[www.wsj.com]

1) Biden was weak by delaying troop withdrawal
2) Biden broke the agreement with the Taliban
3) Biden bad

Despite the lack of any logic to the above, one or all of the claims will be attractive to anyone shocked-upset over what happened. Sorry, I mean “how” it happened. It’s important for critics to demand the U.S. should have known what the Taliban was up to. It’s important to understand American Exceptionalism can always answer the call and explain absolutely anything and everything everywhere. Go ahead, try it. It’s easy!


“Weakness arouses evil.”

Yes, which explains Trump’s desire to have Pence as his VP all along. And even after Trump stood back while people were looking to hang the VP, Pence came right back into the fold.

Biden @#$%& up. Biden, through his career has @#$%& up a lot.
Biden just handed the Repubs a huge gift as we approach an important election year..
He was doing fairly well and he just blew it. Politically--on a local, US scale and, perhaps more importantly, on a world scale..also mention the completely awful humanitarian aspect of this..mentioned..disgusting.
The US looks like a bunch of total amateurs under either party right now..
He had better, immediately, come with something brilliant in Afghanistan to balance this out..
I'd Lobby for sending in more troops and staying there a bit longer to make sure
Lots of justifications being slung..he SHOULD have stepped into this Trump deal and
made major adjustments to how the end game was approached...
He and his mates probably thought that, politically, they'd be able to drop this mess on Trump...which they are trying to do--STUPID..it's not working with Repub or Dem constituents. At least the Dems and the Radical left media have enough integrity to speak plainly about how their guy @#$%& up.
This crop of Dems doesn't /hasn't, for a long time, have any political skills..they continue to make stupid moves.
and Manchin in West Virginia just became a little bit more Republican--

Quote
Kraniac
Biden just handed the Repubs a huge gift as we approach an important election year.

99% of American's will have forgotten Afghanistan exists (much like they didn't really know since 2003) by the election.

Quote
Lux Interior

Quote
Kraniac
Biden just handed the Repubs a huge gift as we approach an important election year.

99% of American's will have forgotten Afghanistan exists (much like they didn't really know since 2003) by the election.

Agreed. And anyone that remembers that long will not be blaming Biden.

Quote
Lux Interior

Quote
Kraniac
Biden just handed the Repubs a huge gift as we approach an important election year.

99% of American's will have forgotten Afghanistan exists (much like they didn't really know since 2003) by the election.

LOL...

You seem to be forgetting /missing, that the Repubs will completely blow this up and
re-educate their base with facts, and not facts..like shooting fish in a barrel for these guys. It's a gift for them..nicely wrapped, with a big bow.
The election is next year..the campaign is kicking in on this.. and the Repub machine is
much better at this than the Dems. They're gonna hammer it.
..and the way this went down..Biden and company are low hanging fruit.
It's gonna fly back in the face of Biden and the Dems..just wait.

No surprise the opposing party will try to make hay. It's what they do on every issue, so the question is, if they aren't credible elsewhere how did they earn credibility on this issue? Because it "looks bad?"

Just because someone complains doesn't make them correct.

Afghanistan will be a typical political fight.

Presidents have always been judged on their decisions about wars. Historically, the people understand that it's a tough thing to do.

I don't think Nixon's electability was damaged by his war decisions. I think LBJ would have won if he ran again. H.W. Bush was taken out by the economy and Ross Perot siphoning part of his base. W. Bush, benefitted and won decisively in 2004 despite the widespread condemnation of the invasion of Iraq and not having found Bin Laden.

If Biden loses, it will be due to voter suppression and tagging him being beholding to renegade forces in his own party. Losing white voters.

We'll fight to see to it that he wins.

It'll be forgotten that Trump planned to withdraw by Feb 2021.
Even Trump has forgotten that fact.

Pence? Is he still hanging around?

Quote
Lux Interior

Quote
Kraniac
Biden just handed the Repubs a huge gift as we approach an important election year.

99% of American's will have forgotten Afghanistan exists (much like they didn't really know since 2003) by the election.

I doubt that. We've left a lot of American Citizens in Afghanistan to fend for themselves. We also left a lot of very usable military hardware for the Taliban to use. This entire area is going to be far worse than when we entered it 20+ years ago.

[fivethirtyeight.com]

Excerpt near the end of a moderately lengthy article:

Quote

On the whole, we don’t expect to see a big shift in Biden’s approval rating, given just how polarized American politics are. But it’s also impossible to currently ascertain the longer-term consequences of the Taliban’s takeover, such as a potential increase in terrorism. It’s possible that what’s happened in Afghanistan will dominate headlines for weeks to come, but even that’s uncertain. After all, American news coverage of Afghanistan has surged before, only to quickly evaporate. And even if the spotlight stays on the crisis in Afghanistan, that doesn’t necessarily mean Biden will lose ground in approval. Consider a common comparison the media has made in recent days: the fall of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) in April 1975 in South Vietnam to North Vietnamese forces, a similarly chaotic moment of defeat for the U.S. at the end of the Vietnam War. In a Gallup poll taken before North Vietnamese troops took control of the city, then-President Gerald Ford’s approval rating was 39 percent, and it was 40 percent in a survey taken right afterward. And this was at a time with a substantially less polarized electorate and many more swing voters.

