Said Mitt Romney on State of the Union" this morning. Transcript. Video:
August 29, 2021
"Well, Jake, there's a political slogan, end endless wars. But that doesn't translate it into a serious policy decision."
"And the real policy is this. You can't, as one party, end a war. It takes two parties to end a war. The Taliban and the radical violent jihadists in the world, they haven't stopped fighting. They're going to continue to fight us.
The war is not over. We're just no longer at a place where the war had its apex, where the Taliban was able to allow al Qaeda to grow and to attack us on 9/11. We went to Afghanistan because we got attacked on 9/11 and lost thousands of American lives.
Now America is more in danger. The reason we have a military is to protect America. And by -- the decision to pull our military out of Afghanistan puts us in greater danger.
We -- look, don't forget, we went to Afghanistan to knock down al Qaeda. But we stayed in Afghanistan to make sure they couldn't reconstitute to attack us again. So, pulling out means we are less safe. And, also, recognize the war is not over. We're just in a weaker position. We don't have boots on the ground. We don't have eyes on the ground.
When they say, look, we have over-the-horizon capacity, that's a fancy phrase. What does that mean? It means we're not there."
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I watched the video until this idiot blamed "the previous administration" twice. It didn't take long.
Mitt is cocksucker..can't believe I actually donated to his prez campaign. Fool me once...
Let's revert back to the 'Department of War' to show that we mean business.
Of course, that would mean no more social experiment bullshit in the services so it probably won't happen.
What does that mean? It means we're not there.
We fault Romney for his presumptuous use of the royal we, yet we agree Romney is not there and hasn't been for years.
This was the Mitt Romney I voted for in 2012. What happened to that guy? Still I much prefer Donald Trump. Now that the Jihadis tasted victory, they will be back. Unfortunately there will be a next time so when that time comes I hope whoever is in charge remembers the failures and keeps it to butcher and bolt and no rules of engagement except death to the enemy. Get in quick, inflict massive destruction then quickly the get out. One thing is that the US must put maximum economic pressure against countries that aid, abet and finance the terrorists and those include Pakistan and Qatar.
The Taliban were never a direct threat to us. We didn't need an army there to keep them from threatening us. Until now, of course, when we gifted them with billions of dollars of our advanced weaponry.
“We -- look, don't forget, we went to Afghanistan to knock down al Qaeda.”
What’s this ‘we’ stuff, Mitt?
He's not wrong.
The people who say we should stay beyond August 31st - what are they thinking? The Taliban merely has to cut off the streets leading to the airport and that's that. We can't airlift people who can't reach us. And furthermore, how are the troops there to be supplied? Fly in supplies? We just equipped the Taliban with rockets and tanks and everything they need to overrun the airport and /or shoot down incoming transport planes. we're scrambling to lessen disaster, that's all. And then, as Romney so truly says, (I hate it that I agree with him on this, but still) the war will continue because the Taliban are still at war with us. We had troops holding them down in Afghanistan. Biden made awful decisions such as halting air support and closing Bagram. Trump would not have left that way, he would have stopped if the Taliban started up. And now, now no one is holding the Taliban down. Or ISIS. The people who brought you the Police-free Streets of Chicago are presenting a new and soon-to-be even less popular show, DC and the Taliban.
Douche.
I wouldn't have had a problem with keeping the airbase and a token force in Afghanistan to keep things quiet. But things were only quiet (for our troops) because the Taliban wasn't attacking our troops because of the agreement. Forever occupations have a way of becoming forever wars, and people don't like that. If we didn't build a nation in 20 years, would 20 more get the job done?
"Over the horizon" sounds like the 2021 version of "Leading from behind," and was probably coined by the same folks.
And the ISIS planners who allegedly died in a missle retaliation strike?
Reminiscent of the guy who made a video and was blamed for the Benghazi debacle, especially since we're not going to be told who these ISIS planners were.
Mitt Romney is very very very angry that other peoples children and grandchildren are not going to remain in Afghanistan forever and help defense contractors rake in Billions of dollars which feed Mitt Romney's investment portfolio.
