Afghanistan

Raoul said:
Despite having initiated the US withdrawal in the first place, Trump would've sent more troops in. (Great ratings).
Click to expand...
With numbers as high as 250k Afghans, NY Times estimate, still there that worked with the U.S. I don't see how anything short of extending not just the evacuation but the full war footing would have gotten this amount out and kept them back away from the airport and the city.

Biden fecked up sure but this is epic strategical failure decades in the making from all the joint forces.
 
Green_Red said:
The talk of China as a super power always positions China against individual Western states like USA. China vs USA will never be a thing. Its China vs USA, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Australia, Netherlands, Scandinavian countries, etc. The combined wealth of those economies dwarfs China, and their economic potential far outweighs China's. China is tolerated in the West because they produce cheap goods and have an insatiable appetite for raw materials, at a moments notice the West could pull the plug on China and they would be funked. Good luck selling consumer products into Russia. Military wise the West would annihilate China and any country sitting on the fence, India, Saudi Arabia wouldn't take long to side with the West over China.
Click to expand...
The mightiest weapon going for the US is the dollar and the banking system.
 
Hamnat said:
With numbers as high as 250k Afghans, NY Times estimate, still there that worked with the U.S. I don't see how anything short of extending not just the evacuation but the full war footing would have gotten this amount out and kept them back away from the airport and the city.

Biden fecked up sure but this is epic strategical failure decades in the making from all the joint forces.
Click to expand...

Short of remaining in Afghanistan and continuing with business as usual, the other options were all losing ones. Getting out was always going to be messy due to the large about of Afghans who qualify for SIVs and all the Americans scattered across the country.
 
pauldyson1uk said:
OK so US servicemen have been confirmed killed, so what happens now ?
Does Biden send in troop the secure the airport and surrounding area or does he just take it so to speak and carry on.
Click to expand...
Problem for Biden is, he doesn't know who to hit. The suicide attack was not from the Taliban. If it was Trump he probably would have started indiscriminately dropping bombs without regard who they hit. Actually...that has happened under pretty much every US president hasn't it.
 
nimic said:
That's not the motivation at all. ISIS have been killing Afghans for years now. (Well, not ISIS, in Norway we just say IS so it's easy to forget that ISIS is technically more specific).
Click to expand...
It's IS-K (for Khorasan), technically.
VorZakone said:
Sometimes I doubt suicide bombers think it through that deep.
Click to expand...
They probably don't, they've been brainwashed into being willing to do this. But whoever did that and sends them in has definitely thought this through.
 
Fearless said:
This isn't about Trump now. This is about a gibbering collection of organs pretending to able lead the free world.
Click to expand...
Biden does what he's told, I have a hard time believing he's done anything but follow the majority opinion, whatever his military advisors said. There doesn't seem to be much disagreement between Republican and Democrat presidents on using the military to maintain the American Empire.

While I agree Biden is useless, I don't think he's done anything but follow the same bad line of thinking that got US troops into that country. According to the action paper for the Project for a New American Century, they thought they had to secure the region before China took control, along with others, to secure continued American dominance of the world. For my money, Al Qaeda was an excuse to go in.
 
The Firestarter said:
Problem for Biden is, he doesn't know who to hit. The suicide attack was not from the Taliban. If it was Trump he probably would have started indiscriminately dropping bombs without regard who they hit. Actually...that has happened under pretty much every US president hasn't it.
Click to expand...
Yeah, would carpet bombing even register? Besides bringing back all the troops and reoccupying I don't see what he can do.
 
ooeat0meoo said:
For some clarity, this is the very same Taliban that said, 'No Afghans are permitted to leave the country' and 'The August 31st date is a red line'

Gen Kenneth McKenzie is being hustled by the Taliban
Click to expand...

It's about saving face. Watch the western military/political establishment drop all that talk about Taliban reprisals against collaborators, women's rights and massacres of minorities like the Hazara and start talking about the Taliban as partners.

DavidDeSchmikes said:
Click to expand...


Eeeesh that's fecked. The Taliban know the US is not gonna risk inflaming things by sending more troops in now, so the people on that list are at the Taliban's mercy.
 
Feels lke the Biden administration has been shooting itself in the feet every week for the last month or so.
 
The Firestarter said:
Feels lke the Biden administration has been shooting itself in the feet every week for the last month or so.
Click to expand...
Something tells me they just wanted to get the withdrawal done as quickly as possible and perhaps they calculated the voting public would quickly forget how bad it went.
 
VorZakone said:
Something tells me they just wanted to get the withdrawal done as quickly as possible and perhaps they calculated the voting public would quickly forget how bad it went.
Click to expand...

yes and several top news agency writers/pundits at the beginning, last Monday and Tuesday were hinting that exact sentiment. I'm guessing the White House press sec. Jen Psaki had said it to a group of people off the record. One specific example had been Maggie Habermann of the NY Times
 
Last edited:
Stanley Road said:
I think the US should fly bombers around kabul without dropping any bombs. Then maybe let a few land in deserted areas in the neighbourhood just to say 'don't test us'.
Click to expand...

The US has been dropping bombs all over Afghanistan for the last 20 years. Their indiscriminate bombing campaigns are probably a massive reason why the Taliban are so popular in rural Afghanistan. I doubt the Taliban/IS are gonna change their plans because there are US warplanes in the sky - if anything that would increase the tension.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.