Old Trapper
Verified User
Numerous years ago I discovered that there will always be a certain group of people to whom truth was irrelevant. Back then when it was TalkCity on WebTV I was the right wing adherent. As time passed, and I matured (and became better informed) I discovered that there were many traits of the left that I could actually support. Not the situation has changed to a point where we have a right wing that is oblivious to truth, reality, to the facts. They have their gawd, to whom they have dedicated a "Golden Bust", and that is all that matters. What he says is truly the way things are, or should be. Period.
So it came as no surprise that when we pulled out of Afghanistan there was a flurry of disinformation regarding the event, and what led to it. Of course, the right wing being what is is, blamed all on Biden. They chose to ignore that the timetable, changed by Biden, was established by their gawd trump. They also chose to ignore the reality that trump fought for the release of thousands of terrorists, Taliban, from the prisons of Afghanistan BEFORE any agreement was made. They have called for the impeachment of Biden, the arrest of others like Milley, and forgotten the actions of trump, or Pompeyo. They have chosen the path of a wannabe dictator over the path of freedom, and knowledge. They have chosen to believe lies over truth.
Since it is apparent that the same right wing will never work with the left to better America, and will continue to try and lie its way back in to power, I wonder if we will ever find the truth, or have an honest discussion about the events. Or will we have to be satisfied with a second party that is only interested in the wishes of their gawds:
"In the weeks after he took office, Biden faced a deadline to deliver on his campaign promise to bring the majority of U.S. troops home from Afghanistan. Donald Trump had struck a deal with the Taliban in February 2020 that promised a May 1, 2021, departure for U.S. combat troops and the release of thousands of Taliban prisoners in exchange for an end to attacks on U.S. forces. Taliban negotiators were holding firm to the terms of Trump’s deal, and during four National Security Council meetings early this year, Biden sat at the end of the long wood table in the Situation Room in the basement of the West Wing and asked for his options.
There was dissent among his top advisers. At one Principals Committee meeting that included Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, Biden’s top national-*security officials debated whether to rip up Trump’s deal, to ask the Taliban to extend the May 1 deadline or to keep troops on the ground indefinitely. Milley, who served three tours in Afghanistan, said he thought it was important to keep the existing presence there to prevent the country from falling apart, according to two senior Administration officials.
In the end, Biden winnowed the choices before him to either leaving on a fixed timeline or having a permanent troop presence in Afghanistan, which would mean returning to an active shooting war with the Taliban. After a final NSC meeting in mid-April, he officially made the decision to get the troops out. “It’s time to end the forever war,” Biden told the country on April 14, standing in the same room in the White House where George W. Bush had announced the first attacks on the Taliban in October 2001.
Biden’s decision to leave quickly, with a minimal number of troops to preside over the exit, meant abandoning Bagram Air Base, a massive, well-*defended facility 40 miles outside Kabul. With orders from the President to take Trump’s troop level of 2,500 down to zero by Aug. 31 and defend the U.S. embassy in the process, the Pentagon decided not to ask for the 2,000 additional troops it would have needed to keep Bagram running. “We had to collapse one or the other,” Milley told reporters Aug. 18, “and a decision was made.”
A dark meme shared among U.S. intelligence officers as chaos spread in late August attributed a fake, snarky quote to Sun Tzu’s Art of War: “Always abandon your most strategic air base right before an evacuation.” But it was how the Pentagon left Bagram that may have had the most damaging knock-on effect. Afghan troops woke up at the base on July 2 to find the Americans gone, having left in the middle of the night without notifying anyone. Later that day, Biden tried to make things appear under control, telling reporters the U.S. departure was “on track, exactly where we expected to be.” But the military’s abrupt and secretive departure from Bagram emboldened the Taliban and demoralized the Afghan troops fighting them, Administration officials now admit. Within weeks, Afghan forces collapsed in major provincial capitals as the Taliban took back the country with little resistance.