All we need to do to shut Mitt up is get Candy Crowley to pop by and tell him he is wrong and he'll not only shut up, he'll literally surrender to her on the spot.
There is always a valid, solid reason to send kids to die. It's vital that we insure corrupt kleptocrats in foreign governments and our arms manufacturers get theirs.
I'd opine that if we are not willing to send 1M troops, we should not be involved in the first place.
Not sure where to start Mitt. Maybe with the fact that the CIA missed almost 200,000 Russians marching into afghanistan. or that even with troops present, our intel was crap. Or that no one, not the CIA or any of the alphabet agencies has proven that OBL was behind the attack on twin towers. or who really financed it, planned it etc.
the huge amount of money and lives wasted here is a crime.
the current situation is such, that according to Laura Logan, and a few others, that Americans trying to get to the airport are turned away, by american troops.
None of this should be a surprise. both sides of the aisle have proven just how greedy, incompetent, and stupid they are. and how little they actually care for american lives.
I'll give Romney the credit due. Very sensible take on things.
While I don’t disagree with most of this I simply can’t accept it from the plastic man. The plastic man is a phony to the center of his polyethylene core. I’ve gotta be honest: he kind of turned me anti-Mormon. I feel bad about that and would like to apologize to all the good Mormons. But they need to apologize to me for Mitt. So we’re at a stalemate.
Romney is such a goddamn slippery liar. This is a character who claims to be a Republican, yet refused to vote for Trump, or criticize Biden without attacking Trump. In case Mittens didn't notice, Trump is not POTUS and hasn't been for 7 months. If Biden followed parts of Trump's evacuation plan (And I don't know if he did), no one forced Biden to do so.
Romney again claims absurdly that we're in a "never ending war" and that if we don't fight them over there, then we'll fight the over here. Except there's zero proof of that. We didn't get 911 because we didn't have boots on the ground in Afghanistan. And we've lost 2,400 men in 20 years of useless fighting. Romney wants to stay there forever. He wants to import millions of Afghans, since his constant refrain is we must take all the "noble allies" who want to come.
And then we get this absurdity:
"the Trump administration negotiating directly with the Taliban, getting ready to invite them to Camp David, opening up a prison of 5,000 Taliban and probably ISIS-K individuals and letting them free."
As opposed to letting in 60,000 Unvetted afghans "Translators" into the USA who might include Isis! Again, Romney is claiming we should never have negotiated with the Taliban and should never left Afghanistan. Somehow Afghanistan doesn't belong to afghans but to Mitt Romney and the USA. Crazy.
And it wasn't the Taliban who set off the bombs. It was Isis. And as far as I know, Taliban hasn't been killing Americans, despite all the hysterical rhetoric.
Romney is one of the biggest liars I've seen. He's very clever when he does it. But he's completely dishonest. He's NOT a "Good Man" no how many Morman Churches he sits in.
Thank God, Romney lost in 2012. This slippery, globalist coward, would've been the worst President ever. Gotten us into wars, given us amnesty, and destroyed the Middle Class.
"We're just in a weaker position."
True. But when we don't want to be strong, the least weak is best. Remains to be seen if Joe can manage even that. Certainly the exit was weaker than weak.
wildswan said...
The people who say we should stay beyond August 31st - what are they thinking? The Taliban merely has to cut off the streets leading to the airport and that's that. We can't airlift people who can't reach us. And furthermore, how are the troops there to be supplied? Fly in supplies?
Wildswan, you're Missing an Important thing.
Bagram Air Base, is pretty much The Most defensible real estate.. In the World.
The perimeters are far enough from the runaways, that planes are out of AAA range by the time they cross. Also; there is food and supplies enough there to last our troops, Literally, Years. We can fly chopters out to get folks, and then jet them out. Keeping Bagram Air Base shows that; as much as i dislike Jo Biden, he's thought this through
What's That?
The FIRST thing Jo did, was give up Bagram; without a fight?
The Second thing Jo did, was arm the Taliban, with Surface to air missiles, with a range of 50k+ feet?
