Well we never really offer democracy to these countries. They can pick a leader, but it has to be someone we approve of who will hand all the valuable resources to our businesses. It's the same proposition we've made in Central and South America for half a century.

Plus we aren't exactly all that big on democracy in our own country, so maybe we shouldn't be the ones trying to set it up elsewhere.

They did no such thing, and specifically refused to. The Taliban offered first to try Bin Laden in Afghanistan, and then later went as far as saying they were willing to hand Bin Laden only, none of the rest of the organization, over to a third country that the US would agree to not put pressure on for extradition etc, for trial in that hypothetical third country. This was accompanied by a demand for evidence, evidence they had already been given not just by us, but also by Pakistan after they'd reviewed our information.

I think those are and were transparently unreasonable terms.

I think you're largely correct when it comes to corruption on the military side of things, and partially when it comes to keeping our hands on the wheel too much in forming the new Afghan government. But this idea that all we had to do is accept them handing over Bin Laden to avert a war just isn't so.

For emphasis.

Dad jokes are always better the second time around :D

(whoops, my bad)

SI

The Taliban offered many times to turn him over if the United States would provide them with evidence he was behind the attack. They even were willing to involve the OIC which is a very favorable bloc that is pro-US. The Taliban is obviously not a reliable source, but neither is George Bush.

Ignoring the fact we had no extradition treaty with Afghanistan, there are next to no countries who would willingly turn over people without evidence or an agreement. That includes our closest allies.

The United States had no interest in trying Bin Laden. It's why their offers were always vague enough to be out of reach (just like they did with Iraq). They wanted war. Likely a mix of the country needing the morale boost of blowing up some brown folks and enriching military contractors.

But the fact is that the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are different entities with different goals. The Taliban had nothing to do with 9/11.

For those who are surprised Afghans would support the Taliban, remember that we spent the 80's pumping their citizens with radical Islamic materials in the hopes it would help them fight the Soviets better.

You spend billions pumping propaganda into a country and then are shocked that they bought it.

The Soviet Union did a much better job of trying to force their ideology on Afghanistan than we did. After withdrawing, it took three years for their Marxist puppet government to fall, and it took three weeks for our democratic puppet government to fall.

They were given evidence though. By Pakistan, who got it from us. Pakistan agreed the evidence was sufficient, and they were longstanding Taliban allies, having fought with them against the Northern Alliance in numbers of tens of thousands.


They absolutely were different entities with different goals, but they were also de facto allies. This wasn't the first time the Taliban had been furnished proof of Bin Laden's involvement of terrorism and asked to take action. This included, among other elements, UN Security Council Resolution 1267 which, almost two years prior to 9/11, demanded Bin Laden be turned over and that the Taliban stop permitting it's territory be used for terrorist training activities. It's not as if 9/11 happened and it was the first thing Bin Laden had done, the Taliban were shocked that their friend would do such a thing and needed proof to verify it. The international community had been very clear with them in escalating terms leading up to 9/11 and had gotten nowhere.

The Taliban were complicit with and very accommodating of several Al Qaeda training camps, the most notorious of which was the Al Farouq training camp which operated unabated throughout the 90's until September 2001. Four of the 9/11 hijackers received their basic training at Al Farouq.

Wait till you guys hear about Saudi Arabia.....

The Taliban are bad but they also didn't have anything to do with 9/11. There are a lot more countries and groups in that region who helped 9/11 than the Taliban ever did.

There are a lot of very fine people on both sides.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani reportedly fled Kabul with $169 million in cash

Yes, the source is the Russian Embassy. Yes, the Afghan president says it is not true. No, I am not letting any of those things get in the way of the story as reported.

How do you carry around $169M in cash? Like even if they're all hundreds, that's over a million bills.

Grasping Large Numbers

"The height of a stack of 1,000,000 one dollar bills measures 4,300 inches or 358 feet – about the height of a 30 to 35 story building."

SI

Corrupt world leaders have access to higher denomination bills.

The fact that it is supposedly USDs as opposed to Euros or some other currency is fitting. Almost like it was shipped directly from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Almost.

I was going to make a trillion dollar bill joke and then didn't. Good to see someone picked up the spare on my 7-10 split

SI

After the mediocre presidents reference it was the least I could do.

