Afghan "train, advise and assist" 1984 style

[Shadowy Man]

View attachment 35088

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And the he tear gassed his way through the mourners to get a photo op with Air Force One.

 

[lpetrich]

Last U.S. troops depart Afghanistan after massive airlift ending America's longest war | Reuters

U.S. Is Turning Some Allies Away From Kabul Airport, Official Says - The New York Times - datelined Aug 23

Some Afghan military interpreters and other close U.S. allies, a stated priority group for evacuation from Afghanistan, are being turned away from the Kabul airport by American officials in order to give priority to U.S. citizens and green card holders, a State Department official said on Monday.

The details, given on the condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to brief the news media, were supported by interviews with Afghans who have approached the airport in recent days, and with American veterans’ groups and other organizations that have tried to organize departures for Afghans who are at risk of retribution from the Taliban because they worked with the U.S. government.

U.S. officials misled the public about the war in Afghanistan, confidential documents reveal - Washington Post - "At war with the truth " - "U.S. officials constantly said they were making progress. They were not, and they knew it, an exclusive Post investigation found. " - the Afghanistan Papers, published in late 2019.

Step Back: Lessons for U.S. Foreign Policy from the Failed War on Terror | Cato Institute - datelined 2017 Jun 26 - the Cato Institute is a right-libertarian think tank, but they are right about that

US Soldier Brittany DeBarros Protesting the Army and the US Government - datelined 2018 Jul 23 - she's now running for Congress.

Here is an aggregation of her 14-day tweets: Thread by @BrittDeBarros: "Thanks to all who expressed support & solidarity during There’s much I can’t say but I’m including all […]" #14DayOrders #14DaysOfResistance #WeAreNotAfraid #FightPovertyNotThePoor

The Members of Congress Who Profit From War - The American Prospect - datelined 2020 Jan 17 - "Here are the senators and representatives who own stock in Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and other top defense contractors."

It was shortly after midnight in Baghdad on Friday, Jan. 3, when a missile strike ordered by President Trump killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani.

When stock markets opened the next day, dozens of members of Congress saw bumps in their portfolios as their holdings in defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon increased in value on the possibility of war. Over the next three trading days, the leading defense industry stock index would surge 2.4% above Thursday’s close.

Among these members of Congress with personal investments in the defense industry are several who sit on committees that determine major sources of funding for defense companies and weapons contractors.

The article listed 15 Senators, 10 Republicans and 5 Democrats, as top holders of military-contractor stock. The Republicans included Susan Collins ME and Mitt Romney UT, and the Democrats Dianne Feinstein CA. Also 36 Representatives, 19 Republicans and 17 Democrats.

The original: The Members of Congress Who Profit From War – Sludge

Lawmakers Benefit From Booming Defense Stocks – Sludge - Aug 23

Listed 11 Senators, 6 Republicans and 5 Democrats, and 36 Representatives, 20 Republicans and 16 Democrats.

Dems Voting Against Pentagon Cuts Got 3.4x More Money From the Defense Industry – Sludge - datelined 2020 Jul 22 - "The Pocan amendment, rejected by defense-backed Democrats and all Republicans, would have cut next year's military budget by 10%."

 

[ZiprHead]

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) just said on Morning Joe that we shouldn't have left and that we should have sent in more troops to defend Kabul.

I wonder if he's on the list above.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) just said on Morning Joe that we shouldn't have left and that we should have sent in more troops to defend Kabul.

I wonder if he's on the list above.

Doesn't need to be.
He's an Air Force vet. Flew missions over Iraq and Afghanistan.
He could just be a plain old warhawk.

 

[ZiprHead]

Trump’s Pledge to Exit Afghanistan Was a Ruse, His Final SecDef Says
Chris Miller now says talk of a full withdrawal was a “play” to convince a Taliban-led government to keep U.S. counterterrorism forces.

President Donald Trump’s top national security officials never intended to pull all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, according to new statements by Chris Miller, Trump’s last acting defense secretary.

