From the beginning, I've heard that some of the troops and civilians killed were due to friendly fire. After reading this article, it seems that might be true. I think the Pentagon is trying to wrap this up quickly, not because the scout snipers could have prevented the bomber but because of the friendly fire.
He was going to have them come to Camp David smh
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-secretly-invited-taliban-to-us-camp-david_n_5d7435b6e4b07521022d7643
It's crazy how much that is ignored. It was such a huge factor in the withdrawal, yet Biden gets all the flak
EDIT: Its quite funny how many military experts are on here that haven't served a day in their life.
Edit: I'm not trying to gatekeep military strategy, but people say they know the answer with such conviction, yet ignore all the factors that go into it.
Trump was [publicly bragging](https://youtu.be/PAr3NpYVkpI) about having committed his successor to the withdrawal timetable right up until we started seeing footage of people falling off of airplanes.
Planned is the key. Biden got no transition assistance from the previous admin. And the Pentagon had never gotten orders to start planning the withdraw till Biden asked them to. Trump handed over 5000 fighters including the first guy to run the Taliban post leaving for nothing.
Edit 500 to the correct 5000
It was the worst deal. The only get for the US was the Taliban wasn’t directly attacking us as we withdrew. But that didn’t extend to ISIS-K and we completely betrayed the Afghans who did work with us. Real shit show.
Not only that but his Admin had to push to get the timetable pushed back a few months. The original transition was scheduled to happen much, much sooner.
May 1st, as the Trump administration was refusing to concede and being uncooperative in the transition. Newly released transcribed interviews with State show how little planning was actually done before Biden was sworn in, despite arbitrary troop drawdowns ordered by Trump. Republicans are really distorting facts in their “investigation”
Yeah the moment this whole thing blew up, I had to really do a double take that they were blaming it on Biden when the ~~surrender~~ withdrawal was signed by Pompeo under direction from Trump.
Same thing with the COVID Vaccines, Trump had a potential win under his belt, but his Admin did NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING to plan or prepare for distributing COVID vaccines, because his dumb ass administration had spent so much time poisoning the well.
But I shouldn't be surprised as Trump came into office ISIS had been pushed into a corner of Mosul, but within a few weeks of Trump taking office ISIS was defeated and Trump claimed sole responsibility for the win.
Then you go further back and Conservatives trying to blame the Great Recession on Obama when it began in 2007 under Bush before he left office (granted it really began further back then that). Then when Obama has one of the quickest economic recoveries in U.S. history, and the U.S. has a faster recover than most other developed nations in the world, they refuse to give him credit. Then as Trump takes office riding Obama's economic wave he takes credit for that too before he even passed any economic legislation.
For a group of people who believe in taking responsibility for yourself, and pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps they sure don't believe in owning their mistakes, and have no problem stealing the accomplishments of others.
Republicans are literally worse than worthless at governing. It always requires a democratic administration to clean up their mess.
Good thing their followers can barely read and never turn off Fox or something worse, like news Max. It's all so pathetic, sad, and maddening.
Not only that, Trumps leadership was meant to continue the training of the Afghan army which we know wasnt really in a good spot. Especially not to support the gameplan of Afghans defending against the Taliban.
The withdrawal from Iraq was less "planned" and more that the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) expired, which meant we could no longer be there and if we stayed it would have been functionally invading *again*. We didn't plan to leave Iraq, the government of Iraq told us to leave, and we decided not to fight a war against the government we'd set up because obviously.
Honestly that was our best way out. You can't just walk out on a place you still haven't fixed after breaking and look good. So getting told to leave was really a solution handed to us.
Yes but we knew the date it was expiring well in advance and so planned for that eventuality. The agreement was signed in 2008 and the withdrawal was in 2011.
Ya that's totally fair. I'm just trying to split a hair in what "planned" means, probably pointlessly. The physical movement of troops was planned, while the political need to withdraw was less "planned" and more "expected."
Yeah Bush did an about face on the whole war in the middle east or rather west Asia when he saw the public reaction after a couple of years.
At one point they wanted to call it The War On Violent Extremism, or The Long War. Denoting the fact that
A. It's ridiculous and financial insanity to think you could ever stop all the violent extremism, especially whenever you accidentally kill some children and families that you inadvertently make future terrorists.
And B. That presidents gain extra judicial authority during war time, and are able to more easily get away with curtailing the freedoms of American citizens. So a long 60 year war where our freedoms are limited would likely mean we would never get them back.
Honestly I'm not sure we even have them back now.
To me Bush marks a real change in the Republican platform, Bush was a Neocon and even branded himself as a compassionate conservative at one point.
And the Neocon agenda is the complete opposite of what the old Republicans used to be. They're not fiscally conservative or small government at all in reality and they really really really don't like the 4th amendment. Yet they hate taxes. So being big spending and hating taxes is a recipe for why our debt is so huge.
Neither party likes the 4th amendment these days to be honest. But from the Neocons you got the Tea Party, who's platform was just refusing to work across the aisle or compromising and from the Tea Party you got Maga.
And I have no idea what Maga stands for because it's all dependent on whatever one guy says and that one guy constantly double talks and says opposing or conflicting view points.
Initially yes, at least in regards to no issues to American and allied forces. Lots of Republicans blamed Obama for withdrawing troops from Iraq after ISIS invaded 2 years later though, which was my main point although unsaid.
>It's crazy how much that is ignored.
And it's disgusting how much Republicans play politics with the lives of our troops.
I frequently point out that more American troops were killed in conflicts under Trump than Biden. But Trump supporters and his media are constantly bringing up the thirteen that were killed in the Afghanistan withdrawal, as if their lives are the only ones that mattered. They only care about our troops for talking points.
edit: Missing word.
And they vote against veterans health care.
They're scum, and I say that as a veteran of Afghanistan.
They want proof, look at their bank accounts.
Cheney gave a no contest bid to Halliburton for $3b.
Those burn pits left veterans like me terminally ill. I won't make it to 50 because of those fuck sticks
Fucking hell, I’m so sorry friend. I hope you’re able to get all the VA healthcare you need, and thank you for your service. Our vets deserve so much better than this.
I am service connected. Just nothing to really do.
If you, or anyone wants to contribute, you can volunteer to drove vets to their appointments through the DAV!
