The US War in Afghanistan

[Keef]

K designates the region they're from, I believe.

Indeed. It stands for Khorasan Province.

 

[McLaren]

Indeed. It stands for Khorasan Province.

Iran, eh? Thought I had read a while back they either had a background from, or normally operated within, Pakistan.

 

[ryzno]

Thank y'all for a post more useful than 2 dumb emojis.

 

[Keef]

Iran, eh? Thought I had read a while back they either had a background from, or normally operated within, Pakistan.

The northeastern region of Greater Iran, or Persia, not the current country. Basically extreme northeast Iran, Afghanistan, northern Pakistan, Tajikistan.

 

[TexRex]

 

[TexRex]

The GOP’s Phony Complaints About Afghanistan

slate.com

On Thursday, suicide bombers killed scores of people outside the Kabul airport, including at least 12 American service members. Congressional Republicans snapped into action, demanding that President Joe Biden resign or be impeached. It’s the latest outburst in a string of political opportunism. For weeks, Republicans have been all over cable TV, lambasting Biden for withdrawing troops. They’ve professed dismay that thousands of jailed Taliban fighters were released from prison, that al-Qaida operatives are still in Afghanistan, and that the American president accepted a Taliban deadline to get out. All of these complaints are phony. Nearly everything the Republicans are decrying happened last year. But Republicans defended or ignored it, because the president who engineered those concessions was Donald Trump.

On Feb. 29, 2020, the Trump administration signed a deal with the Taliban to pull all American troops out of Afghanistan by May 1, 2021. The deal also required the Afghan government to release 5,000 imprisoned Taliban fighters. Hawks called the agreement weak and dangerous, but Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, advised them not to speak out against it. In March 2020, at hearings of the House Armed Services Committee, some lawmakers worried about the deal, but most, including Reps. Jim Banks and Matt Gaetz, said nothing about it. Another Republican member of the committee, Rep. Mo Brooks, expressed his impatience to pull out, noting that American forces had long ago “destroyed al-Qaida’s operational capability” in Afghanistan.

In July 2020, the committee took up the National Defense Authorization Act, which would fund the military for the next year. Democratic Rep. Jason Crow presented an amendment that would make the Afghan pullout contingent on several requirements. These included “consultation and coordination” with allies, protection of “United States personnel in Afghanistan,” severance of the Taliban from al-Qaida, prevention of “terrorist safe havens inside Afghanistan,” and adequate “capacity of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces” to fight off Taliban attacks. The amendment also required investigation of any prisoners, released as part of the deal, who might be connected to terrorism. In short, the amendment would do what Trump had failed to do: impose real conditions on the withdrawal. Crow told his colleagues that he, too, wanted to get out, but that Afghan security forces weren’t yet “ready to stand on their own.”

Gaetz dismissed these warnings. The Taliban was already taking over the country, he argued, and imposing conditions would just get in the way of the pullout. “I don’t think there’s ever a bad day to end the war in Afghanistan,” he said.

Eleven members of the committee, including Banks, Brooks, and Gaetz, voted against the amendment. It passed, but Trump refused to accept it. In December, he vetoed the whole defense bill, complaining that it would, among other things, “restrict the President’s ability to withdraw troops from Afghanistan.” Steve Scalise, the minority whip, voted to uphold Trump’s veto. McCarthy, who had to miss the vote for medical reasons, said he, too, stood with the president. Congress overrode the veto, but Trump essentially ignored the amendment.

Eight months later, Biden is completing the withdrawal, and Republicans have done a 180. They act as though they had nothing to do with the pullout or its consequences. “It’s humiliating that the Taliban now controls not just Afghanistan’s presidential palace,” but the U.S. embassy, says Banks, “and it’s all happened on Joe Biden’s watch.” Having voted not to hold Trump accountable for the withdrawal’s execution in last year’s defense bill, Banks vows to hold Biden accountable in this year’s bill. Gaetz now says Biden pulled out prematurely.

