Biden made a little mistake

(There is a very slight ambiguity in what you wrote (at least to me), so to clarify it:)

It seems what you are saying is, when you perceive fellow Iraq/Afghan war protestors voting for those who authorized the wars you wonder what else they are capable of.

I fail to see the ambiguity. People that took to the streets to protest the waste of US blood and treasure on what was sold as blood vengeance for 9/11 now not only vote, but volunteer and donate to the campaigns of those that stood up in Congress and gave their blessing to those conflicts.

Then they chastise others for their morals. What sorts of policies will these people permit? Whatever the current zeitgeist tells them is acceptable. They threw away their morality when they voted for Clinton and Biden.

most of the UK was against the Irag invasion ( made up from fake data), that had the largest street protest marches ever.
Most the Blair cabinet was against it as well, many resigned.
Its all connected to todays issue.
Most middle east terror groups have been both created and helped by USA actions
An a single lunatic UK PM

12 posts were split to a new topic: Anyone Interested in a little history, The WW1 Gallipoli Campaign

No. Any party. You can conveniently try to forget that Trump had nothing to do with the Republican party until his run for President but that won’t make it go away.

You were faced with a choice to either vote against candidates that voted to authorize the wars, not vote, or vote for them completely absolving them of any responsibility for their choice. You voted for them. Twice. Because mean Tweets.

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Another little mistake. How could this happen? There was no plan in place for an orderly retreat. Just walked out in total panic. Exit strategy? Never heard of it! They even didn’t destroy or take with them the biographic data of all Afghans that served the US in those 20 years of occupation. The Taliban will be thankful for this unexpected present. U N B E L I E V A B L E…

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I wouldn’t pay any attention to what any politicians in the U.S. have to say about this. Here’s another point of view: https://www.sarahchayes.org/post/the-ides-of-august.

From the article

“I was there.”

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There is a vid on the brits taking their base apart, must have been planed for months and it took months to ship all the gear back home.

https://fb.watch/7Gmc_5194d/

Yours truly actually protested both quagmires on the ground in DC as part of a group called Veterans for Peace. Little did I know I would eventually send one of my kids to Iraq worrying all the while about his welfare. But he wanted to serve just like his dad and I did, so I had a hard time telling him not to join. When I went to work for the government, I had to start exercising caution about expressing my opinions. I resigned pending deferred retirement so I’m done worrying about that. Anyway, that said, Trump ran on getting out of Afghanistan and that is why many people on both sides voted for him. He fucked up big time by sending that idiot Pompeo to basically give the country to the Taliban and keep the Afghan government out of most of the deal. I think the Biden Admin mistakes were that of poorly analyzed intel. Biden and his generals and analysts should have been aware that the Afghan soldiers were not getting paid or fed, some units were literally starving when the Taliban rolled in. Lots of mistakes all the way around. It is easy to be an armchair expert so I’ll save my outrage. My sorrow is for the human suffering this nation has inflicted and my heart aches for the Marines and Sailors just killed. Like John Kerry said how do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?

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I agree with the majority of your post. I offer the following analysis with due regard to my long held reluctance to share actual political opinions:

  1. This was TFG’s deal. Set to, and correct me if I’m wrong, to be completed in May. Troop draw down at 2,500 +/-

  2. The Biden admin used this deal as the basis and pretext to get out of Afghanistan. Something that the majority of Americans wanted. However weakly the desire may have been.

  3. The choice, really, was to get out now, or re-inflate the troop deployment and hang on for a longer period of time. Horribly out manned. They got out now. Knowing full well that nobody gives a damn about Afghanistan and won’t remember it 6 months from now.

Could the evac/withdrawal been done better? Maybe. But how? And at what cost?

This article by Thomas Ricks was written in 2012 but still holds up.

Not really mentioned in the article but easier to measure progress when the results of battles can be measured by the location of the fronts on a map.

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“The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today” also by Ricks is a good book.
Another interesting article:

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Ricks is a good writer and seems very knowledgeable. Got a dog-eared copy of “Fiasco” on the book shelf here.

I see some of the same people he rips into for incompetence in his book, like Paul Wolfowitz, are now having articles published in the WSJ.

That’s almost worse then the politicians in the photo in the OP.

Great article. As could be expected a lot about egos and superegos. Leading men is definitely an art.

I like his attitude towards failed commanders, try to fit them in other positions which are better suited to their talents. Don’t cancel them as the saying goes these days.

It seems like the Afghan financial system is imploding. No access to overseas funds, high debt to income ratio. It seems like a built-in booby trap similar to what we accuse China of doing with their Belt and Road project: use loose money to create a client state that can’t financially survive without the host. No amount of opium will save them now. Financial collapse, civil collapse, civil war. The Taliban never had a chance. Designed failure.

Just an observation.

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Don’t worry, Biden is about to announce a new tax to help the people of Afghanistan. The Taliban will administrate it for us.

It was a good article. I seem to remember a few flag officers be moved on in the Navy after a couple of collisions . One who resigned was a 3 star I believe.
If you had to pick the Air Force would appear to be the one to chose as a flag rank. Politician says bomb this, pick up the phone and tell subordinates to bomb this. Job done.
Admirals can be onboard in the way of nasty ordinance along with everyone else. Generals are generally back behind the shooting.
As someone once said “ The army sends the boys to fight, the airforce, the officers, the navy sends everyone, bugger that”.

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