Leaving Afghanistan

[Ming]

Yeah... he only let 100's of thousands of Americans die simply because he wanted to get re-elected...

[Kidlicious]

Opinion. Absurd as hell opinion.

[Kidlicious]

If you're going to use whataboutism at least make it fact.

[Kidlicious]

Trump Warned Against Hasty Withdrawal from Afghanistan Four Years Ago

9,001Bloomberg/YouTubeKRISTINA WONG31 Aug 2021735
3:15
Former President Donald Trump, nearly four years ago, warned against the exact consequences of a hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan.

At Fort Myer in Virginia, Trump delivered a speech outlining his strategy in Afghanistan and South Asia, where he said the nation must seek an “honorable and enduring outcome worthy of the tremendous sacrifices” made, and warned that a “hasty” withdrawal could create a vacuum for terrorists in the country.

His warning is prescient, given the recent hasty and disastrous withdrawal under President Joe Biden, which was marred by chaos, violence, and the death of 13 Americans by an ISIS suicide bomber.

Trump said in his speech, on August 21, 2017:

I arrived at three fundamental conclusions about America’s core interests in Afghanistan.

First, our nation must seek an honorable and enduring outcome worthy of the tremendous sacrifices that have been made, especially the sacrifices of lives. The men and women who serve our nation in combat deserve a plan for victory. They deserve the tools they need, and the trust they have earned, to fight and to win.

Second, the consequences of a rapid exit are both predictable and unacceptable. 9/11, the worst terrorist attack in our history, was planned and directed from Afghanistan because that country was ruled by a government that gave comfort and shelter to terrorists. A hasty withdrawal would create a vacuum that terrorists, including ISIS and al Qaeda, would instantly fill, just as happened before September 11th.

And, as we know, in 2011, America hastily and mistakenly withdrew from Iraq. As a result, our hard-won gains slipped back into the hands of terrorist enemies. Our soldiers watched as cities they had fought for, and bled to liberate, and won, were occupied by a terrorist group called ISIS. The vacuum we created by leaving too soon gave safe haven for ISIS to spread, to grow, recruit, and launch attacks. We cannot repeat in Afghanistan the mistake our leaders made in Iraq.

Third and finally, I concluded that the security threats we face in Afghanistan and the broader region are immense. Today, 20 U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations are active in Afghanistan and Pakistan — the highest concentration in any region anywhere in the world.

For its part, Pakistan often gives safe haven to agents of chaos, violence, and terror. The threat is worse because Pakistan and India are two nuclear-armed states whose tense relations threaten to spiral into conflict. And that could happen.

No one denies that we have inherited a challenging and troubling situation in Afghanistan and South Asia, but we do not have the luxury of going back in time and making different or better decisions. When I became President, I was given a bad and very complex hand, but I fully knew what I was getting into: big and intricate problems. But, one way or another, these problems will be solved — I’m a problem solver — and, in the end, we will win.

[-Jrabbit]

That was one of his stick-with-teleprompter speeches, designed specifically to avoid the hard truth that he would be breaking his campaign promise to bring our troops home. Promises deleted!

And yet, just 2 years later, he made his cut-and-run deal with the Taliban, freed 5000 of them from prison, all without involving the Afghan government - our allies. Oh, and then he invited the Taliban to Camp David. Because that's what you do with your sworn enemy terrorists.

You are pathetic.

[Kidlicious]

Only a pathetic person like yourself would claim that getting hundreds of people, standing in open sewage, slaughtered, including 13 US military service members is better than freeing 5000 prisoners to end a war. You can't keep prisoners of war after the war is over. Your attempts at whataboutism are a joke, as always.

[Kidlicious]

Interpreter Who Repotedly Helped Save Biden, Blinken During 2008 Snowstorm Left Behind In Afghanistan


(Photo by Paula Bronstein/ Getty Images) MICHAEL GINSBERGGENERAL ASSIGNMENT REPORTER
August 31, 20212:38 PM ET
FONT SIZE:
An interpreter who reportedly helped save Joe Biden and Antony Blinken after their helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing during a snowstorm was left behind in Afghanistan following the U.S. withdrawal, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Tuesday.

“I can’t leave my house. I’m very scared,” the interpreter, identified only as Mohammed, told WSJ. Mohammed added that although he, his wife, and his four children were able to make it to the gates of Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA), his wife and children were denied entry.