The THIRD thing he did, was get our troops Trapped, at the civilan airport???
Nevermind
We were never willing to do what was necessary to exterminate the Taliban. Without such an effort, what exactly were we doing in Afghanistan the last 19 years? What were we going to do differently in the next 20 years? Until someone can actually stand up and answer those two questions, let's get the fuck out.
As Drago pointed out, these Pol's kids are brokering the financial angles. Like Hunter's sashay through the military. The grunts ain't coming from the Hamptons. Last truth a Biden has spoken was "I don't work for you".
We are going to be attacked by radical Islam. Question is which tactics, strategies, and dispositions are best suited to protect us.
If Astan is too far forward, which is just about right forward and why? Why not too far and why not far enough?
Is there a difference between building an infrastructure to support a position as in Astan and nation building? Both need roads.
We are not, as I have said before, getting run out of the place because the locals wouldn't pose for a Norman Rockwell calendar. Plenty of them aren't happy about the new bosses. We're leaving because mumblerumbletwentyyear and a force of maybe sixty thousand fighting men supported by Pakistan and others.
Pick some reasons for leaving and see where else they apply? How about Cape Cod? The Taliban will need the tourist revenues and so they'll be okay, right? Provincetown won't have anything to worry about and those who insist they might are islamophobes anyway. Otis AFB is kind of out there and we can base the planes and other ops nearer DC where it will be more convenient. Should have done that decades ago.
Pick a line. Been going on six hundred years since the line ran through Constantinople. Might have run through Vienna going on three hundred fifty years, except for a, um, er, a [looks both ways and behind} uh....fight.
You can't, as one party, end a war.
Mitt has completely forgotten about winning as a way of ending a war, apparently.
forever wars, and people don't like that...would 20 more get the job done?
What do people think of 1400-year wars? Because that's how long the enemy has been at war with us. Whether we want to admit it or not, whether we want to take the necessary steps to protect ourselves or fight back, or we want to run away in the face of the enemy, the fact is that THE WAR WILL GO ON whether we have troops in Afghanistan or not. It will go on for the rest of our lives. Only the battlefield has changed.
We realized that on September 12. But too many people -- including the "U.S. out of Afghanistan" crowd, many of them here -- are living again in a September 10 world.
There have been frequent and occasionally lengthy armistices, but we've been at war with with Islamic countries since the seventh century. I don't think the method of our leaving Afghanistan will do much to discourage any Islamic warriors.....The Mongols didn't have all that much trouble in Afghanistan. They also conquered Persia and the Abbasid Dynasty in Mesopotamia fairly easily. They killed every living soul in Baghdad and then moved on to Damascus. The religious elders of Damascus consulted the Koran and decided that there was nothing in it to preclude being ruled by infidels and paying tribute to them......Maybe someday the jihadists will succeed in pulling off some mega stunt that will inspire us to go all Mongol on their ass. Until then, I'm sure the religious war will continue, but the casualties will no longer be in Afghanistan.....I'm not one with a firm grasp of geopolitics, but I do remember that both Korea and Taiwan were criticized by the left as being corrupt and authoritarian states that were not worth defending. Maybe Afghanistan might have evolved into a better place if we had continued to support that assortment of crooks and decent folk who depended on our presence there. Or maybe not......The virus is gonna virus and jihadis are gonna jihadi.
Mitt just needs to go join his friend Joe Biden in the dustbin of history.
The entire uniparty Inc is finished. Mitt is right there with the rest of the failed DC douchebag crowd.
If hooking up one Biden cabinet member’s testicles to a car battery to get the truth out of the lying, little dog shagger will save just one American military member’s life, then I have only three things to say:
Red is positive, black is negative, and make sure his nuts are wet.
h/t Don Cherry
Mitt says one party can't end a war then he says it was a bad decision by Trump to negotiate with the Taliban. How can the two parties end a war if they don't negotiate?
Trump broke Mitt's thinker.
We didn't go to Afghanistan for women's rights or to establish democracy or because they had valuable minerals in the ground. The American people wouldn't have supported going to war in Afghanistan for those reasons.
