To filibuster or not to filibuster? Biden needs to get a move on before Doofus Duck waddles back into the swamp (Biden-Trump Thread #128)

[TheNorthWestPawsage]

Still waiting for the kraken to appear.

On this thread, no. On another thread I am not so sure

As we watch, shocked, at what is happening in Afghanistan, my husband surmises that by allowing the withdrawal to play out this way, Biden has signed his own political death warrant and paved the way for Trump's return. I hope he's wrong but I fear he's right.

Biden has 3 years for people to forget. If he did it in, say, 2 years, then it would have consequences.

People won't remember Afghanistan in 6 months.

Don't know. Depends what happens next.

The failure of intelligence on this has been spectacular. As bad as the early 2000s before the Iraq War.

On that occasion, the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans was feeding Dubya material so the hawks could justify going to war. Can't imagine it being in anyone's interest to do that here, but clearly something has gone catastrophically wrong with the intelligence.

Biden to address the nation soon re Afghanistan. It was scheduled for 3.45 EDT, about 10 minutes ago.

Trump started it. Biden got stuck with it. I don't know where we go from here.

I didn't watch it live but followed it on twitter. It came across as a good speech.

Lewis Goodall @lewis_goodall

This was the other half of Biden. The irony is that he's known as the emoter-in-chief, the man whose reputation is built on empathy. And what we just heard was the most coherent hard nosed realist prospectus for US foreign policy from any recent American president.

Beth Rigby @bethrigby

Biden demonstrates not an ounce of self doubt over his decision to withdraw US troops. Clear in his decision, insistent that US troops cannot fight a civil war on behalf of Afghan forces & adamant buck stops with him; he will not pass decision on Afghanistan to 5th US president

thehill.com/policy/international/568037-taliban-takeover-scrambles-us-evacuation-efforts

Well, that was very "America First". But was also correct that this day was going to come whenever US troops were withdrawn.

I missed the beginning of it, so don't know if I missed anything important.

I was watching on BBC News channel, and they had a Bush-era general as a talking head who agreed with withdrawal but also said "but it depends how it's done" – and then didn't explain how it should be done.

Part of me wants to believe this is Biden's error, and that there was a "good" way to do such a withdrawal that he just didn't follow, so that I have someone to blame. But that might be me deluding myself for comfort. And although it matters politically for Biden whether he made mistakes in the "how", it's a bit academic now for the poor bloody Afghans.

I hope they get as many out as possible while the airport is still held. And then I suppose we'll have the griping here about the arrival of refugees (some of it from the same people who are currently wailing "something must be done" and "it's awful, Biden doesn't care", but who change their tune the instant they feel it might affect them).

But what about "doubt" on how to this is playing out now and what this looks like to the world?

Yes, hard-nosed realist is definitely how I'd describe it.

That hard nose realist tone must be bringing comfort to the 30000 citizens stuck in Afghanistan right now. after this massive fuck up by their president.

It was always going to be an 'American First' style speech.

And as has been pointed out, Biden still has to answer the charges that the manner of the withdrawal has been appalling. That there were alternatives. That the planning assumptions were catastrophically wrong.

New tweet...

President Biden
@POTUS

United States government official
The events we are seeing now are sadly the proof that no amount of American military force would ever deliver a stable, united, secure Afghanistan.

What is happening now could just as easily have happened five years ago — or fifteen years in the future.

One of those assumptions being that large parts of the Afghan government and army weren't planning to just fold.

Despite the disgusting glee of Trumpies at this horror, neither the Taliban, nor the Afghan government nor the Afghan army would have behaved an iota different had Trump been President right now.

I doubt the intelligence agencies would magically have known anything different (and former guy didn't listen to them anyway, so kinda irrelevant).

So don't know.

Back to supporting refugees as best I can, as only thing I can do.

I agree. And it seems to me the trumpies are more incensed about lack of women's rights in Afghanistan than they are about the same in their own country

I thought his speech was good and what he said made sense to me. He spoke very plainly with none of Doofus' bullshit and verbal vomit.

Honestly, I don't know what he could have done differently on the 'large scale' of the exit. We had spent 20 years, devoted who knows how many troops, and spent who knows how much money supporting and training the Afghani troops and military officials on how to fight their own war. At some point you just have to say 'enough, it's time for you to take over'.

Maybe some of the logistics should have been handled differently and I hope priority will be given to helping women, girls and people who assisted the troops to get out safely.

But again, I don't have any 'super-knowledge' of the region, its history, or this conflict. I just have to trust that those making the decisions do.

I'm just reading and learning all the time and careful what I'm saying because it is such such a complex situation.

However, some of the images and descriptions of what's going on over there is awful... I fear for women, I really do.

It is an extremely complex situation and like you I am reading and learning all the time.

I just like to share Suzie Dent's tweet

Word of the day is ‘imprescience’ (19th century): a total lack of foresight and foreknowledge.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/joe-biden-afghanistan-taliban_n_611abe43e4b07c140317fba9?ri18n=true

It's not so much that it happened, but how fast it happened.
It was always going to happen.

www.cnbc.com/2021/08/16/how-afghanistan-fell-to-the-taliban-so-quickly.html

"What’s key to note is that the Taliban did not have to fight their way into Afghanistan’s provincial capitals but rather brokered a series of surrenders, says Jack Watling, a research fellow for land warfare and military sciences at the Royal United Services Institute in London. Over the last few years of fighting, the group managed to gain control of some 50% of the country by seizing rural areas."

“The Taliban would infiltrate urban areas, assassinating key people like pilots, threatening the families of commanders, saying if you capitulate, you’ll save your family,” Watling said.

“A lot of people, because they lacked confidence that Kabul would be able to save them, capitulated.” More and more people chose this route, “so there was very little fighting, which is why it suddenly happened so fast,” he added.

“The speed is not a reflection of military capability, it is a reflection of a collapse in will to fight.”

"Kirsten Fontenrose, director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council, said the Taliban has become more effective since the 1990s."

"Had the Taliban engaged in a full military onslaught and faced resistance, the blitz of the country would have taken longer — but it still would have happened, Watling believes."

“There’s never been a central government in Afghanistan. To think we could establish one was a fool’s errand,” said the former U.S. intelligence officer and Afghan War veteran. “The ‘surprise’ at the Taliban regaining power shows just how little Americans, from top to bottom, understand Afghanistan.”

"Tribal alliances in Afghanistan very often supersede national ones, or loyalties follow money and power. And part of the Taliban’s strength lay in the fact that as Pashtuns, they belonged to the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan."

"The nature of the U.S.-brokered cease-fire with the Taliban in early 2020 also further weakened the Afghan government’s image: Negotiations led by the Trump administration left out the elected leadership in Kabul, which “destroyed the Afghan government’s legitimacy” at a time when it already had little respect from local communities, said Watling."

Does the USA sending troops to a foreign country ever end well? They did help win in Europe in 1945, but since then?
Korea
Vietnam
Lebanon
Iraq
Somalia
Bosnia
Syria
Afghanistan

I can't help feeling nothing actually gets improved by American intervention, in the long run. Technical victory doesn't necessarily have a good result.

Big difference between when a third party is invited in – we were begging the US in 1939 and the 1940s – and when it's an unwanted agent.

Then there's the mix when some groups want the third party, some don't, or want some of the mission but not all.

From Lweji link

We did not understand the tribal dynamics, we never did. We think everybody wants what we have. It’s cultural obtuseness, obliviousness to their reality.
Michael Zacchea
U.S. MARINE CORPS LT. COL. (RET)