Biden will not extend troop withdrawal deadline in Afghanistan

[gator1776]

I’m sorry but I don’t think we’ve ever looked more important as a country in our entire history.
The freaking Taliban dictates to us not to extend the deadline and to leave the Afghan elites in their country, they are dictating to us who we can evacuate. We have to start withdrawal by Friday to get out on time.

What a bunch of impotent bitches running this country right now.

 

[dingyibvs]

I mean, it's kind of their country now.

 

[BamaFan1137]

I mean, it's kind of their country now.

Meaning it's ok if we can't get everyone out on time?

A better leader would have let them know...

"We're leaving. This shithole is yours. However, if we can't get everyone out that we want to get out, we'll stay until we can...and shit will get decidedly uncomfortable for you and yours if you interfere."

 

[dingyibvs]

Meaning it's ok if we can't get everyone out on time?

A better leader would have let them know...

"We're leaving. This shithole is yours. However, if we can't get everyone out that we want to get out, we'll stay until we can...and shit will get decidedly uncomfortable for you and yours if you interfere."

Yes. I believe we've had like what, a year or so to get our people out? What sovereign is gonna agree to indefinite occupation for the purpose of getting whoever the eff someone else wants to get out of their country? How much more uncomfortable can you make them than 20 years of occupation?

Look at it through Biden's perspective. He's already eff'd up the withdrawal. If he stays longer than the deadline, the war might restart and the withdrawal may not even happen, and whoever's left might get executed anyway. Do you think it's easier for him to spin that, or to spin it as "everyone who wanted to get out, got out"?

 

[BamaFan1137]

Yes. I believe we've had like what, a year or so to get our people out? What sovereign is gonna agree to indefinite occupation for the purpose of getting whoever the eff someone else wants to get out of their country? How much more uncomfortable can you make them than 20 years of occupation?

I'm not saying that they should agree. I'm stating that they should comply.

They've recaptured the country because we've decided to leave. We can damn sure make life more dangerous for the Taliban if we so choose on our way out.

The Taliban respects strength and preys on weakness. They know it's in their own best interest to not force us to re-engage, even if only temporarily to get people out. Make the butchers bill higher than they wish to pay. That's negotiating from a position of strength...and I'm guessing that's what the Taliban initially expected.

Look at it through Biden's perspective. He's already eff'd up the withdrawal. If he stays longer than the deadline, the war might restart and the withdrawal may not even happen, and whoever's left might get executed anyway. Do you think it's easier for him to spin that, or to spin it as "everyone who wanted to get out, got out"?

We can leave anytime, at our choosing. Hostilities can flare up and then we leave when it's time, after all are out, as well.

At this point the ONLY goal is to get our people out. After that, it's theirs to destroy how they see fit.

 

[dingyibvs]

I agree that it's in the Taliban's best interest to allow us to do so, but we need to do it differently than when we demanded OBL from them. We gave a public ultimatum to them back then, which they could not possibly agree to given their legitimacy derives largely from their reputation as defenders of Afghani sovereignty. If we had done so more under the table they might have acquiesced to our request and even helped us since they knew we were gonna come after OBL with or without their consent, and that we would ultimately succeed. This whole 20 year fiasco could've been avoided, though I understand the need to demonstrate strength after 9/11.

I think if we negotiate under the table, they'll allow us to do so. Not with USAF planes, of course, but with commercial airlines. We get our people back with at least some semblance of dignity and without restarting the war, and they get to play the magnanimous new rulers of Afghanistan while upholding their reputation as the defenders of Afghani sovereignty.

 

[BamaFan1137]

I agree that it's in the Taliban's best interest to allow us to do so, but we need to do it differently than when we demanded OBL from them. We gave a public ultimatum to them back then, which they could not possibly agree to given their legitimacy derives largely from their reputation as defenders of Afghani sovereignty. If we had done so more under the table they might have acquiesced to our request and even helped us since they knew we were gonna come after OBL with or without their consent, and that we would ultimately succeed. This whole 20 year fiasco could've been avoided, though I understand the need to demonstrate strength after 9/11.

I think if we negotiate under the table, they'll allow us to do so. Not with USAF planes, of course, but with commercial airlines. We get our people back with at least some semblance of dignity and without restarting the war, and they get to play the magnanimous new rulers of Afghanistan while upholding their reputation as the defenders of Afghani sovereignty.

I have no issue if this conversation occurs in private. I just want the conversation to occur.

With Biden and his administration, I would be shocked if it did.

 

[BamaFan1137]

Not with USAF planes, of course, but with commercial airlines.

This sounds like a recipe for disaster imo btw. No way would I want to be a civilian pilot or flight crew in such a circumstance.

 

[gator1776]

I mean, it's kind of their country now.

It’s always been their country what does that have to do with us dictating to them how we will get our citizens out of their country?

 

[dingyibvs]

This sounds like a recipe for disaster imo btw. No way would I want to be a civilian pilot or flight crew in such a circumstance.

Well, doesn't have to be civilian pilot or flight crew, it just needs to look civilian.

 

[gator1776]

Well, doesn't have to be civilian pilot or flight crew, it just needs to look civilian.

