Biden hammered for spending time at Camp David while Taliban take over Afghanistan

[ALiberalModerate]

How dishonest. It was not a peace treaty that was attempted. It was a temporary cease fire agreement that lasted two days.

Afghani forces did not collapse under Trump because they continued to be provided complete air support and intelligence. The Afghani troops since 2015 were well engaged in combatting the Taliban. Since 2015 they have lost 26,000 soldiers toward their effort. But they were trained to rely on U.S. air support. When that was scaled back under Biden, things quickly went south.

And then you want to blame Trump for not getting enough people out before the Taliban gained control? Trump has been gone from office for over 7 months. What the hell has Biden done?

At this point you are just being intellectually dishonest. As it has been pointed out to you several times now, the Trump Administration intended for a complete withdrawal from Afghanistan. Indeed, they intended to do so by May 1st of this year, and Trump himself has publicly claimed that Biden was moving too slowly with the withdrawal. Are you so delusional as to think the Taliban would not have taken over the country had Trump been in office and withdrew all U.S. forces on May 1st? Seriously, are you that delusional?

If you believe that we should have left a small military presence in Afghanistan, then fine, that is a perfectly reasonable position to have, it is my position, but it was not the position of the Trump administration just like it is not the position of the Biden Administration.

 

[tres borrachos]

Pretty much everyone in this country agreed that we needed to end our occupation in Afghanistan but it had to be done in a measured way.

Under Trump there were efforts being made to get the Taliban and the Afghani government to sit down and start discussions because this is their civil war. The effort failed in part because Trump lost the election and a new administration took over. As your article stated Trump said if bad things happened we would return with a vengeance. Well Trump has been gone for over 7 months and Biden made it perfectly clear he was not about to send more troops in to combat the massive take over by the Taliban region by region in recent months. But he did not have to because he could have order airstrikes on them without sending one soldier back to hinder the Taliban but he chose not to.

I just listened to Biden's address and blamed the Afghani military for allowing this to happen. The afghani army was trained to rely on the U.S. air support but Biden first scaled back on that support and then in recent days they had none. To paint the afghani army as worthless is disgusting because by estimates they have done the brunt of the fighting since 2015 and their casualties, are estimated between 26 to over 50,000 in that time. He blamed Trump while claiming the buck stops with him. Much of what he said was disingenuous because he did not listen to the current threats in continuing his goal to have all our troops home by 9/11. He decided to plow forward with his ill thought out plan. What he refused to do earlier he is now having to send thousands of our troops back in just to get our people and those afghanis that were on the U.S. government payroll that are at grave risk out of the country.

The overwhelming majority of the Afghani population are in their 20's. Most of them have only memories living free not under to oppressive Taliban only to see that all taken from them.

If Trump wanted the Afghan government involved in his peace plan - oh wait, I'm sorry, you said it was only a 2 day ceasefire and not a peace plan as Trump said it was - then why didn't Trump get the Afghan government involved as he was negotiating the 2 day peace plan?

 

[MrWonka]

tens our thousands of Afghans that served as translators for American troops and that have worked for us in the last 20 years, risking their own lives to do so, are now going to be left to almost death at the hands of the Taliban.

That doesn't appear to be the case at all. The airport is now open and we're currently evacuating as many of those people as we possibly can. Up to this point, there has been no attempt by the Taliban to stop that.

 

[GummyVitamins]

Trump wasn't in office in January of 2020?

This is a stupid question with the intention of distracting from the fact that you can't defend your position. Biden came into office in January and also wanted to draw down troops in Afghanistan. He set his own plan to make it happen that was very different from Trump's. Trump said if the Taliban didn't keep their part of the deal he would stop and send more troops back in to fight the Taliban. We knew over the summer that the Taliban was taking over territory in the region and Biden didn't care. Republicans told him to change course and he said he wasn't going to sacrifice more military lives. He changed the deadline to Sept 11. Then he decided to expedite it. Meanwhile he left our translators and ground resources/personnel/assets at risk without security while he focused on bringing troops home. Point to the part where Trump wanted to leave our people defenseless in Afghanistan while the Taliban was taking over? It's a completely stupid and made up argument to put blame on Trump for agreeing with Biden to draw down troops in Afghanistan. However, Biden managed his own withdrawal and chose to give the Taliban a pass as they began taking over territory, which is something the Trump admin said they would not tolerate. Biden also chose to leave additional people vulnerable during the drawdown.