To cover their hypocrisy, the Republicans are rewriting history. Brooks says the Taliban’s triumph “would never have happened under President Donald J. Trump.” In reality, Trump guaranteed it by removing as many troops as he could. McCarthy says he knows “for a fact” that Trump wouldn’t have let the Taliban advance from “city to city,” though Trump allowed just that. Scalise says Trump “made it very clear with conditions he put in place that he was not going to let the Taliban take control of the country,” but Trump continued to withdraw troops regardless of conditions, making clear that the Taliban would take control.

McCarthy expresses indignation that Biden “allow[ed] the Taliban to dictate to America when we depart.” But Trump’s 2020 agreement, which McCarthy told critics to read carefully, did the same thing. The difference is that Trump agreed to get out by May 1, whereas Biden postponed that date until Aug. 31. “I never thought there would be an American president in my lifetime who would kowtow to a terrorist group,” Banks raged in an interview with Laura Ingraham on Tuesday, but “that’s exactly what this president is doing: accepting the Taliban’s redlines and deadlines.” Ingraham completed the farce by adding: “Imagine what the Democrats would be saying if any of this had ever occurred under Donald Trump.”

When Trump withdrew more than 10,000 troops, Brooks and other Republicans said that was fine, because al-Qaida had been virtually extinguished in Afghanistan. But when Biden began to withdraw the remaining 2,500, the same Republicans freaked out. “Al-Qaida and ISIS-K still exist and are growing in Afghanistan,” says Banks. As a result, he warns, terror attacks are coming to the United States “without a doubt.” Scalise agrees that Biden has put the homeland at risk, now that “the terrorists have a country.”

McCarthy even blames Biden for Trump’s release of jailed Taliban fighters. In at least three TV appearances this week, he implied that the release, which the Trump administration authorized and forced through, actually took place more recently. America is in danger, he says, because “you just had 5,000 prisoners released. They know how to come here. They have a mission on their hands.”

Republicans had a chance last year to prove they were serious about imposing conditions on the Afghan pullout. Everything they’re now complaining about—coordination with allies, severance of the Taliban from al-Qaida, adequate preparation of the Afghan security forces, vetting of prisoners to be released—was in the Crow amendment and the vetoed defense bill. Lawmakers who were serious voted for the amendment and the bill. Those who didn’t, and who are now attacking Biden, are just opportunists.

 

[ryzno]

It's almost like I called it, oh wait... I'm dumb and don't know anything...
Back to under my rock.

 

[Danoff]

It's almost like I called it, oh wait... I'm dumb and don't know anything...
Back to under my rock.

You mean this:

That didn't take long, wondering when the bloods and crips are gonna start killing each other.

You want credit for that?

 

[ryzno]

You mean this:


You want credit for that?

I was gonna take credit for how many times Al-Qaeda was mentioned in texs post, considering they've been "smashed"... But I'll take credit for that too. I spelled crips right once.
At least I didn't call them towel heads.

 

[TexRex]

I was gonna take credit for how many times Al-Qaeda was mentioned in texs post, considering they've been "smashed"...

Consider context instead of just counting. I understand context is difficult for you as I addressed it recently in another thread.

 

[Danoff]

I was gonna take credit for how many times Al-Qaeda was mentioned in texs post, considering they've been "smashed"...

Like Tex said, consider the context. Nothing in that posts suggests that Al-Qaeda was not "smashed".

 

[ryzno]

Like Tex said, consider the context. Nothing in that posts suggests that Al-Qaeda was not "smashed".

And nothing in his post says they're not a problem. And don't start with the they crap.

 

[TexRex]

"The 'they' crap."

 

[Danoff]

And nothing in his post says they're not a problem. And don't start with the they crap.

...except you pointed to that and said you "called it". So "nothing in his post says they're not a problem" is not good enough. You'd need what I said... evidence that they're not smashed.

This is just basic logical flow of an argument. You need to follow it if you want to have a coherent discussion with anyone. This statement:

I was gonna take credit for how many times Al-Qaeda was mentioned in texs post, considering they've been "smashed"...

suggests that there's something in the post, or some significance to how many times Al-Qaeda was mentioned, that suggests that you "called it". There isn't. So the above post is uncalled for. As was stated to you a moment ago, context matters more than word count.

 

[Imari]

I had heard a report criticizing Bush's response, so I assumed at the time, he must have chipped in. Googling it now, looks like he did issue a statement.

