President Biden, critics corner

[Stumpy 284]

2 hours ago, brenthutch said:

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/?ex_cid=rrpromo
 

Apparently Americans agree with me. (And this poll was taken before 13 Marines were killed)

In order to prevent foot in mouth syndrome, I suggest you scroll down that page and see how he compares to previous presidents.

Edited August 27, 2021 by Stumpy

[jakee 1,489]

1 hour ago, brenthutch said:

The fact that Afghanistan would fall to the Taliban was a forgone conclusion.  If the withdrawal took place in the winter and not in the middle of “fighting season” it would have bought precious time.  That is just a simple fact. 

Precious time to do what?

You’re still not understanding the situation. We’re not evacuating tens of thousands of people because we left. We’re evacuating tens of thousands of people because the Taliban defeated the government and retook the country. 
 

If we left in winter and the Taliban doesn’t immediately retake the country that does not mean we have loads of time to easily evacuate everyone. It means the evacuation doesn’t happen.

[billvon 2,991]

4 hours ago, RonD1120 said:

I do not believe that Biden is this incompetent by accident. I believe this was planned as part of the global reset. America must be weakened in the world affairs

Hey, at least the country is now being run by Americans and not Russians.  That's an improvement.

Quote

and the door to Afghanistan was opened for China to move in and begin mining operations.

That would be AWESOME.  Russia's occupation of Afghanistan destroyed the USSR.  (That's why we supported the Taliban's parents back then.)  Our occupation fortunately ended before that could happen to us.  I would completely support China falling on the sword that is Afghanistan.

[brenthutch 444]

1 hour ago, jakee said:

Precious time to do what?

You’re still not understanding the situation. We’re not evacuating tens of thousands of people because we left. We’re evacuating tens of thousands of people because the Taliban defeated the government and retook the country. 
 

If we left in winter and the Taliban doesn’t immediately retake the country that does not mean we have loads of time to easily evacuate everyone. It means the evacuation doesn’t happen.

One word…..helicopters 

[brenthutch 444]

2 hours ago, Stumpy said:

In order to prevent foot in mouth syndrome, I suggest you scroll down that page and see how he compares to previous presidents.

He is upside down in the polls.  To say he is more popular than Trump is a pretty low bar.  I don’t think Trump was ever above 50%.

[brenthutch 444]

7 minutes ago, billvon said:

Hey, at least the country is now being run by Americans and not Russians.  That's an improvement.

That would be AWESOME.  Russia's occupation of Afghanistan destroyed the USSR.  (That's why we supported the Taliban's parents back then.)  Our occupation fortunately ended before that could happen to us.  I would completely support China falling on the sword that is Afghanistan.

China won’t go into Afghanistan with anything other than a checkbook.  They don’t care about human rights they just want access to its natural resources.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/what-are-afghanistans-untapped-minerals-resources-2021-08-19/

[kallend 2,026]

The Trump/Pompeo timetable had the US out by last May.  Not sure how this makes it winter in Kabul.

It took the British 3 years (1839-1842) to figure out that occupying Afghanistan was a losing proposition.

It took the USSR 10 years to figure out that occupying Afghanistan was a losing proposition.

It took the USA 19 years to figure out that occupying Afghanistan was a losing proposition, and still there are idiots who want to stay.

[jakee 1,489]

1 hour ago, brenthutch said:

One word…..helicopters 

More words..... you've realised you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

[brenthutch 444]

37 minutes ago, jakee said:

More words..... you've realised you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

Looks like someone is projecting 

[jakee 1,489]

13 minutes ago, brenthutch said:

Looks like someone is projecting 

No, it really looks like you've realised you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Otherwise you'd probably be able to form sentences that convey thoughts.

[JoeWeber 2,720]

2 hours ago, brenthutch said:

One word…..helicopters 

One word.... whose? 

[ryoder 1,590]

2 minutes ago, JoeWeber said:

One word.... whose? 

I always thought the one word was "plastics".

[brenthutch 444]

20 minutes ago, jakee said:

No, it really looks like you've realised you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Otherwise you'd probably be able to form sentences that convey thoughts.

Maybe if you had spent 20 years, in the Army, flying around in rotary wing aircraft (like I did) you might not be so flummoxed.

Stated simply, it is better to withdraw from a battle space when the enemy’s movement is encumbered than when it is not.  If you can’t understand that, I can’t help you.

Edited August 27, 2021 by brenthutch

[jakee 1,489]

37 minutes ago, brenthutch said:

Maybe if you had spent 20 years, in the Army, flying around in rotary wing aircraft (like I did) you might not be so flummoxed.

Well, I can fly helicopters, but whatever.

Quote

Stated simply, it is better to withdraw from a battle space when the enemy’s movement is encumbered than when it is not.  If you can’t understand that, I can’t help you.

Right, but again the thing that you don't understand is, who are you withdrawing? The mass evacuation of Afghanistan was not triggered by the withdrawal of troops. It was triggered by the Taliban retaking the country. If you withdraw in winter the Taliban will not retake the country in winter. You pointed that out yourself, in case you've forgotten. So what happens in winter? Afghanistan is a friendly country with an allied government. Why would we be running an evacuation? The Taliban would simply overrun the country in spring instead, and you'd have just kicked the exact same shitshow a few months down the road, except now you don't even have the troops left to secure Hamid Karzai Airport.

I don't understand why you don't understand this simple, self evident fact. So here's a question, Trump signed the withdrawal agreement 18 months ago. We've already had 18 months including an entire winter season to evacuate all these people. So why didn't we? 

[brenthutch 444]

53 minutes ago, jakee said:

Well, I can fly helicopters, but whatever.