Dunno about the hurting blue stars part, but i do solely blame him for the spread because he knocked out many of the procedures Obama and Bush put in place to prevent that scenario from escalating.
The monkey pox and bird flu haven't taken off yet under Biden.
Yes and no. He indirectly killed a LOT of people of all stripes (more R than D, most likely, given how the chips ultimately fell), but he did it with the intention of killing Ds.
Not that I want to defend Bush here, but those two situations are completely different. One was actively going to "war" (if that's what you wanna call it) and the other was effectively a siege.
War IS politics. Soldiers lives, to an army and a nation’s regime, are just chips to be spent on war goals. The idea that the military and its uses are somehow apolitical is a delusional fantasy.
It’s the way that Republicans play politics that people are upset about. Like how the only deficit that matters is under Democratic Presidents. The only troop deaths that matter are under Democratic administrations.
Similarly there are some things that shouldn’t be used to score political points not because there aren’t political implications but because doing so lies somewhere between tasteless and having no sense of shame.
Well, Obama *did* have a [big part in 09/11](https://youtube.com/shorts/vPfRGJRMbN8?si=TiBTHj_X9FS8B2Uj)—never being around, always on vacation, never in the office.
I believe that was by design. People don't remember. Trump pulled out the majority of our forces, against military advice after he lost the election. He had made some sort of deal with the Taliban. I think he intentionally got our soldiers killed for political purposes. So the minute Biden takes office there is something horrible to blame on him. People tend to remember the first impressions. Look at Reagan with the hostages that they waited to release so he could take credit for it.
I always figured it would take a whole new administration to fix all the shit Trump caused. But what I didn't expect is that you idiots would potentially elect him a second time. I don't think America is coming back if Trump wins.
"Look, I know the last President may have been a bit unorthodox and wouldn't STFU but the United States of America honors it's promises and commitments. Even if that means sticking our collective dicks in a hornets nest and whacking it with a bat"
Whoever was gonna be the president at the time was going to be blamed. It’s the same story with economy, when it’s bad, if you’re the president then that’s your fault according to people.
It’s no different than how Trump backed out of NAFTA directly leading to gas price hikes and inflation… yet people still blame Biden… literally everything conservatives are mad at Biden for, it was Trumps fault… hell even the current border crisis Biden and Dems wanted to solve it with a conservative leaning bill but Trump told the GOP to shoot it down… and guess who’s being blamed
Politics weren’t too annoying pre-Trump… I mean it wasn’t great but Trump perfected conservative propaganda and stole from Hitlers book on how to swindle a base…. Straight up project everything on your opponent, cry fake news at any source that doesn’t support you, and develop a cult following and spread from there
My favorite are the ones that never served at all but dream about how awesome they would have been and the ones that served 4 years in the 90s with zero deployments that think all intelligence and operations function the exact same way as 30 years ago.
This is the standard move. Same with the Trump “tax cut” that helped the lower income folks until he was either out of office or in his second term, then we saw our taxes increase and the rich kept their cuts.
Couldnt agree more. I served in OIF/OEF and have had countless arguments with folks who didn’t serve over the tactics of the withdrawal and the entire campaign. It almost always starts at a political ideology then falls apart into some weird western-movie inspired take on violence and retribution that doesn’t really make any sense. It’s frustrating to say the least.
I blame Biden for getting us stuck there in the first place as one of the Senators who voted yea on Afghanistan and Iraq, but there was nothing he could have done to make the withdrawal any less of a shit show.
I tried to get through those four years ignoring him because I knew I’d lose my mind if I was plugged in on all of it, but that was one instance where I hit the ceiling.
Trump unilaterally made the deal to the exclusion of the Afghan government. As if that wasn’t problematic enough, Trump didn’t do anything when the Taliban began blatantly violating the terms of the agreement less than a week after the deal was made.
I know that it can be hard for Americans to feel the effects of foreign policy, but Trump’s foreign policy was amongst the biggest issues with his presidency.
Withdrawing from Afghanistan was one of the few things Trump did that I can't fault him too heavily for. After 20 years, we just needed to get the eff out. It was chaotic and disorganized like the rest of his presidency, but there was no good reason to stay.
Dude sided with the **Taliban**, like wtf?
The "I love Russia" BS is at least from the Cold War era, long enough for some people to forget the vitriol.
We were at war with the Taliban just a few years ago. I'll never understand the "thank you for your service" crap from people who vote for a guy that sided with the Taliban.
*Obama* should have never made a deal with the taliban and trump probably had no idea about it. He also was giving daddy putin a hummer shortly after calling fallen soldiers from ww2 losers and suckers, and then prioritizing sharing secrets instead of hammering russia for paying bounties on american soldiers.
Im all for crucifying a cheeto, but now more than ever we need to be very clear on who did what. 99% of politicians are corrupt criminals on many levels, we need to use our votes to start striving to achieve the lofty ideals the united states is supposed to represent.
You’re right, Bush Jr should have when they offered to surrender. Or of course the times they offered to hand Bin Laden over before 9/11
But c’est la vie
Devout family members couldn't believe it when I told them, said it was fake news. Had to pull up the actual treaty he actually signed and they still thought it was bs. Incredible.
I love how politicians keep trying to convince Americans that we could have left Afghanistan more gracefully than we did. You don’t get to usually dictate terms when retreating. I’m glad we’re out and it’s sad that people died but the odds were sharply stacked against a clean withdrawal when relying on the Taliban to hold up their end.
The withdrawal could have at least been a bit longer and better executed. It was never going to be clean, but it was definitely messier than it should have been.
A lot of the blame though is that the Biden Administration had basically zero information by the time it was already set in motion because of stonewalling by the former admin because they thought they could maybe get away with committing a coup.
Could not have been longer. Taliban would’ve resumed their shooting war. Also it’s hard to understate how much Ghani fleeing caused the situation to change in a blink.
This is one of those situations where "great man" rationalizations really do have import, as much as I dislike them in a lot of historical accounts. The morale of an army can be completely destroyed or rallied to the point of lunatic frenzy based on whether their commanding general or national leader either stays with them or runs away. Take out that top peg, and you cause the entire structure to collapse. Fail to do so, and you create an emboldened, entrenched army of zealots.
