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Afghanistan 2021

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by Ubiquitin, Jun 25, 2021.

  1. Andre0087

    Andre0087 Member

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    For those stating Biden should step down that should not and will not ever happen especially after the shitshow we’ve seen over the past 5 years.
     
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  2. TheresTheDagger

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    The context is people are dead.
     
  3. Salvy

    Salvy Member

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    Oh you mean the shitshow where we did not have an immigration crisis, gas prices go up, bad economy, vaccine passports and The Taliban regaining control of Afghanistan while Biden stranded Americans before leaving..... Yeah, total **** show back then... This, this is good....
     
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  4. Nook

    Nook Member

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    So predictable.

    Actually all of this is predictable..... from invading Afghanistan, to remaining in Afghanistan for decades... to being incompetent in nation building, to having multiple administrations being gutless and keeping the status quo.... to the Biden administration being out of touch and botching the withdraw... to Trump claiming he wouldn't do the same thing...... to ISIL killing people to humiliate the USA and attempt to keep us involved in the region.....

    All of this is sad and so very predictable.....
     
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  5. deb4rockets

    deb4rockets Member
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    Whenever half a million AMERICANS were dead from Covid months ago and Trump did NOTHING but scoff masks and social distancing were you demanding he step down immediately?
     
  6. Ubiquitin

    Ubiquitin Member
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    This was outcome was inevitable unless we were committed on staying forever and violating the Trump Taliban peace deal.
    Obama Romney McCain Trump Biden Cruz Bernie and Hillary, it doesn’t matter.
    The Afghan government folded like a deck of cards and a group of Taliban militants waltzed into a city of the size of Houston and took control.

    Is this bad for Biden, yes. But it’s literally due to US foreign policy of 20 years and the failure of the Afghan government. It’s a US failure.

    There was no happy ending.
     
  7. deb4rockets

    deb4rockets Member
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    The supply and demand of prices surging after the pandemic is not on Biden. Blame Trump for that crap. The Taliban would take over when we left regardless of whether Trump or Biden were President. As for the immigrants, well unless you are Native American your ancestors came here as either immigrants or a slave.
     
  8. quikkag

    quikkag Member

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    ...where you illustrate the breadth of your perspective.
     
  9. TheresTheDagger

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    Tell us oh wise enlightened one about your "breadth of perspective".

    GFY
     
  10. El_Conquistador

    El_Conquistador King of the D&D, The Legend, #1 Ranking

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    COVID deaths were/are a global problem and the US government reacted far FAR better than other countries. Trump got the vaccine out in record time and saved the economy from total disaster. We didn't run out of hospital space and everyone who needed a ventilator received one. The US had more deaths because of obesity rates and diabetes rates (a function of wealth). To try to blame Trump for COVID deaths is just a reflection of your partisan bias. It's wrong.

    Biden, on the other hand, literally GAVE the Bagram Airfield to the Taliban and forced innocent Americans and Afghans to try to evacuate from an unsecured urban airport in Kabul with most of the US military already out of the country. That's just inexcusable and completely preventable. Now Americans are dying needlessly. There is no other way to describe it other than utter incompetence. Makes sense though, given that Biden is a weak old man with only around 60% of his brain currently active.

    Now the Taliban is mocking us as they wear our troops' gear and have access to thousands of pieces of US Armed Forces equipment. That's just disgraceful. We have been humiliated on a global stage and our standing in the world is irreparably damaged. This will unfortunately lead to more enemies making their run at us. A national security nightmare. A weak leader leads to a loss of security. It's that simple.
     
  11. durvasa

    durvasa Member

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    Terrible and tragic.

    More context:

    https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians/afghan


    The war in Afghanistan continues destroying lives, due to the direct consequences of violence and the war-induced breakdown of public health, security, and infrastructure. Civilians have been killed by crossfire, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), assassinations, bombings, and night raids into houses of suspected insurgents.

    The United States military in 2017 relaxed its rules of engagement for airstrikes in Afghanistan, which resulted in a massive increase in civilian casualties. From the last year of the Obama administration to the last full year of recorded data during the Trump administration, the number of civilians killed by U.S.-led airstrikes in Afghanistan increased by 330 percent.

    The CIA has armed Afghan militia groups to fight Islamist militants and these militias are responsible for serious human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings of civilians.

    Even in the absence of fighting, unexploded ordnance from this war and landmines from previous wars continue to kill, injure, and maim civilians. Fields, roads, and school buildings are contaminated by ordnance, which often harms children as they go about chores like gathering wood.

