Afghanistan

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I’m reluctant to share my thoughts on this. They’re worth what you paid for, and come complete with the disclaimer I’ve not served in the military. I’m not a foreign policy expert.

I honestly believe the end result would have been the same had we spent ten more years in Afghanistan. I do believe we should have planned a faster process for evacuating the Afghans who helped US military personnel. There’s a lot of blame to spread around, but to what end?

Biden followed the same plan Trump intended to. Lots of folks are making political hay over this, and I frankly find it disgusting. My heart breaks for the troops who gave years to a mission doomed to fail, to the Afghans who’ve watched their world turn upside down in days, and to the families who carry the burden of having lost loved ones there in the lat 20 years.

I don’t believe there was ever a happy ending, and to pretend there was is disingenuous.
 
I fail to see how anyone could have imagined a different result !

If this could not have been foreseen, there better be some eyes being checked.

This pretty much falls in line with all the other failures of this administration.

What should we imagine the time frame of renewed terrorism in America ti be ??
7 months ago when the capital was stormed
 
I’m reluctant to share my thoughts on this. They’re worth what you paid for, and come complete with the disclaimer I’ve not served in the military. I’m not a foreign policy expert.

I honestly believe the end result would have been the same had we spent ten more years in Afghanistan. I do believe we should have planned a faster process for evacuating the Afghans who helped US military personnel. There’s a lot of blame to spread around, but to what end?

Biden followed the same plan Trump intended to. Lots of folks are making political hay over this, and I frankly find it disgusting. My heart breaks for the troops who gave years to a mission doomed to fail, to the Afghans who’ve watched their world turn upside down in days, and to the families who carry the burden of having lost loved ones there in the lat 20 years.

I don’t believe there was ever a happy ending, and to pretend there was is disingenuous.
As someone whose dad spent 21 years in the Marines and has worked in some very high offices, I’ve had some serious conversations about it with him.

Here are the things he feels like that went wrong.

He believes that a withdrawal was necessary, however it should have been done over 2-3 years and without being a political point. I.e.-no press conference needed to discuss it, just treat it as an operation over a period of time. Start by pulling out sensitive material and information. As your doing that remove the troops associated with those positions. Then begin to remove weapons/equipment in a staged approach. He feels like we announced our plan to the world and let the Taliban follow us out of town.

I feel for those people that fought their ass off and watched it go up in flames for no reason. My cousin has two Purple Hearts from this war. He was forced to med-out after the last issue. I talked to him yesterday for a while and he basically explained it likes this. “ We were trying to train a JV team to compete against the taliban when we withdrew. There were some great people, but you could tell most of them weren’t made to battle. The guys that really wanted to be in the military were part of the Taliban and we got the leftovers.” “The only way to keep the taliban from running the country is to whipe them out with air strikes and bombs, but there will be collateral damage.”

I don’t fault Biden for the withdrawal but I think he’s a shitty leader that had no plan. He put too much trust in a government that we were propping up.
 
He feels like we announced our plan to the world and let the Taliban follow us out of town.
Thank you for sharing this. This particular sentence really resonated. The ending of the storybook is still likely the same, but without the chaos and much greater ability to make humanitarian evacuations.
He put too much trust in a government that we were propping up.

Absolutely.

In your dad’s opinion, did this increase our risk of terrorist attacks? Or is that dog whistle politics?
 
Thank you for sharing this. This particular sentence really resonated. The ending of the storybook is still likely the same, but without the chaos and much greater ability to make humanitarian evacuations.


Absolutely.

In your dad’s opinion, did this increase our risk of terrorist attacks? Or is that dog whistle politics?
He hasn’t said much about that. About 6 months ago he told me that our country is so divided right now that it will take some sort of catastrophe to reunite us. Obviously none of us want any sort of terrorist attack, but we were probably most United on 9/12/2001. Sad state of affairs from both sides of the aisle these days.
 
He hasn’t said much about that. About 6 months ago he told me that our country is so divided right now that it will take some sort of catastrophe to reunite us. Obviously none of us want any sort of terrorist attack, but we were probably most United on 9/12/2001. Sad state of affairs from both sides of the aisle these days.
I’m more concerned with domestic terrorism and tribal politics than I am with Islamic terrorists. It is very sad.
 
I feel bad for all the "good" people in Afghanistan. I just wish the Afghan military would have put up a fight. I really don't know why they didn't.
 
One of my hunting buddies (3 tours in the sand) pretty much summed it up yesterday when he said the only happy ending that Afghanistan ever produced was in a massage parlor. I feel deeply for all of those who have both cycled through there as well as those who remain there today.
 
I don’t have much to say other than I’m disappointed in all of it. Seems certain there could have been a cleaner, more controlled way out. In a different universe, seems like a very cool country to visit in terms of nature. Same for Iran. Google search some of the pics- they’re incredible.

 
My better half spent two tours in that place. Described the people as remarkable, capable of being absolutely horrific. She has been writing letters supporting extraction of some of her Afghan teammates. I hope she has some success, one was killed last week. She is emotionally spent at the moment.
 
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