Mohammed was serving at Bagram Air Base in 2008, when a pair of Black Hawk helicopters carrying then-Democratic Sens. Joe Biden of Delaware and John Kerry of Massachusetts, and then-Republican Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, was forced by a snowstorm to land in a valley that was near the site of a recent battle. Blinken, then a foreign policy adviser to Biden, was also on the trip, according to CNN.

The translator joined the 82nd Airborne Division, driving into the mountains to rescue the group.

Mohammed reportedly fought in more than 100 firefights along with American troops.

“His selfless service to our military men and women is just the kind of service I wish more Americans displayed,” Lt. Col. Andrew R. Till wrote in support of Mohammed’s Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) application.

Hundreds of Americans and thousands of Afghan green card and SIV holders were left in Afghanistan after the last U.S. plane left HKIA. Biden promised ABC’s George Stephanopoulos during an Aug. 19 interview that “if there are American citizens left, we’re going to stay until we get them all out.”

“We’re going to do everything in our power to get all Americans out and all our allies out,” he said. (RELATED: Blinken Says US Gave Americans In Afghanistan ‘Every Opportunity’ To Leave)

Afghan allies of the U.S. and NATO are at risk of torture and murder at the hands of the Taliban. The group has already been accused by Human Rights Watch of conducting revenge killings in Kandahar.

“Hello Mr. President: Save me and my family,” Mohammed said. “Don’t forget me here.”

[Kidlicious]

General McKenzie is saying that the Taliban has been helpful. Why is the Taliban helping us while at the same time having mock funerals of the service members that died in the suicide bombing. What did they give the Taliban? Or have they just always been allied with the Taliban.

[Kidlicious]

Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Pardo-Maurer spoke about the suicide bombing at the Kabul International Airport on Thursday, saying that the "Department of Defense already knew who the bomber was."

The suicide bombing, which took the lives of 13 members of the US Armed Forces, happed while evacuations of Americans and Afghan allies were underway during the final days of the 20-year war in that nation.
Director of MRC Latino, Jorge Bonilla posted the interview with Pardo-Maurer said the Department of Defense also knew "where and when" the attack would happen. He said that "a Predator drone had a lock on him," and that the DOD "refused to grant permission to fire upon that bomber."

[Kidlicious]

Amid violent reprisals, Afghans fear the Taliban's 'amnesty' was empty


By Yogita Limaye
BBC News
Published1 day ago

IMAGE SOURCEEPAimage captionTaliban fighters in Kabul. Reports say the group is targeting perceived enemies despite promising an amnesty.
Since they took control of Afghanistan just over two weeks ago, the Taliban have sought to portray a more moderate image than when they last seized power in 1996.

They have repeatedly said they will grant amnesty to all, including those who worked for western militaries or the Afghan government or police. In a dramatic press conference after the group swept into Kabul, chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid made a declaration of forgiveness.

But there is growing evidence that the reality on ground is different to the rhetoric coming from Taliban leaders and spokesmen. It was not lost on some watching the press conference in Kabul that Mr Mujahid made his declaration from the seat of the former government spokesman Dawa Khan Menapal, who had been killed by the group just weeks earlier, as "punishment for his deeds".

Now sources inside Afghanistan, as well as some who recently fled, have told the BBC that Taliban fighters are searching for, and allegedly killing, people they pledged they would leave in peace.

Several sources confirmed that Taliban fighters last week executed two senior police officials - Haji Mullah Achakzai, the security director of Badghis province, and Ghulam Sakhi Akbari, security director of Farah province. Video footage showed Mr Achakzai was kneeling, blindfolded, with his hands tied behind his back before he was shot.

Those who managed to flee say they fear for their colleagues back home. Zala Zazai, a former Afghan policewoman, one of thousands trained since the Taliban was deposed in 2001, said she was still in touch with other former policewomen.


"The Taliban call them from their office phones and ask them to come to work, and ask for their home address," she said.

Ms Zazai said that even in Tajikistan she was not totally out of the reach of the Taliban. Her mother, who is with her, received messages urging both women to return to Afghanistan and "live in the Islamic way", she said.

A former Afghan soldier who fled from Badakhshan province along with his three brothers, all of whom were in the army, said Taliban fighters were harassing his family, "asking them for money saying your son was in the special forces".

And a former Afghan special forces soldier still inside the country told the BBC that he and his family were in hiding after former colleagues were killed.

