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Good News! State Department IG to probe Biden admin's chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal

middleview

President
Supporting Member
If the agreement was not ironclad or inalterable, by definition Biden could have altered it, no?
He did. He changed the withdrawal date from May 1st to the end of August.

By definition an agreement is between two parties. Can one change it without the other side having some say? Like maybe "NO".

We had 2,500 troops in country. They had 100,000 or so.
 

PhilFish

Administrator
Staff member
We had an agreement with the Taliban which required we withdraw all troops by May 1st 2021. I don't recall writing a post with "ironclad" or "inalterable" in it.

The "agreement" or more accurately the "Surrender" signed by Trump in February did not involve the Afghan government in the negotiations and did not consider the Afghan army in the ceasefire. Would you agree that Trump threw our allies under the bus?

Would you also agree that Trump did nothing to prepare for an evacuation of US citizens, contractors or Afghan allies?

I'm not sure what it has to do with anything when you mention the Taliban "engaging" US troops.

Does it stand to reason we could have what? Did you forget the threats from the Taliban when Biden announced we would not be out by Trump's deadline?

I've posted what I thought Biden's options were...and none were all that great. If on his first day in office he had ordered between 20k and 50k troops back into the country and once on their way had dumped Trump's treaty we might not have lost to country to the Taliban....but we would have renewed our longest war for another decade.

Would you agree?

no one was seeking to dump between 20k and 50k troops back in to the country. Would you agree?

Yes trump didnt do much...know why? cause he was voted out of office. Would you agree?

the issue, that apparently cannot be met with an honest answer....is..could the US have done something, anything, to safeguard and provide some order to the evacuation? I thing something could have been done, and provided thoughts above. You keep ignoring and pointing to unrelated things like Trump and troop levels. Would you agree?


PS. Biden threw our allies under the bus too.... some of them literally clung to the wheels of a plane in their expression of the US betrayal of their trust.
 

Zam-Zam

Senator
He did. He changed the withdrawal date from May 1st to the end of August.

By definition an agreement is between two parties. Can one change it without the other side having some say? Like maybe "NO".

We had 2,500 troops in country. They had 100,000 or so.
Ergo, he must bear some of the responsibility for the execution of the withdrawal, no?
 

PhilFish

Administrator
Staff member
He did. He changed the withdrawal date from May 1st to the end of August.

By definition an agreement is between two parties. Can one change it without the other side having some say? Like maybe "NO".

We had 2,500 troops in country. They had 100,000 or so.
Ah... finally. Biden could in fact do something. He changed the deadline. Wow. Brave of you.

So...now it's his deadline. Trump is out of office...and the deadline is changed.... Looks like that's a president in control....or at least demonstrating he has some power to do things

So the parties couldn't change what was agreed. The Taliban agreed to a cease fire with American troops? Did they fire of American troops?


Could 2500 troops say...have brought an orderly exit about?

Do US troops in Afghanistan regularly engage with all 100000 Taliban troops at once?
 
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middleview

President
Supporting Member
Ah... finally. Biden could in fact do something. He changed the deadline. Wow. Brave of you.

So...now it's his deadline. Trump is out of office...and the deadline is changed.... Looks like that's a president in control....or at least demonstrating he has some power to do things

So the parties couldn't change what was agreed. The Taliban agreed to a cease fire with American troops? Did they fire of American troops?


Could 2500 troops say...have brought an orderly exit about?

Do US troops in Afghanistan regularly engage with all 100000 Taliban troops at once?
Would the Taliban have needed 100,000 troops to confront 2,500? In fact Biden rushed something like 5,000 additional troops in as the Afghan army collapsed.

Have you ever dealt with the logistics of a 24 hour per day operation? Some of your 2,500 personnel are going to be devoted to air operations and aircraft refueling and loading...so lets say you have maybe 2,000 guys carrying weapons. You have an airport that is about 5 miles long and maybe 2 or 3 wide....and you need to protect that perimeter 24 hours a day. So 700 troops on a shift? Spread out over 14 miles?

As I said before....Biden's possible options all sucked. He could have rushed 20,000 or more troops to try to secure Kabul. That would have probably resulted in a siege with the Taliban able to conduct artillery barrages of the city from all sides.
 

middleview

President
Supporting Member
We still had Khandahar and Bagram well into 2021. Why did Biden not keep several options open for a safe withdrawal? Why was Kabul the only option?
I can only guess that 2,500 troops was not enough, Bagram was too far out of Kabul for refugees to get to and Kandahar was under siege.