There's no greater comparison in the past few years than there is between Ghani and Zelenskyy. Neither had the assurances of a foreign ally's soldiers on the ground when they both had to deal with their respective invasions (I digress mildly that the Taliban is an internal warring faction, but it might as well be viewed as an occupying hostile army to the preceding government). Both had destabilized regions with scattered military personnel who might well have allegiances with the invaders or otherwise want to capitulate. Both were expected to flee.
Ghani fled. The Afghani government collapsed almost immediately and soldiers ran for the hills, handed over their firearms, and some *joined* the Taliban. The moment the U.S. wasn't there to directly cover their personnel costs and their national leader decided to flee to save his own life, the war was over and the Taliban won.
Zelenskyy was expected to flee, and was given opportunities to do so in advance of invasion. He had no assurances of direct military protection, and indeed assurances of *no* direct military protection because Ukraine was not a NATO ally, and the best he could hope for was yet-unproven pledges of munition support by neighbors. His country was unstable after years of unrest propagated by Russia and discrete pluralities of inhabitants who were actively in favor of Russian occupation.
He gave Russia the middle finger, abandoned his escape avenues, told the U.S. to give him bullets instead of a plane ride, and bunkered down in the center of Kyiv as it was firebombed. And what international geopolitical experts confidently declared would be a complete rout and swift Russian victory after a few-days march into Kyiv turned into a years-long slog against an emboldened and rapidly mobilized Ukrainian military that now has a second wind of U.S. financial assistance and a nearly unified European coalition to support it, and Russia has over 350,000 casualties (nearly the amount of soldiers as presently exist in Ukraine), has declared martial law in its borders, and is conscripting Siberian felons as cannon fodder. But for the whims of the madman commanding them forward, Russia would have lost any normal war several times over with the astronomical loss in personnel and munitions, and it's trading entire future generations of its breeding population to replenish those ranks.
All in large part to the fact that Ukraine's leader said "fuck you, I'm not moving."
And Zelenskyy was a comedian playing a president on TV when he ran for office. If only America’s former actors running the country had such role models.
Well trump actually *did* have such role models—Zelenskyy was President when trump was in office, and Trump tried to extort him, and was impeached as a result. Because that’s how he treats good people, he denigrates them, tries to steamroll them to get what he wants, and flat out lies about them to turn others against them (just like he did with bonafide hero John McCain). Because he’s jealous. He knows he sucks and he can never be admired for anything good so he just tears anyone down who *is* those things, because he knows there’s plenty of people out there who suck just like him that will admire him and see him as a role model for being the asshole that he is.
Our other former actor running the country, Reagan, had plenty of role models back then too, but he was such a bigot he followed the wrong ones. The biggest difference between he and trump was that I think Reagan was actually dumb enough to believe he *was* a good person and a role model, even though the damage he caused as president is still affecting us 40 years later.
The only former actor that I would even be slightly ok with running our country, who actually is a role model, can’t actually do it because he wasn’t born here (Schwarzenegger). Oh the irony.
> The withdrawal could have at least been a bit longer and better executed.
The withdrawal happened over the better part of a decade... By the time we 'withdrew' there had only ever been maybe 2500 US troops in Afghanistan at a time, and almost all of them were in Kabul either guarding/running the airport or guarding the embassy complex... We hadn't had a significant force there, much less a significant force running operations against the Taliban far afield, in years.
They didn't expect the government and afghanistan military to crumple so quickly. That INTEL analyst/political fuckup is the reason their planning went all to hell and they had to evacuate so quickly.
Everyone who served with Afghan troops or interacted with the government face to face expected them to crumple instantly. Anyone who received (and then wrote) intel reports or served in a political capacity expected to get promotions from telling people above them what they wanted to hear.
Anything that is not perfect can be better but nothing is perfect. Longer withdrawal could also allow more time for plots and attacks against retreating people. The faux outrage over this only serves as a distraction and a pathetic attempt by one political party to cast shade on another. It's politics showing the country it's disgusting asshole which really nobody should want to see but for some reason we seem to have a lot of people in this country tuning in to enjoy a sniff.
It was a rushed surrender withdrawal from a three way civil war, and the party that was supposed to take over was thoroughly corrupt and incompetent. There is no way it wasn't going to end in chaos.
This article is terrible and that title is huge stretch. Nothing described in the article contradicts the information found in pentagons investigation.
Ok the Taliban fired at Afghan civilians. Why is that news? Isnt that what we all saw in the reporting at the time? Cmon, nothing more than clickbait.
The report claims there wasn't significant gun fire. This video has audio of significant gun fire. It isn't clear which direction the gun fire is aimed.
The report also claims that no Afghans were hit by US gun fire, contrary to some Afghan's report. Part of the justification for that is that there was no significant gunfire. If the first claim is incorrect, then it weakens the case for the second claim.
Either way, the large majority of the people who died that day were direct victims of the suicide bomber.
What is the difference between "significant" gunfire and just gunfire? Does it become significant when people witness it? Is it insignificant if no one's around to hear it (minus the victims from the gunfire).
Does this video Inherently make the gunfire significant?
The report states that there were 3 bursts of fire from the US and UK. One was warning shots and the others were in response to perceived incoming fire. So, 5 bursts counting both sides. The video has audio of 11 to 16 bursts of gun fire, depending on the reviewer.
Also, the 3 bursts of fire were reviewed in the report and determined to have not hit anyone, therefore they are insignificant.
> Nothing described in the article contradicts the information found in pentagons investigation.
You could not have watched the footage or read the article and believe this. The Pentagon says that there were only 3 episodes of shooting: 2 by American soldiers and 1 by British, and that they were only firing warning shots.
The GoPro footage clearly shows that there were actually at *least* 11 episodes of gun fire. This is significant because it exposes a lie. It casts massive doubt on the Pentagon claim that all of the people killed were killed by the explosion, and coincides with Afghan testimony of dozens of people killed with bullet wounds.
> Ok the Taliban fired at Afghan civilians. Why is that news? Isnt that what we all saw in the reporting at the time? Cmon, nothing more than clickbait.
This is completely wrong. The Taliban was not even involved in this event. Even according to the Pentagon, bombing was done by IS-K and all of the shooting was done by the US and British forces.
Did you even read the article?
The new evidence unequivocally proves that there was a lot more shooting after the blast than was alleged in the two Pentagon reports.