Miller said the president’s public promise to finish withdrawing U.S. forces by May 1, as negotiated with the Taliban, was actually a “play” that masked the Trump administration’s true intentions: to convince Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to quit or accept a bitter power-sharing agreement with the Taliban, and to keep some U.S. troops in Afghanistan for counterrorism missions.

In a conversation this week with Defense One, Miller revealed that while serving as the top counterterrorism official on the National Security Council in 2019, he commissioned a wargame that determined that the United States could continue to conduct counterterrorism in Afghanistan with just 800 American military personnel on the ground. And by the end of 2020, when he was acting defense secretary, Miller asserted, many Trump administration officials expected that the United States would be able to broker a new shared government in Afghanistan composed primarily of Taliban officials. The new government would then permit U.S. forces to remain in country to support the Afghan military and fight terrorist elements.

That plan never happened, in part because Trump lost his reelection bid in November. And at least one other former senior Trump administration official questioned Miller’s retelling. But in revealing it, Miller challenged recent assertions that Trump is to blame for setting up this week’s chaotic scenes unfolding across Kabul. Miller alleged that despite Trump’s frequent public pledges to end the Afghanistan war and bring home all U.S. troops, many senior national security officials in his administration believed a total withdrawal was not inevitable.

 

[Gospel]

This is how I see it. Every president of the Us is running an endless (hopefully) relay race and upon receiving the baton they gotta actually do their best to win. There is no point in blaming a weak link on the track when the whole team loses. As American's, it's our job to make sure our runners know this by not acting like idiots on the sidelines throwing booze and food (like Fox and CNN) at our team. It only serves to kill our chances. What we should be doing is recognizing that we're all screwed by trips, slips, & rule violations that cause our team to fall behind. Give them proper direction constructively and civilly and don't forget we're all in the same boat if it sinks (I doubt it ever will).

With that said, Biden screwed this up BIG TIME IMO. We had racers holding this baton and the two before him made no exit plan. So now that we are executing an exit plan (if we can call it that), who else is there to look at but the one calling the shots? and don't say he's cleaning up the previous administration's mess and trying to keep with a timeline desired by the American people or that he just became President and the War was a 20-year thing. When you run for president you should be prepared in advance to handle everything that job entails. Meaning you had better have some prior damn experience or knowledge. He wasn't taken off guard with this, It doesn't take access to US intelligence to see a power vacuum getting filled. Look at Iraq, wasn't that like Yesterday? ISIL hopscotched through bodies outline in chalk shortly after that exit.

And to think there are American's still out there with Troops flying home over their heads.

 

[untermensche]

View attachment 35088

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Biden will be remembered for getting us out of a 20 year mistake and crime.

 

[Harry Bosch]

This is how I see it. Every president of the Us is running an endless (hopefully) relay race and upon receiving the baton they gotta actually do their best to win. There is no point in blaming a weak link on the track when the whole team loses. As American's, it's our job to make sure our runners know this by not acting like idiots on the sidelines throwing booze and food (like Fox and CNN) at our team. It only serves to kill our chances. What we should be doing is recognizing that we're all screwed by trips, slips, & rule violations that cause our team to fall behind. Give them proper direction constructively and civilly and don't forget we're all in the same boat if it sinks (I doubt it ever will).

With that said, Biden screwed this up BIG TIME IMO. We had racers holding this baton and the two before him made no exit plan. So now that we are executing an exit plan (if we can call it that), who else is there to look at but the one calling the shots? and don't say he's cleaning up the previous administration's mess and trying to keep with a timeline desired by the American people or that he just became President and the War was a 20-year thing. When you run for president you should be prepared in advance to handle everything that job entails. Meaning you had better have some prior damn experience or knowledge. He wasn't taken off guard with this, It doesn't take access to US intelligence to see a power vacuum getting filled. Look at Iraq, wasn't that like Yesterday? ISIL hopscotched through bodies outline in chalk shortly after that exit.