The American people supported a mission to go over there and kill the motherfuckers who attacked us on 9/11, to make the host country pay and pay dearly and to make sure they never even thought about doing such a thing ever again. Somehow we lost sight of that.
Mitt lies on his taxes, abuses dogs and wants to put black people back in chains. The thoughtful politician.
Future A-Stan rules of engagement = buckets of sunshine on the least provocation
Oderint dum metuant.
I love how some people are taking the boob bait. A little while ago, we were staying in afghanistan for the little girls who dreamed of wearing makeup and getting a BA in women studies. Now, suddenly its all about "Stopping another 911".
Really? Why?
How does having combat troops in afghanistan "stop 911"? Wouldn't it make mroe sense to get stop meddling in the Middle East and stop importing Muslims into the USA? SUpposedly, by being in Afghanistan, 10-12 thousand miles away, we're preventing them from "Training". But then they have the whole world to "train" in. Its not like afghanistan is there only training site.
And even if they "Train" they still have to come over here. and while we're at it, did the Taliban Aghgani's pull off 911? IRC, it was mostly Saudis.
What Bob Boyd said @7:50pm. All true…
But too much money to be made, “supplying the army with the tools of the trade”, along with all the nation-building.
The $2 trillion wasted in Afghanistan would have bought us a lot of airport and border security, protecting actual citizens of the USA.
The old saying was "we fight them there so we don't have to fight them here". But if we didn't let them into the country in the first place we wouldn't have to fight them at all.
Those Saudi's who crashed those 4 jets on 9/11 learned how to do it right here.
I grew to respect Mitt after his sons volunteered for military service.. wait, that never happened. Fuck that guy.
Bender: "We realized that on September 12. But too many people -- including the "U.S. out of Afghanistan" crowd, many of them here -- are living again in a September 10 world."
Completely wrong.
The "out of Afhhanistan crowd" understands we are living in a 2021 world and its the Stay There Forever crew that thinks this is a winning fireign policy formula:
Seems like CNN confirmed U.S. officials took out their frustrations about ISKP attack by killing some random Afghan family and declaring it a great victory. Good metaphor for past twenty years of global war on terror.
Bob Boyd: "Mitt has completely forgotten about winning as a way of ending a war, apparently."
You have to actually know something first before you can forget it.....
An embattled outpost in A-stan has as much utility in our long war as one in Amazonia, especially given that other crises loom that will involve much more important real estate.
As for Mitt, why hasn't anyone asked John Bolton for his opinion? It has as much value.
Every now and then Mittens has two brain cells to knock together. Doesn't happen often, and it's not a condition that last for long.
He probably wouldn't agree with the solution. You must eradicate the problem. Completely. Anything less don't work. Old school, really old-school, like 4000 years ago old school. Kill or enslave the opposing soldiers, loot and plunder, impregnate their women and raise the children in your culture and religion.
"End endless wars." That could be a Hulu Catchphrase!
Narr. What real estate and why?
"End endless wars." That could be a Hulu Catchphrase!
jk said...
"I grew to respect Mitt after his sons volunteered for military service.. wait, that never happened. Fuck that guy."
Willard Mitt Romney sought and received a student deferment and later, while doing his missionary time abroad, he became entitled to a ministerial deferment. All of his deferments were valid and legally obtained. His sons were not subject to the involuntary draft.
On the other hand, Trump's doctor lied about Donald's supposedly bad feet in order that he could illegally beat the draft with a medical exemption and sons Uday and Qusay stayed clear of all voluntary recruiting stations. Youngest son Barron (named after DJT's pretend name "John Barron") will not be permitted by Daddy to join up when old enough. All true, so fucking is the name of that game.
"It takes two parties to end a war."
The victory party, what's the other one?
gadfly, Now do Bill Clinton!
Of course what he says is true. Does anyone here dispute it? No, you just discuss your personal feelings about Mitt. I thought you all put your emotions aside when you discuss serious policy matters. At least that’s what you always say here.
