२७ ऑगस्ट, २०२१

"[W]e should continue the airlift as long as we can. But that won’t be forever, as conditions deteriorate... and not everyone who desperately wants to get out will be able to do so."

"That is tragic. But it would be true, I believe, whenever and however the U.S. mission ended. The images we’re seeing from Kabul are shocking, heartbreaking and embarrassing. But the real stain on our national honor was in making promises to Afghans that we never had the intention or even the ability to keep. Twenty years of U.S. blood and treasure gave Afghanistan not a secular democracy but its flickering illusion. And history will see this withdrawal, painful as it is to watch, not as ignominious but as inevitable."


I'm quoting this because it's what I assume is the administration's position, though they won't say it to us so bluntly. It can be put more bluntly: It's going to be a nasty few days, but we'll get past it, and Americans have permission to look away and not agonize over the details.

AND: To put it more inanely, "I want to talk about happy things, man." That's a quote from Biden, something he said on July 2d, when reporters pressed him on the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and his idea was to talk about the economy. Because it's always the economy. You can count on Americans to recenter ourselves on the economy. As they say in politics, "It's the economy, stupid." They're talking to us. 

६३ टिप्पण्या:

gilbar म्हणाले...

progressive progression
we will get EVERYONE out...
everyone that Wants to leave, will be able to leave...
not everyone who desperately wants to get out will be able to do so...
That is tragic.

Humperdink म्हणाले...

"But how else was U.S. involvement going to end?" How about a well-thought out plan?

R C Belaire म्हणाले...

"It's going to be a nasty few days, but we'll get past it..." I'm pretty sure there's more "hope" in that statement than expectation. Let's look forward to a status check, say, around 9/11 -- just to pick a random date.

Lem Vibe Bandit म्हणाले...

Are Biden’s mistakes more meaningful if he’s not legitimate?

Big Mike म्हणाले...

How many times over the course of my career did I see weak and ineffectual managers try to argue that no one could have done a better job than the mistake-filled “leadership” they had provided. No one intelligent buys it. We could have and we should have coordinated with our NATO allies. We could have and we should have gotten the Afghani people who worked with us out. We could have kept Bagram open until all the American civilians were out and all the Afghans we had promised to rescue were out and only well-armed military personnel were left. Even if we couldn’t get all of the Afghans out, we could have and should have tried a lot harder.

We could have destroyed any armaments we couldn’t carry out with us. How much war equipment did the Russians leave behind when they left Afghanistan?

Making promises thst they can’t keep and don’t intend to keep us what politicians do, and American politicians are no different from most others in that respect. But don’t worry that we’ll ever again be able make promises, whether we intend to keep them or not or even can keep them or not. After Afghanistan no one sane will believe our promises, so in that respect Joe Biden through his unique mix of malice and incompetence. has tied the hands of future Presidents for at least the next forty or fifty years. This will be a part of his legacy.

Humperdink म्हणाले...

What's with this ISIS-K. Are we going down through the alphabet like the Delta variant?

Was ISIS-K labelled by one of our 16 cracker-jack agencies?

Lem Vibe Bandit म्हणाले...

Asked another way. Is someone looking for legitimacy more prone to make bad decisions?

Humperdink म्हणाले...

Mike Barnicle (MSNBC) this morning: "It was always going to end this way".

Ah, no.

steve uhr म्हणाले...

So whenever there is a civil war the good guys lose? I understand most of the commentators here think that’s what happened 160 years ago in the USA but … just kidding folks- no need for a hissy fit.

wildswan म्हणाले...

There's theme here which is that in a city or a country or an institution the Dems withdraw the forces keeping order without a realistic plan for their replacement and the situation - be it the homeless in San Francisco or the gangs in Chicago or the Taliban in Afghanistan - and the situation descends into chaos. Children are shot and trampled and unschooled and the Dems say it was inevitable. It is inevitable if you elect a Dem. Elect a Dem as Governor - the state goes into a forever lockdown. The Dems run Hollywood - the movies rot away. The Dems run universities - academic freedom disappears. We had a Dem supporting Archbishop here in Milwaukee. He embezzled church funds to pay blackmail to his gay ex-lover. The once great party of Franklin Roosevelt that stood with Britain during World War II against the Nazis is corrupt and incompetent and it defends itself by saying that corrupt incompetence is just the way things have to be. Chicago, Kabul - "You can check out any time you like/ But you can never leave."

Kevin म्हणाले...

Look, it’s not like Pelosi is going to file Articles of Impeachment.

lgv म्हणाले...

"That is tragic. But it would be true, I believe, whenever and however the U.S. mission ended..."

