Biden to address nation on Afghanistan 'soon'

[Stevicus]

I am glad we're leaving. Who can honestly say they thought things would change there because of a rotation of warriors? Warriors don't go and merge into the culture. Our soldiers dreamed of returning home, not staying; or even if they wanted to stay we wouldn't let them. We never conquered the place, so we shouldn't have stayed. There was always going to be a time like this when the forces would have to be recalled and a result similar to this.

Yes, although I guess the key question is: What now? Should we try to learn something from this, so that we can refrain from making future mistakes? That seems to be our main problem, that we don't learn anything from any of our past failures.

One thing that I would note, at least when looking over the successes and failures of US foreign and military policies, is that our leaders may have misapplied policies which ostensibly worked to gain hegemony over Latin America, but didn't work when those same policies were applied in East Asia or the Middle East. They might look at Iraq or Afghanistan and think "oh, it's just another banana republic" and reach rather superficial and specious conclusions about what they're dealing with.

 

[metis]

I chose the last curtain, and I felt from the get-go that this was a wild-goose chase that would not end well.

 

[metis]

Did anyone who voted for Joe Biden expect a brilliant military strategist?

Actually, he was very much better informed than Trump, and one must remember that Trump wanted our forces out by May 1st of this year.

 

[Mock Turtle]

I voted Other, and I'll wait until we get better information as to why it all collapsed so quickly. I have suspicions but will reserve these until later.

 

[esmith]

All of the above except for

What military strategy - within the limits of Trump's withdrawal agreement - do you think Biden should have done?

Let see now, President Trump wanted troops out by May, correct?
Stumbling Joe said to early, correct?
So just what plan did Stumbling Joe come up with by waiting until Aug?
Oh, by the way do you know for a fact that President Trump wasn't going to leave a residual froce there like the military said we should do?
We know that Stumbling Joe isn't going to...he is cutting and running.

 

[esmith]

Actually, he was very much better informed than Trump, and one must remember that Trump wanted our forces out by May 1st of this year.

So, what did Stumbling Joe do between May and Aug?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

All of the above except for

Let see now, President Trump wanted troops out by May, correct?
Stumbling Joe said to early, correct?
So just what plan did Stumbling Joe come up with by waiting until Aug?
Oh, by the way do you know for a fact that President Trump wasn't going to leave a residual froce there like the military said we should do?
We know that Stumbling Joe isn't going to...he is cutting and running.

Do you have an answer to my question?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Iraq was a great victory when Bush stood on the Carrier in 2003 with the banner "Mission Accomplished."

I'm still trying to figure out what in the hell he actually meant by that.
But PR and effective public speaking were not Bush Jr.'s high points. It seems to be an equally blunderous gaffe as "rarely is the question asked: is our children learning?"

 

[Brickjectivity]

Yes, although I guess the key question is: What now? Should we try to learn something from this, so that we can refrain from making future mistakes? That seems to be our main problem, that we don't learn anything from any of our past failures.

USA is learning and has been learning since its founding. Things have gotten better. The situation was much, much worse 200 years ago. Keep in mind, too, that USA has been coping with a lot. The dollar is everywhere. We have bases in many places. These are affecting us and so is the industrial military complex which Eisenhower warned us against. I don't remember, but I think we aren't set up constitutionally to be an empire. I think it is unconstitutional to remain so.

One thing that I would note, at least when looking over the successes and failures of US foreign and military policies, is that our leaders may have misapplied policies which ostensibly worked to gain hegemony over Latin America, but didn't work when those same policies were applied in East Asia or the Middle East. They might look at Iraq or Afghanistan and think "oh, it's just another banana republic" and reach rather superficial and specious conclusions about what they're dealing with.

I think WW2 messed with us on a religious level, not merely a political level. There are political forces, not Satanic forces. I think we are strongly affected by a superstition which blinds us but not forever. You can see this (what I am calling a superstition) affecting various US policies. How about the war on drugs? How about our treatment of welfare programs? How about our ongoing arguments about pro-choice pro-life? Its got a finger in every pie. Every evil is to be externalized and fought. Its never within us unless it is in some group that we can point the finger at.

 

[esmith]

What military strategy - within the limits of Trump's withdrawal agreement - do you think Biden should have done?

Do you have an answer to my question?

At least keep a presence there until those that assisted the coalition have left the country. Insist that we are not going anywhere until the current elected government and the Taliban reach a mutually agreed plan for governing the country.
Of course there is no reason the Taliban would stick to any agreement after foreign military has left the country.

