As Biden repeats claim that ‘nobody could have known’ Afghan Army would collapse, bombshell transcript from July reveals he pressured Afghan President

[Logophile]

I'll take a stab at the question. It would have made evacuation and withdrawal much worse.

What a ridiculous diversionary tactic to try to legitimize an imbecilic evacuation, and worse, trying to excuse Biden's role in it. Oh, btw, enjoy your washer and dryer. I'm willing to bet you don't get those either, or more likely - as per the rule from any ardent Biden supporter - they'll be broken. Thanks!!

 

[Metric Mouse]

In June, it was put out intelligence gave us 6 months at least. In July, we left Bagram. There was no indication at that time, when Bagram was "abandoned" that that timeframe had changed from 6 months to 6 weeks. And that is what happened, because 6 weeks after we left Bagram, the government of Afghanistan collapsed, with top officials fleeing. Our intelligence put that at 6 months from the pullout date, and there is no indication that before we left Bagram (which was an action we could not take back without many, many more troops and a much different plan and likely extension of the date), the collapse timeframe had been reduced to before the deadline, to 6 weeks from then.

This is a bullshit post. None of that is true. The Taliban were taking over at record pace even in June.

Taliban forces rapidly gaining ground in Afghanistan as U.S. leaves

Even the Taliban are taken aback at how fast their forces are moving, one commander said, and have slowed down in some cases to avoid offending the U.S.

www.nbcnews.com

 

[pamak]

Pressuring a foreign leader to lie for the benefit of the United States.

instead for a personal benefit..

 

[Metric Mouse]

Good. Now you are free to post your favorite deflection to the following question:

Knowing that we still needed to remove thousands of personnel and military equipment, as well as tens of thousands of allies, do you think answering that the fall of the government was not only likely but imminent would have made the conditions for our withdrawal

a) better, or
b) worse

Lying to the American people is always worse. People didn't begin to self evacuate because Biden promised it would be ok. It lead directly to the deadly cluster at the end.

Now we have dead and abandoned Americans and allies, and a president who lies about it.

 

[Cardinal]

I think you'll defend the Biden administration no matter how obvious this botched evacuation really is. And the way you do it is interesting, to say the least. Staying in Afghanistan was NEVER the point. But you want to obfuscate this sorry evacuation effort by presenting some false narrative and claiming an absurd assumption. The US/allies departure was a horrible botch job and no way to exit a nation, by leaving Afghan allies in the hands of monsters and leaving western civilians there to boot, to try to escape torture and beheadings. And yet here you are, trying your best with some sleight of hand to dismiss it all. Thanks!!

So you think that announcing the imminent collapse of the Afghan government would have made for a more orderly withdrawal.

Somebody put this man in charge of everything right now.

 

[pamak]

Lying to the American people is always worse. People didn't begin to self evacuate because Biden promised it would be ok. It lead directly to the deadly cluster at the end.

Now we have dead and abandoned Americans and allies, and a president who lies about it.

Minimizing the enemy's success is standard practice during wars. Just because an enemy advances fast at some point, it does not mean that this cannot be stopped or even reversed (Moscow provides such historical examples during the Naopelonic wars and during WWII). One would reasonably expect that while it was perhaps very difficult to contest a whole country, things for the Afghan army would have improved as it was retreating towards the capital and as the area that had to keep under control was shrinking. But such outcome is bassed on the precondition of maintaining morale which is the reason why there is military censorhsip and propaganda.

And by the way, the US embassy in Kabul issued many warnings to American citizens. You can ague that the language could have been more forceful but that is all.

 

[W_Heisenberg]

Biden told Afghan president they needed to 'change perception' of war

In the last phone call between Joe Biden and his Afghan counterpart the American president said they needed to change perceptions of the Taliban's rapid advance 'whether it is true or not.'

www.dailymail.co.uk

Sooo... let me get this straight. As the Taliban were murdering their way through the Afghan Countryside, as the Afghan government was on the brink of collapse, Biden gets of the phone with he Afghan president and talks the the Afghan president about getting the TALIBAN better PR, even if it's false. He's talking political strategy with the guy endanger of being hung... to help Biden politically.

The ONLY reason for that absolute bullshit is if Biden was only looking out for his own hide. The only reason he would have for not being truthful to the American people about who the Taliban actual are is because he needed to paint the picture of the Taliban disaster as some grand Diplomatic process.

I guess he just took for granted that the press would go along and forgot that he just ****ed over a lot of foreign countries as well.

You're still not getting Cheetoh-head back. Get over it. Trump is a loser. He lost. Biden will be President for at least the next few years.