No American had been killed in the last 12 (maybe 18) months. Now 13 are dead. If we had left troops there at Bagram, I'm pretty sure it would have ended better.

Tom म्हणाले...

This withdrawal is a disaster and the cost to human life is going to be horrible. We’re going to see video after video of Americans and their allies in Afghanistan being beheaded and killed in other horrible ways as our forces withdrawal. We need to watch and hold ourselves accountable because this is what we voted for. It’s clear our president isn’t accountable.

There’s another withdrawal disaster coming. That’s Biden’s. Does anyone think his cognitive decline is going to end well? He’s going to fuck up. He’s already fucking up but it’s going to get worse. Everyone sees that coming, right?

America will be so much fun when any and all criticism of Pres. Kamala Harris gets the speaker canceled for being racist. I mean, isn’t that exactly what we’ve prepared for?!

mezzrow म्हणाले...

It seems that the strategy is to hunker down and get through the humiliation, since it will never get worse that this, right? Like taking your cat to the vet - it'll be over soon, and you'll go home and get treats, like that $3.5 trillion of treats we have back home.

This assumes a great many assumptions, just like the "planning for withdrawal" that got us where we are today assumed many assumptions. It is going to be instructive to see where the reality of this fustercluck takes the media support mechanism for the DC blob that is back in charge.

How long will they sing from this administration's hymnal? What will be the effect of the unbelievable stress of this adventure on a 79 year old man struggling to get through the basic functions of the office? What will China do? What will Russia do?

When will the preference cascade in the MSM start to flow away from the ongoing disaster? When will Chairman Xi or an ISIS bomber present a more clear and present danger than Ron deSantis?

Such interesting times.

wendybar म्हणाले...

steve uhr said...
So whenever there is a civil war the good guys lose? I understand most of the commentators here think that’s what happened 160 years ago in the USA but … just kidding folks- no need for a hissy fit.

We are having a hissy fit because the fraudulent election gave us a delusional old man who has no idea where he is, and he is ignoring the advice of people who do know where they are. Fraudulent elections have consequences and 13 dead Americans (and it isn't over yet) is one of them.

Breezy म्हणाले...

There appears to be an utter lack of imagination for what could go wrong on the part of our leaders, military and political. Not waiting for winter and giving up Bagram and equipment were flagrant mistakes that are simply unbelievably idiotic. Joe putting a 9-11 date of the war end was the most idiotic of all, given all that needed to be done in sequence.

Temujin म्हणाले...

They've been telling us to 'pay no attention to that man behind the curtain' for so many years, in so many circumstances, that it just does not work any longer. It's worn off. We had agreed to play along for decades and longer. But now we're all looking around at the utter chaos far left progressive, Democratic policies and politicos have made of our country and we've run out of the ability to play along. The cities are covered in bullets, needles, feces, and homeless. The southern border is wide open and we are inexplicably taking in a million unvaxxed, covid ridden, low wage workers, along with flat-out criminals, and who knows how many terrorists, our schools have been turned into re-education camps, our dollar has become as useless as a paper airplane, and worth about as much, and our foreign policy seems to be run by college students on a class project.

It did not have to end this way. Play-acting 'Journalists!' who make such a proclamation are nothing but political flacks, speaking the words they were handed out today, to do a group cover for the people they helped put in office.

The problem is, these same 'Journalists!' helped create the situation we have now by their act of putting Joe and Kamala in office. And we're done going along. The curtain has been fully pulled back and we cannot unsee what has been seen.

Tom T. म्हणाले...

"No matter when we left Berlin, it was inevitable that the Russians would take over."

I guess now that the journalists are out, the press can resume defending the administration's lack of planning.

Patrick Henry was right! म्हणाले...

How about get all civilians out through Bagram, then start taking military out through Bagram and maintain perimeter at Bagram through special forces, then leave and blow up everything we didn't take with us.
Makes sense to me.

Diogenes of Sinope म्हणाले...

Biden is preparing the public for the upcoming hostage crisis. Biden is planning to leave hundreds of Americans behind in Afghanistan. It would take thousands of US military to actually get all US citizens out and Biden will not send them. It boils down to Biden is sacrificing American citizens for political gain.

Birches म्हणाले...

I still can't believe they put Joe Effing Biden at the top. At least they could have found someone competent. I suppose they thought they could manage everything. It's obvious they're just as inept as Joe.

Humperdink म्हणाले...

Mike Barnicle (MSNBC) this morning: "It was always going to end this way".

Leaving $85 billion worth of advanced weaponry to the Taliban was how it had to end?