And to think there are American's still out there with Troops flying home over their heads.

Yea, sucks that Biden couldn't read the future and know that the Afghan army would fold so quickly. I did admire the fact that Biden didn't blame intelligence the way that Trump would have. I wouldn't compare Afghanistan to Iraq BTW. In Iraq, we were mostly backing the good guys. In Afghanistan, we backed the weak dudes. But I still haven't heard any viable options that we could have pursued that would have made the exit easier. None. Just second second guessing...

 

[Elixir]

This is how I see it. Every president of the Us is running an endless (hopefully) relay race and upon receiving the baton they gotta actually do their best to win. There is no point in blaming a weak link on the track when the whole team loses. As American's, it's our job to make sure our runners know this by not acting like idiots on the sidelines throwing booze and food (like Fox and CNN) at our team. It only serves to kill our chances. What we should be doing is recognizing that we're all screwed by trips, slips, & rule violations that cause our team to fall behind. Give them proper direction constructively and civilly and don't forget we're all in the same boat if it sinks (I doubt it ever will).

With that said, Biden screwed this up BIG TIME IMO. We had racers holding this baton and the two before him made no exit plan. So now that we are executing an exit plan (if we can call it that), who else is there to look at but the one calling the shots? and don't say he's cleaning up the previous administration's mess and trying to keep with a timeline desired by the American people or that he just became President and the War was a 20-year thing. When you run for president you should be prepared in advance to handle everything that job entails. Meaning you had better have some prior damn experience or knowledge. He wasn't taken off guard with this, It doesn't take access to US intelligence to see a power vacuum getting filled. Look at Iraq, wasn't that like Yesterday? ISIL hopscotched through bodies outline in chalk shortly after that exit.

And to think there are American's still out there with Troops flying home over their heads.

Yea, sucks that Biden couldn't read the future and know that the Afghan army would fold so quickly. I did admire the fact that Biden didn't blame intelligence the way that Trump would have. I wouldn't compare Afghanistan to Iraq BTW. In Iraq, we were mostly backing the good guys. In Afghanistan, we backed the weak dudes. But I still haven't heard any viable options that we could have pursued that would have made the exit easier. None. Just second second guessing...

I agree that there was never a better way. This was the most successful withdrawal by a losing army in my lifetime. Record numbers of evacuees… when we left Vietnam nobody got evacuated and nobody knew how many Americans were left behind, and the South China Sea was full of “Boat People”.

 

[bilby]

This is how I see it. Every president of the Us is running an endless (hopefully) relay race and upon receiving the baton they gotta actually do their best to win. There is no point in blaming a weak link on the track when the whole team loses. As American's, it's our job to make sure our runners know this by not acting like idiots on the sidelines throwing booze and food (like Fox and CNN) at our team. It only serves to kill our chances. What we should be doing is recognizing that we're all screwed by trips, slips, & rule violations that cause our team to fall behind. Give them proper direction constructively and civilly and don't forget we're all in the same boat if it sinks (I doubt it ever will).

With that said, Biden screwed this up BIG TIME IMO. We had racers holding this baton and the two before him made no exit plan. So now that we are executing an exit plan (if we can call it that), who else is there to look at but the one calling the shots? and don't say he's cleaning up the previous administration's mess and trying to keep with a timeline desired by the American people or that he just became President and the War was a 20-year thing. When you run for president you should be prepared in advance to handle everything that job entails. Meaning you had better have some prior damn experience or knowledge. He wasn't taken off guard with this, It doesn't take access to US intelligence to see a power vacuum getting filled. Look at Iraq, wasn't that like Yesterday? ISIL hopscotched through bodies outline in chalk shortly after that exit.

And to think there are American's still out there with Troops flying home over their heads.

Yea, sucks that Biden couldn't read the future and know that the Afghan army would fold so quickly. I did admire the fact that Biden didn't blame intelligence the way that Trump would have. I wouldn't compare Afghanistan to Iraq BTW. In Iraq, we were mostly backing the good guys. In Afghanistan, we backed the weak dudes. But I still haven't heard any viable options that we could have pursued that would have made the exit easier. None. Just second second guessing...