As the situation worsened, Biden belatedly changed course. On Wednesday, Aug. 11, a previously scheduled evening National Security Council meeting in the Situation Room on a different topic was derailed by what to do next in Afghanistan. Biden tasked the Pentagon to deploy more troops to the region and shore up the Kabul airport, from which he ordered the military to begin evacuating civilians. Biden’s team warned the Taliban not to enter Kabul, but when Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled on Aug. 15, one day after assuring Secretary of State Antony Blinken that he would hold the line, the Afghan security forces melted away and the Taliban took the city. By Aug. 26, when a suicide bomber affiliated with ISIS-K donned a vest packed with explosives and made his way to the Kabul airport, it was U.S. Marines and other U.S. service members who were manning the airport’s frontline checkpoints, checking papers and conducting pat-downs for thousands trying to flee the Taliban takeover."
https://time.com/6094786/biden-afghanistan-fallout/
So it came as no surprise that when we pulled out of Afghanistan there was a flurry of disinformation regarding the event, and what led to it. Of course, the right wing being what is is, blamed all on Biden. They chose to ignore that the timetable, changed by Biden, was established by their gawd trump. They also chose to ignore the reality that trump fought for the release of thousands of terrorists, Taliban, from the prisons of Afghanistan BEFORE any agreement was made. They have called for the impeachment of Biden, the arrest of others like Milley, and forgotten the actions of trump, or Pompeyo. They have chosen the path of a wannabe dictator over the path of freedom, and knowledge. They have chosen to believe lies over truth.
Since it is apparent that the same right wing will never work with the left to better America, and will continue to try and lie its way back in to power, I wonder if we will ever find the truth, or have an honest discussion about the events. Or will we have to be satisfied with a second party that is only interested in the wishes of their gawds:
"In the weeks after he took office, Biden faced a deadline to deliver on his campaign promise to bring the majority of U.S. troops home from Afghanistan. Donald Trump had struck a deal with the Taliban in February 2020 that promised a May 1, 2021, departure for U.S. combat troops and the release of thousands of Taliban prisoners in exchange for an end to attacks on U.S. forces. Taliban negotiators were holding firm to the terms of Trump’s deal, and during four National Security Council meetings early this year, Biden sat at the end of the long wood table in the Situation Room in the basement of the West Wing and asked for his options.
There was dissent among his top advisers. At one Principals Committee meeting that included Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, Biden’s top national-*security officials debated whether to rip up Trump’s deal, to ask the Taliban to extend the May 1 deadline or to keep troops on the ground indefinitely. Milley, who served three tours in Afghanistan, said he thought it was important to keep the existing presence there to prevent the country from falling apart, according to two senior Administration officials.
In the end, Biden winnowed the choices before him to either leaving on a fixed timeline or having a permanent troop presence in Afghanistan, which would mean returning to an active shooting war with the Taliban. After a final NSC meeting in mid-April, he officially made the decision to get the troops out. “It’s time to end the forever war,” Biden told the country on April 14, standing in the same room in the White House where George W. Bush had announced the first attacks on the Taliban in October 2001.
Biden’s decision to leave quickly, with a minimal number of troops to preside over the exit, meant abandoning Bagram Air Base, a massive, well-*defended facility 40 miles outside Kabul. With orders from the President to take Trump’s troop level of 2,500 down to zero by Aug. 31 and defend the U.S. embassy in the process, the Pentagon decided not to ask for the 2,000 additional troops it would have needed to keep Bagram running. “We had to collapse one or the other,” Milley told reporters Aug. 18, “and a decision was made.”
A dark meme shared among U.S. intelligence officers as chaos spread in late August attributed a fake, snarky quote to Sun Tzu’s Art of War: “Always abandon your most strategic air base right before an evacuation.” But it was how the Pentagon left Bagram that may have had the most damaging knock-on effect. Afghan troops woke up at the base on July 2 to find the Americans gone, having left in the middle of the night without notifying anyone. Later that day, Biden tried to make things appear under control, telling reporters the U.S. departure was “on track, exactly where we expected to be.” But the military’s abrupt and secretive departure from Bagram emboldened the Taliban and demoralized the Afghan troops fighting them, Administration officials now admit. Within weeks, Afghan forces collapsed in major provincial capitals as the Taliban took back the country with little resistance.
As the situation worsened, Biden belatedly changed course. On Wednesday, Aug. 11, a previously scheduled evening National Security Council meeting in the Situation Room on a different topic was derailed by what to do next in Afghanistan. Biden tasked the Pentagon to deploy more troops to the region and shore up the Kabul airport, from which he ordered the military to begin evacuating civilians. Biden’s team warned the Taliban not to enter Kabul, but when Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled on Aug. 15, one day after assuring Secretary of State Antony Blinken that he would hold the line, the Afghan security forces melted away and the Taliban took the city. By Aug. 26, when a suicide bomber affiliated with ISIS-K donned a vest packed with explosives and made his way to the Kabul airport, it was U.S. Marines and other U.S. service members who were manning the airport’s frontline checkpoints, checking papers and conducting pat-downs for thousands trying to flee the Taliban takeover."
https://time.com/6094786/biden-afghanistan-fallout/