Leaving yourself surrounded by the enemy was how it had to end?

Having the Taliban as the gatekeepers for your last position in country was how it had to end?

FunkyPhD म्हणाले...

The Soviet Union dissolved about 22 months after their withdrawal from Afghanistan. How long does the USA have?

gilbar म्हणाले...

Birches said...
I still can't believe they put Joe Effing Biden at the top. At least they could have found someone competent.

WHO? What democrat was either
More Competent, or
More Electable
than Slow Jo?
Kamel Toe?
Faux cahontus?
butifuc?
Sanders?

My knee jerk liberal, card carrying democrat mom would have had a hard time voting for Sanders

The Sad Fact is: Jo Biden was/is THE BEST the democrats had to offer. NOT because of Him, but because of THEM

Sebastian म्हणाले...

"But the real stain on our national honor was in making promises to Afghans that we never had the intention or even the ability to keep."

What exactly did we "promise"? I call BS.

"And history will see this withdrawal, painful as it is to watch, not as ignominious but as inevitable."

But the manner was not "inevitable." I call BS.

"Americans have permission to look away and not agonize over the details."

And they may. Having bought Dem BS in electing Joe, why not swallow some more?

Iman म्हणाले...

this tired, sad old man
ship sunk shortage of lifeboats
women children last

joe म्हणाले...

Here is how else it could have ended:

1. Leave the country in the Winter or very early spring when the Taliban is unable to fight. The mountain passes are mostly impassible in the Winter and most Taliban fighters go home to their families in the winter. Doing this in the summer is idiotic as it necessarily helped the Taliban's take over occur swiftly.

2. Do not evacuate Bagram Air Base in the middle of the night without even telling the Afghan commander that you are leaving and without telling our Allies. Also don't do this before you start removing civilians.

3. Do not remove the civilian contractors who are necessary to keep the small Afghan Air Force mission capable before you start removing civilians.

4. Do not drawdown troops while civilians are still in-country.

5. Start evacuating US Civilians and Afghan's from areas other than Kabul using Bagram Air Base as the secure departure point. (There are 10,000s of people who need/want to get out who are not in Kabul. What is Biden's plan for them?)

6. Continue supporting the Afghan Military while evacuating people to prevent the Taliban from taking over while our civilians are still in-country.

7. Do not remove any troops until all civilians are out

8. Increase troops if necessary. The Taliban were held at bay since 2015 with a very small number of troops - less than 15,000.

9. Once all of the civilians are out - then remove the Military.

Iman म्हणाले...

“It was always going to end this way".

Chiseled in stone when they installed the sad, befuddled old man in the office.

steve uhr म्हणाले...
ही टिप्पणी लेखकाना हलविली आहे.
Ray - SoCal म्हणाले...

The Russians left without this type of debacle.

They even had a band play when they left Bagram, and did not skulk out in the middle of the night as the US did.

Emerald Robinson had this very insightful tweet:
The deafening silence you hear today is our corrupt political class in Washington running from the consequences of supporting Biden over Trump in 2020. As well as the press. And Big Tech. And the intel agencies. And half of the GOP.

Their credibility just bit the dust in Kabul.


And Trump just released one of the best political ads I gave ever seen, it just carpet bombs Biden.
Surrenderer-In-Chief

Kevin म्हणाले...

The Sad Fact is: Jo Biden was/is THE BEST the democrats had to offer. NOT because of Him, but because of THEM

He's the backbone of the Democratic Party.

Kevin म्हणाले...

So we're getting a POW/MIA flag for the Afghanistan war too?

Make it a different design. Have it show up in great numbers at every political event in 2022 and 2024.

wendybar म्हणाले...

gilbar said "The Sad Fact is: Jo Biden was/is THE BEST the democrats had to offer. NOT because of Him, but because of THEM"

Hear!! Hear!!!

steve uhr म्हणाले...

Unless you agree with all of the following, your claimed outrage at the present situation is primarily politically motivated:

1. The US should not have withdrawn all its forces and closed all its bases - including Bagram -- by May of this year.
2. All of our NATO allies should not have left.
3. All foreign contractors assisting the Afghan war effort should not have left.
4. The above should have been conditioned on the Taliban and Afghan government reaching a peace agreement.
5. The US should not have forced the Afghan government to release 1000 Taliban fighters/terrorists before the commencement of peace discussions between the Taliban and the Afghan government.
6. The US had a moral obligation to evacuate the hundreds of thousands of Afghans who assisted us or who were at risk of Taliban reprisals because, eg, they worked for women's rights.

MikeR म्हणाले...