Remember that most refugees were in Kabul. We kept that airport open for our European allies as well. French, British, Aussie, Japanese citizens all were evacuated from there.
 

PhilFish

Administrator
Staff member
Would the Taliban have needed 100,000 troops to confront 2,500? In fact Biden rushed something like 5,000 additional troops in as the Afghan army collapsed.

Have you ever dealt with the logistics of a 24 hour per day operation? Some of your 2,500 personnel are going to be devoted to air operations and aircraft refueling and loading...so lets say you have maybe 2,000 guys carrying weapons. You have an airport that is about 5 miles long and maybe 2 or 3 wide....and you need to protect that perimeter 24 hours a day. So 700 troops on a shift? Spread out over 14 miles?

As I said before....Biden's possible options all sucked. He could have rushed 20,000 or more troops to try to secure Kabul. That would have probably resulted in a siege with the Taliban able to conduct artillery barrages of the city from all sides.
Wow. Another concession that Biden was able to do something. He was able to rush troops and you say, and that wasn't beholden to trump? Wow are your handlers off today or something?

Again, and yet again at issue is the evacuation of individuals, us and European citizens, our allies and so forth from the Kabul airport. Not at issue is a man for man match of the military strength of the Taliban. Simply the address of the question could something have been done to lessen the chaos surrounding our exit and improve cooperation amongst our allies?

I run a 24/7 operation today, not militarily obviously.
Which has what to do with anything? Nothing.

Once again could we have done something to ease the exit

So far you have afforded the following concessions; Biden did have the authority and the power to change the date. He actually moved it later not earlier. So there is an action that the president was authorized to take and did. The president had the authority to search troops, and he did. Thank you for that clarification

From that it stands to reason that Biden had the authority to contemplate and possibly act upon the orderly exit, or at minimum affect something less than the chaos that unfolded across the news around the world.

Does that resonate with you in any way, or do we have to go back to dancing in circles like we have been for I don't know how many dozens of posts? I'll understand if you're not able to step away from your doctrinaire responses
 

middleview

President
Supporting Member
Wow. Another concession that Biden was able to do something. He was able to rush troops and you say, and that wasn't beholden to trump? Wow are your handlers off today or something?

Again, and yet again at issue is the evacuation of individuals, us and European citizens, our allies and so forth from the Kabul airport. Not at issue is a man for man match of the military strength of the Taliban. Simply the address of the question could something have been done to lessen the chaos surrounding our exit and improve cooperation amongst our allies?

I run a 24/7 operation today, not militarily obviously.
Which has what to do with anything? Nothing.

Once again could we have done something to ease the exit

So far you have afforded the following concessions; Biden did have the authority and the power to change the date. He actually moved it later not earlier. So there is an action that the president was authorized to take and did. The president had the authority to search troops, and he did. Thank you for that clarification

From that it stands to reason that Biden had the authority to contemplate and possibly act upon the orderly exit, or at minimum affect something less than the chaos that unfolded across the news around the world.

Does that resonate with you in any way, or do we have to go back to dancing in circles like we have been for I don't know how many dozens of posts? I'll understand if you're not able to step away from your doctrinaire responses
For some reason my pointing out to you the potential for a resumption of combat you think it is a doctrinaire response.

Meanwhile you've refused to acknowledge the events of 2020 as having any impact on the events of 2021.

You also don't seem to agree that Biden did do things to ease the evacuation...like more troops than Trump left behind...commercial air to help get people out of Kabul, coordinating with our allies in France, Germany, the UK and others to help their people out.
 
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PhilFish

Administrator
Staff member
For some reason my pointing out to you the potential for a resumption of combat you think it is a doctrinaire response.

Meanwhile you've refused to acknowledge the events of 2020 as having any impact on the events of 2021.
That's simply false. I never said there was no potential for a resumption of combat. Nor have I ever said that that was a doctrinaire response. What I did say was a doctrinaire response was your absolute refusal to acknowledge that the now sitting president has powers to act. We finally have your concession that he did act both by extending the deadline and by increasing the number of troops.

I do not dispute that the events of 2020 had an influence on the events of 2021. What I did dispute was the now current president's ability to do anything about it. Which you and others seemingly have been reluctant to even verbalize.

See how simple I verbalized it? Here I'll do it again, the events of 2020 had an influence on the events of 2021. However I do not pretend that the current sitting president is powerless to do anything, and was powerless to do anything to aid and or ease the transition. I do not believe, as do others around the world, that the current administration was utterly powerless to plan anything whatsoever and was doomed to just sit idly by doing nothing.

