-
The Sietch will be brought offline for HPG systems maintenance tomorrow (Thursday, 2 May 2024). Please remain calm and do not start any interstellar wars while ComStar is busy. May the Peace of Blake be with you. Precentor Dune
The War in Afghanistan
- Thread starter Husky_Khan
- Start date
Whitestrake Pelinal
Like a dream without a dreamer
If it did, my first thought would be that Beijing Biden was trying to save face. Start a fight, lie about it, throw a bunch of troops back into the meat grinder and thump the war drums.
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
Honestly this is probably a situation where having some really intimidating on the ground like a a few Atlas battlemechs would do wonders in keeping the Taliban from doing something they'll very much regret
They're part of the reason this all went to hell in the first place. First they allowed their government to perpetuate fraud against our people through theft and corruption. Then their military folded in less than two weeks against the Taliban, surrendering weapons and gear that we'd left for them to use in their defense (not to mention paying their salaries). And finally, when it came time for the Americans to leave because the ANA had abandoned the fight, these people didn't make sure that Americans who had basically subsidized their existence, gave them freedom, weapons, and resources for 20 years were the first to get onboard.
No, it was instead every man for himself. And such was their cowardice that they'd rather cling to a US military jet during take-off rather than stand and fight for their people, their culture, their homes, and their freedom.
The Afghan people are a disgrace to the human race. May they rot in their shithole for the rest of time.
They should be. Although most of this isn't actually their fault, Kamala and Biden made a massive mistake; they were too eager to take credit for the popular move of getting out of Afghanistan. They can't blame Trump either, because Biden could have simply of sent more troops back into the zone. He can still do it now, in fact. And for Democrats who are more acutely affected by the suffering of others, this is pretty unforgiveable. The president is not only losing support across moderates, but among his own party as well.
No matter what Biden does, he's trapped. His best option now is to get as many Americans out of Afghanistan as quickly as possible. That's the only way to try and end this PR nightmare for his administration. Reporters will still bitch and moan about the Afghans left behind...but people will stop caring after Americans are out of the way.
Biden isn't going to do that. He can't. He put too much emphasis on leaving and how good of a decision it was and how he can't pass it on. At least if we're out by the 31st, he can say "I still got us out". Sure, it was a complete shitshow, but he still did it. If he goes back in, then not only was all this death and suffering for nothing--but entirely manufactured by him. Then he would most certainly be forced out of office.
That means he sticks to his guns.
PsihoKekec
Swashbuckling Accountant
I see some misconceptions here. ANA didn't collapse in two weeks, it was crumbling under Taliban attack for months, it's just that mainstream media noticed it only in the last two weeks of it's agony. But yeah, I recall there being mass protests in favour of the government weeks before it all collapsed, I'm sure the few soldiers who still fought felt all warm and fuzzy at the thought of bunch of military age men waving flags in their support.
Also all the dreams of midterm election success should take into account that dems are quite busy fortifying the elections and that attention span of average voter is rather short, so Assfuckistan will largely be forgotten by the time of elections.
Also all the dreams of midterm election success should take into account that dems are quite busy fortifying the elections and that attention span of average voter is rather short, so Assfuckistan will largely be forgotten by the time of elections.
It's more accurate to say that the average voter emotionally moves on, but the impact does have consequences. Trump eroded some of his own base's enthusiasm with some of his early foreign policy moves (ie, bombing places, the wall not being built). Biden's own base is even worse; the Dems only generally show up in large numbers when they either really like the guy on the ticket or they really hate the opposition on the ticket. Otherwise, they're too busy fighting among themselves. After this debacle, liberals, who are the most likely ones to be offended and hold this grudge, are going to be less likely to show up.
On top of that, Biden had portrayed himself as a return to sanity candidate. He was trying to snatch up the Republican business and national security swing voters. I expect the business voters are shocked and the national security voters are outright disgusted with how this all turned out. This is something they would have expected from Trump, not Biden. And after Biden had tried to act all tough after the Jan 6th riots too. Any gains he made with them is probably gone. He needs to start from scratch.
Then, to make matters worse, the Republicans are strangling mail-in-voting wherever they have the means to do so. Now, Biden has enough time to reverse the damage, so long as the coverage doesn't get much worse than this, but if what I've read is true--that Afghans are no longer going to be evacuated, then it is going to get worse. And no amount of "I'm getting our people out first" is going to satisfy the media. They're out for blood.
This is a disaster for Biden and Kamala. And also damaging to the Democrats as a whole. It won't end the party of course. Just look at the Republicans. Their new possible big shot outside of Trump is a moron in Florida pushing an expensive cure rather than a free vaccine.
Good news from the international community everybody. Russia, China and Pakistan are ready to work on mediation in this Afghanistan crisis.
Russia's Stance:
Russia, China, the US and Pakistan are interested in serving as middlemen in resolving the crisis in Afghanistan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says.
At the same time, he said, Russia opposes the ideas of allowing Afghan refugees to enter the ex-Soviet region of Central Asia – located between Russia and Afghanistan – or having US troops deployed there.