Our proud all volunteer Army. I wonder what's going to happen? Will anyone volunteer again? "Join the Army; you can screw some other country beyond repair and make a lot of money for some rich evil people, and then leave."

TWWren म्हणाले...

Let me tell you what is really happening and what will happen.

First, what is really happening is that President Biden is intractably holding to a completely arbitrary withdrawal date because he wants to end the negative news cycle that is taking all of the air out of his domestic agenda.

Second, what is going to happen is this: Americans are going to be left behind and some of them will be captured and held hostage by the Taliban or ISIS.

You heard it here first.

Conrad म्हणाले...

Didn't Biden expressly assure us just a few weeks ago that it was NOT going to end like the fall of Saigon? Now they're trying to sell "It was ALWAYS going to end this way"?

Big Mike म्हणाले...

If Biden thinks the economy is going to be “happy news” for him and his party then both are even more delusional than believed. Was his visit to Jimmy Carter in order to learn how to produce runaway inflation?

Roger Sweeny म्हणाले...

Eugene Robinson is also saying, it's not Biden's fault, it's George W.'s. Not my team, man.

The Drill SGT म्हणाले...

This is not the bottom of the hole that Biden dug.

What's next:
- Public executions of thousands Afghan nationals
- 100's if not thousands of Western hostages on display
- a Kabul weapons bazaar selling off our weapons to all comers
- Chinese analyses of our tech, particularly in the vision and sigint areas

MartieD म्हणाले...

steve uhr, what exactly do you hope to accomplish here? We should believe you instead of our lying eyes? Biden is a competent leader and the withdrawal is a success?

Mr. Forward म्हणाले...

"...your claimed outrage at the present situation is primarily politically motivated..." Steve Uhr

He says that like it's a bad thing.

Chris Lopes म्हणाले...

"Unless you agree with all of the following, your claimed outrage at the present situation is primarily politically motivated:"

Sorry, but one does not have to think Trump was the best thing since indoor plumbing to believe Joe f*cked this one up. I have no (as in zero, nada, zilch) interest in defending Trump. I don't care about what he planned or didn't plan. I DO care what the current holder of the office did do. In this case, what he did has already gotten more than a dozen service people killed. Trying to allude to Trump's mistakes won't make that go away.

JAORE म्हणाले...

Mike Barnicle (MSNBC) this morning: "It was always going to end this way".

Did he add, BECAUSE of a certain change from January 20?

Narr म्हणाले...

uhr, yuhr a lousy troll. First, you drag some Confederate herring out of your butt and plop it down like some sort of trump card, then you spend time erecting a series of rhetorical challenges for Biden critics that have no relevance to the actual situation or the points made. You went to law school?

Tom, the Drill SGT and others mention the grisly future that awaits hundreds or more unfortunates, and assume that we'll be able to watch. I think it more likely that Borg Tech and their minions will embargo and cancel as much of it, and discussion of it, as they can--by labeling them as "Misinformation" and "Hate Speech."

Clyde म्हणाले...

The past couple of weeks haven’t been the shitstorm; they have just been the shit coming attractions. Once our forces leave Afghanistan, that’s when the Cat 5 shitticane hits. And it’s all on Biden* and those who voted for him.

John Marzan म्हणाले...

Do you think they can put this behind them, but this is only the beginning.

Watch Taiwan...

Yancey Ward म्हणाले...

There is no defending what Biden has done here, and that is the take-away from Robinson's essay- he doesn't even try to defend it by saying "shit happens". ShitforBrains Biden happened, too.

Pianoman म्हणाले...

"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." -- Schopenhauer

Leland म्हणाले...

I’m sure at some point that the desire for continuous airlifts will bet met by concerns for global warming, err climate change.

As for Afghanistan being inevitable; the difference in Iraq at the end of the Obama Administration and we’re it is now suggests a flaw in the argument that Afghanistan withdrawal would always ended up like this. That is before we get into details like the amount and quality of military hardware handed over to the Taliban. IS in Iraq and Syria only had converted pick-up tacticals even if some came from US car auctions. Taliban now has the same MRAPs as US forces.

Iman म्हणाले...

democrats spun up
teh clown in chief is not well
Cackles in bullpen

Iman म्हणाले...

pray for good afghans
their grief and desperation
engineered by Joe

Zev म्हणाले...

"How else was it going to end?"

Maybe by not abandoning Bagram Air Base before, thus degrading US ability to control events militarily, before completing the evacuation.

The stupidity of the question.

Grumpy_98 म्हणाले...
ही टिप्पणी लेखकाना हलविली आहे.
Grumpy_98 म्हणाले...
ही टिप्पणी लेखकाना हलविली आहे.
Grumpy_98 म्हणाले...

