Gas Bandit's Political Thread V: The Vampire Likes Bats
- Thread starter GasBandit
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I mean that's very much my point.
I fucking laughed out loud at how outrageously incompetent this is.
theintercept.com
The Taliban Have Seized U.S. Military Biometrics Devices
Biometric collection and identification devices were seized by the Taliban last week.
theintercept.com
GasBandit
Staff member
It's literally the only solution. Like I said Canada can go spill it's fucking blood in Afghanistan the US has done enough of that.
Lol you know Canada came along right? I have two friends who fought in Afghanistan, one a medic and one a tanker. The medic's main job was dealing with friendly fire casualties and the tanker said the only times he was scared was when an A-10 flew over head because God only knows if they might decide you're an enemy.
I do. And your point is what? That the Afghani lives aren't worth more Canadian lives or that Canada will go it alone?
We don't actually. We did more than what anybody could ask of us. Spent trillions propping up their corrupt government and equipping their spineless army. Staying wouldn't have done a fucking thing but kick the can down the road.
Staying is the stupidest fucking thing we could have done.
To be perfectly fair, the war in Afghanistan is not why people go hungry, and no amount of trillions saved by leaving will go to the hungry.
GasBandit
Staff member
US Police Furious Taliban Seized Weapons Intended for Them
WASHINGTON — After more than two decades, thousands of American lives, and nearly $83 billion in spending, the Taliban overran the US-trained Afghan security forces within a matter of days. T…
membernews.org
figmentPez
Staff member
It's still satire. The about page says it's "a publication dedicated to every version of the truth, regardless of facts or reality." and the staff are Pat Enis, Don Johnson, and Harry Cox.
Nah..they pulled out in 2014. Smarter than us, I guess.
The USA should never have been in Afghanistan in the first place. Beyond getting revenge for something a bunch of Saudi's did with support from Pakistan, there was no clear goal, no clear objective, and no reason for being there, unless to function as a police force to install a new regime and protect human rights. Which, you know, fair enough, but that sort of involvement would very much indeed necessitate a presence for another 20 years at least. It would also involve much more involvement with the local population outside of the city centers, and a whole lot less big guns and more boots on the ground. Which is something the USA and allies were absolutely unwilling to do. Going into a place where you're not wanted without any goals or objectives is a doomed proposition. Even the theoretical "protecting American national security interests" goal objectively failed.
But once the US army did go in, and did decide to leave, there were far better ways of doing it than just giving up and going home. You know, "when the going gets tough, the though get up and leave" isn't supposedly the US motto.
The comparisons to Vietnam have already been made, but another useful compare-and-contrast is Iraq. Nobody'll say Iraq is a fun place to live right now, especially as a woman or a westerner, but it's about a thousand times better than Afghanistan.
The current pull-out is much more akin to how the US left after the first Gulf War (though there, at least on paper, the stated objectives had been met). The hostile power was not removed, the situation was destabilized and not reformed to support a more moderate or pro-Western government, and 10 years later, you were back to clean up the mess you helped create ("helped". I'm absolutely not saying Iraq wasn't a horrible mess to begin with). The Taliban has been armed, trained, and has been given a populace who broadly and in majority support them against the American invaders now, they're stronger and more efficient than they have ever been. Al Qaeda and Isis have been mostly defeated but I can already with 100% certainty say that within 10 years a new militant Islamist terror organization will have sprung up and be threatening American interests abroad at the very least, domestically if things are left to lie as they are. A Chinese-backed Taliban regime is not something anybody wants.
Of course the US population wants the troops to come home! For one thing, nobody likes body bags, for another, nobody can properly explain what they were even doing there, and for a third, it was a money pit. That still doesn't make it morally right or geopolitically smart.
But once the US army did go in, and did decide to leave, there were far better ways of doing it than just giving up and going home. You know, "when the going gets tough, the though get up and leave" isn't supposedly the US motto.
The comparisons to Vietnam have already been made, but another useful compare-and-contrast is Iraq. Nobody'll say Iraq is a fun place to live right now, especially as a woman or a westerner, but it's about a thousand times better than Afghanistan.
The current pull-out is much more akin to how the US left after the first Gulf War (though there, at least on paper, the stated objectives had been met). The hostile power was not removed, the situation was destabilized and not reformed to support a more moderate or pro-Western government, and 10 years later, you were back to clean up the mess you helped create ("helped". I'm absolutely not saying Iraq wasn't a horrible mess to begin with). The Taliban has been armed, trained, and has been given a populace who broadly and in majority support them against the American invaders now, they're stronger and more efficient than they have ever been. Al Qaeda and Isis have been mostly defeated but I can already with 100% certainty say that within 10 years a new militant Islamist terror organization will have sprung up and be threatening American interests abroad at the very least, domestically if things are left to lie as they are. A Chinese-backed Taliban regime is not something anybody wants.
Of course the US population wants the troops to come home! For one thing, nobody likes body bags, for another, nobody can properly explain what they were even doing there, and for a third, it was a money pit. That still doesn't make it morally right or geopolitically smart.
Right staying in a money pit that kills your soldiers and will never accomplish any goals is the smart thing to do geopolitically and morally.