Statement by President and Mrs. Bush on Afghanistan | George W. Bush Presidential Center

Laura and I, along with the team at the Bush Center, stand ready as Americans to lend our support and assistance in this time of need. Let us all resolve to be united in saving lives and praying for the people of Afghanistan.

www.bushcenter.org

Something stuck out to me from Bush's response.

"Like our country, Afghanistan is also made up of resilient, vibrant people. Nearly 65 percent of the population is under twenty-five years old."

For two thirds of Afghanistanis the US has been at war in their country since they started school. Basically since they were old enough to actually grasp the concept of an occupying force. That's insane.

No wonder they have no attachment to "their" country, all they've ever known is the other people fighting over it, installing corrupt regimes, and generally wandering around with weapons making their lives difficult, dangerous and unpredictable. For their whole lives it hasn't been "their" country, it's been a country they live in controlled by the US. They don't know if things would have been better or worse had the US not stepped in, because the war has been going on so long that there are adults that the war is literally all they know.

For all the debate about history, my opinion is that we're several years past the point where doing anything with Afghanistan could be anything except a cluster****. You can't raise a generation of people in a war and then suddenly expect them to give a **** when you hand them the disaster you've created.

 

[Biggles]

Something stuck out to me from Bush's response.

"Like our country, Afghanistan is also made up of resilient, vibrant people. Nearly 65 percent of the population is under twenty-five years old."

For two thirds of Afghanistanis the US has been at war in their country since they started school. Basically since they were old enough to actually grasp the concept of an occupying force. That's insane.

No wonder they have no attachment to "their" country, all they've ever known is the other people fighting over it, installing corrupt regimes, and generally wandering around with weapons making their lives difficult, dangerous and unpredictable. For their whole lives it hasn't been "their" country, it's been a country they live in controlled by the US. They don't know if things would have been better or worse had the US not stepped in, because the war has been going on so long that there are adults that the war is literally all they know.

For all the debate about history, my opinion is that we're several years past the point where doing anything with Afghanistan could be anything except a cluster*. You can't raise a generation of people in a war and then suddenly expect them to give a * when you hand them the disaster you've created.

Except - it's worse than that, as the country had been racked by war for decades before the US & other western allies invaded. In another thread I posted a "happiness index" for countries. Afghanistan ranks at the absolute bottom of that list.

 

[Danoff]

I'm gonna move this to the media bias thread. It's about afghanistan but only tangentially.

 

[Imari]

Except - it's worse than that, as the country had been racked by war for decades before the US & other western allies invaded. In another thread I posted a "happiness index" for countries. Afghanistan ranks at the absolute bottom of that list.

Yeah, I mean strictly speaking anyone under the age of about 45 could absolutely claim to have been living in a country at war for basically their whole life, which then presumably accounts for the vast majority of the adult population as well as most of the people in positions of power in the government and military. Life expectancy in Afghanistan is only like 65.

I can't imagine that the sort of survival behaviour that becomes second nature when you live like that is particularly compatible with also forming strong attachments to broad, abstract concepts like "country".

 

[ryzno]

...except you pointed to that and said you "called it". So "nothing in his post says they're not a problem" is not good enough. You'd need what I said... evidence that they're not smashed.

This is just basic logical flow of an argument. You need to follow it if you want to have a coherent discussion with anyone. This statement:


suggests that there's something in the post, or some significance to how many times Al-Qaeda was mentioned, that suggests that you "called it". There isn't. So the above post is uncalled for. As was stated to you a moment ago, context matters more than word count.

Whatever man, you know what I mean.
Go back through my posts.(which you already have obviously) I called all of this. Dumb luck? Probably. Still, I was right.
Let's stop clogging this thread. Ok? I was told to pack it up yesterday but y'all can't help but continuing to bring it up.
Let's take it to PM if you really want to debate.
You had no problem asking me in PM if posting my estimated income was a problem.
I'm already at 10 points and I'd like to keep it there.