 

[ClaraD]

June 26, 2021(psst for those of you arguing it wasn't Trump's plan...this is from the horse's mouth)
"I started the process. All the troops are coming back home. they couldn't stop the process. 21 years is enough. Don't we think? 21 years(The Biden Administration) couldn't stop the process. They wanted to, but it was very tough to stop....Trump on Afghanistan withdrawal agreement.

 

[pamak]

Trump wasn't in office to execute a plan. Biden didn't follow the Trump plan. He created his own plan. Read the article. Read other articles from this summer. Biden was very proud of the strategy he set in motion. Supposedly, he disagreed with Obama in advancing the war theater in Afghanistan in the first place.

Where is this ridiculous talking point that Biden was following Trump's plan even coming from? It makes no sense and is verifiably false.

It makes zero sense to argue that , delaying Trump's timetable constitutes a new plan that is inferior to the Trump administration's with respect to evacuating more Afghani allies.

 

[ClaraD]

This is a stupid question with the intention of distracting from the fact that you can't defend your position. Biden came into office in January and also wanted to draw down troops in Afghanistan. He set his own plan to make it happen that was very different from Trump's. Trump said if the Taliban didn't keep their part of the deal he would stop and send more troops back in to fight the Taliban. We knew over the summer that the Taliban was taking over territory in the region and Biden didn't care. Republicans told him to change course and he said he wasn't going to sacrifice more military lives. He changed the deadline to Sept 11. Then he decided to expedite it. Meanwhile he left our translators and ground resources/personnel/assets at risk without security while he focused on bringing troops home. Point to the part where Trump wanted to leave our people defenseless in Afghanistan while the Taliban was taking over? It's a completely stupid and made up argument to put blame on Trump for agreeing with Biden to draw down troops in Afghanistan. However, Biden managed his own withdrawal and chose to give the Taliban a pass as they began taking over territory, which is something the Trump admin said they would not tolerate.

um...Biden didn't come into office until Jan 21, 2021...he is pointing to a year prior....Jan 2020...Trump was in office and Biden hadn't won the election nor had they been held yet.

 

[roguenuke]

You're a vet. Did you have any friends that served in Afghanistan? Got injured there? Died there? How do you think they and their families felt this weekend watching as Biden was bugging out and the Taliban took over the entire country. In a week. Something they fought for 20 years to prevent.

How would they have felt with Trump doing it? Many vets felt that they wanted to get out of there, stop just being there, that it was time to leave.

President Biden did not simply "bug out", but had a timeline that unfortunately fell apart when the Taliban (a group that Trump decided to make a deal with) decided it owned Afghanistan now and could implement their own rule. Tell me what he was supposed to do that most of the country would have been okay with doing? Going back in and resetting up everything all over again just to have another President 20 years from now do the exact same thing?

I'm not really for this, but I understand why it was done. Had we had a military leader as President, a good military strategist, then we may have been able to pull out better, allowing for something different than what happened. But we haven't had a good military leader since long before I was born as President.

 

[ALiberalModerate]

Pretty much everyone in this country agreed that we needed to end our occupation in Afghanistan but it had to be done in a measured way.

Under Trump there were efforts being made to get the Taliban and the Afghani government to sit down and start discussions because this is their civil war.

Utter nonsense, the Trump administration only negotiated our withdrawal from Afghanistan with the Taliban. Indeed, they asked Pakistan to free much of the Taliban's leadership from prison in order to negotiate with them. I don't understand people so damn tribal and partisan that they see the mistakes on their own side. The current cluster**** in Kabul, that is on the Biden Administration. Handing Afghanistan back to the Taliban, that is on both the Biden and Trump Administrations.

