Heading to be the one if the worst Presidents since the war. Other than not being Donald, is there anything redeemable about the man?

And yet if Biden wasn't getting our troops out of Afghanistan as he said he would and by the time he said he would, he would be criticized for THAT.

Shit. At least he has the balls to finally get it done. We should have been out of there years ago.

he = Donald.

Any war in particular?

And if Donald was still President, and we had rushed to get troops out by May 1st, it would have been even messier.

How so?

No. We would all be positively surprised because we expected it to be even more messier

AFAIK, there was a "side-plan" to properly evacuate civilian helpers of the US-army.

It was apparently scrapped by the current administration, because Donald.

IMO, Biden has weakened the US beyond repair with this silly stunt.

He's done by Christmas and then we'll get Kamala, who is just a different kind of worse.

While you may say I hold no horse in this race because I don't live in America, the consequences of this debacle will be felt by everybody, and pretty soon.

Actually, the best of the past 20+ years!

Tom

Well, how exactly would it have been less messy to get them out sooner -- to have sped the process up even more, to have them out by May 1st? How would that have solved the refugee crisis, how would that have prevented Afghanis from not wanting US troops to leave, and how would that have more effectively prepared the Afghan army, how would that have prevented the Taliban take-over, etc.?

The reason Biden didn't pull our remaining troops out by May 1st is because it was too difficult. It's hard for me to imagine, considering the current difficulties, that it would have been LESS difficult or less messy than it is now, if the process had been sped up to meet that May 1st deadline.

Due to Trump's deal, 5,000 Taliban prisoners had been released, despite Afghan President Ashraf Ghani begging for those prisoners to not be released, but was forced to do so due to continued pressure from the the Trump administration to release them. That was in March of 2020. Violence spiked after the release of those prisoners, making it all the more difficult to safely pull out remaining US troops.

This is a good timeline:

https://www.factcheck.org/2021/08/ti...m-afghanistan/

So yeah, it's a mess. But it was already a mess.

What exactly -- and where exactly -- is this "side plan?" Trump was still in office just months before his set-deadline of May 1st, and there were still 2,500 US troops in Afghanistan. And meanwhile, the situation there was becoming worse and worse as Taliban-violence was escalating.

This is what Biden had said during a press conference on March 21st:

“it’s going to be hard to meet the May 1 deadline. Just in terms of tactical reasons, it’s hard to get those troops out.” He assures that “if we leave, we’re going to do so in a safe and orderly way.” Without committing to a pullout date, Biden says, “it is not my intention to stay there for a long time. But the question is: How and in what circumstances do we meet that agreement that was made by President Trump to leave under a deal that looks like it’s not being able to be worked out to begin with? How is that done? But we are not staying a long time.”

It had nothing to do with "because Donald." It was because Biden felt it was too difficult to safely remove troops by that May 1st deadline.

The full picture is available at various places online, including at

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021...y=90&auto=webp
Haqqani is carrying a US gun (M4). To his left (right on the picture), his bodyguard is an Afghan in the uniform of the US-trained ANSF special forces.
The NYT's accompanying text says:
Alas I think the NYT is dreaming on with that last half-sentence, though that is typical of their muddled denials in reporting.


I don't believe what he said, but this certainly shows that they have become more sophisticated in the last 20 years.


Well done, America!

America's "War on Terror" is biting itself in the ass.

All that US equipment had been provided to Afghan security forces and was then taken from them by the Taliban. I wonder what percentage of the guns and military equipment in the world -- or even just in the Middle East -- have been manufactured by the US, which is the world's top producer of weapons.

And the wheel just keeps spinning and spinning...

This is why we should have gotten out of there years ago. We just kept providing the Afghan army with more and more weapons, and now they're falling into the hands of the Taliban.

The Western soldiers were there to protect civilians, specifically to allow women to receive and education.

Unfortunately many start to share the sentiment.

Donald had an excuse, he is a major idiot.

What's Biden's excuse?

I would add an excuse for Trump, though he is indeed an irresponsible idiot: His military massively lied to him and sabotaged his withdrawal orders from occupied lands including Syria, Afghanistan and Germany.
No such excuse for Biden.

I'm asking this as a genuine question... What exactly should Biden have done differently so that people such as yourself would be pleased with his handling of the situation in Afghanistan?

These decisions are not made and haven't been made by either Trump nor Biden. Just because a politician says "We...", it doesn't meant he includes himself.

Errr, gotten the civilians out before the troops? Told his supposed allies in NATO what the plan was? Maybe prepared a plan B?

The US kept funding a corrupt government the Afghan citizens weren’t loyal to.
The US realized their puppet government was corrupt but refused to acknowledge it.
Despite failing in setting up a government, the US managed, with others, to keep the Taliban from spreading during their occupation.
The US and UK failed miserably in anticipating speed of the Taliban takeover.

Biden caught the tail end of a 20-year mission gone awry. Talibistan is here to stay unless the locals choose to create a United front against them. Considering the Taliban’s strong military arsenal, the locals will have little chance in winning.

The vicious circle continues.

__________________
Faith isn't about everything turning out okay. Faith is about being okay no matter how things turn out.

Let's forget about Trump. What is a factual list he has done well or badly? I am not following this too closely apart from some specific topics so please add (and yes of course the judgement of good/bad will differ).let's see whether we can get the topics right, then everybody can rate them themselves.

Good / rather good:
Vaxx roll-out logistics
Infrastructure bill with 19 GOP senate votes
OECD minimum tax push
Rejoin Paris agreement
...

Bad / rather bad:
Helicopter money (most of GOP supported) / overall spending
Operation of Afghan withdrawal
...


Jury still out / not clear:
China policy
Immigration
...