yimyammer

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what the fuck are we supposed to do, stay there forever?

They should have never tried to take over the country in the first place imo. I wish they could have been more patient and let Bin Laden and his cronies get cocky while we sit and wait for the opportunity and then do a targeted attack on him and his cohorts while leaving Afghanistan the mess its always been. The minute the US tried to take over the country I thought I cant believe we just made the same mistake the Russians did


I dont see how anyone can overcome the culture entrenched in that place except one option which America would never do (and Im not saying we should) but go biblical in the military approach wiping out every man, woman and child leaving no-one left to fight. China might be willing to take this approach
 

Doomsday

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They should have never tried to take over the country in the first place imo. I wish they could have been more patient and let Bin Laden and his cronies get cocky while we sit and wait for the opportunity and then do a targeted attack on him and his cohorts while leaving Afghanistan the mess its always been. The minute the US tried to take over the country I thought I cant believe we just made the same mistake the Russians did
Important to remember we were all BUT outta there... Until Pres 44 decided we needed to build back up and try to nation build. Bring the poor downtrodden Afghanis out of the Iron Age. Pres 43 knew better, and talks about it at legnth in his "Decision Points" book.
 

Doomsday

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I dont see how anyone can overcome the culture entrenched in that place
Here's today's column in the local paper from a guy who spent four years trying to train Afghani soldiers. Very illuminating.


Koen: Reflecting on my time training Afghan soldiers​


DAVID KOEN | Amarillo Globe-News

It seems this has been an interesting week. I’m sure by now everyone knows that President Biden officially pulled American military support out of Afghanistan.

This was a much-needed thing to happen, however, it seems the execution hasn’t been great. There is one thing I’m sure of, though.

The people in the positions to make the decision to do this had no idea what it was like on the ground in Afghanistan. I lived worked and trained the Afghan National Army for four years as a civilian after I got out of the Army. I was employed by a company that made a small four-wheeled tank style vehicle to train the Afghans on it.

What was supposed to be training on military equipment quickly became teaching them the fundamentals of being soldiers. How to shoot, move and communicate. How to react to enemy fire and how to set up supply lines from one side of the country to the other. It seemed like after my first few months all I could relate this to is the Prime Directive from "Star Trek."

This basically states that civilizations which are below a certain threshold of technological, scientific and cultural development; preventing starship crews from using their superior technology to impose their own values or ideals on them. It seems funny to think about, but Afghans do not have a countrywide identity.

Depending on what side of the bed our soldiers woke up on, it seemed one day they would be ANA and the next Taliban. I always felt like nobody wanted to take the blame for not being able to force western ideals onto the Afghans.

Over four years, soldiers and generals came and went. They always said the Afghans were about to turn the corner and we were getting so close to them being able to govern and protect their own country -- instead of saying this is an impossible mission and until the Afghans develop a national identity worth fighting for they would not fight.

They needed an Afghan version of George Washington to pull the country together and lead it onto the national stage. The Taliban however have an identity and set of core values that they fight for which makes them more lethal and willing to fight for the cause.

I remember after the classroom portion of training for the ANA we had to take them out and begin training them on how to actually use the equipment. It didn’t take long for us to realize most of the young soldiers we were tasked to train did not know how to drive.

They didn’t have any sort of licensing requirements, and most of the soldiers we were training didn’t have enough money to own a car or reason to. We had to change the training to take this into account.

We first taught them basic principles of driving with golf carts we had acquired to transport us up to the training area. After a few days, which was all we could afford, we then transitioned the best drivers to driving the tanks. Trust me, a five-ton armored vehicle drives differently from a regular car and a golf cart.

If I remember, they rolled one or two on the very first little test mission. Either way, with good leadership and a small crew of American advisers they could have held the country. They had the training and equipment to do so, just not the desire.
 

yimyammer

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Here's today's column in the local paper from a guy who spent four years trying to train Afghani soldiers. Very illuminating.


"They had the training and equipment to do so, just not the desire."

This should have been obvious from the outset not to mention a level of resentment that was surely to exist among many for foreigners coming into their country trying to push their way of life on to them.

Americans would lose their shit if some foreign power ever came here trying to do the same thing, why this wasn't considered a huge and likely scenario in Afghanistan frustrates me to no end
 

Doomsday

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This should have been obvious from the outset not to mention a level of resentment that was surely to exist among many for foreigners coming into their country trying to push their way of life on to them.
Dubya had us all but out of there. He wasn't interested in any nation building there.

But Obama said, "If they just had jobs they wouldn't have to resort to terrorism" and ramped our presence up, and started "building infrastructure that would support a market economy" and such crap.

Don'tcha see the pattern? Today it's "young black men wouldn't have to BE criminals if they just had Jobs!"