Joe Biden evaded the draft by falsely claiming to be asthmatic in spite of a varsity football career and his famous service as a lifeguard. Biden received five student draft deferments, first as an undergraduate at the University of Delaware and later as a law student at Syracuse University.
He speaks from the heart: the heart of his investment portfolio.
"We’re dealing with Kabul. There’s 7 buses of female American citizens. The CG refused to open the gate. We have a congressman with us and he had the state department reach out. MG Donahue refused. 10 minutes ago the females were taken by the Taliban. They are likely dead now."
The woke left - the corrupt Biden-Pelosi-Clinton money whore machine has ruined everything.
So early in the morning for gadfly to go full pro-marxist LLR Chuck and begin his detailed mind-reading "exercises" to try and validate his laughably adolescent anger-issue-driven lies.
You can't, as one party, end a war. It takes two parties to end a war. The Taliban and the radical violent jihadists in the world, they haven't stopped fighting. They're going to continue to fight us. The war is not over.
Does Mitt articulate what that victory would look like, much less entail?
Noooooooo!
Now do Joe Biden! Hint: more deferments than Trump...
Wince: "Does Mitt articulate what that victory would look like, much less entail?
Noooooooo!"
They never do, do they? If they could, they would. But they don't, so they can't.
@Richard Aubrey last night after I was abed.
Fair questions. We could be struck almost anywhere in the country, even Martha's Vineyard; the Suez and/or Panama Canals could be attacked from anywhere--it's not as if FOB A-stan was pinning anyone down but us.
Jihadists (Nihilhadists) could pull stuff like that off. Countries like Russia and China have even more potential, not to mention other shady characters.
Many here are old enough to recall the Two-and-a-half Wars baselining the Pentagon used to talk about. A-stan is half-a-war too far in these parlous times IMO.
Mitt Romney blaming Trump - what a liar! Romney did you state that Biden was obligated to adhere to the deal Trump negotiated? If so, what happened to all the deals Trump did that Biden is undoing. Name a few you Trump haters. I'll start "Keystone Pipeline" and "Border Wall". Look Romney is a political loser that was evident to everyone on 2012 except for you Trump haters.
"IRC, it was mostly Saudis."
Who were trained in Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, under the protection of the Taliban. So yeah, the initial campaign against both those entities made sense. On the other hand, the 20 year long effort at nation building (which Biden was for before he was against) didn't. Romney is wrong about this.
Gilbar said
"Wildswan, you're Missing an Important thing.
Bagram Air Base, is pretty much The Most defensible real estate.. In the World."
On August 29, months after we gave up Bagram airbase, weeks after we armed the Taliban with captured Afghan army supplies, there were US Reps and citizens demanding that we stay till the last American who wanted to leave had left. My Point was: we can't do that - why pretend. We have to go on August 31st - ready or not. And we're leaving people behind, including American citizens who will soon be on TV, in some terrible plight. The Endless War: Part I The End, Part II Hostage Negotiations, Part III American City X Bombed, Part IV TBA, Part V TBA, Part VI TBA ....
"Thank God, Romney lost in 2012."
Unfortunately, you are correct. The same goes for McCain.
we went to Afghanistan to knock down al Qaeda. But we stayed in Afghanistan to make sure they couldn't reconstitute to attack us again
No, we didn't.
We staying in Afghanistan to "nation build", which is to say:to spend a lot of US taxpayer money on corruption and graft, much of which came back to the people like Mitt who were opening the spigots in the first place.
The "make sure al Qaeda can't come back" footprint is far different from the "nation building" footprint.
The US is much less safe because Joe Biden is President rather than Donald Trump.
But Mitt won't say that, because he's a corrupt and spiteful weasel.
So Mitt can FOAD
steve uhr said...
Of course what he says is true. Does anyone here dispute it?
Wow, Steve, it's amazing the pretzels you'll twist yourself into to "own the cons".
So, now you're a George Bush supporter? Just for grins: who were you supporting in 2004?
And what Mitt said is not true. The way to have made sure al Qaeda never came back would have been to inform all the Pashtun tribal heads that they could either turn over all the Taliban heads to us for trial and execution, or else we would do to their tribal sites what was done to the Twin Towers. Which is to say we'd napalm and firebomb them out of existence.
