Afghanistan - 20 years on

Man of Honour
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[..] So no "political tool for smearing" (odd thing to say), no "points scoring", no "Daily Mail writing" - that one really confused me [..]

You lied about someone in order to cause them harm. Even the Daily Mail will apologise when they've been caught libelling someone. They'll hide the apology as much as possible, but they'll apologise. You responded by more malicious misrepresentation (as well as continuing to use raped children as a political tool for smearing people). So you'd have to improve your ethics in order to write for the Daily Mail. But you probably could. They probably pay quite well for people with the right (for them) skills.

Had you replied saying that you "thought StriderX was unintentionally minimising the crime with his statement", that would have been very different. But you didn't. You lied about what they said. You're clearly capable of responding reasonably, so you chose not to do so. And by not doing so, you buried whatever point you might have had.
 
Man of Honour
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only because their hands are tied behind their backs.

do you think ww2 would have been won if they followed current protocol ? there's probably very few wars in history that would have been.

Taliban could basically change from taliban > civilian at will and order a taxi home whilst nato watches

I bet they wish they never took reporters in with the Iraq invasion

I think it goes beyond hands being tied behind backs. The fact is that Afghanistan is a very difficult country to pacify given its terrain and populace.

Masses of troops in the country was not sustainable and was never going to happen and despite twenty years of untold billions in cash, hardware and training - the Afghan Army was wholly inadequate for the task which we have seen.

I'm not sure that WW2 is comparable though ?
 
Caporegime
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Just to put into context how awful what you said really is.

This isn't "either/or" it's 3 additional crimes which wouldn't have happened if the perpetrators were still in Afghanistan. Also, thats just 3 extra child rapes that have been reported in one small city and doesn't include any additional crimes committed by any of the "post collapse" 65,000+ Afghan refugees currently in the US (not including any that left from 2001-2021 "pre collapse").

Now, are the overwhelming vast majority of thee refugees going to lead a law abiding life in the US - yes - but will there also be a small number who do go on to commit crimes, some of which will be extremely serious - also yes - so it's not unfair to point this out and ask why should US citizens (usually in the poorest areas typical of where the refugees get dumped) be expected to suffer from this rise in additional crime and not say anything?


But also, you can't deport the rapists bsck to Afghanistan as it would be against their human rights.

So if you take in an immigrant who kills or rapes someone, you are also stuck with them for the duration of their life realistically.

We have rapists here from Pakistan who are fighting to stay in the UK for example and that's a relatively stable country..
 
Soldato
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So mulitple top generals tell him they think leaving a token force of 2500 troops in Afghan. would be the prudent choice, but Biden claims he has no recollection of anyone telling him this. So is Biden an outright liar or is he, as many suspect, losing his mind through illness? Pretty sure I read somewhere that literally every official meeting POTUS has is recorded in some manner, so surely this can be cleared up by someone taking a peek at the minutes/recording of the meeting in question

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-58719834
 
Caporegime
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So mulitple top generals tell him they think leaving a token force of 2500 troops in Afghan. would be the prudent choice, but Biden claims he has no recollection of anyone telling him this. So is Biden an outright liar or is he, as many suspect, losing his mind through illness? Pretty sure I read somewhere that literally every official meeting POTUS has is recorded in some manner, so surely this can be cleared up by someone taking a peek at the minutes/recording of the meeting in question

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-58719834
Wouldn't surprise me if he lying, or panicked on being asked the question, or genuinely can't remember.

Either way he's a terrible POTUS.

Much like the UK electorate last time around, in the US they had a choice between a **** sandwich or a **** soufflé. One of them was weeks old with mould growing all over it, the other was starting to decompose.

Politics both there and here is in a pretty bad shape.
 
Caporegime
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So mulitple top generals tell him they think leaving a token force of 2500 troops in Afghan. would be the prudent choice, but Biden claims he has no recollection of anyone telling him this. So is Biden an outright liar or is he, as many suspect, losing his mind through illness? Pretty sure I read somewhere that literally every official meeting POTUS has is recorded in some manner, so surely this can be cleared up by someone taking a peek at the minutes/recording of the meeting in question

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-58719834

He wants to move on and so the logical course of action is omission of knowledge.

Absolutely nothing was getting in the way of him removing those troops and I imagine that even a single one left there would be mission failure for him.
 
Soldato
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Absolutely nothing was getting in the way of him removing those troops and I imagine that even a single one left there would be mission failure for him.

Yeap thats how I see it too. He wanted to have his "everyone home by the 20th anniversary of 9/11" party where he imagined he'd receive the adulation of all Americans for bringing the troops home and nothing was going to stop that dream from happening for him, not even reality.
 