Of course, this is an opinion about public opinion, but an opinion probably more informed about public opinion than most.

---

e pluribus unum



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/18/2021 01:02PM by Ted King.

Quote
deckeda
No surprise the opposing party will try to make hay. It's what they do on every issue, so the question is, if they aren't credible elsewhere how did they earn credibility on this issue? Because it "looks bad?"

Just because someone complains doesn't make them correct.

yes..because it 'looks bad' -in a hugely literal sense...the images.
These images will describe what's needed for Repubs gone feral..
ThEy liKe pikture books...
The other item that they'll use? the response of the Military to this short-thunk exit..
The optics are horrible..military people absolutely hate this..and it'll milked
and slapped onto Biden's back..
it truly is like shooting fish in a barrel..
Dems could get through next year...but this is not helping and it's gonna
take a lot of ballast to bring things into good shape..mid term election patterns do not
bode well with this huge multi media show..

Quote
Lux Interior
99% of American's will have forgotten Afghanistan exists (much like they didn't really know since 2003) by the election.

Not if they served there, or lost a friend or loved one there. The memory of Vietnam still abides.

"Since the start of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan through mid-2019, nearly 2,400 American servicemembers have died. Additionally, 20,719 U.S. service members have been wounded in hostile action, according to the Defense Department."

This was a disaster 20 years in the making. Pence expects us to believe that six months ago, Afghanistan was a stable democracy supported by its military but overnight Biden ruined it.

Quote
Kraniac

Quote
deckeda
No surprise the opposing party will try to make hay. It's what they do on every issue, so the question is, if they aren't credible elsewhere how did they earn credibility on this issue? Because it "looks bad?"

Just because someone complains doesn't make them correct.

yes..because it 'looks bad' -in a hugely literal sense...the images.
These images will describe what's needed for Repubs gone feral..
ThEy liKe pikture books...
The other item that they'll use? the response of the Military to this short-thunk exit..
The optics are horrible..military people absolutely hate this..and it'll milked
and slapped onto Biden's back..
it truly is like shooting fish in a barrel..
Dems could get through next year...but this is not helping and it's gonna
take a lot of ballast to bring things into good shape..mid term election patterns do not
bode well with this huge multi media show..

OK so that's a clarification that whenever someone tells you you're the bad guy, you are. I'll admit that does simplify things.

Quote
macphanatic
... We've left a lot of American Citizens in Afghanistan to fend for themselves.

That's untrue. We got some out and will continue with the rest --- that's been widely reported as happening now. Let's please not cross the line with these assertions.

Quote
macphanatic
We also left a lot of very usable military hardware for the Taliban to use.

No doubt, just as the Taliban is the dog who finally caught the car (again.) And so? You'd prefer we stayed and began a new war against the Taliban, despite agreeing last year to leave the country? Really?

Quote
macphanatic
This entire area is going to be far worse than when we entered it 20+ years ago.

Your wild speculation aside, we now know that place was never as rosy as some thought. Hindsight isn't worth much in the present, but it sure can help for future decisions.

(Maybe appropriate for it's own thread?)

"US signs historic deal with Taliban that could bring an end to America's war in Afghanistan

February 29, 2020
The deal...commits the US to cutting the number of troops in Afghanistan down to 8,600 within the first 135 days and removing all remaining troops within 14 months of the signing¹.

After more than a year of challenging negotiations amid continued bloodshed in Afghanistan, US Special Representative Zalmay Khalizad, the chief US negotiator, and head of the Taliban's negotiating team, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar², signed the agreement in Doha, Qatar.

In the accord, the US has also committed to working with all relevant parties on a prisoner exchange."


1. That would be...wait for it... April 2021
2. Make a note of this name for future reference

and what were you doing when the Taliban took over?

Yeah that's Pence's argument, except he sure did keep quiet in April. May. June. July. And most of August.

I'm guessing because it has little relevance.

Certainly, the Taliban considered "time's up" and called in their chips. I still don'e see how Biden taking out troops prior to April changes anything. The same government, the same tribal groups, the same people would still be laying down their weapons, taking the payouts or other inducements, and the Taliban would still have waltzed in and caused the citizenry to all freak out and say, "Wait, is this real??"

No, it's not real. It's all America's fault somehow. We clearly should have stayed there forever.

Quote
Ted King
[fivethirtyeight.com]

Excerpt near the end of a moderately lengthy article:

Quote

On the whole, we don’t expect to see a big shift in Biden’s approval rating, given just how polarized American politics are. But it’s also impossible to currently ascertain the longer-term consequences of the Taliban’s takeover, such as a potential increase in terrorism. It’s possible that what’s happened in Afghanistan will dominate headlines for weeks to come, but even that’s uncertain. After all, American news coverage of Afghanistan has surged before, only to quickly evaporate. And even if the spotlight stays on the crisis in Afghanistan, that doesn’t necessarily mean Biden will lose ground in approval. Consider a common comparison the media has made in recent days: the fall of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) in April 1975 in South Vietnam to North Vietnamese forces, a similarly chaotic moment of defeat for the U.S. at the end of the Vietnam War. In a Gallup poll taken before North Vietnamese troops took control of the city, then-President Gerald Ford’s approval rating was 39 percent, and it was 40 percent in a survey taken right afterward. And this was at a time with a substantially less polarized electorate and many more swing voters.

