Afghanistan

[rick49]

the stink isn't limited to the big guy.

Harris says she had key role in Biden's Afghanistan withdrawal decision

"The vice president confirmed she was the last person in the room before Biden made the decision to move forward with withdrawing U.S. troops."

www.politico.com/news/2021/04/25/harris-afghanistan-biden-withdrawal-decision-484581

[perrykneeham]

If the Taliban are shrewd, which I think we have to accept they are, they'll refrain from savagery and just become a moderate Islamic government.

Hostage to fortune here, but I think Muslims are pretty sick of that sort of Islam. It's not brought them much luck, has it? I suspect that al-Q will be f**k*d off out of it PDQ, if they were ever there.

[mids]

I was kind of thinking the same. They might just settle down and be content with being a nasty, crappy Saudi style government. There'll be some sort of purge I expect, there always is with socialists, but maybe a few 10s of thousands of deaths will keep them happy. Then andy, voice 'n' van can get back to fretting about "incels" and wolf whistling.

[perrykneeham]

Aug 16, 2021 18:28:39 GMT mids said:

I was kind of thinking the same. They might just settle down and be content with being a nasty, crappy Saudi style government. There'll be some sort of purge I expect, there always is with socialists, but maybe a few 10s of thousands of deaths will keep them happy. Then andy, voice 'n' van can get back to fretting about "incels" and wolf whistling.

Again, enough about Labour and their heartlands.

[wetkingcanute]

I refer my honourable friends to the answer I gave sometime ago. (first post)

[perrykneeham]

Maybe. Coming at it from a slightly different angle, but I agree that it's possible this won't go down Route 1.

[mids]

I think we should start pronouncing it the way Muslims seem to, even the British ones with a local accent. Sort of like "UfCHUNistun", with the ch pronounced as in loch.

[flatandy]

I'm expecting a pretty unpleasant right-wing islamist government, but I think they'll be careful to keep most of their unpleasantness within their own borders for a while. They know nobody is going to try and invade just because of domestic shithousery. That's why I expect almost every westerner to get out, and almost everyone the west wants out to get out. (The west, meanwhile, is desperate for no Afghans to come as refugees, so that's not really a problem for the Taliban).

[perrykneeham]

Don't panic. The Tories still have a double-digit lead in the polls, #despitethebbc/eu

[voice]

18 months ago when Trump was hailing his surrender to the Taliban and was trying his day destroyer (Edit wtf I wrote @damndest) to get the Taliban out to Camp David for a photo opp, err signing ceremony, I posted it would be a cluster f**k to simply leave as everyone was expecting within 6 months to a year the Taliban would retake power (no one expected this yo as quick as it was, to claim otherwise is just a lie). The idiot and the far right media was responding to such talk by saying 'so you want us in there forever?'

And here we are, a cluster f**k.

[voice]

Though Biden does need to take responsibility for the handling of this, it's not enough to remind everyone it was Trump who surrendered, the last troops left under him.

[flatandy]

Just a reminder for the hard of thinking, who want to blame Biden and think Trump had nothing to do with this... Just over a month ago Trump was taking credit for the fact that the withdrawal was irreversible.

[perrykneeham]

Balls to you Biden.

[flatandy]

Aug 16, 2021 20:01:43 GMT voice said:

Though Biden does need to take responsibility for the handling of this, it's not enough to remind everyone it was Trump who surrendered, the last troops left under him.

I'm not sure there's much responsibility to be taken. There was no withdrawal process that would be less f**k*d up, basically. The most he could have done is made sure that more Afghans who worked with the US had visas and were given settled status and the opportunity to get abroad. But we can be 100% sure that the idiot brigade who are attacking Biden here would be spectacularly distraught to find tens of thousands of Afghan refugees in their country.

[wetkingcanute]

I'm not a great fan of Biden yet - his best asset is that he's not Trump.

But I think the real blame lies with American Intelligence agencies. The Military and the CIA.

They seem to have royally fcuked up every single time from completely missing all the signs of the 11th. September attack through Iran; Iraq and now Afghanistan.

Biden to his credit realised the US could not stay in Afghanistan forever and Nation building was not the agenda.

But who gave him the info that the Afghanistan government and the American equipped Afghan army would control the country?? When the reality was that the Taliban went through the country like a knife through hot butter.

[voice]

His speech wasn't bad, took responsibility for how this ended, and he was clear and honest, no amount of American involvement would have changed centuries of Afghanistan culture. Gave some context as to why evacuations were delayed. And he was right, it's hard to imagine this going any other way.

[perrykneeham]

Haha. I'm loving the Biden-excusing. Biden = POTUS.

The optics really are much, much worse than Saigon. He bungled this horribly, unless it was all a cunning plan by Trump, the CIA, the military-industrial complex, the KKK and Putin to screw him over.

America has been humiliated. There is no honour here. Own it.

[flatandy]

America has been humiliated because it did a sh*t job for 20 years, not because of what happened with the last 2000 troops in the last 4 months.

[perrykneeham]

Still, the good news is that there are now plenty more candidates to join the massively successful integration of vibrancy in UK

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-58228598

You didn't/don't need to read the whole article: "Two men have been attacked with bottles and had homophobic abuse shouted at them in Birmingham, police have said.

Rob and Patrick, in their 30s, were outside the Missing Bar in the city's Gay Village on Sunday.

West Midlands Police said the abuse came from a group of four men in a black SUV, who then got out and assaulted the victims.

Patrick was knocked unconscious in the attack and his partner said it was "shocking that would happen in 2021"............. Detectives said the men in the car were described as being of Middle Eastern or Asian appearance."

Well, I 'll be .....

[flatandy]

I mean, America hasn't been humiliated at all, really. The humiliation basically belongs to the political and military leaders who believe in continuous military adventurism, and those who pay lip service in order to get taxpayer money to the military industrial complex that they are in the pocket of.