China's Stance:
China’s envoy to the UN in Geneva says the US army and the coalition militaries should be held accountable for alleged rights violations they committed in Afghanistan.
The US, UK, Australia and other countries must be held accountable for the violation of human rights committed by their military in Afghanistan and… this current session should cover this issue,” China’s ambassador Chen Xu told an emergency session of the Human Rights Council on Afghanistan.
Oh no... the Human Rights Council...
www.aljazeera.com
[/hr]
Russia's Stance:
Russia, China, the US and Pakistan are interested in serving as middlemen in resolving the crisis in Afghanistan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says.
At the same time, he said, Russia opposes the ideas of allowing Afghan refugees to enter the ex-Soviet region of Central Asia – located between Russia and Afghanistan – or having US troops deployed there.
China's Stance:
China’s envoy to the UN in Geneva says the US army and the coalition militaries should be held accountable for alleged rights violations they committed in Afghanistan.
The US, UK, Australia and other countries must be held accountable for the violation of human rights committed by their military in Afghanistan and… this current session should cover this issue,” China’s ambassador Chen Xu told an emergency session of the Human Rights Council on Afghanistan.
Oh no... the Human Rights Council...
CIA chief secretly met Taliban leader in Kabul: Report
The meeting between Burns and Baradar came amid the ongoing evacuations at Kabul airport.
I'm sorry. Did you just say the "vaccine" is free?
Whitestrake Pelinal
Like a dream without a dreamer
That is a reasonably rational assessment of likely consequences. Unfortunately, the President himself is senile, the VP is a diversity hire, and I have a nagging suspicion that their handlers have drank their own kool-aid. Their strengths are media manipulation and subversion, and they are so very full of chutzpah, I wouldn't wonder that they convinced themselves they could make such a scenario work in their favor by 'controlling the narrative'.
Even without such confidence, bad for Democrats or Americans isn't necessarily bad for those with no allegiance to either, those who fancy themselves a globetrotting elite and citizens of the world.
DarthOne
☦️
"...now we know that out of the 26,000 evacuated, only 4,000 were Americans"
How much money are we paying the Taliban to let us evacuate safely? How much will we have to pay to extend the 31 August deadline?
How much money are we paying the Taliban to let us evacuate safely? How much will we have to pay to extend the 31 August deadline?
Circle of Willis
Well-known member
Not unexpected, but still. Couple this with the recent admission that it's 'very unlikely' that they can get all Americans out by August 31st...
And how there's been absolute radio silence about any Americans who might be stranded in A-stan's other cities, ex. Herat or Kandahar (what are the chances of every single one of them being in Kabul?)...
Is it just me or are things building up to an entirely predictable, almost certainly avoidable, yet increasingly inevitable and probably years-spanning extended hostage crisis?
DarthOne
☦️
AND yet, how much do you want to bet that it'll all be Orange Man Bad's fault and that the TOTALLY SECURE 2022 elections will be in favor of the democrats?
...look, as much as I'd like to believe otherwise and am determined to keep 'fighting' to the end, at this point I won't be surprised if the MSM/Deep State finds a way to avoid from smelling like shit. Probably via another COVID incident or something.
Biden's degrading mental state is somewhat overstated. The real issue is that Biden has very little experience actually being in charge of things. That said, I don't doubt that Biden is almost entirely reliant upon committee to make most of his decisions. I am not sure this is one of them--at least not one that was suggested by the civil service. Rather, I expect it was from his political advisors.
No, I can promise you that his advisors are shitting themselves. They're in full damage control right now, likely pushing that #RespectBiden on Twitter to combat the negative publicity. Trying to shift the blame to Trump and the Afghan army. Their problem is that with each passing day, the news gets worse and worse.
Because the media isn't accepting their spin. I've been keeping an eye on MSNBC and CBS. Some are nicer than others, but they are actually holding Biden and his administration to the fire. They're pissed. Outside of Bush and Trump, this is some of the worst press I've ever seen a president get from the media. Did you see Kamala the other day? She looked like she was ready to cry when the press went after her about stranded Americans.
Hostage crises? Maybe? I expect that the Taliban will extract some concessions from Biden in exchange for their safe passage, but they'll try and put a kinder face on it. That said, Biden brought this upon himself. By trying to damage control the fallout of the coldhearted nature of his pullout, he promised they'd get their allied Afghans out. And so every sack of shit Afghan within a hundred miles decided that meant them and swarmed the airport.
And that has made things worse. Because they're clogging up the roads, the checkpoints, and the airport to save their own damn hides instead of letting Americans out first. And that's agitating the Taliban, because I imagine what they agreed to was letting the Americans and maybe a few thousand Afghans out. Instead tens of thousands of Afghans are fleeing the country and only a few thousand Americans are getting out.
At this point, it may actually be faster if the American military just left. Without our presence at the airport, the frenzy of Afghans will evaporate and it'll be easier for the Taliban to process the Americans and send them out. The problem is that we aren't sure we can trust the Taliban. But with the way things are going, we may not have any better options without trying to retake Kabul.