On the other side.
Stop using the U.S. military to nation build. That isn't their job.

 

[Augustus]

It is rather odd that the poll in this thread has more people blaming Trump than Biden who is actually in power and could have changed whatever he liked about the previous agreement.

If this state of affairs had happened under Trump, those doing their level best to absolve Biden for any responsibility for his actions would have been howling with outrage.

Trump probably wouldn't have done any better, but the fact is he lost and Biden is running the show now.

It's like the Trump fanboys who blamed Obama or Hillary for every failing for years.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

At least keep a presence there until those that assisted the coalition have left the country. Insist that we are not going anywhere until the current elected government and the Taliban reach a mutually agreed plan for governing the country.
Of course there is no reason the Taliban would stick to any agreement after foreign military has left the country.

On the other side.
Stop using the U.S. military to nation build. That isn't their job.

I do think the military should have stayed around to assist Afghanistan against the Taliban, much like how it assisted Iraq in the fight against ISIS. It wasn't a massive presence of boots on the ground, it wasn't taking charge and taking over, basically lending a decisive advantage by clearing the way from above for the Iraqis to take the ground fight to ISIS and allowing the local governments to take down that group. In my opinion this should have been done in Afghanistan.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

At least keep a presence there until those that assisted the coalition have left the country.

The deal Trump agreed to meant that the US had to be out of Afghanistan by September. You think a few weeks would be enough to do all that?

Insist that we are not going anywhere until the current elected government and the Taliban reach a mutually agreed plan for governing the country.

A bit difficult to follow through on that, since the Taliban had already said that any foreign troops remaining after the deadline would be attacked, and the troop withdrawals under Trump left the remaining forces in Afghanistan vulnerable to such an attack.

 

[Stevicus]

'I stand squarely behind my decision': Biden defends handling of Afghanistan as Taliban seizes Kabul (msn.com)

 

[Stevicus]

'I stand squarely behind my decision': Biden defends handling of Afghanistan as Taliban seizes Kabul (msn.com)

"I stand squarely behind my decision," Biden said during a prepared speech at the White House.

Biden said Afghan officials – including former President Ashraf Ghani – had assured him Afghan forces would fight the insurgents.

“The truth is, this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated,” Biden said.

The president interrupted a working vacation at Camp David to make his first public comments about the Taliban's takeover of the country, a foreign policy debacle – particularly for a president who came to the office with decades of foreign policy experience.

He took no questions from reporters and quickly went back to the presidential retreat.

Taliban fighters completed their stunning sweep by seizing control of Afghanistan’s capital Sunday as American troops scrambled to evacuate thousands of U.S. diplomats and Afghans from the U.S. Embassy.

Biden said there have been "gut-wrenching" scenes in Afghanistan as the U.S. struggles to pull out its people. He defended his overall plan to withdraw from the country, as well as efforts to close the embassy and secure the airport in order to fly people to safety.

Addressing criticism about why the evacuation of Afghanis didn't happen sooner, Biden said some didn't want to leave because they were still hopeful about the outcome. He also said the administration didn't want to trigger a crisis of confidence.

He also said he followed through on a withdrawal plan developed during the administration of former President Donald Trump.

Biden tried to justify the troop withdrawal, saying at one point "I know my decision will be criticized."

While claiming "my share of responsibly" for what eventually happened, Biden said he did not want to pass along an unsolvable problem to yet another president.

“I cannot and will not ask our troops to fight on endlessly in another country's civil war,” he said

Biden added there "was never a good time to withdraw US forces."

Afghan security forces dissolved as the Taliban raced to Kabul in a matter to days. Protesters blocked access to the airport as the U.S. scrambled to get its people out of the country.

At one point, dozens of supporters jogged beside and in front of a military transport plane, trying to prevent it from taking off. Some clung to the plane itself and fell to their deaths as it ascended.

The Republicans are criticizing Biden.

Speaking just before Biden's speech, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., called the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban "an embarrassment for our country and a victory for terrorists around the world."

McConnell said the U.S. has "abandoned the women and children of Afghanistan to these barbarians," and left behind thousands of Afghan allies. "We turned our backs on our friends and left the country in chaos," said the Senate's top Republican.

Republicans and other critics said Biden did too much finger-pointing and not enough accepting responsibility for what has become a mess in Afghanistan.

"Biden’s surrender strengthens our terrorist enemies, hands them a massive new caliphate, abandons our allies & ensures a longer, costlier war for years to come," tweeted Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo.