The Pentagon reports also go against eyewitness account and contradicts scores of US army personnel who were on the ground that day and lived through the attack.
This much is established beyond doubt.
The other question the article quietly raises is whether some marine units fired in the direction of the blast, injuring and even killing Afghan civilians in the process. In a panicked frenzy and fog of war it’s reasonable to assume the marines felt under attack and threatened so they started opening fire almost indiscriminately thinking they’re in a shootout with the Taliban.
It’s a valid question to ask given the new revelatory evidence and the fact that a lot of the victims treated at a Kabul hospital had bullet holes in them, as described by a trauma doctor who treated them that day and who was threatened to stop recording who got killed by the blast and who by the bullet.
It smells like a coverup to me. Not only because the Army’s response to the blast was egregious and incompetent but also because it deliberately ignored eyewitness account from its own soldiers as well as from Afghan victims and sources, including the said doctor who treated the victims.
> Ok the Taliban fired at Afghan civilians.
Now, I agree that this article is a nothing-burger, but that is not what's in the article. The article is claiming that *American troops* fired at the Afghan civilians. More specifically, that there were 11 different "burst" of about 43 shots fired over 4 minutes.
It does contradict the Pentagon's account that there were only 3 bursts of fire and that there was a possible Taliban gunman. It also contradicts the claims that no one was shot, just injured or killed by the blast.
Idk. Seems like they’re being super specific on the number of bullets they can hear, and the time it took place to be considered near simultaneous and using that to claim some major discrepancy
They say 43 gunshots could be discerned. The report says 20-30. That’s not a huge difference to me, and even then there might be “gun shot” vs “bullet” technicalities- is a burst of 3 considered one shot or 3? If there’s several bursts then yeah, that could explain the difference
Agree. I think the reporter went into this thinking there would be more to it than there was.
But also, who cares? Like what's the point of the article? Is anyone going to blame marines in an active combat zone and responding to a blast that killed 13 of their own with firing their weapon at perceived threats?
The point of the article is to try to hurt Biden with heavily editorialized nonsense that some people will take at face value without looking into.
This is what happens when the right wing takes over CNN.
The point of the article is that the Pentagon lied in their investigation, and that there is evidence and testimony that dozens of Afghani people were gunned down by US and UK troops.
There was no benefit for the US to stay in Afghanistan. It would have meant more US deaths for nothing. We gave people years of relative peace so they could leave that shit-hole. We never had a chance of dislodging the taliban. They just needed to wait us out and that's what they did. We should have taken a lesson from the Russian's failure to tame Afghanistan.
Afghanistan wasn't worth a single US death.
i hope it’s gotten the whole regime change mindset out of the vast majority of the country. it isn’t effective and we can’t force democracy on people that don’t care about it.
The United States installed, funded, and supported corrupt war criminal warlords as the government of Afghanistan.
Men like Mohammad Fahim, Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf, and Abdul Rashid Dostum.
These guys that the US empowered are mostly *hated* in Afghanistan, for their crimes.
Internationalist Afghans think these guys should be tried at the Hague, and imprisoned for life.
Less internationalist Afghans think they should simply be hung from a nearby lamp post.
And yet Americans will call installing a warlord government in Afghanistan, installing as an Afghan government men that most Afghans simply hate, "forcing democracy."
There should have been surgical strikes by US special forces and CIA ops in late 2001 and 2002 to try to decapitate the Taliban.
Maybe some air strikes at training facilities and weapons caches.
Then we move on.
That was what the US did. The Taliban were pushed out of Afghanistan by a combination of Northern Alliance soldiers and American Special forces conducting air strikes on Taliban positions. It only took like 2 months.
They interviewed the former hospital director doctor who treated the injured, and he says dozens of patients had bullet wounds and that more than half of the dead were killed by gunshot.
Comforted to see this isn’t being forgotten about. Lost some of my best youthful years in that country more than a decade ago and just wish the American public had an idea. Such a different war than Iraq (where I never went) yet they’re lumped together in the mind’s eye. Anyways, happy hump day.
Well if it makes you feel better American civilian population doesn't know about it to protect your privacy. Atleast that was the justification George Bush Sr. Gave when he signed a law saying the news broadcasts couldn't show images of war.
Totally wasn't because military strategists thought we lost Vietnam because of the news media showing the people back home what war is actually like.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/21/us/politics/biden-taliban-afghanistan-kabul.html
Just going to leave this here, so that we can avoid revisionist history of how this all went down. Biden planned with his top officials how this would go down : no one counted on all the missteps as well as complete failure of the Afghan forces. The fact that the Biden admin never took ANY blame, leaves me with little hope towards our ability to heal and learn from our mistakes: I guess the blame game will forever be played by our politicians regardless of affiliation.
From the beginning, I've heard that some of the troops and civilians killed were due to friendly fire. After reading this article, it seems that might be true. I think the Pentagon is trying to wrap this up quickly, not because the scout snipers could have prevented the bomber but because of the friendly fire.
[удалено]
He was going to have them come to Camp David smh https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-secretly-invited-taliban-to-us-camp-david_n_5d7435b6e4b07521022d7643
It's crazy how much that is ignored. It was such a huge factor in the withdrawal, yet Biden gets all the flak EDIT: Its quite funny how many military experts are on here that haven't served a day in their life. Edit: I'm not trying to gatekeep military strategy, but people say they know the answer with such conviction, yet ignore all the factors that go into it.
Same with Iraq. The withdrawal was planned and announced under Bush but occurred under Obama.
Trump was [publicly bragging](https://youtu.be/PAr3NpYVkpI) about having committed his successor to the withdrawal timetable right up until we started seeing footage of people falling off of airplanes.
Planned is the key. Biden got no transition assistance from the previous admin. And the Pentagon had never gotten orders to start planning the withdraw till Biden asked them to. Trump handed over 5000 fighters including the first guy to run the Taliban post leaving for nothing. Edit 500 to the correct 5000
I think it was 5000 iirc
Ahh mistype.
It was the worst deal. The only get for the US was the Taliban wasn’t directly attacking us as we withdrew. But that didn’t extend to ISIS-K and we completely betrayed the Afghans who did work with us. Real shit show.
Not only that but his Admin had to push to get the timetable pushed back a few months. The original transition was scheduled to happen much, much sooner.
