31–40 of 225 posts
Fall of Saigon v2. Although I have to say the speed at which the Taliban took over once the US pulled out is pretty astonishing: it's clear they have a strong level of popular support.
It's clear that in the past 30 years afganistan did not have a functioning government at all. Its not about popular support, its a failure of 'statebuilding'
https://observers.france24.com/en/20200218-afghanistan-corru...
I was told in January this year by many gleeful people they were so happy that "competence" was coming back into the US administration. What an absolute bunch of morons and their failures. *Edit: to answer the questions about "what should have been done instead", here is my reply from further down the page: I would have liked to see a withdrawal that did not turn back the clock 20 years to where we were in August 200…
I was told in January this year by many gleeful people they were so happy that "competence" was coming back into the US administration. What an absolute bunch of morons and their failures. *Edit: to answer the questions about "what should have been done instead", here is my reply from further down the page: I would have liked to see a withdrawal that did not turn back the clock 20 years to where we were in August 200…
Fall of Saigon v2. Although I have to say the speed at which the Taliban took over once the US pulled out is pretty astonishing: it's clear they have a strong level of popular support.
The corruption is so bad soldiers in hospitals starved to death. It's clear that in the past 30 years afganistan did not have a functioning government at all. Its not about popular support, its a failure of 'statebuilding' https://observers.france24.com/en/20200218-afghanistan-corru...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
petro-dollar support from the gulf if actually exists was peanuts compared to 100s of billions from the US, Nato and India.
What makes you think they don’t get the same amount from the Gulf? Only US and NATO provided military assistance. Others like India invested billions in constructive projects like Salma dam.
I guess the Afghan army should have focused more on quality than size to be able to afford talanted soldiers.
EDIT (in response to reply, since I got the dreaded rate limiting message): Trump didn’t initiate a departure. He set up a deal that included numerous conditions and phases contingent on commitments and actions from both the Taliban and Afghanistan government (https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-sign-historic-deal-taliba...). But it really doesn’t matter. Biden is either the President or he isn’t. The withdrawal timeline he set and executed is his to own. Anything less than full ownership means he isn’t fit to be President.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What makes you think they don’t get the same amount from the Gulf? Only US and NATO provided military assistance. Others like India invested billions in constructive projects like Salma dam.
What would the talibans do with the money? It is quite obvious the Afghan army has a more expensive operation than talibans with rifles and pickups. I guess the Afghan army should have focused more on quality than size to be able to afford talanted soldiers.
What a failure of the US armed forces here. 20 damn years staying in the country with the only 2 goal - to help Afghans build an army and help defend themselves and to eradicate the Taliban. They failed miserably in both. Trillions spent and many lost lives. Why would we ever pour money into such a terrible, incompetent system? Of course, the cycle keeps repeating itself and we keep growing the military.
This is a management issue. For all of the failings of the current US president, getting the hell out of an endless, unnecessary war is a good thing.
I was told in January this year by many gleeful people they were so happy that "competence" was coming back into the US administration. What an absolute bunch of morons and their failures. *Edit: to answer the questions about "what should have been done instead", here is my reply from further down the page: I would have liked to see a withdrawal that did not turn back the clock 20 years to where we were in August 200…
I share your frustration - this withdrawal literally couldn't have been done worse. They were so ill prepared they left weapons for the Taliban to pick up, seemingly had zero plan for evacuation of their embassies and failed to tell allied embassies.
A withdrawal was definitely on the cards though - printing money for a year whilst people don't work has had a massive effect on the US economy. It just could have been done better. After all those deaths, after all that money spent, after setting up a Democratic government - and it goes down like this.
I would also take a moment to point out the fact that China is highly likely to have been involved, they literally were in talks months before this went down [1].
> What an absolute bunch of morons and their failures.
I think we can quite fairly call this one a failure by the Biden administration - Trump had zero involvement in their withdrawal planning.
[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/29/china/china-taliban-tianj...