I agree that there was never a better way. This was the most successful withdrawal by a losing army in my lifetime. Record numbers of evacuees… when we left Vietnam nobody got evacuated and nobody knew how many Americans were left behind, and the South China Sea was full of “Boat People”.

Their absence in this case has more to do with Afghanistan's lack of coastline, than with a lack of people desperate to flee.

 

[Elixir]

I agree that there was never a better way. This was the most successful withdrawal by a losing army in my lifetime. Record numbers of evacuees… when we left Vietnam nobody got evacuated and nobody knew how many Americans were left behind, and the South China Sea was full of “Boat People”.

Their absence in this case has more to do with Afghanistan's lack of coastline, than with a lack of people desperate to flee.

More conspicuous is the lack of Americans - including casualties - left behind. There are reports of people pouring over borders, but not a lot of reports of shooting. I suppose we will learn more in time. But by comparison to Vietnam this was clockwork. There was little or no screening of the few Vietnamese who were evacuated at the end of the war, and even the State Department said they had no idea how many Americans were left behind.
We were chased out of Vietnam. It was far more chaotic and humiliating than this withdrawal.

 

[fromderinside]

We had a signed UN accord with N Vietnam. Officially UN troops had already parted before VC poured into S Vietnam overwhelming South Vietnam's maxillary. We had advisors and some support personnel in and around Saigon. Our primary military's presence was at the US Embassy in Saigon. Private contractors were a major element of VN support after the Treaty was signed. Accountability was very poor with them and US government.

Really. There is something about being being an adult shortly after 1956 when Ike jettisoned the agreement between the French and North Vietnamese on a reunification vote. Then came the domino theory. ...and Gulf of Tonkin was hatched just after I marshalled out of the Navy in Mayport and returned to Portland. So clear, so personal. So pissed off.

Yet all my younger brother remembers is his detection of Soviet space disaster which he recorded from military base on northern island of Japan. That and ditching Duce-and-a-half's into to caves at fort Huachuca near Tucson. Probably because so in love, so playful, so drunk.

 

[lpetrich]

I agree that there was never a better way. This was the most successful withdrawal by a losing army in my lifetime. Record numbers of evacuees… when we left Vietnam nobody got evacuated and nobody knew how many Americans were left behind, and the South China Sea was full of “Boat People”.

I don't know if anyone has caught any pictures or video of the last US planes to leave Kabul.

Secular Talk🎙 on Twitter: "After weeks of endless corporate media pro-war pearl clutching this takes balls. I love it (link)" / Twitter
Joe Biden's ending the US war in Afghanistan. He said that he wasn't willing to continue to put American lives at risk for something that goes essentially nowhere.


Biden speech transcript: US completes Afghanistan withdrawal | Joe Biden News | Al Jazeera - "‘I believe this is the right decision, a wise decision and the best decision for America,’ Biden said."

Of US military personnel, some 800,000 served in Afghanistan, some 20,000 of them were injured, and 2,461 of them were killed.

Over August 14 - 31, the US evacuated 79,000 civilians, including 6,000 Americans and the US with other nations evacuated 123,000 civilians. The others evacuated 41,000 civilians, a little more than half of what the US evacuated.

The US is reportedly discussing with Taliban officials how to get the remaining US citizens and their Afghan colleagues out of Afghanistan.

Some military equipment left behind was "demilitarized", left in an inoperable state. Let's see how good the Taliban is at repairing such deliberately disabled equipment.

 

[Gospel]

This is how I see it. Every president of the Us is running an endless (hopefully) relay race and upon receiving the baton they gotta actually do their best to win. There is no point in blaming a weak link on the track when the whole team loses. As American's, it's our job to make sure our runners know this by not acting like idiots on the sidelines throwing booze and food (like Fox and CNN) at our team. It only serves to kill our chances. What we should be doing is recognizing that we're all screwed by trips, slips, & rule violations that cause our team to fall behind. Give them proper direction constructively and civilly and don't forget we're all in the same boat if it sinks (I doubt it ever will).