 

[TexRex]

Discussions don't themselves "clog" threads, though one's insistence on scoring internet points by repeatedly claiming their having "called" something--especially without explaining just how one has done so using clear, complete thoughts and direct citations--surely does. It's pretty basic courtesy to check with an individual in private to see if discussing private matters in a public environment isn't crossing a line for that individual, but that doesn't mean that a topic already being discussed openly should be relegated to a private venue. And one who avoids implicit invocations of explicit sexual acts between men is probably well on their way to not accumulating warning points when abusive and/or generally inappropriate behavior is frowned upon.

 

[ryzno]

Discussions don't themselves "clog" threads, though one's insistence on scoring internet points by repeatedly claiming their having "called" something--especially without explaining just how one has done so using clear, complete thoughts and direct citations--surely does. It's pretty basic courtesy to check with an individual in private to see if discussing private matters in a public environment isn't crossing a line for that individual, but that doesn't mean that a topic already being discussed openly should be relegated to a private venue. And one who avoids implicit invocations of explicit sexual acts between men is probably well on their way to not accumulating warning points when abusive and/or generally inappropriate behavior is frowned upon.

I didn't get them for that post. That said, I'd prefer to actually talk about the actual situation. Like the WH presser I'm watching right now.

 

[Touring Mars]

Meanwhile....

At least 170 people are confirmed dead after yesterday's atrocity in Kabul, hundreds more maimed, injured or crippled for life.

And to add insult to such horrific injury, thousands of people who bravely dedicated their lives and work to advancing human rights and basic human dignity in Afghanistan - soldiers, police, medics, charity workers, interpreters, human rights advocates, social workers etc. etc. etc. - are now being abandoned by the US, the UK, NZ, Canada and many other nations to suffer their fate at the hands of those who will summarily execute people for whatever reason they see fit, or mercilessly beat, maim and disfigure people for the crime of dressing improperly or some other ridiculous 'offense'. And those are the 'moderates'...

It's a 🤬 disgrace, and nothing short of a denigration of humanity itself.

 

[Famine]

some other ridiculous 'offense'

Having a vagina and not having a vagina but also not liking vagina are among the most heinous.

 

[Danoff]

Whatever man, you know what I mean.

I really don't. You said you "called it" and then pointed to nothing of the sort.

Go back through my posts.(which you already have obviously) I called all of this. Dumb luck? Probably. Still, I was right.

I'm still trying to figure out what you think you got right.

Let's stop clogging this thread. Ok? I was told to pack it up yesterday but y'all can't help but continuing to bring it up.

You mean like this?

It's almost like I called it, oh wait... I'm dumb and don't know anything...
Back to under my rock.

 

[ryzno]

I really don't. You said you "called it" and then pointed to nothing of the sort.

I'm still trying to figure out what you think you got right.

You mean like this?

You quoted me! Review the posts! Respond to the group PM or leave me alone.
My prediction things were gonna get heated after ISIS chimed in, I thought they were smashed too.

 

[Danoff]

You quoted me! Review the posts!

Hang on a sec... I keep bringing it up because I responded to you bringing it up?

My prediction things were gonna get heated after ISIS chimed in, I thought they were smashed too.

Who said ISIS was smashed?

After I brought that up, you pointed to @TexRex's article and talked about how many times Al Qaeda was mentioned. That's what I thought you meant. If you wanted credit for saying things were going to get heated after ISIS chimed in... which is what I originally thought and quoted... then... good work?!? I mean, ISIS chimed in, and you quoted an article saying that ISIS saying things were going to get heated probably meant things were going to get heated, and nobody here said anything differently but... way to go!

 

[ryzno]

Hang on a sec... I keep bringing it up because I responded to you bringing it up?

Who said ISIS was smashed?

After I brought that up, you pointed to @TexRex's article and talked about how many times Al Qaeda was mentioned. That's what I thought you meant. If you wanted credit for saying things were going to get heated after ISIS chimed in... which is what I originally thought and quoted... then... good work?!? I mean, ISIS chimed in, and you quoted an article saying that ISIS saying things were going to get heated probably meant things were going to get heated, and nobody here said anything differently but... way to go!

That was originally what I meant. Back to PMs...

 

[TexRex]

This was a good, fair piece.