The US didn't make Afghanistan a mess nor would our continued involvement make it less of a mess.
I have to be one of the ones to agree that if Afghanistan wasn't ready to be left on its own after 20 years then it never would be. The Taliban took over the in a matter of days. There was barely any fighting. Troops just gave up to the Taliban. The second we went into Afghanistan there was no "right way" out.
Glad you got all the answers dude. Have you considered running for office?
(Edit: Removing snark to be more clear in my thoughts)
I don’t think it’s helpful or fair for you to constantly belittle people who disagree with you on this forum with sarcasm. It’s doesn’t add anything good to the discussion.
You actually have a point here? Some counter point to something I've said?
I believe Poe is suggesting that posts on obscure Internet fora, no matter how strongly-worded, are unlikely to have a measurable impact on United States foreign policy, and is obliquely asking you just how you intend to realize your desired changes. Though he says it more snarkily.
--Patrick
--Patrick
Well that's an incredibly stupid point to make then. I'm not arguing on the internet because I think it's going to change US foreign policy and I fundamentally don't understand where you get the idea that I ever thought that it would.
I don't know if it's belittling? I mean, yes, it's making fun of him/his opinion, but I don't really consider this mean spirited or aggressive.
Dubyamn is pretty much positing his point of view as the One Right Way to think about it and everyone who disagrees as being Simply Wrong, and that bears some calling out.
I'm most certainly not saying I have all the answers. In fact, I'll go so far as to say there aren't any good ones at this point. Trying to make it out like leaving like this - overhasty, leaving behind thousands of allies and contributors to be rounded up by your enemies, along with literal Billions in the most advanced weaponry available to mankind to fall into their hands, oh and apparently leaving all the ID info (fingerprints, retinal scans, address, family ties, etc) on your allies on unsecured servers to be ransacked by your enemies - as being the Only Sensible Thing To Do is, honestly, BS.
I know, you've pretty much been slowly withdrawing since at least the Obama administration. Well, yes. You (the US army, not anyone in particular and certainly no-one on this board) should probably have continued withdrawing slowly for another 5 years.
Would that have cost another 100 US soldiers their lives? Probably. Will this way of leaving cost another 10.000 Afghan lives, mostly of US allies and collaborators? Probably. is one worth more than the other? If your answer is yes - well ,that means you value US lives more than those of your friends and allies...So why the F should anyone trust you to have their backs ever again? You want Splendid Isolation in a world controlled by Russia and China? 'cause That's where you'll end up that way.
I don't, because I don't think there is a right answer. For me personally it's easy to look at everything the US has done in Afghanistan, from the occupation to the withdrawal, and look at the outcomes and say "well clearly this was all the wrong choices" but that doesn't mean there were right choices to make, other than maybe never go in to start with. But without a time machine that can't be undone, and what we're left with is this mess.
I just find it very odd that you have taken the stance of this is 100% the right decision to the point that you attack those that disagree, or at least appear to.
Nice strawman there. Never supported leaving the weapons or biometrics there. Or even leaving people who worked closely with the US there but it's a good line. A complete lie but a good line
My only point has been that staying was a useless and stupid endeavor that was never going to have a good outcome not that the US has been flawless in leaving.
Why hold opinions if you're not sure of them? What would even be the point?
To me, pulling the troops was not the mistake. I think that was the right choice. Everything else was a mistake because we didn't use the time since knowing we would leave to...
1) Pull out or setup pathways for extraction for our allies.
2) Provide asylum for allies that wish to leave the country before the withdrawal.
3) Setup plans for the inevitable failure, remove all biometrics, setup ways to disable or destroy weaponry before it falls into enemy hands.
Yes, I get that the admin didn't realize the Taliban would take over in a little over a week, but that is why you set all this stuff up before you pull out. When I leave my house, I lock the door, I don't just think "nah, no one would break in and steal my stuff in less then an hour, it's fine."
At this point though it's all meaningless. My only hope is that the new "social media savy" Taliban is more moderate then they used to be. Probably a pipe dream there, but at least they ain't mowing down all the people trapped at the airport, so little victories I guess.
1) Pull out or setup pathways for extraction for our allies.
2) Provide asylum for allies that wish to leave the country before the withdrawal.
3) Setup plans for the inevitable failure, remove all biometrics, setup ways to disable or destroy weaponry before it falls into enemy hands.
Yes, I get that the admin didn't realize the Taliban would take over in a little over a week, but that is why you set all this stuff up before you pull out. When I leave my house, I lock the door, I don't just think "nah, no one would break in and steal my stuff in less then an hour, it's fine."
At this point though it's all meaningless. My only hope is that the new "social media savy" Taliban is more moderate then they used to be. Probably a pipe dream there, but at least they ain't mowing down all the people trapped at the airport, so little victories I guess.
GasBandit
Staff member
To paraphrase - if your dick is stuck in a sewing machine, getting it out of there is the right choice.
Yes, there were lots of wrong choices up to that point.
You shouldn't have stuck your dick in a sewing machine.
You shouldn't have threaded the needle.
