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ulmen24 t1_je9k4wx wrote

Reply to comment by GoofAckYoorsElf in Kabul’s only library for women closes due to Taliban threats and harassment by SinbadMarinarul

Reread your sentence. Biden was the president at the time, and defied all of his military advisors by withdrawing

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GoofAckYoorsElf t1_je9ln12 wrote

Biden was president when the last soldier left the country. Trump was the one who initiated the withdrawal and negotiated the contract with the Taliban. A contract that isn't worth the paper it is printed on. And it was Bush who initially sent the troops there. So stop blaming Dems for something the Reps fucked up!

What should Biden have done? Send them all back in?

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ulmen24 t1_je9m4i2 wrote

He should have listened to his military advisors. He didn’t need to “send them all back in” as they hadn’t left yet. A satellite force (like we have in countries all over the world) would have been acceptable. That or maybe (if it really was such an awful contract and Biden knew the Afghan forces would fall to the Taliban) withdraw our billions of dollars worth of military equipment before we left? I’m not a military mastermind, I’m just using common sense here. Biden spent his first 100 days undoing all kinds of Trump-era shit. Then, when the shit hits the fan with this, it’s “oh it was trump era shit, my hands were tied”. Give me a break. And for the record, I am NOT a fan of orange man.

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SKT_Phoenix1 t1_jebm8wx wrote

Uhhhh under Trump we went from 13k troops to 2.5k troops and he ignored multiple calls on the dangers of drawdown even from people like Rubio. They HAD left, just not every soldier. Biden was put in an impossible situation where he was obligated to respect a treaty signed by his predecessor but that treaty was just utter shit.

Biden even stated: “it is not my intention to stay there for a long time. But the question is: How and in what circumstances do we meet that agreement that was made by President Trump to leave under a deal that looks like it’s not being able to be worked out to begin with? How is that done? But we are not staying a long time.”

I’d advise maybe getting a bit more acquainted with the events that unfolded, as it is very apparent to pretty much everybody in the thread the narrative you are presenting isn’t quite reflective of the reality of the situation

https://www.factcheck.org/2021/08/timeline-of-u-s-withdrawal-from-afghanistan/

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ulmen24 t1_jebmtld wrote

I am being downvoted in this sub because I’m not a liberal, don’t get it twisted. But ok, I’ll play. How come in the drawdown from 16k to 2.5k American soldiers and Allies weren’t dying? How come Afghans weren’t hiding on wheelwells and falling to their deaths as planes took off?

I’m not a fan of Trump - quite the opposite. But you are insane if you attribute Trump to Biden defying the requests of his generals and also evacuating military before civilians. Come on.

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SKT_Phoenix1 t1_jebnq4o wrote

> How come in the drawdown from 16k to 2.5k American soldiers and Allies weren’t dying

They were. The Taliban had attacked various places in Afghanistan upwards of 15 times during the drawdown (probably WAY beyond 15, but I don’t have a concrete number that’s defendable so I picked one that seems arbitrarily small)

https://www.factcheck.org/2021/08/timeline-of-u-s-withdrawal-from-afghanistan/

  • “Defense Department inspector general’s office says, ‘The Taliban did not appear to uphold its commitment to distance itself from terrorist organizations in Afghanistan. UN and U.S. officials reported that the Taliban continued to support al-Qaeda, and conducted joint attacks with al-Qaeda members against Afghan National Defense and Security Forces.’”

  • Sept. 16, 2020 — The Taliban continued attacks on government forces. The Voice of America reported that “Taliban attacks in three provinces across northern Afghanistan since Tuesday killed at least 17 people, including six civilians, and wounded scores of others even as a Taliban political team was negotiating peace with Afghan government representatives in Doha, Qatar.”

  • Defense Department IG’s office released a report for the quarter ending Sept. 30, 2020, that said the peace negotiations between the Afghan government and Taliban representatives had stalled and violence increased. “At the same time, the Taliban increased its attacks against Afghan forces, leading to ‘distressingly high’ levels of violence that could threaten the peace agreement,” the report said.

  • Dec. 2, 2020 — After past false starts, Afghan and Taliban negotiators agree on a framework to govern peace negotiations. “At the same time, the Taliban continued its ‘fight and talk’ strategy, increasing violence across the country to increase its leverage with the Afghan government in negotiations,” the Defense Department IG’s office said

  • Afghanistan’s First Vice President Amrullah Saleh tells the BBC that the Trump administration made too many concessions to the Taliban. “I am telling [the United States] as a friend and as an ally that trusting the Taliban without putting in a verification mechanism is going to be a fatal mistake,” Saleh says, adding that Afghanistan leaders warned the U.S. that “violence will spike” as the 5,000 Taliban prisoners were released. “Violence has spiked,” he added.

All of this was before Biden was elected.

> How come Afghans weren’t hiding on wheelwells and falling to their deaths as planes took off?

Because there were no indications of an imminent government collapse at that point? Some people were sounding the alarm in the US about the dangers (Rubio deserves his credit) but it wasn’t a common position

Biden didn’t nail the situation, but the larger issue was the treaty Trump signed that Biden felt beholden to in order to not diminish US influence abroad, and the troop drawdown which allowed the Taliban to take a more aggressive role even while America was still there

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ulmen24 t1_jebreft wrote

Gtfo of here. Biden felt compelled to withdraw military and leave the allies and citizens behind to make America “not look like liars” to the rest of the world? You know he pushed back the date from May 1 to August 31 right? So clearly, the President of the United States was not powerless to amend the details of the treaty. Biden sat down with George Stephanapolus and told him he would have withdrawn the troops even without Trump’s treaty.

It was either (1) an awful plan by Trump that endangered Americans and Afghan citizens and Biden shouldn’t have gone through with it, or (2) It was a fine plan and Biden went through with it and it was a success. There is no (3) “it was obviously a horrible plan by Trump but knowing this, Biden had to go along with it, less America look like…they won’t hold up their end of terrible treaties? “America needs it to be known that it keeps its word even when the other party doesn’t and when it means millions of people will be left to the predations of terrorists.”

Who do you think lied, the two generals who testified to Congress that they urged Biden to leave 2,500 troops in the country, or Biden who said he received no such advice? No one was sounding the alarm? Why do you think the Generals of the military testified that they told him to keep a satellite force there?

You’re talking to someone who prays that Trump ends up in prison before the primaries. But my God, blaming everything on him needs to stop. “The Buck stops with me” was Biden’s campaign pitch and since then it’s just been a serial blaming of the previous administration.

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