occupants. Senior administration officials convened regular meetings with U.S. allies to find destinations for those planes to land and places for the refugees to stay. The State Department tracked down Americans in the country, as well as Afghans who had worked with the U.S., to arrange their passage to the airport. The Special Immigrant Visa program that the Trump administration had slowed down was kicked into high gear.
Despite years of fighting, the administration and the military spoke with the Taliban many times to coordinate passage of those seeking to depart to the airport, to mitigate risks as best as possible, to discuss their shared interest in meeting the August 31 deadline.
The process was relentless and imperfect and, as we all have seen in the most horrific way, not without huge risks for those staying behind to help. On August 26, a suicide bomber associated with ISIS-K killed more than 150 Afghans and 13 American service members who were gathered outside the airport. However, even that heinous act didn’t deter the military. In a 24-hour period from Thursday to Friday, 12,500 people were airlifted out of the country and the president recommitted to meeting the August 31 deadline. And he did so even as his critics again sought to capitalize on tragedy for their own political gain: Republicans called for the impeachment of Biden and of Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Within hours of the attack at the airport, America struck back, killing two terrorists and injuring another with a missile launched from a drone. A separate drone strike targeted a vehicle full of explosives on Sunday. In doing so, Biden countered the argument that America might lack the intelligence or military resources we would need to defend ourselves against violent extremists now that our troops are leaving.
The very last chapter of America’s benighted stay in Afghanistan should be seen as one of accomplishment on the part of the military and its civilian leadership. Once again the courage and unique capabilities of the U.S. armed services have been made clear. And, in a stark change from recent years, an American leader has done the hard thing, the right thing: set aside politics and put both America’s interests and values first.
America’s longest war has been by any measure a costly failure, and the errors in managing the conflict deserve scrutiny in the years to come. But Joe Biden doesn’t “own” the mayhem on the ground right now. What we’re seeing is the culmination of 20 years of bad decisions by U.S. political and military leaders. If anything, Americans should feel proud of what the U.S. government and military have accomplished in these past two weeks. President Biden deserves credit, not blame.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/08/biden-deserves-credit-not-blame-for-afghanistan/619925/?utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
She thinks that he scammed the right wing media
It’s Not the Dementia, Stupid
To blame Biden’s apparent mental incapacity is to let the Left off the hook for a half-century of disasters.
By Antoinette Aubert
August 29, 2021
The conservative media have stopped whispering the word dementia. When discussing the horror show in Afghanistan and Joe Biden’s many failures, dementia is being blamed, loud and long. This is a mistake. Blaming dementia is in its own way letting Biden off the hook. After all, no one can help getting old and sick. Tucker Carlson even said he feels sorry for this poor, addled old man, who just got 14 U.S. service members killed. In playing the dementia card, conservatives are, once again, snatching defeat from certain victory.
The problem is not Biden’s illness. The problem is Biden’s lifelong commitment to the left-wing ideology of America hatred. To blame dementia is to let Democrats off the hook for a half-century of disasters.
Throughout 2020, Biden was portrayed as a moderate by the mainstream media and NeverTrumpers, but I repeat myself. I suppose when the opposition is Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), even Lenin looks like a moderate.
The media and the military have been exposed as Olinski Obama scam
The senior leadership of the military has lost credibility. And Biden in many ways is a figurehead for a deep-seated Team Obama and progressive visceral dislike of our country, our economic system, and our national pride. They are not troubled in the least by the Kabul capitulation, they engineered it.
Afghanistan Was Lost Long Ago
Defeat Wasn’t Inevitable, but Early Mistakes Made Success Unlikely
By James Dobbins
August 30, 2021
The days since Kabul fell into the hands of the Taliban have seen a steady stream of postmortems on the United States’ involvement in Afghanistan. Some of these critiques cite flawed policy and poor implementation. Others assert that U.S. involvement in the country was doomed from the start, noting Afghanistan’s reputation as “the graveyard of empires.” Still others—including U.S. President Joe Biden—go further, arguing that all postconflict stabilization and reconstruction efforts, also known as nation building, lead to quagmires that U.S. forces should comprehensively avoid.
The truth is that the United States’ failure in Afghanistan was not preordained, but Washington severely hobbled its own stabilization efforts early on.
Historically, the United States has launched military interventions with the intention of putting a stop to something, such as military aggression, genocide, nuclear proliferation—and, in the case of Afghanistan in 2001, ongoing terrorist operations. When the objective is achieved, as happened in Afghanistan once the immediate threat from al Qaeda was eliminated, the intervening force reaches a crossroads. Seeking to preempt any repeat episodes, it must choose between
1. occupying permanently,
2. reinvading periodically, or
3. committing to help build a minimally competent successor regime,
ideally allowing it to leave behind a society at peace with itself and its neighbors.
