Didn’t have drones in late 90’s. Things do change.
President Biden Accountability Thread
- Thread starter 2003TexasGrad
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We actually did, but either way, what's your point?
Tojo and Hirohito didn't bomb Pearl Harbor either. And this is such a moronic and flagrant mischaracterization of my point and of what happened that it's not worth addressing with you.
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Don’t need a land force to attack terrorist havens.
No, but you do need one if you don't want them being formed in the first place.
Not sure about that. Drones are hitting targets as they attend funerals or humping a sheep.
Yes, that's true. However, we'd rather terror groups not have safe havens to organize and form large training and operations camps.
Monahorns
10,000+ Posts
You dodged the question and changed the goal posts. You mentioned an offensive. I asked who they would go against which would be a foreign force in their own country. I get it though. There is no good answer from your side.
There are ways other than occupation. Also, no one knows the true cost-benefit. But we do know the cost which is real and includes the lives of American boys and girls along with collateral damage of citizens in Afghanistan too. You don't factor them though I know because you don't care about them. Little cost. Hah. Send your son and daughter to die there and tell me how small a cost it is.
Granting this is true, how much destruction is enough? 20 years? 50 years? 200 years? You don't care about where Atta was trained but it is part of the equation. You also ignored another part of the situation. The Taliban did allow Bin Laden to live in Afghanistan. But he didn't live in Kabul. He lived up in the mountains where the Taliban didn't have that much authority anyway. He lived in a lawless area and when the US came in Bin Laden simply went into the mountains of Pakistan. But the US government considered it more important to rule over Afghanistan than go after Bin Laden in Pakistan. The US didn't treat Pakistan the way they did Afghanistan which was just as complicit even though one was called an "allie" and the other a "state sponsor of terror". None of it made any sense. Our government prioritized occupying a country ahead of bringing Bin Laden to justice, at least until Obama came into power and they went after him. But we got him. We got the people who killed Americans on 9/11.
I get you consider the Taliban involved. But can you describe how they were actually involved other than not hunting them down in the mountains? Did you know that the Taliban was willing to give Al Qaeda over to the US before the invasion started? They were, but that wasn't the military's priority.
Who cares? You do! You brought them up. I just commented on what you initiated. You used them as an example, so I showed how your example was bogus. You really need to go back and think about things because you aren't paying attention to what you are saying.
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Monahorns
10,000+ Posts
No but they were the leaders of the actual government and military. Bin Laden didn't control the Taliban. We eventually held Bin Laden accountable but you conflate the Taliban and Al Qaeda quite a bit. You do this a lot. You are so baffled by the facts that you refuse to think through things. Give up all you want it just means you arguments are weak.
Monahorns
10,000+ Posts
There are terror cells all over the place and supposedly in the US itself. I read a foreign policy paper in the early 2000s that said as much. The cells are decentralized and do much of the planning on their own. They get funding from the leaders but the leaders keep a distance to keep them secret. It's part of the plan which reduces the importance of state involvement. Sure work to choke them out but that doesn't justify everything our social justice, critical race theory preaching intelligence community wants to do all over the world.
Worst in my lifetime. Obama was but is now second.
Honestly, I don't even know what question you think I dodged or what goal post you think I moved.
First, calling it an occupation is a bit of a joke. It's nowhere near that big of a commitment. It's more of a small, peacekeeping force. An occupation is what we had in Germany between 1946 and 1952, and that was a hell of a lot more than 2,500 or 3,500 to occupy a much smaller area that was less resistant.
Second, if you have an idea to keep the Taliban from harboring terrorists that doesn't involve troops, I'm all ears.
This is the "if it only saves one life" mentality that the Left deploys to justify all kinds of stupid policies. Yes, I factor the very small number of casualties into my position. However, saying we shouldn't go somewhere because a US troop might get killed is a little like saying the fire department shouldn't respond to a house fire because a fireman might get killed. Risking one's life to keep terrorists from forming training camps and launching operations against American civilians is part of the gig, and they know that going in.
If my son died in Afghanistan, I would be sad of course as everyone would mourn the death of a child, but I wouldn't feel like he died in vain or for a stupid reason.
Again, there isn't a lot of "destruction" anymore when there's only one combat death in 18 months. It's more dangerous to be a cop in Chicago than it is to be a US troop in Afghanistan. If it's keeping terrorist-lovers from controlling a state, keeping a tiny force in place for 20 or more years is fine. We've had about 12 times (and used to have more like 60 times) as many in Germany for 75 years. Not only is it worth it, it's a bargain.
I care, and it is part of the equation. I'm just not stupid enough to think that's an argument to allow terror bases to be formed in Afghanistan.
You do know it wasn't just the personal housing of Bin Laden, right? They allowed their country to be used to form training camps (basically informal military bases) for al Qaeda. It was much bigger than just one dude chilling out in a cave.
How exactly is this a reason to let terror camps be formed in Afghanistan? I don't follow the "logic."
See above.