Yeah but what if you knew that by leaving behind force of 2500 American Military personnel in control of one airbase in Afghanistan would’ve prevented the fall of the Afghanistan government and all of the chaos we’re seeing right now? What would you have done??

 

[BCSpell]

I’m sorry but I don’t think we’ve ever looked more important as a country in our entire history.
The freaking Taliban dictates to us not to extend the deadline and to leave the Afghan elites in their country, they are dictating to us who we can evacuate. We have to start withdrawal by Friday to get out on time.

What a bunch of impotent bitches running this country right now.

 

[dingyibvs]

Yeah but what if you knew that by leaving behind force of 2500 American Military personnel in control of one airbase in Afghanistan would’ve prevented the fall of the Afghanistan government and all of the chaos we’re seeing right now? What would you have done??

Wouldn't that be the status quo? I'd still get out. More American lives and treasure to support that corrupt, backstabbing Afghani government is not acceptable to me. If you want to spend that $50+ billion a year for humanitarian reasons, there are plenty of places in the world you can do so. Heck, put that money into Central America and Haiti, and we can probably cut down on illegal immigration by a lot too.

This may be a long read, but here's some context on what was really happening on the ground, and what kind of crap we were involved in.

The Entirely Predictable Failure of the West's Mission in Afghanistan

In early July, I met with a leading Taliban military commander. I asked when his fighters would arrive in Kabul. His answer: "They are already there." How the Afghanistan mission failed and what happens next.

www.spiegel.de

Elements within the Afghanistan government tricked the US military into attacking their rivals, resulting in the infamous Wedding Bombing:

In the bombed village in Uruzgan, it quickly became apparent that the story behind the wedding bombing had unfolded rather differently. The Americans hadn’t just attacked from the air, but had rolled in with a convoy of heavily armed infantrymen. It hadn’t been self-defense at all, but a planned attack. Members of a Kandahar tribe had accused allies of President Hamid Karzai of being members of the Taliban.

If you couldn’t defeat the Americans, you could apparently use them for your own purposes. It was a pattern that would repeat itself over and over again, and which would contribute to the abject failure of the intervention. The great tribal council meeting in Kabul in June 2002 "was the moment when it failed," recalls Thomas Ruttig, who was a UN official from Germany at the time, but who later co-founded the Afghanistan Analysts Network. "The moment when U.S. Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad brought back the warlords." They were the men who had destroyed the country in the earlier civil war, but who had helped the U.S. government of President George W. Bush in the fight against the Taliban.

Khalilzad and others forced the tribal council to include 50 additional men on top of the elected representatives – militia leaders who had ruled with fear and aggression before the arrival of the Taliban. They were men like Mohammed "Marshal" Fahim, a Tajik leader who stood accused of perpetrating massacres and kidnappings. And Rashid Dostum, the Uzbek leader who murdered several hundred imprisoned Taliban and later had his opponents raped with bottles. Both of them would go on to serve as vice president of the country. The new holders of power remained uncompromising. They immediately set about exacting revenge on their former enemies and plundering the new government.

Backstory on the UN mission massacre, conveniently allowing Karzai to stay in power and warding off an internationally supported second election.

At daybreak of Oct. 28, three attackers launched an assault on the UN guesthouse in Kabul, shot the guards to death, pushed their way into the courtyard and set about slaughtering the almost 30 UN employees inside. But they unexpectedly met resistance. Louis Maxwell, a former U.S. soldier and security officer, was able to hold back the attackers from a rooftop for one-and-a-half hours. No help came from the Afghan police or the army – right in the heart of Kabul. Once the three attackers set off their suicide belts, Maxwell staggered out, while four other UN employees were calling others on the outside telling them they would also emerge from hiding.

Just minutes later, they were all dead, the four shot from the front. Maxwell was hit as he was standing on the street between two Afghan soldiers. Neither of them batted an eyelash. They then dragged his body into the courtyard. Months later, internal UN investigators only managed to make progress with their inquiry thanks to a chance video of Maxwell’s murder made by a German security officer from a rooftop several buildings away. But it was all supposed to remain confidential.

In summer 2010, an FBI investigator asked to meet with me in Kabul. When I asked what would happen next, he just shook his head. There would be no further investigations. Washington, he said, didn’t want to expose Karzai. Following the attack, half of the UN staff was pulled out of the country and the second election was cancelled. Hamid Karzai got the victory he wanted.

 

[EvilWayz]

Well, doesn't have to be civilian pilot or flight crew, it just needs to look civilian.

We have plenty of regular planes stateside that look like civilian airliners. Now that I think of it they are civilian airplanes, just owned by the military. We use them for space-a flights.

 

[Gator Fever]

Unbelievable what Biden and company allowed to happen here when they could have evacuated everyone they needed to in an orderly manner and protected the military equipment prior to removing most of the US troops. I doubt this withdrawal could have been done any worse.

 

[gator1776]

Wouldn't that be the status quo? I'd still get out. More American lives and treasure to support that corrupt, backstabbing Afghani government is not acceptable to me. If you want to spend that $50+ billion a year for humanitarian reasons, there are plenty of places in the world you can do so. Heck, put that money into Central America and Haiti, and we can probably cut down on illegal immigration by a lot too.