The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, unwilling to govern Afghanistan and faced with the threat of an al Qaeda resurgence, chose the third option—but failed to grasp the full dimensions of the challenge it was taking on.
The most strident critics of postconflict stabilization and reconstruction missions tend to focus on past failures, such as Vietnam and Iraq, without mentioning past success stories, including Germany, Japan, South Korea—and, more recently, Bosnia and Kosovo, where U.S.-led NATO interventions successfully ended the first armed conflicts in Europe since 1945. An important lesson emerges from considering the success of those relatively recent U.S. interventions alongside the failure in Afghanistan: the most critical decision-making and planning take place in the early stages—and if they are flawed, it will severely diminish the chances of success, no matter the time and resources Washington is ultimately willing to spend.
The U.S. mission in Afghanistan was not doomed from the start—but the seeds of its eventual failure were planted as early as 2002.
EARLY MISSTEPS
In the aftermath of 9/11, intervention in Afghanistan took on enormous importance for the Bush administration, which was determined to prevent another catastrophic attack on American soil. But the administration had no desire to garrison Afghanistan indefinitely, so it chose to help build a successor regime to the Taliban that could presumably govern the country on its own one day—and ensure that it didn’t again become a safe haven for terrorists. The invasion of Afghanistan and the ousting of the Taliban went surprisingly smoothly, producing a quick, low-cost victory. In the flush of this initial success, the Bush administration was led to believe that the follow-up nation-building mission could be similarly easy.
The Bush administration’s first mistake was a failure to fully appreciate the geographic obstacles in the way of an Afghan reconstruction effort. Afghanistan is on the other side of the world from the United States, and in addition to being landlocked and inaccessible, it is surrounded by several powerful and predatory neighbors, including Iran, Pakistan, and nearby Russia. The only way the United States could get most of its forces and their supplies into or out of Afghanistan was through or over Pakistan—a country that did not share American objectives there and actively sought to subvert them.
Moreover, the population of Afghanistan was considerably larger than that of any other country involved in a post–World War II U.S. intervention: in 2001, Afghanistan had almost twice as many people as wartime South Vietnam. Typically, the troop-to-population ratio is an important determinant of the success of a stabilization operation. Two years before the invasion of Afghanistan, in 1999, the United States and its NATO allies had deployed 50,000 troops to stabilize Kosovo, a country of 1.9 million. Afghanistan’s population in 2001 was 21.6 million—yet by the end of 2002, there were only around 8,000 U.S. troops in a country that was more than ten times Kosovo’s size and had no army or police force of its own. There simply weren’t enough U.S. boots on the ground to secure the country the United States had captured.
One reason for the relatively small deployment was that the Bush administration did not intend for U.S. forces to assume peacekeeping or public security responsibilities—rather, they focused exclusively on tracking down residual al Qaeda elements, at the expense of the foundational security required to build a functioning state. The Bush administration also neglected to commit the necessary financial resources to the Afghan stabilization effort. In Bosnia, the United States and other donors had provided economic assistance amounting to $1,600 per inhabitant per year for the first several years after that war. The comparable figure in Afghanistan amounted to $50 per person—a paltry sum.
FATAL MISCALCULATIONS
The Bush administration made other critical mistakes that limited the possibility of a successful stabilization. There were no substantial early efforts to build a national Afghan army or police force, which left security in the hands of predatory local warlords and made confronting returning Taliban fighters more difficult. There was no single point of leadership for the international reconstruction effort, which consequently lacked coherence. And, perhaps most significantly, it took U.S. officials several years to realize that although Pakistan had withdrawn its support for the Taliban government, it hadn’t abandoned the Taliban as an organization. After they were routed from Afghanistan, the Taliban’s leadership and the group’s remaining members were given sanctuary in Pakistan, where they recuperated, retrained, resupplied, and later restarted an insurgency in Afghanistan.
Given these miscalculations, the prospects for success in Afghanistan had diminished significantly by early 2003. And then, of course, the Bush administration invaded Iraq, a country as large as Afghanistan, with even more internal conflicts and with even more hostile neighbors, and where Bush and his officials similarly underestimated the scale of the postconflict stabilization and reconstruction effort they would be taking on. Violent resistance to the U.S. invasion materialized much faster in Iraq, and U.S. forces were under severe pressure there by the time the Taliban reemerged as a serious threat in Afghanistan. This remained the case throughout Bush’s time in office, hamstringing the United States’ ability to stabilize Afghanistan and allowing the Taliban to regain footholds there.
