President Biden - Part 2

[JimmyDee]

In normal times ministers would quit.

On that basis, the last "normal time" was in 1982, when Lord Carrington resigned ... and it wasn't really his fault, but he did it anyway because "the buck stops here".
Ah, those were the days!

[Zippy]

Talaban currently flavour of the month until they start shooting those who didn't make it out,persecuting all females,raping some of them and bringing all afghans back to their previous middle ages existance.
Even then ISIS-K are worse.

I don't think they are the flavour of the month, I think they are just playing nice until everyone fucks off.

Agreed, BUT then kill every fucker who was against them.

Yet some posters were parroting their "return to their families with no consequences" line without question

[Vespa]

The more I watch Biden and Afghanistan the only difference I can see is Biden admits it is a shit show, Trump would tell everyone it's amazing and the best airlift ever. It would be the same on the ground.

[Zambo]

We don't know if it would have been any different or not. Maybe Trump would have negotiated a different time frame for evacuation for starters.

[Vespa]

We don't know if it would have been any different or not. Maybe Trump would have negotiated a different time frame for evacuation for starters.

The current date was negotiated by Trump, the criticism of Biden is he went with the Trump plan. It's a fair criticism.

[Zambo]

We are not close enough to know for sure.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump- ... 021-08-22/

https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-mi ... 4604aa11be

But Biden can go only so far in claiming the agreement boxed him in. It had an escape clause: The U.S. could have withdrawn from the accord if Afghan peace talks failed. They did, but Biden chose to stay in it, although he delayed the complete pullout from May to September. etc etc.

[Hillman avenger]

We don't know if it would have been any different or not. Maybe Trump would have negotiated a different time frame for evacuation for starters.

The current date was negotiated by Trump, the criticism of Biden is he went with the Trump plan. It's a fair criticism.

They were supposed to be out in May. He extended it to August.
But by May there were only 4000 US troops there.
If he had reversed the exit policy he would have needed to ship back in tens of thousands of soldiers. Imagine what the media would have made of that.

[Vespa]

We are not close enough to know for sure.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump- ... 021-08-22/

https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-mi ... 4604aa11be

But Biden can go only so far in claiming the agreement boxed him in. It had an escape clause: The U.S. could have withdrawn from the accord if Afghan peace talks failed. They did, but Biden chose to stay in it, although he delayed the complete pullout from May to September. etc etc.

Biden could have changed his mind at any point and he needs to own that. That's not my point, my point is people saying Trump would have done it better discount the fact that the evacuation started under Trump and he did fuck all to make it happen. Claiming it would be different under his is nonsense it would have been the same.

[JimmyDee]

I'll tell you what I would have done ...
by the powers invested in me as a member of talkFORUM I would have made it all lovely and nice.

[Zambo]

We are not close enough to know for sure.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump- ... 021-08-22/

https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-mi ... 4604aa11be

But Biden can go only so far in claiming the agreement boxed him in. It had an escape clause: The U.S. could have withdrawn from the accord if Afghan peace talks failed. They did, but Biden chose to stay in it, although he delayed the complete pullout from May to September. etc etc.

Biden could have changed his mind at any point and he needs to own that. That's not my point, my point is people saying Trump would have done it better discount the fact that the evacuation started under Trump and he did fuck all to make it happen. Claiming it would be different under his is nonsense it would have been the same.

My point is the Trump blimpers have one eye shut. I'm certainly not saying Trump would have done it better, but could anyone have done it worse. My other point is we don't know what Trump would have done in Biden's shoes, so saying that it would have been the same is nonsense. As per the link, Biden made some choices that Trump may have not.

[lambrini]

Metokur is correct – Trump's implemented withdrawal strategy is irrelevant. The Biden administration failed to foresee problems and organise a smooth exit. There was no planning. It's an abomination.That's the issue. But, no, Orange Man Bad.



Warning: The above video contains adult themes and strong language. Viewer discretion is advised.

[kancutlawns]

You think Trump’s hands are clean in all this? Really? Biden has just inherited the shite, handled it badly yes but Trump’s been lucky in that he ‘negotiated’ the peace agreement and handed it to someone to administer the withdrawal. To get party points and emphasise senility from this is not really on. Dementia isn’t really something to laugh at as some seem to be doing.

[lambrini]

You think Trump’s hands are clean in all this? Really? Biden has just inherited the shite, handled it badly yes but Trump’s been lucky in that he ‘negotiated’ the peace agreement and handed it to someone to administer the withdrawal. To get party points and emphasise senility from this is not really on. Dementia isn’t really something to laugh at as some seem to be doing.

For goodness sake! No. I'm saying that the Biden administration handled the withdrawal badly despite the Trump administration's implementation. Their lack of crisis management created an unnecessary shitshow.

There is no hard evidence (not yet at least) that Biden has dementia. If he is losing his marbles – and I suspect he's suffering from the onset – why aren't his family and close advisors admitting it? It's painful to watch him suffer. And memes aside, he is suffering, both physically and mentally.

[kancutlawns]

Totally agree with you, Lambers that his press conference after the bomb blast was excruciating. It was pitiful and embarrassing. I think him lauding the drone attacks that took out the two ISIS-K operatives was a token and non too impressive response but don’t really know what else he could have done. I would have thought if he wants to restore some kind of order and bearing in mind the Taliban have comprehensive forced the US to withdraw, he needs to be doing all he can to work with the Taliban to overcome ISIS-K.

I just don’t have any confidence Trump would have handled this in a better way and his belligerence is pretty nauseating.

[Hillman avenger]

OK
I repeat
The "agreement" was February 2020 and committed to shrinking the US forces from 15,000 ( at its peak it was 100,000).
By the time Biden took office it was 4000. Nowhere near enough to control Afghanistan, just about enough to defend Kabul and Bagram.
If he had then said he was not accepting the deal ( which I assume had been approved by Congress, so would need to be reversed there) he would have had to order tens of thousands back there. Perhaps that's what he should have done, but can you imagine the strife there would have been about that? Trump would have immediately claimed it was HE who was the "peacemaker" ( ie surrender) and that Biden and the Democrats were warmongers.
In the period February to January 2021, the US could have conducted a structured removal of Afghans at risk. But guess what it was election year and part of Trump's platform was against immigrants....so very little was done.
Biden extended the withdrawal date to August instead, trying to make the best of a bad job by adding three months. Was enough done in those three months?
What is for sure is that Trump has no grounds whatsoever for trying to suggest he would or did do better.