Well, Eugene, I won't be forgetting this train wreck any time soon. I won't be forgiving it either. I haven't forgotten or forgiven Operation Frequent Wind back in 1975. While my contribution was limited to pushing helicopters around and helping babies and the elderly down from the flight deck to the hanger bay, it left a lasting impression.

This situation is even worse. The U.S. was essentially out of Vietnam for two years and the ARVN was doing a fair job of holding its own with logistical support from the U.S. Things really went to pieces when the Congress decided to end that support. When you have no ordnance to fight with things go to hell fast.

This time the U.S. suddenly started leaving and gave no support to the Afghan forces. Sneaking out in the middle of the night and pulling support contractors and such. Doing things exactly backwards and not taking any responsibility for any of this $hit-show. Just leave our allies hanging out there to be butchered by the Jihadis. SHAME!

I'm sure that it is just a coincidence that it was a Democrat congress that cut off support to the South Vietnamese and it is a Democrat administration that is responsible for this cluster. As they say "First time is happenstance, second time is coincidence, and the third time is...". I think it's something about enemy action.

Iman म्हणाले...

Fried… er, Piss Hockey Boogie

Piss, piss, piss
Pissss
Pisssssszz
That’s called gettin’ ready for the boogie
Yeah, the “Piss Hockey Boogie”
Aw, yeah
Ever since the days of the last president
Well, folks come along and asked us why didn’t we uh, kinda uh, get our shit together
So we kinda thought that over and decided that would be a pretty good idea…

Joe Smith म्हणाले...

It shouldn't be hard to blow up stuff on the way out if you can't take it with you.

Isn't this something armies have known for a thousand years?

Drago म्हणाले...

steve uhr: "Unless you agree with all of the following, your claimed outrage at the present situation is primarily politically motivated:"

steve uhr is gonna "uhr" and there's nothing anyone can do to stop him.

Narayanan म्हणाले...

Making promises thst they can’t keep and don’t intend to keep us what politicians do, and American politicians are no different from most others in that respect. But don’t worry that we’ll ever again be able make promises, whether we intend to keep them or not or even can keep them or not. After Afghanistan no one sane will believe our promises, so in that respect Joe Biden through his unique mix of malice and incompetence. has tied the hands of future Presidents for at least the next forty or fifty years. This will be a part of his legacy.

---------

even before this fustercluck >>> could be this is why all DC okeydokey with Iran etc > diplomacy is now clowns dancing and demanding we still pay up

MalaiseLongue म्हणाले...

@TWWren: "President Biden is intractably holding to a completely arbitrary withdrawal date because he wants to end the negative news cycle that is taking all of the air out of his domestic agenda."

Biden is holding to August 31 because that when his Taliban bosses ordered him to leave. He remains intractable, of course, in areas where he actually has any agency or control.

Balfegor म्हणाले...

American departure was always going to result in some of what we're seeing. In retrospect, it seems inevitable that the Westernised Afghan government would collapse quickly. Women were going to be forced back into purdah, etc. Military hardware we had supplied to the Afghan National Army was going to end up in Taliban hands. But Biden's apologists conflate these likely unavoidable consequences with the chaos at HKAIA, and the abandonment of potentially a thousand American citizens and thousands more Afghans who worked closely with us and now are likely marked for death.

And the problem is only beginning. Every time there are Americans held hostage by foreign powers and terrorist groups, there's a public drama that plays out. From Daniel Pearl, to Kayla Mueller, to Otto Warmbier, to Andrew Brunson -- in every one, the government's duty to protect its people creates leverage for the enemy. Even an hundred Americans in easy reach of the Taliban (or ISIS or whatever remains of Al Qaeda, or other similar groups) leaves us more vulnerable than we ought to be. We'll always have some exposure, of course. Sometimes Americans foolishly get themselves in trouble by deliberately putting themselves in danger (e.g. John Allen Chau trying to convert Andaman islanders to Christianity and, predictably, getting killed for his trouble, or that guy who loved grizzly bears and was eaten). Sometimes the situation changes suddenly. That's the most charitable way of looking at present mess. But here, we're contemplating leaving citizens high and dry after the tide of American protection recedes from Afghanistan. And we're going to be paying for that one way or another.

Possibly literally, with pallets of cash.

Bunkypotatohead म्हणाले...

No worries. Joe will be bringing in plenty of Afghan immigrants to replace the dead Americans who never return.

It will get interesting if the Taliban demands the return of Afghanis, rather than cash, for the US hostages they are holding.