No idea how this will play out or how real the story re: ability to resist is, but interesting tidbit that ties back to previous post about Massoud.

Inside the Afghanistan province that refuses Taliban control

Yeah, it's too bad that former vice president Amrullah Saleh wasn't the president all along. He tweeted this earlier this week:

As our last President proved, there is no problem that can't be solved by tweeting!

It's a factual statement. The Taliban did not commit 9/11. I know it's against the 20 years of propaganda spewed but it's the truth.

The Taliban is a horrendous, backward ass piece of shit group. But they didn't commit 9/11 and we never really went after the people that helped facilitate it (because they sell us a lot of oil or have scary weapons).

So, more accurately "there's a lot of bad people on both sides?"

SI

White nationalists are gonna white nationalist

Dare I say that anyone who didn't answer that question as "Neither good nor bad" is a racist?

Re Afghanistan:

I really don't know why people are so up in arms about all this. Look, they had 20 years to figure it out, now, when the money and assistance walks away, are they pointing back and saying that we've done nothing and abandoned them. Look, in a country that essentially operated like a bunch of Sith Warlords, even in the 'legitimate' part that was set up, if you don't appease every corner all the time, they turn and cut you behind your back to seize power at the next level. That's the way that it was before 9/11 and that's how it'll be now. Mostly because the country is so isolated economically from the world that all leadership is based from the ground up. So if my corner doesn't like what the leadership at the top says, I reject it, then get a whole bunch of people to side with me and reject it, and then I claim my own leadership status until I'm deposed by someone else, and rinse and repeat forever. So after 20 years of trying to make inroads in that culture, and largely getting undercut by the Taliban and their foreign supporters we leave, and we leave the rest of them to the country that they wanted all along. The Taliban are more brutal and not afraid of using force to keep everyone in line, and while that's not terribly enlightened it's got to give Jon a huge boner. The country has the leaders and government that they always wanted, because if they wanted something else, someone else, or a legit group would have garnered enough support to make it happen with the billions that have flowed into the country.

I would say that is a fair assessment.

We didn't do that though. Most of the money spent went back here to military contractors. The rest was incompetently spent by our own government.

The only goal in the war was enrich certain businesses and maybe get some good PR for a President and Generals.

South Korea is more of the example we should have worked with if the true goal was nation building.

We will have to agree to disagree on this one. While the Taliban did not overtly support Al Qaeda prior to the 9/11 attacks, they were complicit with allowing numerous Al Qaeda terrorist training camps to flourish within their borders.

Al Qaeda ideologue Atiyya Allah al-Libi informed his associates that the Taliban’s public stance toward the group was to deny association to manage international pressures, and that Al Qaeda’s top leadership was comfortable with this position. Al-Libi wrote: “Of course, the Taliban’s policy is to avoid being seen with us or revealing any cooperation or agreement between us and them. That is for the purpose of averting international and regional pressure and out of consideration for regional dynamics. We defer to them in this regard.”

It is amazing to me how rarely South Korea is brought up in cases like this.

Kind of amazing that as bad as the pullout was, Trump has to come in to remind us "Hey, I would have done it a lot worse. I (apparently) would have left our soldiers there without any equipment or bases or civilian support. Also, the Generals I left in charge after four years as C-I-C suck because I am really bad at personnel."

Like, for 5 minutes there were some people who were thinking "Man, this has gone horribly. I can't imagine even Trump would have done it worse." And that was like the Bat signal to his stupid or something.

Raise your hand if you thought that turnip would follow past presidential courtesy and keep quiet and on the sidelines for the betterment of the country and allow the new leadership to effectively govern without someone else distracting or otherwise commenting on every single thing?



Yeah...didn't think so either.

These stories are almost always bullshit.

So many things in that statement. Above all else I'm struggling to get over the fact that our former President posted in an official statement that "you bomb the bases into smithereens".

I love how his strategy is to remove all the Americans and equipment and state they wouldn't know we left. Like they wouldn't wake up one morning and be like, fuck, all the tanks and shit are gone....

Not to mention the fact that I'm sure no one would notice the bases being blown to "smithereens".