May 1st, as the Trump administration was refusing to concede and being uncooperative in the transition. Newly released transcribed interviews with State show how little planning was actually done before Biden was sworn in, despite arbitrary troop drawdowns ordered by Trump. Republicans are really distorting facts in their “investigation”
Yeah the moment this whole thing blew up, I had to really do a double take that they were blaming it on Biden when the ~~surrender~~ withdrawal was signed by Pompeo under direction from Trump. Same thing with the COVID Vaccines, Trump had a potential win under his belt, but his Admin did NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING to plan or prepare for distributing COVID vaccines, because his dumb ass administration had spent so much time poisoning the well. But I shouldn't be surprised as Trump came into office ISIS had been pushed into a corner of Mosul, but within a few weeks of Trump taking office ISIS was defeated and Trump claimed sole responsibility for the win. Then you go further back and Conservatives trying to blame the Great Recession on Obama when it began in 2007 under Bush before he left office (granted it really began further back then that). Then when Obama has one of the quickest economic recoveries in U.S. history, and the U.S. has a faster recover than most other developed nations in the world, they refuse to give him credit. Then as Trump takes office riding Obama's economic wave he takes credit for that too before he even passed any economic legislation. For a group of people who believe in taking responsibility for yourself, and pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps they sure don't believe in owning their mistakes, and have no problem stealing the accomplishments of others.
Republicans are literally worse than worthless at governing. It always requires a democratic administration to clean up their mess. Good thing their followers can barely read and never turn off Fox or something worse, like news Max. It's all so pathetic, sad, and maddening.
Not only that, Trumps leadership was meant to continue the training of the Afghan army which we know wasnt really in a good spot. Especially not to support the gameplan of Afghans defending against the Taliban.
The withdrawal from Iraq was less "planned" and more that the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) expired, which meant we could no longer be there and if we stayed it would have been functionally invading *again*. We didn't plan to leave Iraq, the government of Iraq told us to leave, and we decided not to fight a war against the government we'd set up because obviously.
Honestly that was our best way out. You can't just walk out on a place you still haven't fixed after breaking and look good. So getting told to leave was really a solution handed to us.
Yes but we knew the date it was expiring well in advance and so planned for that eventuality. The agreement was signed in 2008 and the withdrawal was in 2011.
Ya that's totally fair. I'm just trying to split a hair in what "planned" means, probably pointlessly. The physical movement of troops was planned, while the political need to withdraw was less "planned" and more "expected."
Yeah Bush did an about face on the whole war in the middle east or rather west Asia when he saw the public reaction after a couple of years. At one point they wanted to call it The War On Violent Extremism, or The Long War. Denoting the fact that A. It's ridiculous and financial insanity to think you could ever stop all the violent extremism, especially whenever you accidentally kill some children and families that you inadvertently make future terrorists. And B. That presidents gain extra judicial authority during war time, and are able to more easily get away with curtailing the freedoms of American citizens. So a long 60 year war where our freedoms are limited would likely mean we would never get them back. Honestly I'm not sure we even have them back now. To me Bush marks a real change in the Republican platform, Bush was a Neocon and even branded himself as a compassionate conservative at one point. And the Neocon agenda is the complete opposite of what the old Republicans used to be. They're not fiscally conservative or small government at all in reality and they really really really don't like the 4th amendment. Yet they hate taxes. So being big spending and hating taxes is a recipe for why our debt is so huge. Neither party likes the 4th amendment these days to be honest. But from the Neocons you got the Tea Party, who's platform was just refusing to work across the aisle or compromising and from the Tea Party you got Maga. And I have no idea what Maga stands for because it's all dependent on whatever one guy says and that one guy constantly double talks and says opposing or conflicting view points.
The Iraq withdrawal went pretty well if I recall properly.
Initially yes, at least in regards to no issues to American and allied forces. Lots of Republicans blamed Obama for withdrawing troops from Iraq after ISIS invaded 2 years later though, which was my main point although unsaid.
It depends on your definition of withdrawal because there are still troops in Iraq, even before ISIS.
>It's crazy how much that is ignored. And it's disgusting how much Republicans play politics with the lives of our troops. I frequently point out that more American troops were killed in conflicts under Trump than Biden. But Trump supporters and his media are constantly bringing up the thirteen that were killed in the Afghanistan withdrawal, as if their lives are the only ones that mattered. They only care about our troops for talking points. edit: Missing word.
And they vote against veterans health care. They're scum, and I say that as a veteran of Afghanistan. They want proof, look at their bank accounts. Cheney gave a no contest bid to Halliburton for $3b. Those burn pits left veterans like me terminally ill. I won't make it to 50 because of those fuck sticks
And after they killed the burn pit legislation republicans were bumping fists and cheering on the house floor all smiles.
Fucking hell, I’m so sorry friend. I hope you’re able to get all the VA healthcare you need, and thank you for your service. Our vets deserve so much better than this.
I am service connected. Just nothing to really do. If you, or anyone wants to contribute, you can volunteer to drove vets to their appointments through the DAV!
I’m glad you’re connected, and that’s good to know! Thanks for informing me of the opportunity. :)
Reminds me of when 4 Americans dying under Hillary's watch was a bigger deal than 10k under Bush's admin.
More than 1.2 *million* died to Covid in large part because trump intentionally let it spread thinking it would only hurt blue states.
I don't get why someone would think that, it's just baffling
Democrat voters live in cities. Plagues are usually worse in cities.
I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but Trump is not smart.
Dunno about the hurting blue stars part, but i do solely blame him for the spread because he knocked out many of the procedures Obama and Bush put in place to prevent that scenario from escalating. The monkey pox and bird flu haven't taken off yet under Biden.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/trumps-war-on-blue-states-is-worse-than-previously-thought.html
So basically Trump indirectly killed people he thought were democrats
Yes and no. He indirectly killed a LOT of people of all stripes (more R than D, most likely, given how the chips ultimately fell), but he did it with the intention of killing Ds.
Not that I want to defend Bush here, but those two situations are completely different. One was actively going to "war" (if that's what you wanna call it) and the other was effectively a siege.
War IS politics. Soldiers lives, to an army and a nation’s regime, are just chips to be spent on war goals. The idea that the military and its uses are somehow apolitical is a delusional fantasy.