 

[ClaraD]

Utter nonsense, the Trump administration only negotiated our withdrawal from Afghanistan with the Taliban. Indeed, they asked Pakistan to free much of the Taliban's leadership from prison in order to negotiate with them. I don't understand people so damn tribal and partisan that they see the mistakes on their own side. The current cluster**** in Kabul, that is on the Biden Administration. Handing Afghanistan back to the Taliban, that is on both the Biden and Trump Administrations.

So, why did Trump say it was his plan and that there was nothing that Biden could do to stop it?

 

[roguenuke]

And your defense of his rank stupidity is not partisan? FYI you are looking foolish defending this asshole move. It going to go down as one of the worst freign policy decisions of all time. Right behind invading Iraq.

I'm defending him staying at Camp David. I have no issue with that and think it is stupid to complain about that.

This was no different than what Trump wanted to do, planned to do. How would Trump have handled it differently?

 

[ALiberalModerate]

That doesn't appear to be the case at all. The airport is now open and we're currently evacuating as many of those people as we possibly can. Up to this point, there has been no attempt by the Taliban to stop that.

We are only evacuating Afghans with visas. Over 80,000 Afghans that worked for us in Afghanistan are still waiting on their visas. They are now stuck in Afghanistan, hiding in their homes. There is no plan as to how we will evacuate them now and no way of doing so with our embassy closed and the Taliban running the country now.

 

[tres borrachos]

This is a stupid question with the intention of distracting from the fact that you can't defend your position. Biden came into office in January and also wanted to draw down troops in Afghanistan. He set his own plan to make it happen that was very different from Trump's. Trump said if the Taliban didn't keep their part of the deal he would stop and send more troops back in to fight the Taliban. We knew over the summer that the Taliban was taking over territory in the region and Biden didn't care. Republicans told him to change course and he said he wasn't going to sacrifice more military lives. He changed the deadline to Sept 11. Then he decided to expedite it. Meanwhile he left our translators and ground resources/personnel/assets at risk without security while he focused on bringing troops home. Point to the part where Trump wanted to leave our people defenseless in Afghanistan while the Taliban was taking over? It's a completely stupid and made up argument to put blame on Trump for agreeing with Biden to draw down troops in Afghanistan. However, Biden managed his own withdrawal and chose to give the Taliban a pass as they began taking over territory, which is something the Trump admin said they would not tolerate. Biden also chose to leave additional people vulnerable during the drawdown.

You said Trump couldn't execute his plan because he was not in office.

The "plan" was negotiated with the Taliban in January of 2020. Trump was in office for another year.

I'm actually embarrassed for you now.

 

[ALiberalModerate]

So, why did Trump say it was his plan and that there was nothing that Biden could do to stop it?

Who cares what Trump says, Trump is a pathological liar and a sociopath. Trump says crazy shit on a daily basis.

 

[eohrnberger]

Okay, MacArthur, you tell me how you would have done it.

Maybe evacuate the embassy and Afghan translators first before pulling the troops out? Just a thought.
Would have saved sending more troops in when it went sideways.

 

[roguenuke]

We are only evacuating Afghans with visas. Over 80,000 Afghans that worked for us in Afghanistan are still waiting on their visas. They are now stuck in Afghanistan, hiding in their homes. There is no plan as to how we will evacuate them now and no way of doing so with our embassy closed and the Taliban running the country now.

It does appear though that they are trying to identify those without, who still need help, who helped us and need to be evacuated, to get them to anywhere.

‘Forget the visas’: The scramble is on to save Afghan partners as Taliban close in

Ad hoc groups of ex-officials are desperately trying to extract their former Afghan colleagues.

www.politico.com

 

[ALiberalModerate]

How would they have felt with Trump doing it? Many vets felt that they wanted to get out of there, stop just being there, that it was time to leave.