The plan is up there with nuke a hurricane.

The facts doesn't matter. His lemmings eat up anything the Great Lord says.

lol

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/20/polit...ina/index.html

Not a good couple weeks for Biden. Much of the criticism is deserved IMO for this FUBAR. I think we'll be in Afghanistan (airport) for the next several weeks so there'll be weeks more of pics, dire stories etc.

There was a news blurb about US not able to get to citizens (not already at the airport). I don't see how our troops can go out of the airport and pick up folks so best for them to shelter in place. Biden's options are understandably limited here.

Another article said he did not speak to any other world leaders (aka Boris) for 48 hours after the fall. If true, this seems weird to me.

Blurb on him saying AQ not in Afghanistan but then contradicted by DefSec. I think this one is defensible, he wasn't precise with his words but what he said is generally true.

Another on ABC covering up Biden confusing Beau Navy vs Army. Confusion about Beau's service is not reassuring. And of course, Hunter and his latest video he took of himself chatting with prostitute.

Biden has taken some body blows and at least one headshot. He's not counterpunching very well right now.

I've not read about Pelosi wanting Senate to pass both the $1.2T Infrastructure and the $3T Families bill before proceeding. I rather just do the $1.2T first and then worry about the $3T but can appreciate her games(wo)manship.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/20/hous...mic-plans.html

It’s good to see cnn hammering Biden too if not just to show me that they weren’t just anti trump to be anti trump

Don’t make a difference in our current country but good for me anyways


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I think that's a mistake by Pelosi, who I think in general has been making more and more of those from a tactical/strategic standpoint in recent years. Risks losing both of them with how much more opposition there is to the larger package.

The duel track has always been a part of this. The left don't trust that the moderates will vote on the second bill, and the moderates won't start with the bigger bill. Neither bill will pass by itself.

That's unfortunate. The reporting I'd seen was indicating that the first bill was a sure thing at this point and the only question was on the second one. Seems to me a good recipe for getting nothing passed.

Progressives won't vote for the first bill if it's by itself. That's always been the case. Even Manchin understands this is the only way.

Now I could see the reconciliation bill total coming down a bit, but it has to pass with or before the bipartisan bill.

I've been following this closely, and I think that General Austin Miller is going to be the sacrificial lamb in this ordeal. He has a perfect service record and did the best he could with the hand he was dealt over there. He sent several reports up through command on how the Afghan army could not hold.

Secretary of State Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley should be the ones to take the fall for this, but they're going to throw Miller under the bus. Biden doesn't want to lose any cabinet members so soon for incompetence.

Does he though? Maybe you've got sources that I don't, or reporting I haven't seen, or statements that I can't find.

Everything I've seen for a long time, and a week ago Manchin said something quite similar, goes the other direction. He said he doesn't understand why the House is holding the first bill hostage, said that the bills should be voted up or down separately on their own merits, that he doesn't support the larger bill in it's current form ...

I mean we can always say he's grandstanding, I just don't see how there isn't a huge risk that he means what he's saying - and he's far from the only vote in question here - and that we don't end up in a situation where either the larger bill gets a hatchet taken to it in which case progressives won't approve it, or moderates like Manchin just say no and then neither one passes. What info is out there that I haven't seen?

Manchin knows the landscape and while he may bring down the total a bit, he's already shown that when it matters, when he has to vote, he's for proceeding.

I don't think they should be linked and I'll not vote for reconciliation are two very different positions.

Biden did back away from a veto threat back in Jun after the bipartisanship infrastructure was approved. An argument can be made that he always expected/hinted this but agree with you I didn't read it in the news (or at least it wasn't widespread in the MSM that I read) since then.

My guess is the $3.5T will come down some but overall, it delays the $1.2T and brings in a lot of unknowns.

Biden walks back veto threat on infrastructure amid GOP pushback

I am curious why you think Gen. Miller would be sacrificed. I took a quick look and he is scheduled to retire after 38 years. I think this would have been his last assignment no matter what so I don't think it is a forced retirement in any way.

Agree 100% and I hope they don't try and scapegoat a man about to retire, whose service to this country has been impeccable. There is plenty of blame to go around, but I can't see much room for any of it to fall on his shoulders.