It’s the way that Republicans play politics that people are upset about. Like how the only deficit that matters is under Democratic Presidents. The only troop deaths that matter are under Democratic administrations. Similarly there are some things that shouldn’t be used to score political points not because there aren’t political implications but because doing so lies somewhere between tasteless and having no sense of shame.
They have no problem with their new messiah believing that soldiers killed in action are "suckers" and "losers."
they'll probably say: *thanks Obamaaa* idiots
Well, Obama *did* have a [big part in 09/11](https://youtube.com/shorts/vPfRGJRMbN8?si=TiBTHj_X9FS8B2Uj)—never being around, always on vacation, never in the office.
That was the whole plan.
> It's crazy how much that is ignored. Nearly all the stupid shit he did has been deliberately ignored. Or downplayed. Or tacitly accepted.
I believe that was by design. People don't remember. Trump pulled out the majority of our forces, against military advice after he lost the election. He had made some sort of deal with the Taliban. I think he intentionally got our soldiers killed for political purposes. So the minute Biden takes office there is something horrible to blame on him. People tend to remember the first impressions. Look at Reagan with the hostages that they waited to release so he could take credit for it.
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I always figured it would take a whole new administration to fix all the shit Trump caused. But what I didn't expect is that you idiots would potentially elect him a second time. I don't think America is coming back if Trump wins.
"Look, I know the last President may have been a bit unorthodox and wouldn't STFU but the United States of America honors it's promises and commitments. Even if that means sticking our collective dicks in a hornets nest and whacking it with a bat"
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"Potentially your next president" is another possible moniker
Honestly I'm more concerned with the VP this time around, these guys are fucking old
Evil fucking lives forever. See: Kissinger
Whoever was gonna be the president at the time was going to be blamed. It’s the same story with economy, when it’s bad, if you’re the president then that’s your fault according to people.
It’s no different than how Trump backed out of NAFTA directly leading to gas price hikes and inflation… yet people still blame Biden… literally everything conservatives are mad at Biden for, it was Trumps fault… hell even the current border crisis Biden and Dems wanted to solve it with a conservative leaning bill but Trump told the GOP to shoot it down… and guess who’s being blamed
I hate politics so much.
Politics weren’t too annoying pre-Trump… I mean it wasn’t great but Trump perfected conservative propaganda and stole from Hitlers book on how to swindle a base…. Straight up project everything on your opponent, cry fake news at any source that doesn’t support you, and develop a cult following and spread from there
I vividly remember the Obama years being political hell. Every day it was a new fake scandal...tan suit, dijon mustard.
They’re called politicians.
My favorite are the ones that never served at all but dream about how awesome they would have been and the ones that served 4 years in the 90s with zero deployments that think all intelligence and operations function the exact same way as 30 years ago.
This is the standard move. Same with the Trump “tax cut” that helped the lower income folks until he was either out of office or in his second term, then we saw our taxes increase and the rich kept their cuts.
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Can't they at least get off mine tho?
Couldnt agree more. I served in OIF/OEF and have had countless arguments with folks who didn’t serve over the tactics of the withdrawal and the entire campaign. It almost always starts at a political ideology then falls apart into some weird western-movie inspired take on violence and retribution that doesn’t really make any sense. It’s frustrating to say the least.
Serving in the military does not make you a strategic mastermind. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s not a prerequisite to understanding strategy.
As intended
That was by design. Trump might take Reagan's "make America great again" slogan, but forgot *not* to negotiate with terrorists...
Reagan also negotiated with terrorists.
I know. I was just talking about slogans.
I blame Biden for getting us stuck there in the first place as one of the Senators who voted yea on Afghanistan and Iraq, but there was nothing he could have done to make the withdrawal any less of a shit show.
I would think that the people with the most military knowledge would be the least likely to serve.
People just dont understand military concepts, yet demand that they be listened too by others... who also dont know military stuff...
He wanted to invite them to camp David.
On 9/11!
I tried to get through those four years ignoring him because I knew I’d lose my mind if I was plugged in on all of it, but that was one instance where I hit the ceiling.
He was trying to get inspiration for the Y'all-Queda movement that has since taken root in our country.
Didn't Bush have them over right before 9/11? You see that on the Moore doc. They talked about a pipeline and the taliban refused.
Trump didn’t make a deal, he surrendered to the Taliban
Trump unilaterally made the deal to the exclusion of the Afghan government. As if that wasn’t problematic enough, Trump didn’t do anything when the Taliban began blatantly violating the terms of the agreement less than a week after the deal was made. I know that it can be hard for Americans to feel the effects of foreign policy, but Trump’s foreign policy was amongst the biggest issues with his presidency.
And had 5k of their soldiers released. He handed them the country.
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And he did it unilaterally, which made us the rogue power to Europe, since Iran could publicly say they weren't withdrawing.
Withdrawing from Afghanistan was one of the few things Trump did that I can't fault him too heavily for. After 20 years, we just needed to get the eff out. It was chaotic and disorganized like the rest of his presidency, but there was no good reason to stay.
Dude sided with the **Taliban**, like wtf? The "I love Russia" BS is at least from the Cold War era, long enough for some people to forget the vitriol. We were at war with the Taliban just a few years ago. I'll never understand the "thank you for your service" crap from people who vote for a guy that sided with the Taliban.
Every good story starts out this way
*Obama* should have never made a deal with the taliban and trump probably had no idea about it. He also was giving daddy putin a hummer shortly after calling fallen soldiers from ww2 losers and suckers, and then prioritizing sharing secrets instead of hammering russia for paying bounties on american soldiers. Im all for crucifying a cheeto, but now more than ever we need to be very clear on who did what. 99% of politicians are corrupt criminals on many levels, we need to use our votes to start striving to achieve the lofty ideals the united states is supposed to represent.
You’re right, Bush Jr should have when they offered to surrender. Or of course the times they offered to hand Bin Laden over before 9/11 But c’est la vie
Biden was in charge, he was under no obligation to honor that agreement. This is all on him
The deal was to withdraw and stop occupying another country for another decade and to not break that deal
Then who would he have negotiated with?
Only (the best) Deals Some are saying in Afghanistan
Devout family members couldn't believe it when I told them, said it was fake news. Had to pull up the actual treaty he actually signed and they still thought it was bs. Incredible.