They actually believe, poverty is the whole problem in all scenarios. Not just as in the case of Islam, a fucking Iron Age crusader philosophy, mindset and ideology. It ain't poverty - Allah wants them to have poverty, to keep their souls pure!

The left and the Dems just refuse to understand, Islam for what it really is. They point to it being "the religion of peace" but fail to realize the definition of peace IN Islam is "the absence of all enemies." NOT coexistence with enemies.

This is why KSM told us, "You have the fancy watch. We have the time."
 

Scot

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0437de2abdf50cf69af7daf38e23db02.jpg
 

Creeper

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The Afghanistan situation is indefensible. It is a prime example of "if you do not learn from history you will be doomed to repeat it". Everything our military brass said about the Afghan army the said about the South Vietnam army in 1970. The only question is, did they really believe that BS or were they just saying it to avoid having to admit Vietnam was a failed 10 year exercise that cost 50,000 American lives? Now, in 2021, can the military responsible for training the Afghan army admit they failed after spending hundreds of billions or US dollars to get it done?

Furthermore, we had the more recent lesson of Russia in Afghanistan. Another important lesson not learned due to arrogance and politics.

Getting out of Afghanistan was the right thing to do, just 18 years too late. And think about this, if Trump had not won in 2016, we would probably still be there for another 10 years or more. Trump just pulled the plug on a never ending war that had no real mission goals. To paraphrase the movie War Games, the only way to win an endless war is not to fight one.

The Biden team is attempting to shift the issues from HOW we withdrew to whether or not we should have withdrawn. No one is questioning the should we. They are asking legitimate questions about how we did it because it is to total sh-t show now. Worse, they are all lying about it. The Pentagon is blaming the state department, Biden is blaming Trump, and so forth. The issue is, who concluded the Afghan Army was a viable fighting force? He/she should be fired. The issue is, why withdraw troops before civilians? Again, the responsible party should be fired. The issue is, why leave advanced military equipment behind to fall into the hands of the Taliban - and most certainly Russia and China. Billions of dollars in research and development were wasted.

So many lessons from history have been ignored and now we are going to pay a very high price. After 20 years, we are right back where we started and no better off.
 

touchdown

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Here's an example of how some of the Billions in the Trillion dollar infrastructure bill can be spent in the US:

 

yimyammer

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^^Beautiful^^

this would require people to work and the gov would prefer to support sittin on ass
 

Creeper

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The more I read about how we handled the Afghanistan withdrawal the more my blood boils. The lying, the disregard for human life, the disrespect for the hard working taxpayers, the shear stupidity of it all. I know the Biden administration wants to change the focus to something else but someone has to pay for this disaster. No one in the private sector could screw up this badly and not lose their job. Trump is not the classiest guy but he is right, it did not have to happen this way. I am not delusional. The Taliban was going to take over Afghanistan at some point after we withdrew and there is not much that could be done about that, but there is certainly a way we could have planned this withdrawal protecting the lives of Americans and the Afghans who helped us. There is no excuse for leaving equipment, some high tech, most deadly, behind for the Taliban to use against anyone who has the will to fight them.

The decision to abandon Bagram in the middle of the night, without even alerting the Afghan commander of the base was bizarre. The reason is absurd. General Milley told Biden we did not have enough troops left to protect both Bagram and Kabul so they abandoned Bagram rather than insert of few thousand more troops temporarily. In the end we sent another 5000 soldiers to Kabul anyway. This is incompetence, dangerous incompetence.

The worst part about all of this is the lying. Biden stood in front of a camera and told the American people the Americans in Kabul could get to the airport if they wanted. He claimed our allies were 100% behind us and there was no loss of credibility. He said there was no Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. All 3 statements were false and the state department and Pentagon knew they were false.

The Jake Sullivan, held a press conference the next day and claimed nothing happening in Afghanistan was not anticipated. All was going according to plan! He and Jen Psaki, the Biden version of Bagdad Bob, tried to claim we are actually watching a great success unfolding rather than the clown show we see in videos all over the media and internet. People should be angry enough to storm the White House and demand Biden's resignation.
 

Dodger12

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Another must listen. This poor lady is 100% right. All these people involved in the fraud are complicit in her son's death.

 

Doomsday

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Doomsday

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"I'm just glad we have a real leader in the White House now, who doesn't say mean things on Twitter," said one man sheltering in a house in hopes that the Taliban doesn't murder him. "It was really embarrassing for me living here abroad whenever Trump would make a typo on Twitter. But now, our president doesn't post anything mean on Twitter. Or anything, really, since he probably doesn't know what Twitter is. In fact, he doesn't say anything because he barely ever gives press conferences and just turns his back on the press whenever they ask a question. So he doesn't say anything mean."

"Finally -- America is back, baby!"
 
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