Right, but again the thing that you don't understand is, who are you withdrawing? The mass evacuation of Afghanistan was not triggered by the withdrawal of troops. It was triggered by the Taliban retaking the country. If you withdraw in winter the Taliban will not retake the country in winter. You pointed that out yourself, in case you've forgotten. So what happens in winter? Afghanistan is a friendly country with an allied government. Why would we be running an evacuation? The Taliban would simply overrun the country in spring instead, and you'd have just kicked the exact same shitshow a few months down the road, except now you don't even have the troops left to secure Hamid Karzai Airport.

I don't understand why you don't understand this simple, self evident fact. So here's a question, Trump signed the withdrawal agreement 18 months ago. We've already had 18 months including an entire winter season to evacuate all these people. So why didn't we? 

Our troop pullout led to Afghan army collapse which led to Taliban takeover which led to giant mess.

Given that everyone agreed that a Taliban takeover was inevitable, it would have been wiser to begin the evacuation while we still had an effective military presence.  Biden was betting that the Afghan military and government were going to fight and die in a lost cause, buying us time while we evacuated.  He was wrong.  Let’s just hope it doesn’t get any worse.

Timeline

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/16/taliban-timeline/

Edited August 27, 2021 by brenthutch

[JoeWeber 2,720]

32 minutes ago, brenthutch said:

Given that everyone agreed that a Taliban takeover was inevitable,

Everyone except those who pissed away their opportunity to leave when the getting was good. I heard somewhere that 1000 American citizens intend to stay. They can't all be fake beard salesmen. Will their fates also be Biden's fault?

[billvon 2,991]

27 minutes ago, JoeWeber said:

Everyone except those who pissed away their opportunity to leave when the getting was good. I heard somewhere that 1000 American citizens intend to stay. They can't all be fake beard salesmen. Will their fates also be Biden's fault?

Only if they die.  If they do well (say, sell a lot of fake beards) they will be traitors to America.

[jakee 1,489]

1 hour ago, brenthutch said:

Our troop pullout led to Afghan army collapse which led to Taliban takeover which led to giant mess.

Given that everyone agreed that a Taliban takeover was inevitable, it would have been wiser to begin the evacuation while we still had an effective military presence.  

So again my question, why didn't we? Trump had a year to do it, he did nothing and no-one was asking him to. Biden had 6 months, he did nothing and no-one was asking him to. Neither did any other allied country (though I guess Uk and Oz were pretty much the only other ones left). This is simply the way our countries work, we're not going to do shit to help the people who helped us until it becomes irrefutably clear that we need to do it right the fuck now - which is why we're doing it right the fuck now instead of having it done and dusted in 20fucking20.

At least you're now admitting that this idea of making everything better by pulling the troops out in winter is an irrelevant nonsense.

Edited August 27, 2021 by jakee

[SkyDekker 1,465]

5 minutes ago, jakee said:

Neither did any other allied country (though I guess Uk and Oz were pretty much the only other ones left).

<waiving hands> We have people there too eh. Sorry eh.

[brenthutch 444]

20 minutes ago, jakee said:

At least you're now admitting that this idea of making everything better by pulling the troops out in winter is an irrelevant nonsense.

Where did I do that?  Pulling out in the winter would have slowed this train wreck and allowed for a more orderly egress.  Taliban would still take over but more slowly resulting in less panic.

[SkyDekker 1,465]

1 hour ago, brenthutch said:

Given that everyone agreed that a Taliban takeover was inevitable, it would have been wiser to begin the evacuation while we still had an effective military presence.

Can you explain how deliberately "slow walking" visa applications from allied Afghanis fits into your narrative?

Edited August 27, 2021 by SkyDekker

[jakee 1,489]

24 minutes ago, brenthutch said:

Where did I do that?  Pulling out in the winter would have slowed this train wreck and allowed for a more orderly egress.  Taliban would still take over but more slowly resulting in less panic.

Unless (because again, they've spent their entire lives living and fighting in Afghanistan and know how the seasons there work even better than you do) they'd have remained patient and taken over just as quickly in the spring. And then we'd be looking at the exact same evacuation clusterfuck only worse, because there wouldn't even be any troops there to protect Hamid Karzai Airport.

Hey, is there an echo in here?

 

Edit: Honestly after 20 years of pointless fighting, 20 years of abject failure in understanding how to work with the Afghan culture culminating in this moment, you're still sitting there with such arrogance and such hubris that you genuinely think you have one simple, easy magic bullet idea to fix everything that's gone wrong over the last month. Two whole decades and you have learned nothing.

Edited August 27, 2021 by jakee

[billvon 2,991]

1 hour ago, brenthutch said:

Where did I do that?  Pulling out in the winter would have slowed this train wreck and allowed for a more orderly egress.  Taliban would still take over but more slowly resulting in less panic.

And you'd be saying "BIDEN SHOULD RESIGN.  A slow pullout is the WORST way to do it, since our brave troops are exposed to terrorists longer!  Why do democrats hate our troops?"

Your approach here has been very straightforward - you see if there's a D or an R behind their name, and everything else follows from that.

[brenthutch 444]

15 minutes ago, billvon said:

And you'd be saying "BIDEN SHOULD RESIGN.  A slow pullout is the WORST way to do it, since our brave troops are exposed to terrorists longer!  Why do democrats hate our troops?"

Your approach here has been very straightforward - you see if there's a D or an R behind their name, and everything else follows from that.

Given that I place primary blame on GWB for getting us into this mess, your post makes no sense (what’s new).

 

[JoeWeber 2,720]

8 minutes ago, brenthutch said:

Given that I place primary blame on GWB for getting us into this mess, your post makes no sense (what’s new).

 

We're making progress. For accuracy, as long as you're backstroking upstream, is to now place the primary blame on people like you who voted for Bush.