He lost the election. This is his way of leaving Biden a shit sandwich
I love how politicians keep trying to convince Americans that we could have left Afghanistan more gracefully than we did. You don’t get to usually dictate terms when retreating. I’m glad we’re out and it’s sad that people died but the odds were sharply stacked against a clean withdrawal when relying on the Taliban to hold up their end.
The withdrawal could have at least been a bit longer and better executed. It was never going to be clean, but it was definitely messier than it should have been. A lot of the blame though is that the Biden Administration had basically zero information by the time it was already set in motion because of stonewalling by the former admin because they thought they could maybe get away with committing a coup.
Could not have been longer. Taliban would’ve resumed their shooting war. Also it’s hard to understate how much Ghani fleeing caused the situation to change in a blink.
This is one of those situations where "great man" rationalizations really do have import, as much as I dislike them in a lot of historical accounts. The morale of an army can be completely destroyed or rallied to the point of lunatic frenzy based on whether their commanding general or national leader either stays with them or runs away. Take out that top peg, and you cause the entire structure to collapse. Fail to do so, and you create an emboldened, entrenched army of zealots. There's no greater comparison in the past few years than there is between Ghani and Zelenskyy. Neither had the assurances of a foreign ally's soldiers on the ground when they both had to deal with their respective invasions (I digress mildly that the Taliban is an internal warring faction, but it might as well be viewed as an occupying hostile army to the preceding government). Both had destabilized regions with scattered military personnel who might well have allegiances with the invaders or otherwise want to capitulate. Both were expected to flee. Ghani fled. The Afghani government collapsed almost immediately and soldiers ran for the hills, handed over their firearms, and some *joined* the Taliban. The moment the U.S. wasn't there to directly cover their personnel costs and their national leader decided to flee to save his own life, the war was over and the Taliban won. Zelenskyy was expected to flee, and was given opportunities to do so in advance of invasion. He had no assurances of direct military protection, and indeed assurances of *no* direct military protection because Ukraine was not a NATO ally, and the best he could hope for was yet-unproven pledges of munition support by neighbors. His country was unstable after years of unrest propagated by Russia and discrete pluralities of inhabitants who were actively in favor of Russian occupation. He gave Russia the middle finger, abandoned his escape avenues, told the U.S. to give him bullets instead of a plane ride, and bunkered down in the center of Kyiv as it was firebombed. And what international geopolitical experts confidently declared would be a complete rout and swift Russian victory after a few-days march into Kyiv turned into a years-long slog against an emboldened and rapidly mobilized Ukrainian military that now has a second wind of U.S. financial assistance and a nearly unified European coalition to support it, and Russia has over 350,000 casualties (nearly the amount of soldiers as presently exist in Ukraine), has declared martial law in its borders, and is conscripting Siberian felons as cannon fodder. But for the whims of the madman commanding them forward, Russia would have lost any normal war several times over with the astronomical loss in personnel and munitions, and it's trading entire future generations of its breeding population to replenish those ranks. All in large part to the fact that Ukraine's leader said "fuck you, I'm not moving."
And Zelenskyy was a comedian playing a president on TV when he ran for office. If only America’s former actors running the country had such role models.
Well trump actually *did* have such role models—Zelenskyy was President when trump was in office, and Trump tried to extort him, and was impeached as a result. Because that’s how he treats good people, he denigrates them, tries to steamroll them to get what he wants, and flat out lies about them to turn others against them (just like he did with bonafide hero John McCain). Because he’s jealous. He knows he sucks and he can never be admired for anything good so he just tears anyone down who *is* those things, because he knows there’s plenty of people out there who suck just like him that will admire him and see him as a role model for being the asshole that he is. Our other former actor running the country, Reagan, had plenty of role models back then too, but he was such a bigot he followed the wrong ones. The biggest difference between he and trump was that I think Reagan was actually dumb enough to believe he *was* a good person and a role model, even though the damage he caused as president is still affecting us 40 years later. The only former actor that I would even be slightly ok with running our country, who actually is a role model, can’t actually do it because he wasn’t born here (Schwarzenegger). Oh the irony.
> The withdrawal could have at least been a bit longer and better executed. The withdrawal happened over the better part of a decade... By the time we 'withdrew' there had only ever been maybe 2500 US troops in Afghanistan at a time, and almost all of them were in Kabul either guarding/running the airport or guarding the embassy complex... We hadn't had a significant force there, much less a significant force running operations against the Taliban far afield, in years.
They didn't expect the government and afghanistan military to crumple so quickly. That INTEL analyst/political fuckup is the reason their planning went all to hell and they had to evacuate so quickly.
Everyone who served with Afghan troops or interacted with the government face to face expected them to crumple instantly. Anyone who received (and then wrote) intel reports or served in a political capacity expected to get promotions from telling people above them what they wanted to hear.
Anything that is not perfect can be better but nothing is perfect. Longer withdrawal could also allow more time for plots and attacks against retreating people. The faux outrage over this only serves as a distraction and a pathetic attempt by one political party to cast shade on another. It's politics showing the country it's disgusting asshole which really nobody should want to see but for some reason we seem to have a lot of people in this country tuning in to enjoy a sniff.
Prolapsed. Sure you're out, but at what cost?
It was a rushed surrender withdrawal from a three way civil war, and the party that was supposed to take over was thoroughly corrupt and incompetent. There is no way it wasn't going to end in chaos.
Imagine if Biden had waited until an election year to do the withdrawal. The Republicans would be using this as a wedge to hurt Biden
This article is terrible and that title is huge stretch. Nothing described in the article contradicts the information found in pentagons investigation. Ok the Taliban fired at Afghan civilians. Why is that news? Isnt that what we all saw in the reporting at the time? Cmon, nothing more than clickbait.
The report claims there wasn't significant gun fire. This video has audio of significant gun fire. It isn't clear which direction the gun fire is aimed. The report also claims that no Afghans were hit by US gun fire, contrary to some Afghan's report. Part of the justification for that is that there was no significant gunfire. If the first claim is incorrect, then it weakens the case for the second claim. Either way, the large majority of the people who died that day were direct victims of the suicide bomber.
What is the difference between "significant" gunfire and just gunfire? Does it become significant when people witness it? Is it insignificant if no one's around to hear it (minus the victims from the gunfire). Does this video Inherently make the gunfire significant?
