Jason Posted August 15, 2021 Share Posted August 15, 2021 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b_m_b_m_b_m Posted August 15, 2021 Author Share Posted August 15, 2021 even aside from the lack of salience of foreign policy on domestic politics, if we somehow make it through this pullout with no American deaths you'll never hear of this again from the right because the terrible effects of this policy would fall on brown foreigners and the right can't even pretend to give a single shit about them (because apparently the foreign policy establishment hardly even does) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vaxick Posted August 15, 2021 Share Posted August 15, 2021 49 minutes ago, Jason said: Gotta love the consistent hypocrisy. The GOP wanted this, they rallied around it, but now that a Democrat did what was popular in their party, it's easy for them to pretend they were against it to drum up outrage amongst their constituents. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commissar SFLUFAN Posted August 15, 2021 Share Posted August 15, 2021 I do want to push back against this notion that Afghanistan is the "Graveyard of Empires" when that's simply untrue: The "Graveyard of Empires" trope reflects a lazy, Western-centric historical perspective that to some degree colored real-world policy decisions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fizzzzle Posted August 15, 2021 Share Posted August 15, 2021 It's suffered "buffer-state-itis" for the last 200 years at least. That's Afghanistan's problem. Same as the romanians during basically the last millennium until very recently. The Russians back one faction, the US and UK back another, no one would ever think to outright annex it, and the people get fucked. Welcome to the merry go round, you unfortunate schmucks. I'm sure if the afghan people were left to their own devices without foreign intervention, they would eventually sort shit out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Posted August 15, 2021 Share Posted August 15, 2021 1 hour ago, Jason said: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commissar SFLUFAN Posted August 15, 2021 Share Posted August 15, 2021 Just to clarify, the US military has secured only the military portion of Kabul International Airport. The civilian side is the free-for-all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Posted August 15, 2021 Share Posted August 15, 2021 5 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said: Just to clarify, the US military has secured only the military portion of Kabul International Airport. The civilian side is the free-for-all. lol not even pretending to give a single solitary fuck about the Afghans Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b_m_b_m_b_m Posted August 16, 2021 Author Share Posted August 16, 2021 16 minutes ago, Jason said: No one will care Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vaxick Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 25 minutes ago, Jason said: Of course Trump ended his latest attack with yet another false claim of the election being stolen. I wonder how many times he shit his diaper in the creation of this rant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperSpreader Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 No one will remember this by July next year Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyser_Soze Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 35 minutes ago, SuperSpreader said: No one will remember this by July next year No one will remember 2 weeks from now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marioandsonic Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 32 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said: No one will remember 2 weeks from now. I already forgot what we're talking about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 Just now, marioandsonic said: I already forgot what we're talking about. I think it was that Michelle Obama has man arms? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b_m_b_m_b_m Posted August 16, 2021 Author Share Posted August 16, 2021 Ok I take it back. It may survive in the Fox cinematic universe as another signaling device just like how people in this world just rattle off nonsense of which you've never heard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jwheel86 Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 Good morning Kabul Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brick Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 Fucking hell. How did we get to this point? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyser_Soze Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 32 minutes ago, Brick said: Fucking hell. How did we get to this point? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commissar SFLUFAN Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 Three people supposedly died after falling from the undercarriage of the C-17 after it took off. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brucoe Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 A huge part of the problem is that military personnel on the ground are having to make on the spot decisions in a chaotic environment where it's practically impossible to get a view of the bigger picture. Their decisions impact real time outcomes, which can often be ridiculous to second guess, which is exactly what is happening with media pundits comfortable in studios that are safe and located on the other side of the planet. As a former officer who was required to make strategic decisions in a tactical environment, I completely understand how hard it is to ascertain exactly what is going on as events unfold all around you, and while I was lucky to make decisions that succeeded, I am completely aware of how easy it would have been for numbers of those decisions to have turned disastrous if the circumstances turned, as they tend to do in chaotic environments. I've been watching and listening to commentators on the news doing lots of Monday morning armchair quarterbacking as if they're convinced that if they were on the ground in Afghanistan, they would have done "the right thing". Having been on the ground in numerous