Joe Biden Presidency thread *Please read OP - Threadbanned Users Added 4/5/21*

Because Trump got his ass thrown out. That's why troops weren't pulled out while he was in office.

Not one mention of the current President of the United States of America on tonight’s RTE news

Very odd on such a day like today

Not everybody lives in such a simplistic binary world.

For my part I think my own post history would show the only thing I did was mock Trump for setting a timeline to withdraw, after making such a big show of not giving anything away during his election campaign.

Staying in Afghanistan permanently has never been an option, "Maybe 100 years" is why I ultimately ruled out ever voting for John McCain.

Any hope of a real change in Afghanistan died when Bush and Co. decided to invade Iraq for its oil and left a mickey mouse team to combat the Taliban and other groups.

The time to shit or get off the pot has long since past.

As for Trump, he's fully behind a US withdrawal, which is why when someone says it wouldn't have happened under him it just makes them look like they haven't the first clue what they're talking about. As a matter of fact, Trump wanted to remove American troops last May in an agreement he made with teh Taliban.

"Getting out of Afghanistan is a wonderful and positive thing to do, I planned to withdraw on May 1st, and we should keep as close to that schedule as possible." 18th April.

The bottom line is that the Afghans don't want foreign occupiers to call the shots in their country. That's why they're rolling over again for the Taliban.

...

Maybe I am wrong didn’t America say to taliban after sept 11 to hand over al qaeda leaders or we will invade ? If the taliban had of done this maybe they would never had lost power in the first place. Doubt America wanted to get involved In Afghan. The Russians didn’t enjoy themselves their either in the 80s

I think the optics of getting out and ending it will stick, previous administrations all failed to do this, Biden has succeeded, the US voters won't be thinking about what is happening in Afghanistan it at the next polling booth (especially as the other party tried and failed to leave so it will just seem like they're being sore losers).

Whether that's right or wrong is another argument, I'd hedge that the surrounding countries (e.g. Pakistan/Iran) now more than ever need to decide how to treat the new entity that is emerging there.

Biden made a courageous decision to not hand over this futile war to a 5th president. He should be commended for that. And for knowing who the Taliban were is a positive step for the American president.

I would worry though, about his advisors, given he said that a quick Taliban take over was "highly unlikely".

It was 20 years ago, so forgive me if I can't recall exactly what country or countries the Taliban had in mind. The point, however, is that there was an option on the table other than "getting involved" as the original questioner put it. Not the greatest of offers of course, but there it is.

In fairness, once America had named Bin Laden as their man (remarkable in its swiftness, I must say) they probably had to be seen to be doing something. Now whether that was originally about invading Afghanistan or not is another story. However, all of what they did came to naught when Bush and his handlers started getting goggle eyed about Iraq within a year instead, thus killing any kind of momentum that may have been built up with regards to Bin Laden. Didn't Bush say that he didn't even care where Bin Laden was at one point.

In the end the entire exercise has been one of complete worthlessness.

It's a basic plan that anyone could have came up with. You negotiate with the Taliban. You tell them, do what you want but stay away from Kabul for about a week and promise them a **** load of aid and some empty gestures.

You send the US planes and drones to hover around the perimeter of the city, blowing the absolute **** out of any Taliban going inside a perimeter, and you evacuate everyone you need.

They could have negotiated that this week when it looked inevitable.

Who the hell couldn't come up with a plan so basic?

I don't for the life of me understand how you could liken Peter Casey to Trump.

I'm not standing up fir Casey here either. He was, imo, just taking the p. He's not a bad guy.