President Biden did not simply "bug out", but had a timeline that unfortunately fell apart when the Taliban (a group that Trump decided to make a deal with) decided it owned Afghanistan now and could implement their own rule. Tell me what he was supposed to do that most of the country would have been okay with doing? Going back in and resetting up everything all over again just to have another President 20 years from now do the exact same thing?

I'm not really for this, but I understand why it was done. Had we had a military leader as President, a good military strategist, then we may have been able to pull out better, allowing for something different than what happened. But we haven't had a good military leader since long before I was born as President.

It seems like it would have been a better idea to keep Bagram Air Base until we had evacuated most U.S. personnel and the Afghans that have worked for us over the last 20 years. I would find it very hard to believe the Taliban would be in Kabul today if we still were operating Bagram.

 

[ClaraD]

We are only evacuating Afghans with visas. Over 80,000 Afghans that worked for us in Afghanistan are still waiting on their visas. They are now stuck in Afghanistan, hiding in their homes. There is no plan as to how we will evacuate them now and no way of doing so with our embassy closed and the Taliban running the country now.

the question is after 18 months, why are they still awaiting visas? Shouldn't those be fast tracked?

 

[Rawley]

Oh no! A Teleprompter, reading a prepared speech!!!!! Why that's not standard or anything.

lol

So what's the inconsistency? Joe is senile and Had handlers that make decisions for him.

 

[vesper]

Utter nonsense, the Trump administration only negotiated our withdrawal from Afghanistan with the Taliban. Indeed, they asked Pakistan to free much of the Taliban's leadership from prison in order to negotiate with them. I don't understand people so damn tribal and partisan that they see the mistakes on their own side. The current cluster**** in Kabul, that is on the Biden Administration. Handing Afghanistan back to the Taliban, that is on both the Biden and Trump Administrations.

Again bullshit. The goal of the Trump administration was to get the Taliban and the Afghani government to start talks. After all this is THEIR civil war. In recent months while the Taliban was overtaking region by region, the Biden administration didn't need to send more boots on the ground but deploy airstrikes on them to hinder them from continuing. He did not.

 

[ALiberalModerate]

It does appear though that they are trying to identify those without, who still need help, who helped us and need to be evacuated, to get them to anywhere.

‘Forget the visas’: The scramble is on to save Afghan partners as Taliban close in

Ad hoc groups of ex-officials are desperately trying to extract their former Afghan colleagues.

www.politico.com

They don't have any options now for getting them out. There is no U.S. embassy in Afghanistan anymore. I am not sure why we did just send them all to a U.S. territory until we could have gotten them sorted as we did with Vietnam.

 

[tres borrachos]

Maybe evacuate the embassy and Afghan translators first before pulling the troops out? Just a thought.
Would have saved sending more troops in when it went sideways.

Trump was pulling troops out for the last year. Why didn't he do anything about them?

The dishonesty permeating from you people is amazing.

 

[Ikari]

So what's the inconsistency? Joe is senile and Had handlers that make decisions for him.

Well if someone is making decisions for him, then he clearly cannot be responsible for the decisions being made.

lol

 

[ClaraD]

It does appear though that they are trying to identify those without, who still need help, who helped us and need to be evacuated, to get them to anywhere.

‘Forget the visas’: The scramble is on to save Afghan partners as Taliban close in

Ad hoc groups of ex-officials are desperately trying to extract their former Afghan colleagues.

www.politico.com

It looks like they are still trying to get them out and are going to bypass the visa process...not sure how that can be done...they better make some calls to the airports so someone doesn't end up back in Afghanistan, because of some hot headed CBP officer that thinks he runs the show.

 

[eohrnberger]

They don't have any options now for getting them out. There is no U.S. embassy in Afghanistan anymore. I am not sure why we did just send them all to a U.S. territory until we could have gotten them sorted as we did with Vietnam.

Not a bad idea. Sounds like someone in the present administration didn't learn from history.