You can't spend military money on own problems

You either defund the military and spend the money on social issues or find another country to bomb.

The war machine will find its new target. It's use it or lose it

This. Interesting also that the bipartisan infrastructure bill did not get any traction here. Probably easier to stick to the binary thinking.

I agree with some of what you said. It was going to be messy no matter what, but we should have taken our equipment with, instead of leaving it behind and allowing the taliban to up their arms inventory. Biden decided it would be best to just leave in the middle of the night, without warning, and leave all arms behind.
Trump had a gradual reduction plan, but that was blocked, so you cant really blame Trump on that, like how Biden blamed Trump, even though it was Biden who voted to start the war in the first place. Blaming Trump is the intellectualy lazy and hip way to avoid responsibility.

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5...-assessment-on

"The House Armed Services Committee voted Wednesday to put roadblocks on President Trump’s ability to withdraw from Afghanistan, including requiring an on whether any country has offered incentives for the Taliban to attack U.S. and coalition troops.

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) amendment, from Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), would require several certifications before the U.S. military can further draw down in Afghanistan.

The amendment was approved 45-11."

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I wear the red blobs proudly.

Whilst I understand the symbolism you are referring to, President Biden is entirely to blame for Afghans chasing planes down the runway and falling out of the sky. The reason this is happening is because the withdrawal has been so poorly managed. As Commander in Chief, the buck stops with him.

I should note that its is also intellectualy lazy to blame Biden as it is not *entirely* his fault. He is but a cog in the war machine wheel.

Something tells me this whole sh#t show scenario is going as planned.
We will find the result soon enough. My guess: Give it to China so they can go in and extract all the minerals/ control opium trade, but thats just a guess.

This is all above my pay grade. I just hope its finally over, for us.

Then why didn't you say something before?

Who would haven known that the Taliban would have swept so quickly through the country without much opposition? (Apart from you, obviously)?

To be honest, I see a lot of people being very quick to blame Trump as well as to blame Biden. We seem to be living in the era of "blame culture."

Thank you for that article. I was curious who exactly composes the "House Armed Services Committee," so I looked it up. It's almost equally composed of Democrats and Republicans, so it looks like a lot of Republicans also voted in favor of that amendment, since it was approved 45-11. Therefore, I don't think it's really a right versus left issue or that people voted for it to deliberately defy Trump.
https://armedservices.house.gov/meet-our-members

I agree that a gradual reduction plan seems to make sense, but Biden had announced last April that he was planning to remove troops by September 11th of this year and has been putting measures in place to try to help make the process as least messy as possible. He detailed those measures in his recent speech. But I think that no matter how Biden has handled or handles this situation, he will receive harsh criticism from the right -- even despite so many people on the right cheering when Trump had promised to stop endless wars and get our troops out of there. I'm sure the last thing a Trump supporter is willing to do is to commend Biden for finally getting our troops out of Afghanistan. Instead, they're going to look for reasons to pick it apart and criticize it, rather than seeing the bigger picture. And if he hadn't gotten our troops out by September 11th, as he said he was going to, he would be criticized for that.

As far as I know, the Taliban had seized those weapons from the Afghan military. Do you think that the US should have confiscated the Afghan military's weapons before it evacuated?

Anyways, the US first invaded Afghanistan just after 9/11, as part of its then-new "War on Terror" and an attempt to dismantle Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Not to seem insensitive, but the mission was never really about protecting Afghans. So now here we are, 20 years later, and we were faced with the decision to either stay there for a continued, indefinite amount of time or finally get out and letting the chips fall as they may but try to make the transition as quick and as least messy as possible. Even if it was Trump still in office and making those decisions, I'm not sure that process is even capable of being easy -- regardless of who was directing it.

Most people knew the Afgahn security forces were lazy, inept and would roll over like yellow belly dogs. Ask any soldier who had to serve time over there.
We tried to force our culture upon the unwilling and thought it would succeed.
It never will. Now its Chinas turn to burn. Good luck.

