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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sam who wrote (478888)

8/31/2021 2:56:07 PM

From: koan

1 Recommendation

Recommended By
Maple MAGA

Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 541015

How do you just blow off all the facts and reasoning that is shared by so many good minds, like the entire Washington Post editorial staff?

There was a much better way to do this if we had to go. How can you not see this, or the inhumanity of the way it was done?

Much of NATO, including Angela Merkel, much of the world and the vast majority of Americans are appalled at how it was done!?

You act like I am a lone nut case, when the facts are that MOST people feel like I do.

Did you not read my post that 84% of the people thought we should stay in until all Americans are out, and 71% until our allies are out and 59% do not approve of how he did the withdrawal

He had no fucking plan, he just went in and did it ham handed, and the entire world knows it and is upset.

And this could easily cost us the congress in 2022.

Are you blind?.

Max Boot;

Opinion: For Democrats, the political pain of Biden’s bungled exit from Afghanistan could be just beginning

Taliban forces patrol near the entrance gate of Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on Aug. 31, a day after U.S. troops withdrew from Afghanistan. (Reuters)

Opinion by
Max Boot

Columnist

Today at 11:54 a.m. EDT

I had the lowest expectations imaginable for former president Donald Trump, so I was never disappointed by anything he did. Appalled, yes; infuriated, frequently; disappointed, no. It’s different with President Biden. I voted for him not only because I figured he would be better than Trump — thereby clearing a bar that wasn’t even ankle-high — but also because I respected his long experience in government, his centrist track record and his humanity.

For the most part, he has lived up to my elevated expectations with his covid-19 stimulus package and bipartisan infrastructure bill, his rapid rollout of vaccines, his outreach to U.S. allies and his efforts to turn down the temperature on our overheated politics. The one big exception is the bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan — an own goal of epic proportions.

Biden defenders insist that he had no choice but to pull out, that the dismaying results aren’t his fault, that the withdrawal is actually a triumph because U.S. troops managed to evacuate more than 122,000 people. I don’t buy it. Yes, Trump left him in a bad spot, but in April, when Biden announced the pullout, the Afghan government still held every city, girls were still going to school, and the Kabul airport wasn’t mobbed by refugees. Now a barbaric movement that remains closely allied with al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups is in control of a nation of some 39 million people.

Biden deserves credit for getting so many Afghans out, but many more — including students of the American University of Afghanistan — remain trapped in hell. “The thing that everybody needs to understand, even if you completely agree with the Biden administration’s decision to withdraw, the way they have handled this has been a total f---ing disaster,” Rep. Seth Moulton (Mass. ) — an honest Democrat — told New York magazine. “It will be measured in bodies, because a lot of people are dying because they can’t get out.”

What makes this disaster so infuriating is that it was entirely predictable. The U.S. military urged Biden to keep a small troop presence in Afghanistan and the intelligence community warned that a total pullout would lead to a Taliban takeover. President Barack Obama acceded to those concerns, and refused to withdraw U.S. troops before he left office. But Biden didn’t listen. He wanted to get out of Afghanistan in the worst way, and he did.

This again raises questions of Biden’s judgment that had been put to bed during his nearly flawless presidential campaign. In years past, “Uncle Joe” had become a figure of fun in Washington not only because of his logorrhea but also because of his many wrong calls: e.g., opposing the 1991 Gulf War and supporting the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In 2020, his competence, his caring and his commitment to U.S. international leadership were his calling cards. All three C’s are now called into doubt by his exit from Afghanistan.

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Cut it out, Koan. You are being stupid. He may not have had support from your family and friends but he had plenty of public support. There was no way to do a simple withdrawal given the circumstances he was handed the number of soldiers that Trump left in Afghanistan.