You shouldn't have turned it on.
You probably shouldn't have changed out for a fresh spool of thread when the first spool ran out.
But yes, getting your dick out is the right move. Maybe it could have been removed more intelligently, but it did need to come out, and there was no way to get it out that didn't involve the blood and tears we all saw coming when you stuck it in in the first place.
Yes, there were lots of wrong choices up to that point.
You shouldn't have stuck your dick in a sewing machine.
You shouldn't have threaded the needle.
You shouldn't have turned it on.
You probably shouldn't have changed out for a fresh spool of thread when the first spool ran out.
But yes, getting your dick out is the right move. Maybe it could have been removed more intelligently, but it did need to come out, and there was no way to get it out that didn't involve the blood and tears we all saw coming when you stuck it in in the first place.
You literally said that "staying one more day" would have been the stupidest thing possible, and that leaving as soon as possible was the best thing you could do. Nobody here is saying you should've stayed indefinitely - though I personally think that, for the good of the world, the Afghani population, and the long-term benefit for the USA, 15-20 more years sounds about realistic, yeah. There's a big difference between "leaving" and "leaving AS SOON AS FUCKING POSSIBLE, ABANDON EVERYTHING, LET IT DROP, RUN!" which is what the US army pretty much did and which is what you have been defending here.
If your position is "we should have organized a controlled turnover of power to the Afghan government, kept a sizable military in place for support and backup, and made a slow exit making sure not to leave anything valuable behind", you need to go re-read what you wrote, 'cause that's not the opinion you've been defending. That's a "we should leave soon" position I can understand from an American point of view. "We needed to get the fuck out of there right now and rather yesterday than today" means "anything or anyone we can't take with us, dump'm". And that's exactly what the US did.
Because every problem with leaving Afghanistan wouldn't have been fixed in a day or a year or even another decade. The only options were leaving poorly now or leaving poorly later
For which you've provided 0 reasons as to why another 15-20 years would provide any improvement over the last 20 or any reason why you wouldn't just shift the goalposts to "I think another 30-40 years would be reasonable "
Also check out Frank's I don't have a solution but you can't leave post cause that's pretty clearly arguing for an indefinite stay in Afghanistan.
Indeed cause I see no other way of getting out of Afghanistan. If we stayed another 2 decades it still would have been last chopper out of Saigon that's unavoidable.
Leaving people who helped us and the weapons were avoidable and shouldn't have happened. But unless we had a change in foreign policy at a pretty fundamental level staying another day wouldn't have helped.
Considering how leaving a sizable military is the exact opposite of leaving Afghanistan I think we can conclusively say that this isn't what I'm arguing for.
If leaving slowly meant taking people and materiel I would be 100% for it. But there is exactly zero reason to believe that leaving slowly would have done anything of the sort. All going slowly would have done is make the situation worse.
Dave
Staff member
Here's a view from a military guy. Me.
Was pulling out the right thing to do? Yes. And no. Yes, it needed to be done. Could it have been done better? Yes, but only to secure asylum for those wanting it. Other than that, the Taliban was going to march everywhere and take over everything like they did. It was inevitable. That's their MO. They sit back & wait for the enemy to just get tired of war & leave. Meanwhile, they enjoy being propped up by the enemies of the invaders. This is a GREAT comment about why we were doomed to fail there. Victory - in whatever form that was supposed to take (which was part of the problem) - was never going to happen. The Afghans lack the will to do what's necessary to govern their own country. Why? Because who rules does not matter to them. The US is exactly the same as the Taliban is exactly the same as the Russians, etc. We went to war there on bullshit reasons and never had a victory condition. Then we didn't protect those who tried to help us by just leaving and fuck you. We had no withdrawal plan other than "get on the fucking plane". We left materials, we left personnel. We have NOTHING to show for this wonderful little excursion that was doomed to fail in the first place. Gas's sewing machine analogy is pretty spot on, although it can't really account for the heartaches we caused the people who helped us.
The fact that everyone saw this coming a mile away is of little to no comfort.
Was pulling out the right thing to do? Yes. And no. Yes, it needed to be done. Could it have been done better? Yes, but only to secure asylum for those wanting it. Other than that, the Taliban was going to march everywhere and take over everything like they did. It was inevitable. That's their MO. They sit back & wait for the enemy to just get tired of war & leave. Meanwhile, they enjoy being propped up by the enemies of the invaders. This is a GREAT comment about why we were doomed to fail there. Victory - in whatever form that was supposed to take (which was part of the problem) - was never going to happen. The Afghans lack the will to do what's necessary to govern their own country. Why? Because who rules does not matter to them. The US is exactly the same as the Taliban is exactly the same as the Russians, etc. We went to war there on bullshit reasons and never had a victory condition. Then we didn't protect those who tried to help us by just leaving and fuck you. We had no withdrawal plan other than "get on the fucking plane". We left materials, we left personnel. We have NOTHING to show for this wonderful little excursion that was doomed to fail in the first place. Gas's sewing machine analogy is pretty spot on, although it can't really account for the heartaches we caused the people who helped us.
The fact that everyone saw this coming a mile away is of little to no comfort.