So why are people blaming Biden for the inevitable?

We have to remember that the Taliban is OUR creation. Funded, trained and armed lock, stock and barrel. One of the major reasons Tulsi Gabbard did not win the installation....er, I mean nomination to run for President. She told the truth. She even proposed a bill to stop funding our enemies, which did not pass.
Why would such a bill not pass? The answer is above our pay grade.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-...house-bill/608

"This bill prohibits the use of federal agency funds to provide covered assistance to: (1) Al Qaeda, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), or any individual or group that is affiliated with, associated with, cooperating with, or adherents to such groups; or (2) the government of any country that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) determines has, within the most recent 12 months, provided covered assistance to such a group or individual."

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I wear the red blobs proudly.

Because why not? "The buck stops here".

Not me, the most capable and largest intelligence network in the world. He was warned that the Taliban could be back in power, he was warned by the EU too. Though his own intelligence seem to have told him something else as he was saying a month ago there was no chance of a Taliban take over. There were even recommendations to maintain a small military presence in order to avoid the scenes we've seen in Kabul airport and to assist the Afghan in preventing a Taliban takeover.

He was warned and carried on regardless. Which is fair enough, he took the decision but now he needs to own it, rather than blaming everyone else and lying about what happened.

https://www.usip.org/sites/default/f...fghanistan.pdf

https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/us-troo...bidens-options

Yep. It's true. During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the US supplied weapons to Afghan militias, including radical Islamist factions, some of which later grew into becoming the Taliban. All just to piss off its Cold War enemy. The US sure likes to make a mess of things with its foreign policies. And then of course when something like 9/11 happens, the last thing they do is re-examine their foreign policies and the consequences of its meddling in the middle east.

And now due to its meddling in Afghanistan, the US has inadvertently supplied the Taliban with even more weapons when the Taliban took them from the Afghan army.

I just read that the US war in Afghanistan is the longest war in recorded history (20 years). I guess I have no idea if that's really true, but... Damn. Regardless of how messy it is, I'm just happy to see it finally coming to an end, and I suspect that our troops over there probably feel the same.

I'm sure the estimated 11,000 U.S citizens are feeling abandoned and scared at the moment as Biden would rather rescue Afgahn "refugees over U.S citizens"*.

*Seems to be a common theme with democrats these days.

W.T.F
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ghanistan.html

"The White House confirmed that it is relying on the Taliban to help provide safe passage for civilians looking to evacuate Afghanistan as the State Department warns US civilians there to 'shelter in place' until it is safe to leave."

US history, yes. Overall, a long way short.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ts_by_duration

So their supposed persecutors are their chaperones ?? Some refugees...

To add further to the shame for President Biden, the Taliban has given him a deadline to evacuate the last troops by September 11.

When you thought it was impossible to shame grandpa Jo any more.

Who said the Taliban weren't reasonable people?
The yanks need to get those cargo planes back in there. Taking 600 a go, shouldn't take too long.

Shame?

Biden was living on borrowed time anyway.
On Feb. 29, 2020, the Trump administration signed a “withdrawal” agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban that set the terms for the complete departure of American troops from Afghanistan by May 2021.

Biden has managed extremely well to stop the Taliban from killing US troops for reneging on the agreement and still being there.

Martin, your logic is interesting.

Taliban says US must stick to 9/11 exit date but ‘we will not attack them’


The only reason the Taliban haven't attacked any troops or locals is because they've already won. Letting the locals flee will create more problems for the west compared to beheading them live on twitter.

The Talibans are setting terms now and grandpa Joe is following. On purpose they say he must be out by 9/11 so they can celebrate the 20 years of the largest terror attack on US soil done by one of their compatriots on their newly liberated land. They are simply taking the piss on grandpa Joe. They are shaming him just like the Iranians did it with Jimmy Carter.

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"FAQ is not binding."