This may be a long read, but here's some context on what was really happening on the ground, and what kind of crap we were involved in.

The Entirely Predictable Failure of the West's Mission in Afghanistan

In early July, I met with a leading Taliban military commander. I asked when his fighters would arrive in Kabul. His answer: "They are already there." How the Afghanistan mission failed and what happens next.

www.spiegel.de

Elements within the Afghanistan government tricked the US military into attacking their rivals, resulting in the infamous Wedding Bombing:


Backstory on the UN mission massacre, conveniently allowing Karzai to stay in power and warding off an internationally supported second election.

I get where you’re coming from but staying in a country with a military presence for 60 years to prevent that country from falling and changing a particular region of the world from being a hotbed to a stable zone worked really well for us in Germany and Korea and we had already spent 20 years so why not another 40? Another way to look at it as we have not lost a single American casualty in 18 months and now we’re at risk of losing several because of a botched evacuation when all we really had to do was just leave 2400 troops stationed over there in a rotation. I mean the troops don’t mind or in the military to be deployed to a base somewhere.

 

[NavigatorII]

I'm all for leaving those God forsaken hell holes where peace will never be achieved due to their belief in jihadism. It's not the leaving I'm against, it's the amateurish way they went about it. The military should have been the last group to abandon ship, firing at will on their way out. This whole mess is beyond retarded, but par for the Biden admin course.

 

[Gator Fever]

I'm all for leaving those God forsaken hell holes where peace will never be achieved due to their belief in jihadism. It's not the leaving I'm against, it's the amateurish way they went about it. The military should have been the last group to abandon ship, firing at will on their way out. This whole mess is beyond retarded, but par for the Biden admin course.

My belief also. Not sure the withdrawal could have been done any worse.

 

[dingyibvs]

I get where you’re coming from but staying in a country with a military presence for 60 years to prevent that country from falling and changing a particular region of the world from being a hotbed to a stable zone worked really well for us in Germany and Korea and we had already spent 20 years so why not another 40? Another way to look at it as we have not lost a single American casualty in 18 months and now we’re at risk of losing several because of a botched evacuation when all we really had to do was just leave 2400 troops stationed over there in a rotation. I mean the troops don’t mind or in the military to be deployed to a base somewhere.

What changed the past 18 months? We were negotiating with the Taliban regarding our withdrawal. The sooner we get out of there the better, and today's events only reinforce that to me.

Germany and SK are vastly different from Afghanistan. For one, our occupation started at a time when our GDP was ~50% that of the world's, now it's ~25%. Secondly, we had allies nearby, and logistics were relatively simple. Afghanistan is surrounded by our enemies or countries who are under the thumbs of our enemies. Our only reliable supply route is through Pakistan, a country that has probably supported the Taliban more than they've supported us. Last and certainly not the least, is that the local populations in Germany and SK supported us, most Afghanis don't. Don't be fooled by the media portrayal of how Afghans love us, some in the major cities, a lot more would love to emigrate here, but the Taliban could not have taken over the country this quickly without the overwhelming support of the locals, particularly outside the cities where the majority live.

 

[gator1776]

What changed the past 18 months? We were negotiating with the Taliban regarding our withdrawal. The sooner we get out of there the better, and today's events only reinforce that to me.

Germany and SK are vastly different from Afghanistan. For one, our occupation started at a time when our GDP was ~50% that of the world's, now it's ~25%. Secondly, we had allies nearby, and logistics were relatively simple. Afghanistan is surrounded by our enemies or countries who are under the thumbs of our enemies. Our only reliable supply route is through Pakistan, a country that has probably supported the Taliban more than they've supported us. Last and certainly not the least, is that the local populations in Germany and SK supported us, most Afghanis don't. Don't be fooled by the media portrayal of how Afghans love us, some in the major cities, a lot more would love to emigrate here, but the Taliban could not have taken over the country this quickly without the overwhelming support of the locals, particularly outside the cities where the majority live.

Respectfully disagree.

 

[Uniformed_ReRe]

Wouldn't that be the status quo? I'd still get out. More American lives and treasure to support that corrupt, backstabbing Afghani government is not acceptable to me. If you want to spend that $50+ billion a year for humanitarian reasons, there are plenty of places in the world you can do so. Heck, put that money into Central America and Haiti, and we can probably cut down on illegal immigration by a lot too.

This may be a long read, but here's some context on what was really happening on the ground, and what kind of crap we were involved in.

The Entirely Predictable Failure of the West's Mission in Afghanistan

In early July, I met with a leading Taliban military commander. I asked when his fighters would arrive in Kabul. His answer: "They are already there." How the Afghanistan mission failed and what happens next.

www.spiegel.de

Elements within the Afghanistan government tricked the US military into attacking their rivals, resulting in the infamous Wedding Bombing:


Backstory on the UN mission massacre, conveniently allowing Karzai to stay in power and warding off an internationally supported second election.

This is a great article—well worth reading about what went wrong.