In a brief statement, Trump said "it's not that we left Afghanistan. It's the grossly incompetent way we left!"

Democrats generally stood behind Biden, but said little about the problems with the withdrawal. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi cited the president's warnings to the Taliban about their behavior, saying "the world is watching its actions. We are concerned about reports regarding the Taliban’s brutal treatment of all Afghans, especially women and girls."

Others said there's plenty of blame to go around.

"I blame both Trump for this moment coming, and Biden for this botched ending," tweeted Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill. "I’m not picking sides, because both sides have failed you. It’s the truth about #Afghanistan."

Before Biden made his brief return from Camp David , National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan made the rounds of the news shows to defend the administration.

“The president had to make the best possible choice he could and he stands by that decision,” Sullivan said on NBC’s “Today" show.

But the Biden comments that much of the media continue to highlight are the president’s previous optimistic statements that it was “highly unlikely” that the Taliban would overrun the entire country after the U.S. withdrew from its 20-year involvement.

Is Biden "hiding"?

Republicans called for Biden to – as Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse put it – “come out of hiding, and take charge of the mess he created.”

“President Biden needs to man up,” Sasse tweeted.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., was equally blunt.

“Mr. President,” McCarthy tweeted, along with video of Afghani's climbing aboard a taxiing U.S. Air Force jet, “Do your job and address the nation.”

Biden, who left Washington on Thursday, had been scheduled to be in Camp David in Maryland through Wednesday. He had been out of sight save for an image of him participating in a videoconference that was released Sunday by the White House.

Biden's speech in the East Room on Monday afternoon came about five weeks after he got defensive when reporters pressed him on whether it was inevitable that the Afghan government would collapse.

Biden said the Afghan troops were "as well-equipped as any army in the world."

"The likelihood there's going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely," he said.

On ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Sullivan defended Biden’s assertion.

“He thought the Afghan national security forces could step up and fight,” Sullivan said.

On NBC's "Today," Sullivan acknowledged how much that assessment was off.

“The speed with which cities fell," he said, "was much greater than anyone anticipated."

On CBS’s “This Morning,” Sullivan said Biden “was not prepared to usher in a third decade of war and put U.S. troops in harm’s way, fighting and dying to try to hold Afghanistan together when its own armed forces would not fight to hold it together.”

“This is about hard choices,” Sullivan said, “and the choice he made he believes was in the national security interest of the United States.”

 

[Stevicus]

Ex-Obama Adviser Urges Biden to Fire National Security Chief After Afghanistan 'Disaster' (msn.com)

 

[Twilight Hue]

I voted Other, and I'll wait until we get better information as to why it all collapsed so quickly. I have suspicions but will reserve these until later.

At any rate, I may change my mind, agree with Biden and leave the Afghans to their fate.

If they refuse to fight, drop their arms and run, then there is no more reason for our people to shed any more blood for them.

The only remaining concern is a big one however.

When will the terrorist attacks step up again now they have a sanctuary to regroup and grow in power again just like before?

Back to the 70s and 80s I suppose. History repeats itself.

 

[esmith]

The deal Trump agreed to meant that the US had to be out of Afghanistan by September. You think a few weeks would be enough to do all that?


A bit difficult to follow through on that, since the Taliban had already said that any foreign troops remaining after the deadline would be attacked, and the troop withdrawals under Trump left the remaining forces in Afghanistan vulnerable to such an attack.

At least it would be better than less than 1 week Stumblin' Joe original planed for.
Biden has reject 99.9% of what President Trump put in place. I see no reason why this would be any different. There was NO official document, just President Trump said this is what we will do.

 

[Mock Turtle]

It is rather odd that the poll in this thread has more people blaming Trump than Biden who is actually in power and could have changed whatever he liked about the previous agreement.

If this state of affairs had happened under Trump, those doing their level best to absolve Biden for any responsibility for his actions would have been howling with outrage.

Trump probably wouldn't have done any better, but the fact is he lost and Biden is running the show now.

It's like the Trump fanboys who blamed Obama or Hillary for every failing for years.

Whatever might be the reasons, the fact that Trump presumably agreed a date for withdrawal emboldened the Taliban to plan for such, so he could be blamed for given them a green light. I don't know. Perhaps the Afghani people were just more allied to their religion and culture than we (or those in planning such things) thought, and this result was always on the cards. Just a very messy end though, and no doubt horrible for so many.

 

[Aštra’el]

The way President Biden handled this was disgraceful.