"Since the Taliban have come to power they haven't stopped killing," he said. "A few days ago, they killed twelve members of the special forces in Kandahar and three soldiers in Jalalabad as well. They were my close friends. I was in touch with them. The Taliban took them out of their homes and shot them."

The BBC was not able to independently confirm the killings, and the Taliban have repeatedly denied committing any revenge killings. But the group was widely thought to be behind a spate of assassinations after signing a peace deal with the US in 2020, and there are mounting reports they have been searching for targets since taking power two weeks ago.
IMAGE SOURCEREUTERSimage captionTaliban forces patrol near the Hamid Karzai International Airport, a day after US troops withdrew.
Amnesty International reported earlier this month that Taliban fighters massacred nine ethnic Hazara men after taking control of Afghanistan's Ghazni province in July. And Human Rights Watch reported that Taliban fighters were conducting searches in Kandahar province as they swept the country and detaining anyone suspected of working with the government, reportedly killing some detainees.

A high-ranking Afghan police official, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisals, told the BBC from hiding that he'd heard the Taliban were searching for him.

"They caught my assistant and interrogated him for five hours," the official said. "They treated him very badly. They asked him, 'Where is your chief?' If they are forgiving everyone then why are they hunting for me?"

He said he was changing location every day with his wife and children. "I have no money to cross the border," he said, breaking down as he spoke. "The problem is the Taliban have no justice system. They have no courts, no jail. They are just killing."

It is not just people who worked in the security forces who say they are being targeted. Members of the civil administration, and those who worked in jobs disapproved by the Taliban told similar stories.

"The Taliban took my car, beat up my guards and took their weapons," said Zarifa Ghafari, who was Afghanistan's first female mayor, governing Maidan Shar, the capital of Wardak province.

"They were searching for me. They called all the people who used to be in contact with me asking where I was. They even went to my husband's parents' house to look for me," she said.

Ms Ghafari was speaking via a video call from Germany, where she fled after the Taliban took power.

"They made me do something I never wanted to do," she said. "They made me leave a country that I love."
IMAGE SOURCEFAMILYimage captionZarifa Ghafari, Afghanistan's first female mayor, places a flag on her father's grave in Afghanistan
Nilofar Ayoubi was also among those who managed to flee in time. A few weeks ago, she was busy working with her staff at her high-end fashion and accessories store in Kabul. When Taliban fighters walked into the city, they began stripping everything.

"We removed the mannequins from the windows, covered the windows, locked the door and ran," Ms Ayoubi said. "I paid my staff a month's salary, then I went off home, packed two bags with my documents and a few things for my children and went into hiding,' she said.

Ms Ayoubi applied for asylum to Poland and, after pushing through the scrum at Kabul airport, managed to escape with her husband and children.

"As soon as I landed I saw multiple calls from my family," she said. "They were so scared. They said the Taliban had come to our home, pointed guns at them and warned them that if you don't call your daughter and son-in-law back, we will kill you."

As the Taliban settles into power, part of the concern is that even if all their promises of clemency are true, the group's factions are not all necessarily in agreement, and not necessarily under control. Many in Afghanistan doubt that the Taliban leadership plans to honour its own amnesty. They doubt the group is a new moderate version of its old self. If violent acts of intimidation and reprisal go unaccounted for, and unpunished by the leadership, it will become clear that the Taliban of the present is no less ruthless than the Taliban of the past.

Additional reporting by Aakriti Thapar and Imogen Anderson

[giblets]

Too bad Kidicious didn't sign up to fight in the war he cares so much about.

[Uncle Sparky]

I want to know why nobody predicted how fast the Taliban would take over Texas.

[Egbert]

The United States should invade Texas and install a democracy. The southern states could resurrect the Confederacy and join with Texas for another civil war. All the Americans and Dixies can put their gun collections to use enjoying gun battles. And the southerners will have an excuse to fly their flags.

[Kidlicious]

Too bad Kidicious didn't sign up to fight in the war he cares so much about.

What are you talking about? There's no way I would serve this government like that. Why do you think that means that I can't criticize it?

[giblets]

Who says you can't criticize the government for not making Afghanistan perfect

[Kidlicious]

They are corrupt and traitors.

[giblets]

Sure, not continuing to spend billions of dollars to kill more Asians is treason.

[Kidlicious]

They don't give a damn about your money or Afghans.