    The war has also inflicted invisible wounds. In 2009, the Afghan Ministry of Public Health reported that fully two-thirds of Afghans suffer from mental health problems.

    Prior wars and civil conflict in the country have made Afghan society extremely vulnerable to the reverberating effects of the current war. Those war effects include elevated rates of disease due to lack of clean drinking water, malnutrition, and reduced access to health care. Nearly every factor associated with premature death — poverty, malnutrition, poor sanitation, lack of access to health care, environmental degradation — is exacerbated by the current war.

    About 241,000 people have been killed in the Afghanistan and Pakistan war zone since 2001. More than 71,000 of those killed have been civilians.
     
  12. quikkag

    quikkag Member

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    The obvious response.

    Afghanistan is where empires go to die, from Alexander the Great to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. After we aided the Northern Alliance to cut the legs out from under the Taliban is when we should have left Afghanistan.

    The lure of Afghanistan is the opium from its poppy fields and the approx $1 trillion of minerals underlying it. The minerals are not worth the headache when you realize that the point of the space race between Musk and Bezos to mine our solar system.

    Someone mentioned that now Afghanistan is a clear base from which terrorist attacks can be sprung on the US. They should look at a globe. The preeminent threat of terrorist attacks in the US are domestic nationalists and white supremacists.

    trump and the GOP he has on a leash have championed policies that have killed, at a minimum, 650,000 Americans, but today there is rending of shirts when we lose a dozen or so on foreign soil.

    All views of much, much broader perspective, yet just a warm up.
     
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  13. Ubiquitin

    Ubiquitin Member
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    Trader can you with a straight face say this would happen differently under Trump? The same red line Trump who launched missiles at tarmacs over Assad’s chemical weapons or going with completely abandoning our Kurdish allies in Syria/Iraq? Or met with Kim and got a pinky promise of nothing? Or who tried to invite Taliban to Camp David? This is the Trump peace deal. He negotiated peace with the Taliban and set a timetable for withdraw.

    Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful there were no real military flare ups during the Trump years (Baghdad January 2020 being the closest thing) but I have no confidence Trump would do anything based on his tepid COVID response. And it’s the same DoD as it has always been.

    The only difference between Trump and Biden would be Fox would be calling the Taliban a cautious partner in the fight against ISIS (meaning all the same events would’ve unfolded) and frame this as an ISIS issue. But instead it’s being framed as Biden is the only reason bad things are happening which while is understandable partisan take to hold, it is also completely false.
     
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  14. deb4rockets

    deb4rockets Member
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    I stopped reading after that first sentence.
     
  15. Commodore

    Commodore Member

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  16. Gioan Baotixita

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    You stopped reading because the hatred you have for Trump has lower your IQs permanently and therefore have lost touch with reality. What Trader is saying actually made a lot of sense.
     
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  17. Andre0087

    Andre0087 Member

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    I would guess it’s hard to attack a suicide bomber in a large crowd…but let’s throw logic out the window for a perceived political win. :rolleyes:
     
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  18. quikkag

    quikkag Member

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    To anyone with any breadth of education and who makes an effort to gather objective facts, Trader has never had anything sensical to say. Ever.
     
  19. dobro1229

    dobro1229 Member

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    Are you dumb enough to think that the Biden Administration is waving the white flag at ever carrying out strikes against ISIS?

    Are you Trumpers ignorant enough to not know the different between the Taliban and ISIS?

    Lastly - Are you Trumpers actually suggesting that it would be a good idea that serves our interest to use military force on the Taliban for crimes committed by an ISIS fighter? Especially when we are relying on the Taliban for outer security of the airfield.

    Attacking the Taliban right now for an ISIS attack would be one of the dumbest military strategic moves ever done by the US.

    Nothing about this line makes any sense. Unless you are listening to Chuck Todd who is one of the dumbest "journalists" on TV who brought this line up first as if this was some sort of "Red Line" moment for Biden. If the Taliban directly attacks Americans on the airfield I'm positive that the US military on the ground will fire back, and air strikes are likely to follow on Taliban assets.

    This also would be dumb because it would weaken the Talibans resources against their inevitable Civil War against ISIS. The choice for the US is giving the country up to the Taliban or ISIS. That's an easy decision to me.... but for someone like you and Chuck Todd who clearly do not know the difference between ISIS and the Taliban I can see where you would be confused about all of this.
     
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  20. TheresTheDagger

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