Man of Honour
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So mulitple top generals tell him they think leaving a token force of 2500 troops in Afghan. would be the prudent choice, but Biden claims he has no recollection of anyone telling him this. So is Biden an outright liar or is he, as many suspect, losing his mind through illness? Pretty sure I read somewhere that literally every official meeting POTUS has is recorded in some manner, so surely this can be cleared up by someone taking a peek at the minutes/recording of the meeting in question

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-58719834

Hard to say really which it is or maybe a bit of both. I was wondering whether there is some institutionalised effort to discredit Biden within some of these organisations but lately there have been a lot of instances where he is either lying or has faulty recollection - just a quick couple of examples claims over Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, visit to the Tree of Life synagogue. Not to mention multiple times saying he was voted to the senate 120, 150, 180 years ago... once or twice could be put down to autocue problems or speech issues, or maybe taking the mick out of himself for a previous time saying it - though he doesn't appear to be joking, but not that many instances in different ways.
 
Soldato
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So mulitple top generals tell him they think leaving a token force of 2500 troops in Afghan. would be the prudent choice, but Biden claims he has no recollection of anyone telling him this. So is Biden an outright liar or is he, as many suspect, losing his mind through illness? Pretty sure I read somewhere that literally every official meeting POTUS has is recorded in some manner, so surely this can be cleared up by someone taking a peek at the minutes/recording of the meeting in question

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-58719834

He just doesn't give a **** about the Afghans.

He is another millionaire career politician living the American dream.
 
Soldato
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So mulitple top generals tell him they think leaving a token force of 2500 troops in Afghan. would be the prudent choice, but Biden claims he has no recollection of anyone telling him this. So is Biden an outright liar or is he, as many suspect, losing his mind through illness? Pretty sure I read somewhere that literally every official meeting POTUS has is recorded in some manner, so surely this can be cleared up by someone taking a peek at the minutes/recording of the meeting in question

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-58719834

Biden wanted to accomplish a political goal, withdrawing from Afghanistan, because then in 4 years time he can say he's done something, despite the human cost to the dead marines, Afganis, and the over throw of the progressive Afghan government setting womens rights and other freedoms back 20 years - purely so Biden might have had an achievement to his political career. What a disaster that turned out to be.
 
Caporegime
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Biden wanted to accomplish a political goal, withdrawing from Afghanistan, because then in 4 years time he can say he's done something, despite the human cost to the dead marines, Afganis, and the over throw of the progressive Afghan government setting womens rights and other freedoms back 20 years - purely so Biden might have had an achievement to his political career. What a disaster that turned out to be.
Good chance he'll go down as an even worse POTUS than Trump. But anyhow I'd imagine you'd get good odds on him not even finishing his first term. It already seems to be way too much for him, and his behaviour already is littered with distinctly oddball moments, with some worrying signs of not being quite all there up top.
 
Caporegime
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Did the public care about the cost of leaving when they indicated they wanted to leave?

Biden was simply the vehicle for that.
His approval rating tanked when they saw events unfolding, that's for sure.

So I think they cared. Don't forget, the people aren't being briefed by the armed services, but the Pres is. The role of Pres isn't just to blindly follow public sentiment when the public aren't even in possession of the facts.
 
Caporegime
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His approval rating tanked when they saw events unfolding, that's for sure.

So I think they cared. Don't forget, the people aren't being briefed by the armed services, but the Pres is. The role of Pres isn't just to blindly follow public sentiment when the public aren't even in possession of the facts.

Yes because the electorate is endlessly fickle when the consequences of their actions are realised, easier to blame one guy than take responsibility for their apathy and lack of conviction.

Also is it really that shocking that the military want to justify their near limitless budget? The President would be a pointless position if the person that held it just allowed the rest of the government to walk over them.
 
Caporegime
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Yes because the electorate is endlessly fickle when the consequences of their actions are realised, easier to blame one guy than take responsibility for their apathy and lack of conviction.

Also is it really that shocking that the military want to justify their near limitless budget?
It for sure is the responsibly of the Pres not to needless tarnish the reputation of his country and his country's armed forces, and in so doing empower and embolden his adversaries.

I think we should be somewhat glad that the US has the most powerful military and the most military spending, vs China or Turkey or Russia or... They aren't perfect but there are much, much worse.
 
Soldato
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It for sure is the responsibly of the Pres not to needless tarnish the reputation of his country and his country's armed forces, and in so doing empower and embolden his adversaries.

I think we should be somewhat glad that the US has the most powerful military and the most military spending, vs China or Turkey or Russia or... They aren't perfect but there are much, much worse.

People don't quite realise this. America didn't even take territory permanently following WW2 when they rightly defeated Japan and kicked them out of South East Asia, America still handed back Japan to the Japanese. Compare the likes of China and Russia to America objectively and even though America isn't perfect they're a damn sight better than most countries.
 
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