Of course, this is an opinion about public opinion, but an opinion probably more informed about public opinion than most.

Did everyone somehow forget US combat troops were withdrawn a full 2 years before South Vietnam collapsed?

[www.history.com]



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/18/2021 08:39PM by Bill in NC.

Quote
Bill in NC

Quote
Ted King
[fivethirtyeight.com]

Excerpt near the end of a moderately lengthy article:

Quote

On the whole, we don’t expect to see a big shift in Biden’s approval rating, given just how polarized American politics are. But it’s also impossible to currently ascertain the longer-term consequences of the Taliban’s takeover, such as a potential increase in terrorism. It’s possible that what’s happened in Afghanistan will dominate headlines for weeks to come, but even that’s uncertain. After all, American news coverage of Afghanistan has surged before, only to quickly evaporate. And even if the spotlight stays on the crisis in Afghanistan, that doesn’t necessarily mean Biden will lose ground in approval. Consider a common comparison the media has made in recent days: the fall of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) in April 1975 in South Vietnam to North Vietnamese forces, a similarly chaotic moment of defeat for the U.S. at the end of the Vietnam War. In a Gallup poll taken before North Vietnamese troops took control of the city, then-President Gerald Ford’s approval rating was 39 percent, and it was 40 percent in a survey taken right afterward. And this was at a time with a substantially less polarized electorate and many more swing voters.

Of course, this is an opinion about public opinion, but an opinion probably more informed about public opinion than most.

Did everyone somehow forget US combat troops were withdrawn a full 2 years before South Vietnam collapsed?

[www.history.com]

I didn't remember that. The differences in conditions between the end of the Vietnam War and the Afghanistan War could very well make the analogy not particularly apt.

---

e pluribus unum

Quote
deckeda

Quote
Kraniac

Quote
deckeda
No surprise the opposing party will try to make hay. It's what they do on every issue, so the question is, if they aren't credible elsewhere how did they earn credibility on this issue? Because it "looks bad?"

Just because someone complains doesn't make them correct.

yes..because it 'looks bad' -in a hugely literal sense...the images.
These images will describe what's needed for Repubs gone feral..
ThEy liKe pikture books...
The other item that they'll use? the response of the Military to this short-thunk exit..
The optics are horrible..military people absolutely hate this..and it'll milked
and slapped onto Biden's back..
it truly is like shooting fish in a barrel..
Dems could get through next year...but this is not helping and it's gonna
take a lot of ballast to bring things into good shape..mid term election patterns do not
bode well with this huge multi media show..

OK so that's a clarification that whenever someone tells you you're the bad guy, you are. I'll admit that does simplify things.

Deckeda...people watch TV. they (many) don't really listen..ticker tape rolling, @#$%& all over the screen, bunch of people heads rattling on. Sadly, for a huge part of the population, including a lot of dems, the pictures can do it..this is one where the pictures have already trampled the words...all the words, all the opinions...opinions on these news 'shows'
..the chatter goes square wave essentially...The Repubs will be extremely effective in whipping up a frenzy here...Benghazi? they wore that @#$%& out to incredible effect. Same will happen here.
And if one or more of these Stone age mental Taliban start shooting (more) people...all the better for the Right..that's food.

Kraniac reflects my take on this and expresses it better than I would or could

Quote
RgrF
Kraniac reflects my take on this and expresses it better than I would or could

You're not one to flail your arms.

Quote
vision63

Quote
RgrF
Kraniac reflects my take on this and expresses it better than I would or could

You're not one to flail your arms.

Maybe getting there, check out the HBO doc about China In the Same Breath for where we may be headed.

How about this. Let's all worry about ourselves first, and how we feel about news events, and spend a little less time wringing our hands at battles "others" will need to fight? Who are these others if not us??

Is this a fair request?

If you feel the American pullout has been mismanaged, fine, but please articulate why YOU feel that way. It remains incredibly unhelpful to merely parrot others saying it "looks bad." Well guess what, if it doesn't look that bad to you -- maybe because you know history, circumstance, and context -- then maybe you shouldn't care if someone else is lying and misrepresenting what's happened.

Are you going to work to correct their behavior, or just shrink and change what you do and feel based on nothing more than they get upset? Ever babysit a toddler? It can be highly satisfying, or they will literally kill you for sport if you allow it.

Quote
RgrF
Maybe getting there, check out the HBO doc about China In the Same Breath for where we may be headed.

I thought about China in 2000 when I voted for Al Gore and too many people that hated George Bush chose instead to vote for Ralph Nader.

I think about these things when it matters most.