With that said, Biden screwed this up BIG TIME IMO. We had racers holding this baton and the two before him made no exit plan. So now that we are executing an exit plan (if we can call it that), who else is there to look at but the one calling the shots? and don't say he's cleaning up the previous administration's mess and trying to keep with a timeline desired by the American people or that he just became President and the War was a 20-year thing. When you run for president you should be prepared in advance to handle everything that job entails. Meaning you had better have some prior damn experience or knowledge. He wasn't taken off guard with this, It doesn't take access to US intelligence to see a power vacuum getting filled. Look at Iraq, wasn't that like Yesterday? ISIL hopscotched through bodies outline in chalk shortly after that exit.

And to think there are American's still out there with Troops flying home over their heads.

Yea, sucks that Biden couldn't read the future and know that the Afghan army would fold so quickly. I did admire the fact that Biden didn't blame intelligence the way that Trump would have. I wouldn't compare Afghanistan to Iraq BTW. In Iraq, we were mostly backing the good guys. In Afghanistan, we backed the weak dudes. But I still haven't heard any viable options that we could have pursued that would have made the exit easier. None. Just second second guessing...

I wasn't making a comparison to Iraq. I was talking about historical evidence of what happens when there is a power vacuum. My issue is not with the exit, it's with not making sure every American is out before things move way beyond control.

 

[Harry Bosch]

This is how I see it. Every president of the Us is running an endless (hopefully) relay race and upon receiving the baton they gotta actually do their best to win. There is no point in blaming a weak link on the track when the whole team loses. As American's, it's our job to make sure our runners know this by not acting like idiots on the sidelines throwing booze and food (like Fox and CNN) at our team. It only serves to kill our chances. What we should be doing is recognizing that we're all screwed by trips, slips, & rule violations that cause our team to fall behind. Give them proper direction constructively and civilly and don't forget we're all in the same boat if it sinks (I doubt it ever will).

With that said, Biden screwed this up BIG TIME IMO. We had racers holding this baton and the two before him made no exit plan. So now that we are executing an exit plan (if we can call it that), who else is there to look at but the one calling the shots? and don't say he's cleaning up the previous administration's mess and trying to keep with a timeline desired by the American people or that he just became President and the War was a 20-year thing. When you run for president you should be prepared in advance to handle everything that job entails. Meaning you had better have some prior damn experience or knowledge. He wasn't taken off guard with this, It doesn't take access to US intelligence to see a power vacuum getting filled. Look at Iraq, wasn't that like Yesterday? ISIL hopscotched through bodies outline in chalk shortly after that exit.

And to think there are American's still out there with Troops flying home over their heads.

Yea, sucks that Biden couldn't read the future and know that the Afghan army would fold so quickly. I did admire the fact that Biden didn't blame intelligence the way that Trump would have. I wouldn't compare Afghanistan to Iraq BTW. In Iraq, we were mostly backing the good guys. In Afghanistan, we backed the weak dudes. But I still haven't heard any viable options that we could have pursued that would have made the exit easier. None. Just second second guessing...

I wasn't making a comparison to Iraq. I was talking about historical evidence of what happens when there is a power vacuum. My issue is not with the exit, it's with not making sure every American is out before things move way beyond control.

But how could he have stopped that? There is no magical transportation system that transports 200,000 people out of a country overnight. We had been drawing down our forces for years. Trump drew them down to 2,500. Once we started the final withdraw, the Taliban struck faster that we could withdraw all our people. Even if Afghanistan had an ocean where transportation would have been easier and faster, it's impossible to withdraw all people at the same time.