If they were willing to give Al Qaeda over, they had a pretty funny way of showing it.
I brought up Iraq as an example of us having to return to an area that became much worse and much more dangerous after we left. It was stupid in hindsight. In retrospect, we shouldn't have gone, but that didn't make leaving a smart move. We lost lives needlessly because of it.
So was the Taliban. The point is that sometimes the government allows and enables nongovernmental actors to do terrible things. When they do that, the government becomes a bad guy along with the nongovernmental actors. If Tojo had subcontracted out the bombing of Pearl Harbor to private actors, Tojo would still be a bad guy.
That's because the Taliban protected and enabled Al Qaeda.
Again, that is true. It's also not a reason to allow terror camps to exist and thrive in Afghanistan.
It's keeping the Taliban from controlling the country and giving terror groups a safe haven from which they can train people to murder civilians in the United States and allied countries. To me, that's honorable and with doing for something that's less dangerous than being a Chicago cop.
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Considering the number of years we were there and the now reveal of the speed with which taliban has taken complete control, we’re we controlling anything except figuratively? And there is no honor in our Chicago example, none.
But I’m not seeking argument here, just expressing frustration re: the mess we helped to create - on both fronts.
But I’m not seeking argument here, just expressing frustration re: the mess we helped to create - on both fronts.
We've had cops on Chicago much longer . . .
And the fact that the Taliban is taking the place over by us only pulling out a few troops should tell you how big of an impact our troops can have when we at least sorta let them do their jobs.
Biden sends 5,000 troops to Afghanistan, blames Trump for Taliban resurgence
If this is Trump's fault why would this moron just follow suit and let it happen? It's because it's what he wants too. But he does not have the cojones to accept that his decision to pull out is why this is happening. Just own it. We know the Taliban are liars. Either preserve the garrison there forever or own that you agreed with Trump to pull out.
If this is Trump's fault why would this moron just follow suit and let it happen? It's because it's what he wants too. But he does not have the cojones to accept that his decision to pull out is why this is happening. Just own it. We know the Taliban are liars. Either preserve the garrison there forever or own that you agreed with Trump to pull out.
Yeah, blaming Trump is ********. Trump was going to do the same thing, but Biden is CiC and doesn't have to do this. It is 100 percent his fault.
Until this moment, the corporate media could lie about how terrible the Biden Clown show administration has been. Inflation, rising crime, border chaos, China emboldened, middle class in revolt over public schools - they rationalized all of it. They can't rationalize this foreign policy failure in Kabul.
Monahorns
10,000+ Posts
Yeah. That's the problem.
It is different in scale but not kind. The government which was in place was installed and maintained by our presence. The US was controlling what was going on through a vice regent. No reason to quibble.
I'm not saying that and you should know that. The issue is that I don't agree with the what they are doing. If I did I might think the cost was worth it. My point was the costs are real and tangible. The benefit is more abstract because the US actually has funded Al Qaeda in the region in other cases. So I know better than to believe that the existence and operation of Al Qaeda is dependent on whether or not the Taliban is in power.
Yes. That is why you should be the one sending them. You believe in the cause.
That is the most salient point. However, there is also collateral damage on the other side that should be considered.
The point is it would have happened with or without the Taliban being in power because of the facts of how things occurred.
Where was the camp? In downtown Kabul? What missions in the US were carried out by these terrorists that were trained in Afghanistan?
The point was that after 9/11, the US government didn't prioritize eliminating Al Qaeda. They let Al Qaeda continue in Pakistan. You say the goal was to end terrorist training in the area. But that wasn't the goal of the US government based on their actions because they didn't go searching into Pakistan. They let them stay there and shifted to controlling Afghanistan and going after Iraq.
You don't know what you are talking about. The US was negotiating with the Taliban to have them essentially hand over Al Qaeda. Then the US cut off the negotiation and decided to take over the country. This wasn't because of anything the Taliban didn't do.
It didn't become worse off in a way that threatened Americans. It threatened the new government's control of the Sunni area. The second mistake was nation building. If nation building wasn't the goal, then more US soldiers wouldn't have died. The Shia Iraqi government would have had to decide what they wanted to do on their own.
Sure. But the Taliban didn't rule Al Qaeda and they didn't subcontract terrorism to Al Qaeda. They tolerated them in an area of the country where the Taliban didn't have much influence. Not good, but it doesn't make them responsible for Al Qaeda. They didn't even fund them.
How did they protect them? That's not my understanding. Enabled as much as they didn't actively try to kick them out of the country, sure.
You can go wipe out a terror camp without toppling the existing government and building a new one.
4th_floor
Dude, where's my laptop?
Trump was publically planning the withdrawal since before he was elected. Obama also publically planned the withdrawal. Neither did it. Why? Should be obvious to everyone except you and Joe Biden.
Trump didn't do it because he lost the election, not because he had a better plan.
4th_floor
Dude, where's my laptop?
How do you know that? Why didn't Trump withdraw immediately after his first election, like dementia boy?
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