 

[Juggernaut74]

So you think that announcing the imminent collapse of the Afghan government would have made for a more orderly withdrawal.

Somebody put this man in charge of everything right now.

I do hope that by “Somebody” you mean “Nobody”

 

[Lutherf]

QUESTIONABLE SOURCE
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Overall, we rate Daily Mail Right Biased and Questionable due to numerous failed fact checks and poor information sourcing.
Detailed Report
Questionable Reasoning: Right, Propaganda, Conspiracy, Some Fake News, Numerous Failed Fact Checks
Bias Rating: RIGHT
Factual Reporting: LOW
Country: United Kingdom (35/180 Press Freedom)
Media Type: Newspaper
Traffic/Popularity: High Traffic
MBFC Credibility Rating: LOW CREDIBILITY

History
Established in 1896 by Harold and Alfred Harmsworth and Kennedy Jones, The Daily Mail is a tabloid newspaper in the UK. It is edited by Geordie Greig, who took over as editor in November 2018 from Paul Dacre, who had been the editor since 1992. The Daily Mail’s parent company is DMGT, which owns newspapers including the Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday, and The Metro. The chairman is Jonathan Harmsworth, 4th Viscount Rothermere, who inherited the media empire founded by his great-grandfather Harold and his brother Alfred a century earlier. Harold Sidney Harmsworth is also known to be an admirer of Mussolini and a supporter of Nazi Germany.

Read our profile on UK government influence on media.

Funded by / Ownership
The Daily Mail’s parent company is Daily Mail, and General Trust or DMGT and its chairman are Jonathan Harmsworth who inherited the media empire founded by his great-grandfather Harold Sidney Harmsworth. The Executive Committee is listed on their about page.

DMGT also publishes the Mail on Sunday and Metro titles. Besides journalism, DMGT includes risk management, event organization such as conferences, training sessions, seminars and is the largest shareholder in property portal Zoopla, sold to Silver Lake. The main revenue of the Daily Mail is digital advertising, print ads, and subscription fees. You can find their 2018 assets report here.

Daily Mail - Bias and Credibility

QUESTIONABLE SOURCE A questionable source exhibits one or more of the following: extreme bias, consistent promotion of propaganda/conspiracies, poor or no

mediabiasfactcheck.com

Daily Mail isn't real news. It's fake news. There might be a tiny bit of truth in there, but that's it.




.

I continue to be deeply impressed with your analysis and ability to dissect a “news” article while clearly and concisely getting to the facts.

 

[CharloTexan]

If only you could.

As expected, the wrong conclusion.

See above.

The article is 1/4 reportage, and 3/4 Op/Ed. In other words, 3/4 spin. Which is no surprise because if comes from a right-wing tabloid. In the military, morale is everything, and morale is bolstered by perception. If you believe there's nobody at the helm steering the ship, then as soon as you see you're headed for the shoals, you immediately prepare to abandon.

If you want the army to hold out, they have to believe that they can. As soon as they don't, then morale goes down the drain and they abandon their posts. The hope on everyone's part was that the AFS could demonstrate to the Taliban that they could hold out and defend themselves indefinitely. This would have led, eventually, to some kind of power sharing, because everybody knew that the Taliban were going nowhere. They could either evolve into a political force and be subsumed into the government - OR - the government could fall, and they would once again take over - which we all now know is what happened. But there was never any expectation that they would be "defeated" in any real sense of the word.

Every single projection you've made about Biden is false. His own words, many of which are quoted in the article, can be taken at face value. But one way or another, he wasn't going to get conned into escalating the war, or paying troops that we had already paid for and should have already been paid, but for the fact that their corrupt commanders pocketed their money. Biden is no fool. If the military commanders and the central authority in Kabul weren't willing to maintain an ongoing defense of their own country, Biden had no intention of propping them up any longer. It could go down hard, or it could go down easy, but was going to go down. We were pulling out one way or another, and I, for one, am delighted that we did.

Whatever happens henceforth in Afghanistan is their problem.

This is an excellent post. Well done Mambo, I wish I had said it!

 

[Logophile]

So you think that announcing the imminent collapse of the Afghan government would have made for a more orderly withdrawal.

Somebody put this man in charge of everything right now.

I think better planning would have been an option, don't you?? Don't you think it would have been wise to take that list of western civilians - you know, instead of handing it to the Taliban - and gone door to door if need be and tell them to pack up back in June or July?? To board a plane back along instead of having them bomber fodder waiting at an airport?? Your defense of Biden is almost funny. But when all those beheadings start and word gets out that the new and improved ISIS is setting people on fire, don't think for a minute that these people won't be your dear boy's legacy, because they will. Thanks!!