situations, I can tell you without a doubt that way too many people make stupid, rash decisions because they're thinking in the now rather than taking in the much bigger picture (sometimes because it's not available to them, or the situations make it so that the bigger picture looks a lot different in person than it does on a white board. What's interesting is that almost all of the news commentary keeps making the argument of "no one saw this coming" or "this is something we've never experienced before", but in reality this is exactly the environment we faced when pulling out of Vietnam decades ago, which is why I predicted exactly this happening when we pulled out of Afghanistan. Soldiers still do what soldiers do, and civilians under imminent siege do what civilians under imminent siege do. So many dissertations were written that explored how we could have achieved better outcomes when leaving Vietnam, yet we're back to processes we used in the 1970s because we keep thinking our past has no bearing on the present. So, if we go to the old playbook of the 1970s, we're going to bolster our perimeter of the airport, sneak our way out of Afghanistan, probably carpet bomb a few locations when things turn even further south, and then we'll abandon our few surviving allies who worked with us in Afghanistan. And then we'll watch all sorts of news about how no one saw this coming on one side of the aisle and how it was inevitable on the other because of...reasons. In the end, we won't learn anything, and 40 years from now, we'll be doing the exact same thing in some other country like Sokovia or Wakanda. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commissar SFLUFAN Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 On 8/10/2021 at 11:39 AM, Commissar SFLUFAN said: China and Pakistan will recognize a Taliban government and that's all they really need. Quote A spokeswoman for China's foreign ministry told AFP news agency that Beijing welcomed the opportunity to build deeper ties with Afghanistan. "The Taliban have repeatedly expressed their hope to develop good relations with China, and that they look forward to China's participation in the reconstruction and development of Afghanistan... we welcome this," she said Quote Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that Afghans have "broken the shackles of slavery" in a speech about cultural imperialism. His comments criticising education in English in Pakistan came a day after the Taliban took control of the Afghan capital, Kabul, following days of rapid advances. Pakistan was one of only three countries to recognise the Afghan Taliban Government in 1996, and is expected to make key decisions today at its national security committee meeting chaired by the prime minister and attended by senior military and intelligence agency officials. Separately, Pakistan's major religious political parties Jamat-e-Islami and JUI-F congratulated the Afghan Taliban on their recent “success” and extended their full support and co-operation to the movement in Afghanistan. Some members of these religious groups also distributed sweets to celebrate the Taliban takeover. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commissar SFLUFAN Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 Uzbekistan claims to have shot down an Afghan military jet that entered its airspace without permission. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jwheel86 Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 A third battalion from the 82nd is going in, 7k troops holding the airport. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaysWho? Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 I may have some details incorrect, but I think I saw that right died trying to climb/hold onto a departing military plane Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Littleronin Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 Really amazing to see how we can fuck up so badly not once but twice in my lifetime. We are doing nothing hear but setting ourselves up for another retaliatory attacks by the same people we failed to help... again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commissar SFLUFAN Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 Quote A U.S. defense official says the head of Central Command has met face-to-face with senior Taliban leaders to urge their fighters not to interfere with the U.S. military’s evacuation operations at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan. The official said that in the meeting on Sunday in Doha, Qatar, Gen. Frank McKenzie won Taliban agreement to establish a “deconfliction mechanism” — an arrangement by which evacuation operations at the airport can continue without interference by the new rulers of the country. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b_m_b_m_b_m Posted August 16, 2021 Author Share Posted August 16, 2021 2 hours ago, Jason said: Sources say the soldier now has an open job offer at the US police department of his choosing upon discharge from the military 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 Toyota seemed to know that the Taliban would take Kabul — Quartz QZ.COM Presciently, Toyota banned the resale of new Land Cruisers just weeks before the Taliban took Kabul. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CayceG Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 46 minutes ago, SaysWho? said: I may have some details incorrect, but I think I saw that right died trying to climb/hold onto a departing military plane Yes. There's a video going around of 3 people clinging to the side of a C-17 as it takes off, and then falling to their deaths. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spawn_of_Apathy Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 On 8/7/2021 at 2:45 PM, Commissar SFLUFAN said: Christ, I know EXACTLY what the Taliban is going to do: they're going to hold off seizing Kabul until September 11. (Note: this is EXACTLY what I would do!) guess they couldn’t hold off another three weeks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Posted August 16, 2021 Share Posted August 16, 2021 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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