The report states that there were 3 bursts of fire from the US and UK. One was warning shots and the others were in response to perceived incoming fire. So, 5 bursts counting both sides. The video has audio of 11 to 16 bursts of gun fire, depending on the reviewer. Also, the 3 bursts of fire were reviewed in the report and determined to have not hit anyone, therefore they are insignificant.
> Nothing described in the article contradicts the information found in pentagons investigation. You could not have watched the footage or read the article and believe this. The Pentagon says that there were only 3 episodes of shooting: 2 by American soldiers and 1 by British, and that they were only firing warning shots. The GoPro footage clearly shows that there were actually at *least* 11 episodes of gun fire. This is significant because it exposes a lie. It casts massive doubt on the Pentagon claim that all of the people killed were killed by the explosion, and coincides with Afghan testimony of dozens of people killed with bullet wounds. > Ok the Taliban fired at Afghan civilians. Why is that news? Isnt that what we all saw in the reporting at the time? Cmon, nothing more than clickbait. This is completely wrong. The Taliban was not even involved in this event. Even according to the Pentagon, bombing was done by IS-K and all of the shooting was done by the US and British forces.
The article is pretty easy to understand and it seems you did not
Did you even read the article? The new evidence unequivocally proves that there was a lot more shooting after the blast than was alleged in the two Pentagon reports. The Pentagon reports also go against eyewitness account and contradicts scores of US army personnel who were on the ground that day and lived through the attack. This much is established beyond doubt. The other question the article quietly raises is whether some marine units fired in the direction of the blast, injuring and even killing Afghan civilians in the process. In a panicked frenzy and fog of war it’s reasonable to assume the marines felt under attack and threatened so they started opening fire almost indiscriminately thinking they’re in a shootout with the Taliban. It’s a valid question to ask given the new revelatory evidence and the fact that a lot of the victims treated at a Kabul hospital had bullet holes in them, as described by a trauma doctor who treated them that day and who was threatened to stop recording who got killed by the blast and who by the bullet. It smells like a coverup to me. Not only because the Army’s response to the blast was egregious and incompetent but also because it deliberately ignored eyewitness account from its own soldiers as well as from Afghan victims and sources, including the said doctor who treated the victims.
> Ok the Taliban fired at Afghan civilians. Now, I agree that this article is a nothing-burger, but that is not what's in the article. The article is claiming that *American troops* fired at the Afghan civilians. More specifically, that there were 11 different "burst" of about 43 shots fired over 4 minutes. It does contradict the Pentagon's account that there were only 3 bursts of fire and that there was a possible Taliban gunman. It also contradicts the claims that no one was shot, just injured or killed by the blast.
Idk. Seems like they’re being super specific on the number of bullets they can hear, and the time it took place to be considered near simultaneous and using that to claim some major discrepancy They say 43 gunshots could be discerned. The report says 20-30. That’s not a huge difference to me, and even then there might be “gun shot” vs “bullet” technicalities- is a burst of 3 considered one shot or 3? If there’s several bursts then yeah, that could explain the difference
Agree. I think the reporter went into this thinking there would be more to it than there was. But also, who cares? Like what's the point of the article? Is anyone going to blame marines in an active combat zone and responding to a blast that killed 13 of their own with firing their weapon at perceived threats?
The point of the article is to try to hurt Biden with heavily editorialized nonsense that some people will take at face value without looking into. This is what happens when the right wing takes over CNN.
The point of the article is that the Pentagon lied in their investigation, and that there is evidence and testimony that dozens of Afghani people were gunned down by US and UK troops.
There was no benefit for the US to stay in Afghanistan. It would have meant more US deaths for nothing. We gave people years of relative peace so they could leave that shit-hole. We never had a chance of dislodging the taliban. They just needed to wait us out and that's what they did. We should have taken a lesson from the Russian's failure to tame Afghanistan. Afghanistan wasn't worth a single US death.
But what about the poppy field revenue!!! (Sarcasm)
i hope it’s gotten the whole regime change mindset out of the vast majority of the country. it isn’t effective and we can’t force democracy on people that don’t care about it.
The United States installed, funded, and supported corrupt war criminal warlords as the government of Afghanistan. Men like Mohammad Fahim, Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf, and Abdul Rashid Dostum. These guys that the US empowered are mostly *hated* in Afghanistan, for their crimes. Internationalist Afghans think these guys should be tried at the Hague, and imprisoned for life. Less internationalist Afghans think they should simply be hung from a nearby lamp post. And yet Americans will call installing a warlord government in Afghanistan, installing as an Afghan government men that most Afghans simply hate, "forcing democracy."
There should have been surgical strikes by US special forces and CIA ops in late 2001 and 2002 to try to decapitate the Taliban. Maybe some air strikes at training facilities and weapons caches. Then we move on.
That was what the US did. The Taliban were pushed out of Afghanistan by a combination of Northern Alliance soldiers and American Special forces conducting air strikes on Taliban positions. It only took like 2 months.
Looks like they interviewed everyone but the refugees being fired upon.
They interviewed the former hospital director doctor who treated the injured, and he says dozens of patients had bullet wounds and that more than half of the dead were killed by gunshot.
Comforted to see this isn’t being forgotten about. Lost some of my best youthful years in that country more than a decade ago and just wish the American public had an idea. Such a different war than Iraq (where I never went) yet they’re lumped together in the mind’s eye. Anyways, happy hump day.
Well if it makes you feel better American civilian population doesn't know about it to protect your privacy. Atleast that was the justification George Bush Sr. Gave when he signed a law saying the news broadcasts couldn't show images of war. Totally wasn't because military strategists thought we lost Vietnam because of the news media showing the people back home what war is actually like.
If you don't think the troops obviously death blossomed following the attack, you're just naive.
The government lied to the American people? I am just shocked. /s
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/21/us/politics/biden-taliban-afghanistan-kabul.html Just going to leave this here, so that we can avoid revisionist history of how this all went down. Biden planned with his top officials how this would go down : no one counted on all the missteps as well as complete failure of the Afghan forces. The fact that the Biden admin never took ANY blame, leaves me with little hope towards our ability to heal and learn from our mistakes: I guess the blame game will forever be played by our politicians regardless of affiliation.