 

[CharloTexan]

Let's say we knew for certain that the Taliban would defeat the Afghan government, should we have stayed in Afghanistan?

Or should we have announced that the Taliban would win, and then leave. Of course, neither of these is a viable game plan. Does an inferior team go into the Super Bowl hanging their head and admitting defeat in advance to the world? No, they put on a positive face, from Ownership down to the punter, and go play the game. Morale just might get you the win. Probably not, but crying up front won't do anything for the cause.

 

[CharloTexan]

Pressuring a foreign leader to lie for the benefit of the United States.

He was suggesting to the Afghani president to have a more positive projection, not lie. Nobody knew for certain what would happen, or how fast. It was for Afghanistan's benefit, not America's. A positive attitude might have turned out different. We see what a negative attitude resulted in.

 

[roguenuke]

This is a bullshit post. None of that is true. The Taliban were taking over at record pace even in June.

Taliban forces rapidly gaining ground in Afghanistan as U.S. leaves

Even the Taliban are taken aback at how fast their forces are moving, one commander said, and have slowed down in some cases to avoid offending the U.S.

www.nbcnews.com

Them gaining ground June 25th changed what sort of timeframe there? Could it have been turned around? Where are the intelligence reports from that time, as things changed? Do you have access to them? How do you know when these things changed, at what time points these changed?

The timeframe of 6 months was given out June 2nd. I'm all for any investigation into what changed there, how those dates changed, those estimates changed with time. But it still makes it a dynamic situation and the faster this sort of thing happened, the less information we are going to have about how much time we have before the change happens.

 

[Anthony60]

I guess Nancy will be starting the impeachment process, we know that a phone call pressuring a foreign leader is a ticket right out of the Oval Office.

 

[Overitall]

I guess Nancy will be starting the impeachment process, we know that a phone call pressuring a foreign leader is a ticket right out of the Oval Office.

Knowing how much Biden likes to claim (plagiarize) the words of others I can imagine him coming out to say: "It was a perfectly good call!" And the MSM will in unison say: "Yep."

 

[Cardinal]

I think better planning would have been an option, don't you??

Off topic.

Don't you think it would have been wise to take that list of western civilians - you know, instead of handing it to the Taliban -

Probably didn't happen.

To board a plane back along instead of having them bomber fodder waiting at an airport??

Yeah, we should have timed the withdrawal around the scheduled terrorist attacks.

Your defense of Biden is almost funny. But when all those beheadings start and word gets out that the new and improved ISIS is setting people on fire, don't think for a minute that these people won't be your dear boy's legacy, because they will. Thanks!!

Yeah, Taliban's gonna Taliban. Only fix for that is staying in Afghanistan forever which, if you hadn't noticed, we were pretty sick of.

 

[humbolt]

I guess Nancy will be starting the impeachment process, we know that a phone call pressuring a foreign leader is a ticket right out of the Oval Office.

I somehow doubt it. I don't know why.

But in all honesty, Nancy's getting her nails sharpened today. Tomorrow she gets her hair starched and blown up. Botox in the face next week. She's gonna be busy the next few weeks. I hear new fenders, quarter panels, and maybe a tail gate are in the works, too.

 

[ALiberalModerate]

Biden told Afghan president they needed to 'change perception' of war

In the last phone call between Joe Biden and his Afghan counterpart the American president said they needed to change perceptions of the Taliban's rapid advance 'whether it is true or not.'

www.dailymail.co.uk

Sooo... let me get this straight. As the Taliban were murdering their way through the Afghan Countryside, as the Afghan government was on the brink of collapse, Biden gets of the phone with he Afghan president and talks the the Afghan president about getting the TALIBAN better PR, even if it's false. He's talking political strategy with the guy endanger of being hung... to help Biden politically.

The ONLY reason for that absolute bullshit is if Biden was only looking out for his own hide. The only reason he would have for not being truthful to the American people about who the Taliban actual are is because he needed to paint the picture of the Taliban disaster as some grand Diplomatic process.

I guess he just took for granted that the press would go along and forgot that he just ****ed over a lot of foreign countries as well.

It sounds more like he was trying to keep the country from collapsing due to a loss of confidence in its government. Why would anyone fight if they thought the government would soon fall anyway?

As to the Taliban murdering their way through the countryside, they hardly had to fight to take back the country as they had started negotiating with all the local warlords as soon as the Trump Administration finished its surrender negotiations with the Taliban.

There is no doubt the execution of the withdrawal was an utter cluster on the part of the Biden Administration, but you guys need to quit trying to have it both ways. If you agree with the Trump and Biden Administration's policy of a full withdrawal from Afghanistan, then you have to accept that as a consequence of that, the Taliban would quickly take back the country, and would have access to all the arms we have provided the Afghan Defense Forces.