See? How unencumbered I am by the doctrinaire blinders of party?
 

middleview

President
Supporting Member
That's simply false. I never said there was no potential for a resumption of combat. Nor have I ever said that that was a doctrinaire response. What I did say was a doctrinaire response was your absolute refusal to acknowledge that the now sitting president has powers to act. We finally have your concession that he did act both by extending the deadline and by increasing the number of troops.

I do not dispute that the events of 2020 had an influence on the events of 2021. What I did dispute was the now current president's ability to do anything about it. Which you and others seemingly have been reluctant to even verbalize.

See how simple I verbalized it? Here I'll do it again, the events of 2020 had an influence on the events of 2021. However I do not pretend that the current sitting president is powerless to do anything, and was powerless to do anything to aid and or ease the transition. I do not believe, as do others around the world, that the current administration was utterly powerless to plan anything whatsoever and was doomed to just sit idly by doing nothing.

See? How unencumbered I am by the doctrinaire blinders of party?
Where did I say Biden was powerless? It is false to claim I posted anything like that.

You also don't seem to agree that Biden did do things to ease the evacuation...like more troops than Trump left behind...commercial air to help get people out of Kabul, coordinating with our allies in France, Germany, the UK and others to help their people out.
 

PhilFish

Administrator
Staff member
Where did I say Biden was powerless? It is false to claim I posted anything like that.

You also don't seem to agree that Biden did do things to ease the evacuation...like more troops than Trump left behind...commercial air to help get people out of Kabul, coordinating with our allies in France, Germany, the UK and others to help their people out.
Must be my misread of the dozens of posts we've exchanged where you fail to place any culpability on Biden whatsoever. Yeah that's it. I must have totally misread you and bugsy going back and forth over and over again post after post pointing at Trump and only Trump and how that agreement decide with the Taliban left Biden utterly helpless.

Sarcasm off.

I must have also misunderstood all the commentary from around the world, from political leaders, foreign Ministers of other governments and so on. Must have totally been my misunderstanding when they were lambasting the Biden administration for its utter lack of coordination and advanced notice of the intentions of the United States of America in those last days. You know all of their expressions of being unprepared, of our not being a good partner all that. Yep must have totally been my misread.

Not.

It was an absolute cluster. The whole world saw it. And wondered allowed why the United States given all of its might and all of its reach and all of its ability left its allies to hang from airplane Wheels and then fall to their death, in the complete chaos that ensued in our exit from Afghanistan.

I mean seriously, are you really that on adult that you have to resort to the who me bullshit? Why not simply not post to me anymore.

I mean Christ Almighty the whole [Unwelcome language removed] world was taken aback by our behavior in that exit and here we are what plotting through the who me bullshit now?
 

middleview

President
Supporting Member
Must be my misread of the dozens of posts we've exchanged where you fail to place any culpability on Biden whatsoever. Yeah that's it. I must have totally misread you and bugsy going back and forth over and over again post after post pointing at Trump and only Trump and how that agreement decide with the Taliban left Biden utterly helpless.

Sarcasm off.

I must have also misunderstood all the commentary from around the world, from political leaders, foreign Ministers of other governments and so on. Must have totally been my misunderstanding when they were lambasting the Biden administration for its utter lack of coordination and advanced notice of the intentions of the United States of America in those last days. You know all of their expressions of being unprepared, of our not being a good partner all that. Yep must have totally been my misread.

Not.

It was an absolute cluster. The whole world saw it. And wondered allowed why the United States given all of its might and all of its reach and all of its ability left its allies to hang from airplane Wheels and then fall to their death, in the complete chaos that ensued in our exit from Afghanistan.

I mean seriously, are you really that on adult that you have to resort to the who me bullshit? Why not simply not post to me anymore.

I mean Christ Almighty the whole [Unwelcome language removed] world was taken aback by our behavior in that exit and here we are what plotting through the who me bullshit now?
I agree. You misinterpreted my posts and in your interpretation attached verbiage that wasn't there..
 
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PhilFish

Administrator
Staff member
Where did I say Biden was powerless? It is false to claim I posted anything like that.

You also don't seem to agree that Biden did do things to ease the evacuation...like more troops than Trump left behind...commercial air to help get people out of Kabul, coordinating with our allies in France, Germany, the UK and others to help their people out.
You haven't asked...you 'seem to' on my behalf a great deal. So, around we go with your silliness
 
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