And we should have let them know that the Pakistan border would not protect them.
And would should have made both those things stick, along with the promise that any return to RIF'dom would lead to fire and death.
Mitt didn't want that, and neither do you, Steve. Because that would be an American victory, and you hate those.
What Mitt wants, and what you're supporting because you're a short-sighted political fool, is for the US taxpayers to shell out billions of dollars every year to corrupt people who will then slide a cut back to people like Mitt, and Joe (I mean 'Hunter').
No thanks
So, we've seen the Taliban repeatedly play with the Biden* Admin (the way a cat plays with a mouse).
What are the odds that they'll stage some sort of hostage crisis next year, around midterm election time?
What are the odds that the Democrat Admin (be it Biden*, Harris*, or someone else) will try to pull off some sort of rescue to keep teh Democrats from being totally crushed in the midterm elections? (I say 100%. Of course, let's watch the VA elections coming up this November. The more hurt the VA Dems are by the Biden* screwups, the more aggressive the Democrat Admin will be next year.)
What are the odds that the Dem Admin will screw up their rescue more than Carter blew his? 95%? More?
Hey Biden voters, are you enjoying all your "winning"?
steve uhr: "Of course what he says is true. Does anyone here dispute it?"
Steve uhr decides now would be a good time to pretend the establishment didnt just spend 2 decades and trillions of dollars for NATION BUILDING specifically in Afghanistan and the Middle East, something sleepy Joe is on the record as having fully supported and backed.
Uhr is gonna uhr.
Hahaha. All this Romney hatred. You have no idea, how many good Republicans Romney speaks for. And yet you channel Donald Trump's craven, jealous, sociopathic rage.
It's a completely broken party.
Romney; Liz Cheney; Adam Kinzinger. My connections to the current Republican Party grow more and more tenuous. And if I were to quit it altogether, I wouldn't go away sad. I'd go away determined to do whatever is necessary to defeat the Trump Party. In a fury.
God, we hate each other.
wildswan said...
My Point was: we can't do that - why pretend. We have to go on August 31st - ready or not.
Yes, wildswan, i saw your point; i just using it for the apportunity to be snarky
I STILL can't believe we gave up Bagram!
"You have no idea, how many good Republicans Romney speaks for"
Yes I do: 0
Because no "good Republicans" voted for Biden
Chuck said...
Romney; Liz Cheney; Adam Kinzinger. My connections to the current Republican Party grow more and more tenuous. And if I were to quit it altogether, I wouldn't go away sad. I'd go away determined to do whatever is necessary to defeat the Trump Party. In a fury.
God, we hate each other.
You're a Democrat, pretending to be a Republican. Of course you hate us actual Republicans.
Over 90% of people who claim to be Republicans supported Trump. It's nice for you to admit that you hate > 90% of Republican voters.
But if you think anyone cares, you're wrong
Pro-marxist LLR Chuck: "You have no idea, how many good Republicans Romney speaks for."
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
That would be the same Mitt Romney who begged Trump for a job in his administration and then, when that transparent 25th amendment ploy was s***canned and Romney sent packing like a kicked dog, Romney then shifted his efforts to get elected to the Senate (in order to activate his Democrat-5th Column effort for impeachment) and to do that Romney solicited and made promises for which Trump then granted his endorsement....which Romney used to get elected because....
.....because....
...because Romney had no real support even in Utah without Trump's endorsement and Romney already knows that he is too toxic to run for reelection in precisely the same manner as that astonishing Forever Wars For Other People's Kids To Fight loser Liz Cheney.....in precisely the same manner as Very Soon To Be Redistricted Right Out Of His Congressional Seat loser boy Adam Kinzinger.
Gee, all 3 of pro-marxist LLR Chuck's Pelosi-republican "heroes" will all be out of a job at the very next occasion for which they must face the voters.
Then who will our resident "undercover democrat" LLR Chuck shift to in order to continue his quest for Complete Democratical Dominance of Government At All Levels?
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