A Bungled Mess

Right now, we need a coherent policy in Afghanistan.

www.theatlantic.com

For days, those defending President Joe Biden’s pullout from Afghanistan repeated the mantra that no U.S. citizens had been killed during the successful evacuation of tens of thousands of Americans and Afghans from the country. This reckless prediction ricocheted across social media and was bound to be invalidated—indeed, it was almost tempting fate to keep saying it—and now at least 13 American service members are dead, along with dozens of Afghans, after a suicide bomber struck at crowds outside the airport in Kabul earlier today.

Assessing whom to blame should begin the minute this operation is over and the last evacuees are out of Kabul. The American people will want answers, and that’s why congressional oversight exists. Biden’s supporters should lead this effort because it is the responsibility of the governing party, and because this retreat and evacuation are, for want of a better phrase, a bungled mess.

Calling this pullout a bungled mess is not the same thing as saying that Biden’s policy is wrong. His decision to leave Afghanistan is the right one and (as I have pointed out) what the American people want. But the execution of this operation has been plagued by organizational and bureaucratic screwups that are either laughable or horrifying: the State Department advertised job openings in Kabul just before the evacuation, and the U.S. military handed safe-passage lists of Afghan allies to the Taliban, to name just two examples. The execution of a policy that Biden supported for years looks like a complete improvisation by a national-security bureaucracy that wanted to pretend it had no idea Biden would make this decision.

This operation was never going to go smoothly, but we will need to know, in the aftermath of the biggest single day of U.S. casualties in 10 years, whether it had to be this bad. The more immediate question, however, is what to do next. Blame-storming might be satisfying, but it’s not a policy.

What is the policy? The president’s press conference today was clear on the most important point: Biden stood by his vow to end the war, and to do it as quickly as possible. That’s important, but no one really doubted that he would stick to his long-term objective.

The rest of his policy is far less clear. Biden’s prepared remarks detoured through his son’s death and a quote from the Old Testament, which might have been appropriate for a stump speech but seemed out of place in a press briefing during a crisis. (And make no mistake: This is a crisis, both political and military.) Worse, the president’s noted temper flared for a moment when he fenced with a Fox News reporter over his predecessor’s responsibility for the timetable of the pullout. Biden was right: From the start, he has been hamstrung by reckless agreements that Donald Trump made with the Taliban. But arguing with bad-faith interlocutors is never a good idea, especially in a time of crisis.

When pressed on whether the United States was prepared for the chaos in Kabul, Biden’s answers boiled down to affirming that he was giving the military full latitude to decide how to handle the situation. He said, for example, that we had not kept control of Bagram Air Base because the military thought it unnecessary. (That locates the source of the decision, but it doesn’t explain very much; if we knew we were going to be evacuating tens of thousands of people, why did the military hand over Bagram?)

Still, Biden did what typical presidents do: He owned the decision and its consequences. He vowed as well to retaliate for the attack at the airport, and to hunt down the killers from the Afghan branch of the Islamic State. The American people would expect no less. Wisely, the president stressed that we would go after the bombers on our schedule, at a time and place of our choosing, rather than lash out; while this makes prudent strategic sense, it is difficult for a nation grieving its lost soldiers to hear.

He then added the caveat, however, that he would not support a major military operation. Inevitably, this will lead to parsing of what constitutes such an operation. He also said he intends to get everyone out, but he accepts—as he must in the real world—that not everyone might get out. What all of this means, in practice, is that we can declare that the war is over, but as every strategist knows, the enemy gets a vote. We can stop fighting, but we must, as a people and as a government, determine what price we are willing to accept for the end of hostilities.

It’s not evident that the American people or their president have made that judgment yet.

As of now, the president’s policy seems to be the same one we began with just days ago. The American public wants to come home from the war in Afghanistan, and that remains Biden’s goal. Beyond that, however, the path through the next weeks—or even the next few days—is no clearer than it was before the attack at the Kabul airport. We seem to be stuck with the great American tradition of muddling through, and that might be all we can do at this point.

 

[Dotini]

US strikes back with drone attack.

US airstrike targets Islamic State member in Afghanistan

The United States military struck back at the Islamic State in Afghanistan on Saturday, acting on President Joe Biden's vow to hit the extremists in retaliation for a suicide bombing claimed by IS that killed as many as 169 Afghans and 13 American service members at Kabul airport Thursday.

apnews.com

 

[ryzno]