If you do not believe we should have completely withdrawn from Afghanistan, then fine, that's a perfectly reasonable position to have and it is one that I share. However, you must also believe that the Biden Administration ****ed up the final execution of the withdrawal, and the Trump negotiations with the Taliban were a catastrophic mistake. What you can't do though is have it both ways.

 

[Objective Voice]

Biden told Afghan president they needed to 'change perception' of war

In the last phone call between Joe Biden and his Afghan counterpart the American president said they needed to change perceptions of the Taliban's rapid advance 'whether it is true or not.'

www.dailymail.co.uk

Sooo... let me get this straight. As the Taliban were murdering their way through the Afghan Countryside, as the Afghan government was on the brink of collapse, Biden gets of the phone with he Afghan president and talks the the Afghan president about getting the TALIBAN better PR, even if it's false. He's talking political strategy with the guy endanger of being hung... to help Biden politically.

The ONLY reason for that absolute bullshit is if Biden was only looking out for his own hide. The only reason he would have for not being truthful to the American people about who the Taliban actual are is because he needed to paint the picture of the Taliban disaster as some grand Diplomatic process.

I guess he just took for granted that the press would go along and forgot that he just ****ed over a lot of foreign countries as well.

"Perception is reality!"

So, if the perception from the Afghan Army is that the Taliban is a formidable fighting force with overwhelming numbers, then the Army in all likelihood won't stand and fight. Ultimately and unfortunately, that perception proved to become reality.

 

[MamboDervish]

This is an excellent post. Well done Mambo, I wish I had said it!

Thank you.

 

[roguenuke]

Lying to the American people is always worse. People didn't begin to self evacuate because Biden promised it would be ok. It lead directly to the deadly cluster at the end.

Now we have dead and abandoned Americans and allies, and a president who lies about it.

They evacuated because the situation became desperate. There is no way that they could determined exact dates. And there wasn't much more that could have been done to force people out before that.

We come across the same issue when people are told to leave, evacuate for natural disasters, there are people who think "we are safe, why should we leave", and until proven otherwise, they aren't going to go.

That promise did not directly lead to those deaths. That is a ridiculous standard.

 

[roguenuke]

I guess Nancy will be starting the impeachment process, we know that a phone call pressuring a foreign leader is a ticket right out of the Oval Office.

This is false, presents a complete misunderstanding or misrepresentation of why exactly Trump faced his first impeachment (it was not for simply pressuring a foreign leader), and has been covered.

 

[sanman]

QUESTIONABLE SOURCE
A questionable source exhibits (blahblahblah)

How many goddamn sources do you need?

Exclusive: Before Afghan collapse, Biden pressed Ghani to ‘change perception’

In the last call between U.S. President Joe Biden and his Afghanistan counterpart before the Taliban seized control of the country, the leaders discussed military aid, political strategy and messaging tactics, but neither Biden nor Ashraf Ghani appeared aware of or prepared for the immediate...

www.reuters.com

Biden pushed Afghanistan president to 'project a different picture' weeks before Taliban takeover

According to transcripts, neither leader discussed threat of an imminent Taliban takeover, but Biden had a message: 'perception' needed to improve.

www.usatoday.com

Opinion | President ‘Perception’

Sometimes survival requires more than public relations.

www.wsj.com

Biden pressured Ghani to create ‘perception’ Taliban weren’t winning

Biden told Ghani that Afghanistan’s prominent political figures should give a joint press conference that backed a new military strategy on how to defeat the Taliban.

nypost.com

You're a questionable source, and your motives are questionable -- ie. shilling for Biden.

 

[MamboDervish]

What a ridiculous diversionary tactic to try to legitimize an imbecilic evacuation, and worse, trying to excuse Biden's role in it. Oh, btw, enjoy your washer and dryer. I'm willing to bet you don't get those either, or more likely - as per the rule from any ardent Biden supporter - they'll be broken. Thanks!!

Diversionary ??!!?? Legitimize ??!!!?? The evacuation WORKED! We are no longer in Afghanistan! We didn't get sucked back in, we didn't escalate to the point of getting into a firing war with the Taliban, and we didn't pay the extortion fees of the Afghan central authority that insisted we had to buy their way out of an overthrow.

The only thing that is imbecilic is blaming 20 years of bad Afghanistan policy on 2 months of withdrawal! That's the stupidest argument I've heard since Biden's inauguration.

THAT is imbecilic!

Congratulations Mr. President on finally ending this bullshit forever war !!