Nobody loves revisionist history more than Donald Trump and the GOP. They are soulmates with the characters at the Ministry of Truth. Websites are being scrubbed now of inconvenient truths but they haven’t caught it all, no siree, not by a long shot. Here is Trump a month ago. Here he’s taking credit for the very same exit from Afghanistan which he is going apoplectic about this weekend.
“I started the process, all the troops are coming home, they (Biden) couldn’t stop the process. 21 years is enough. They (Biden) couldn’t stop the process, they (Biden) wanted to but couldn’t stop the process.”
– Trump, 1 month ago pic.twitter.com/9UPPbseyiI
— david nussbaum (@theNuzzy) August 15, 2021
Going back even farther is this jewel from 2012. This really has not aged well.
Trump in 2012 interview on Afghanistan: “What are we doing there. These people hate us. As soon as we leave, it’s all going to blow up anyway.”
I guess the fact that he believed that is why he left it for his successor to deal with. pic.twitter.com/w4PbHlP88K
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) August 16, 2021
Two thoughts leap to mind: First of all, listen to the difference in how cogent Trump sounds in the second tape compared with the first. Nine years is a long time, but he is clearly not the same person cognitively speaking.
Secondly, he can go on and on about how horrendously Joe Biden bungled the job, but the reality is there was no way that this was going to end well. Biden was right to say that he was going to cut bait here and not go into decade three, or pass the buck onto a fifth president.
Yes, the optics are horrendous, but think about this: not everybody is going to be able to escape a political and societal meltdown like that. Anybody who could get mobile got mobile years ago. So yes, the images of people hanging onto airplane wings and the like are dramatic, no question about that. And the media is playing it for maximum effect. No dishonor to them, either. If you’re covering an inherently dramatic story, you’ve got to convey the drama. But nothing will ever change the fact that the problem with Afghanistan is traceable to its source, the Bush administration. That’s where it got botched and prolonging the situation has only made it worse.
Kudos to Nicole Wallace who had the courage to say that “95% of the American people will agree with the President while 95% of the press covering this White House won’t.”
And the GOP continues to play revisionist historian.
“President Trump has continued to take the lead in peace talks as he signed a historic peace agreement with the Taliban in Afghanistan” — h/t @daveweigel who appears to have spotted first https://t.co/CNocg3g1OZ
— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) August 15, 2021
Trump’s deal was to get all the troops removed by May 1, 2021. That’s etched in stone. Biden extended the withdrawal date to August. But Biden is being castigated for precipitous and chaotic timing by extending the deadline two and a half months.
I’ll say it again and ad nauseum, there was no way this was going to have a happy ending. But at least, like an acrimonious divorce, it’s over.
But don’t expect to hear much of a matter of fact acceptance of that reality from too many places because we live in a post fact, post truth, Orwellian, Lewis Carroll world.
Ah I see, so Biden has to do whatever trump says no matter what? Who knew Trump was so powerful even while having zero say of what now goes on now? That must mean Biden has no thoughts on the subject at all and he just did what trump wanted, right? What a great guy? This has to be some of the best spin i’ve seen all year.
Trump should have brought in a national trump day once a month where every sitting President would need to wear underpants on there head for the day. LOL I can see Biden running around with undies on his head saying “I had to do it, cause Trump said so”.
Biden’s history on Afghanistan is long and well-documented. He was for going in and capturing or killing Bin and his gang and degrading that country’s ability to serve as a safe haven for Al Queeda which we did. Get in and perform that defined set of goals and get out. He continued that type of advocacy even while Vice President. He might not have liked the circumstances he was handed due to Trump’s actions in the withdrawal but he wasn’t in a position to do anything other than try to delay things so we could get out people who helped us and even that seems to have been set up to be a losing hand. However, he campaigned saying he’d get us out of there. A large majority of the country including Republicans wanted us out of there. What has happened, the collapse of the old government and the capitulation of the Afghan Army to the Taliban without our guys there to back them up was entirely predictable. But Biden was clear we should never have gone beyond those initial goals in the first place, and it was clear during all those years when Trump was playing tee vee host and because he could get away with it as a private citizen was cheating on his wife banging porn stars and enjoying golden shower shows from Russian hookers.
Trump invited the taliban to Camp David, not Biden. He signed the deal. Not Biden. Bush/Cheney went into Iraq, based on lies, when that set all of this up. 20 years. 2 trillion dollars. U can train a solider but unless they believe in something larger, they will drop their weapon & cower in the face of death. Hard to reach the populace of a nation that isn’t really a unified country, but is a collection of warring tribes. The Republicans are not innocent in this, although they will lie about this like everything else. Where’s their outrage at 621,000 DEAD AMERICANS that Trump & the virus deniers set loose & ARE STILL PROMOTING THE PANDEMIC which now has OUR children in the crosshairs. Keep ur faux outrage. We know who the heartless, soulless traitors are. It’s not President Biden. It’s Trump & all his supporters. Including you. So save ur hypocritical ignorance for ur fellow cult members.
That was a reply to Mr dole.
Understood and heartily agree. Also, Trump was the guy to release some 5,500 prisoners and basically reconstituted the Taliban.
How about the guys who were released from Guatanamo in exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl? Can’t blame BHO for doing that but still……those same guys are now in the top echelons of the Taliban. Bottom line – we SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN IN AFGHANISTAN and that’s on GWB.
Has anyone thought of backing up as much of the fine detail to the cloud as possible before they wipe it completely?
Oh yes, the clown show. To my credit I actually watched parts of trumpitis speeches. Not all and not all of the speech. But I do remember the clown busting a gut to say he was withdrawing from Afghanistan. Also brought it up at rallies. Because you can’t baste in the glow without puffing up the pillow. Clowns are us went into great detail on this. You can check the tapes. You know the ones that they deleted. Only problem was that they automatically put this kind of stuff in separate areas of storage and they are still available. You can listen to the bleating of the orange goat to your little hearts content. Republicans are dumb. And the ones around trump are dumber. Hey wasn’t that the name of a movie. Or was it a reference to fox ? news personalities.