 

[ZiprHead]

[TWEET]<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Trump REPEATEDLY demanded that we bring our soldiers home, but only President Biden had the balls to do it. <br><br>Here are a few of Trump's wuss, B.S. - I mean "masterful" - tweets: <a href="https://t.co/4iLD02Pn0G">pic.twitter.com/4iLD02Pn0G</a></p>— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) <a href="https://twitter.com/AnnCoulter/status/1432801983786795017?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 31, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>[/TWEET]..

 

[Gospel]

I wasn't making a comparison to Iraq. I was talking about historical evidence of what happens when there is a power vacuum. My issue is not with the exit, it's with not making sure every American is out before things move way beyond control.

But how could he have stopped that? There is no magical transportation system that transports 200,000 people out of a country overnight. We had been drawing down our forces for years. Trump drew them down to 2,500. Once we started the final withdraw, the Taliban struck faster that we could withdraw all our people. Even if Afghanistan had an ocean where transportation would have been easier and faster, it's impossible to withdraw all people at the same time.

I don't give a shit. Bush, Trump, Obama & Biden's decisions all lead to American's being left behind in Afghanistan in 2021. Just because the withdrawal is both necessary and may have been done as best as Biden could have done doesn't mean I should be like "oh well" to those left behind.

 

[Harry Bosch]

I wasn't making a comparison to Iraq. I was talking about historical evidence of what happens when there is a power vacuum. My issue is not with the exit, it's with not making sure every American is out before things move way beyond control.

But how could he have stopped that? There is no magical transportation system that transports 200,000 people out of a country overnight. We had been drawing down our forces for years. Trump drew them down to 2,500. Once we started the final withdraw, the Taliban struck faster that we could withdraw all our people. Even if Afghanistan had an ocean where transportation would have been easier and faster, it's impossible to withdraw all people at the same time.

I don't give a shit. Bush, Trump, Obama & Biden's decisions all lead to American's being left behind in Afghanistan in 2021. Just because the withdrawal is both necessary and may have been done as best as Biden could have done doesn't mean I should be like "oh well" to those left behind.

Who was left behind? It's my understanding that the 200 remaining Americans decided to stay there on their own. The Americans who were killed were killed by terrorists. If you can invent a magical protection orb that can prevent terrorist attacks my hats off to you. But that terrorist act probably wasn't preventable. And to hold Biden responsible for their deaths is a much higher standard than any other president has been held to.

 

[RVonse]

[TWEET]<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Trump REPEATEDLY demanded that we bring our soldiers home, but only President Biden had the balls to do it. <br><br>Here are a few of Trump's wuss, B.S. - I mean "masterful" - tweets: <a href="https://t.co/4iLD02Pn0G">pic.twitter.com/4iLD02Pn0G</a></p>— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) <a href="https://twitter.com/AnnCoulter/status/1432801983786795017?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 31, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>[/TWEET]..

I did not know Coulter had said this. Thanks for sharing Ziprhead.

 

[Gospel]

I don't give a shit. Bush, Trump, Obama & Biden's decisions all lead to American's being left behind in Afghanistan in 2021. Just because the withdrawal is both necessary and may have been done as best as Biden could have done doesn't mean I should be like "oh well" to those left behind.

Who was left behind? It's my understanding that the 200 remaining Americans decided to stay there on their own. The Americans who were killed were killed by terrorists. If you can invent a magical protection orb that can prevent terrorist attacks my hats off to you. But that terrorist act probably wasn't preventable. And to hold Biden responsible for their deaths is a much higher standard than any other president has been held to.

It's not a much higher standard, it is the standard for the President of the US. I mentioned more than Just Biden so I don't know who you're talking about that is holding only Biden to that standard. To my knowledge (and Biden's admission Yesterday), not all of the remaining American's decided to stay so I don't know where you got all of them want to stay.

Edit: And negotiating with the Taliban is just insane to me. I hardly recognized America during the Trump Administration and now Biden is treating the Taliban like they are an official government or some shit.
Edit2: Ain't the Taliban allies to those who organized the attack on 911? If so that makes this even more nuts.