Oh. My. Fucking. God! How stupid can one human being be? Nobody who has followed Afghanistan in the news even passingly could figure out why the afghan military just folded up their tents and went home just as soon as a couple of guys in turbans with AK-47’s showed up and started yelling. Well, now we know, because Rachel Maddow just broke it.
Now look, I’m an old fart, so my memory ain’t so good, but after spending 5 years wallowing around in Trump’s cesspool, I can remember some things just fine. And it seems to me that, whether it was North Korea or China, Philippines or Argentina, whenever the media asked questions, Trump was never one to Take cards off of the table! But when it came to Afghanistan, and the Taliban, Trump threw the deck in the garbage.
Trump ran on the promise to not only get the US out of endless stupid wars, but to stop getting into endless stupid wars. And starting in 2018, and blending into 2019, Trump decided to make good on his promise, as a strong running point for reelection in 2020. And so he set his State Department, and SOS Wormtongue Mike Pompeo loose to get a deal with the Taliban. Which didn’t even bother to include the actual Afghan government that would have to live with the results.
The critical thing to remember here is that Trump is totally transactional. He is totally incapable of thinking either strategically or long term, whatever makes him look good immediately is a positive outcome. As a result, he ended up having Pimpeo negotiate a settlement with the Taliban that all USA forces would be out of Afghanistan by May 1st, 2021, in return for a Taliban moratorium on offensive action against US forces in the interim.
Which left the Taliban almost a year to get into trouble. And they didn’t get into John Lewis style good trouble, no, these sharks got into bad trouble.
Unlike Trump, the Taliban are fully capable of long tern, strategic planning, and they used their time well. They took that agreement, and they went into the provinces. They sent emissaries to talk to Afghan troop leaders, and showed them evidence that the US was about to sell them out. Considering the fact that the US was about to abandon them on a strict time schedule, why wouldn’t the Afghan troops make an agreement to surrender their arms and go home with sage passage. After all, Afghanistan is at heart a regional, tribal country.
The simple fact of the matter is that Joe Biden walked blindly into a trap. He has been in favor of getting US troops out of Afghanistan for years, going all the way back to when Obama was the President. The tragedy is that his decision was made without knowledge that the Taliban had already done an end run around the US courtesy of Pimpeo and Trump. Personally, I back Biden. He made the right choice, but he had his knees cut out from under him by Trump and Pimpeo.
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The former guy also released a bunch of them from prison in 2018. Including the current leader of the Taliban.
I’m very very sure that the former guy never even thought of the Afghans who worked for the US and other countries as scouts and translaters,, because *brown people*. And Pompeous wouldn’t have given them much thought either, because *not the right kind of Christian*.
Bush and Cheney and all their advisers who thought “nation-building” in a tribal area was a great idea.
I don’t think Bush is Capable of comprehending the social structure of Afghanistan. He thinks it’s a “country” like Sweden or France.
Hey, the insurrection didn’t happen. Just tourists looking around to lay a pole, er, love on somebody. Expect them to come clean? Have they ever phucking come clean in our entire history on planet earth? Pass or fail answer. Afterwhatistheplanistan might as well be the dark side of the moon. Hey black kids get killed by the dozens, some even by people not in uniform. Hard to win the hearts & minds when ur standing up to ur eyeballs in shit. I think those Asian folk came up with karma. Might be something to it. Next time don’t give Christmas gifts for years to the taliban via Pakistan, the man behind the curtain. Manifest destiny is a beatch.
Loved “Afterwhatistheplanistan might as well be the dark side of the moon.”
Yeah, pimpeo was on tv bloating his ego and telling lies in the hope that he would escape charges. I don’t remember all the details but pimpeo is in hot water over his career choices. It will probably be a dead heat on which one bites the dust first.