Failure to limit the resurgence of the Taliban and to build institutional capacity in Afghanistan was by no means inevitable. Had the United States devoted the resources required for a stabilization and reconstruction effort in a country of Afghanistan’s size and location, it would have stood a better chance of leaving the country gracefully, with a functioning state in place. But eventually, Washington’s early unforced errors created a situation in which it faced a choice not between winning or losing but between losing or not losing.
Washington could hang on at a modest cost in order to keep the Taliban at bay, retain a competent counterterrorism partner in the Afghan government, and safeguard the political and social advances that many Afghans enjoyed,
OR
it could leave and acknowledge its failure to help build a lasting state—and a lasting future for the Afghan people.
Three presidents successively wrestled with the dilemma that Bush left behind.
Barack Obama and Donald Trump gestured toward ending the war
but ultimately decided not to lose on their watch.
Biden finally cut the cord and chose to lose.
So Biden's choice to lose
is a WIN for the UNITED STATES.
The American Thinker is endorsing a holocaust against Muslims. They think it started when it started.
America was colonized by Christian Europe, specifically Protestant Christian Europe, beginning in 1607 at Jamestown, Virginia, and Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620. Americans take for granted the intense battle for humanity’s mind that this history represents. The notion of natural individual rights through a Creator; the notion of the development of the person (male or female); the notion of personal Liberty; the notion of people as a reflection of the divine—the undergirding of our way of life is the result of being on the Western side of this war.
We are now at the Battle of Afghanistan, 2021. Because our military and political leaders have not read a history book, they deem it a 20-year war, but they are wrong. It is a thirteen-hundred-and-eighty-nine-year war that we will lose because we do not know we are in it.
The Navy SEAL was right. Our political and military leaders make decisions without a clue. We had a stable and neutralized position in Afghanistan, with very few troops, that served as a check on Islamic Jihad and the rise of an Islamic caliphate and harsh Sharia Law.
We do not need to be there to nation-build—something that anyone who knows history knows cannot be successful. We are there because Islam decided to attack the West once again in 2001. We are there to save Western Civilization. We cannot allow a humiliating defeat.
The Thirteen-Hundred-And-Eighty-Nine-Year War
By M. E. Boyd
During an interview regarding the recent suicide attack on Kabul airport, a former Navy SEAL quipped that no one making military decisions for the United States seems to have read a history book. Lack of knowledge, he implied, is partly why America is suffering a humiliating and unconscionable defeat in Afghanistan.
Here, then, is a short skeletal history of Muslim-Christian relations beginning with Islam’s founding in 622 AD by Muhammad, an Arab military leader intent on unifying the Arab world and conquering the rest. The lessons learned might put us on the right path forward.
So Biden's choice to lose
is a WIN for the UNITED STATES.
It's neither a win for the United States or Western Civilization.
The Navy SEAL was right. Our political and military leaders make decisions without a clue. We had a stable and neutralized position in Afghanistan, with very few troops, that served as a check on Islamic Jihad and the rise of an Islamic caliphate and harsh Sharia Law.
We do not need to be there to nation-build—something that anyone who knows history knows cannot be successful. We are there because Islam decided to attack the West once again in 2001. We are there to save Western Civilization. We cannot allow a humiliating defeat.
Biden will be famous for allowing the rise of Islamic despotism to dominate the world.
Biden will be famous
for reuniting an America
torn apart by Trump.
Hes United America against biden himself. The nation cannot believe Biden has left Americans there to be killed.
Many of the Americans left there CHOSE to stay.
Extra Bonus Quote of the Day
August 30, 2021 at 8:40 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 66 Comments
“The past 17 days have seen our troops execute the largest airlift in U.S. history, evacuating over 120,000 US citizens, citizens of our allies, and Afghan allies of the United States. They have done it with unmatched courage, professionalism, and resolve. Now, our 20-year military presence in Afghanistan has ended.”
— President Joe Biden, in a White House statement.
Angus King Says Vaccine Saved His Life
August 30, 2021 at 8:38 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 20 Comments
Associated Press:
“Sen. Angus King (I-ME) said that his breakthrough case of COVID-19 produced symptoms that were double the worst head cold he’d ever experienced, and he credited the vaccine for keeping him out of the hospital.
“The 77-year-old independent said he hopes his rough-and-tumble experience in which he received an infusion to help fight the virus will help others who might be on the fence about getting the vaccine.”
Said King:
“I’m convinced the vaccine saved my life.”
Fuck off pederast
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