Afghanistan - 20 years on

Your alternative plan that would have made everything go so smoothly. All i seem to have had are a few buzzwords and vague things like how they should have tried to negotiate more, or delay leaving for a bit.

Or not left or left behind contractors and enablers and given the ANA plenty of support... ,multiple options and you seem to continually ignore them.

You've still ignored this point:

Its only delusional nonsense to you because you can never back up any of your arguments and always argue semantics or never answer questions directly. That is your MO in this forum.
Nope, that's yours. If you feel I haven't backed up a particular claim or argument then go and quote it

I'll ask you again, which claim made earlier in the thread do you feel I haven't backed up? You've made that above claim in relation to me but now when questioned you can't answer directly... which is rather ironic.
 
Or not left or left behind contractors and enablers and given the ANA plenty of support... ,multiple options and you seem to continually ignore them.


But support to the ANA in what capacity? In a military capacity to fight off the Taliban?


I'll ask you again, which claim made earlier in the thread do you feel I haven't backed up? You've made that above claim in relation to me but now when questioned you can't answer directly... which is rather ironic.

I already have! Ive been asking you to elaborate and back up the ideas behind your masterful plan that was much better than Trump's/Biden's.
 
So by supported, do you mean engage in conflict with the Taliban who were trying to take over the regions?

LOL Again I feel I need to point out that the US hasn't been involved in major combat operations for a few years now, since before the Trump deal. the ANA has been supported by the US and has been fighting the Taliban, with a functional ANA that outnumbers the Taliban they can't just march into Kabul so easily....

But support to the ANA in what capacity? In a military capacity to fight off the Taliban?

Advisors, enablers, contractors, air support... There are plenty of ways of giving them support.

I already have! Ive been asking you to elaborate and back up the ideas behind your masterful plan that was much better than Trump's/Biden's.

Quote the post you were referring to. Tell me what argument I'm supposed to back up please, what specifically. are you asking.
 
Advisors, enablers, contractors, air support... There are plenty of ways of giving them support.

Had these things all stopped?


Quote the post you were referring to. Tell me what argument I'm supposed to back up please, what specifically. are you asking.

Stop with this nonsense. This is the crux of what i'm debating with you know (ie asking you to justify/back up your ideas).

its all too easy to just say "well they should give them more air support!". How much air support are they providing now? How much should they be providing in the future?

You seem to have an amazingly large knowledge of the current US operational capacity and support in Afghanistan right now.
 
Had these things all stopped?

Mostly yes, again he pulled out contractors, he'd agreed with G7 leaders to leave some presence to prevent Kabul from falling.

Stop with this nonsense. This is the crux of what i'm debating with you know (ie asking you to justify/back up your ideas).

It's not nonsense, you made the claim go quote the post! I'm asking you to back up your claim (for like the third time now).
 
Mostly yes, again he pulled out contractors, he'd agreed with G7 leaders to leave some presence to prevent Kabul from falling.

Contractors are still American personnel though are they not? That still holds similar risks.

What about "enablers and advisors". Can you elaborate on that?

They are still providing air strikes according to reports. Owing to your obviously vast tactical knowledge of the area, can you tell me how many more airstrikes you would like to see, and how easy those are going to be to carry out without US troops on the ground?
 
Contractors are still American personnel though are they not? That still holds similar risks.

What about "enablers and advisors". Can you elaborate on that?

They are still providing air strikes according to reports. Owing to your obviously vast tactical knowledge of the area, can you tell me how many more airstrikes you would like to see, and how easy those are going to be to carry out without US troops on the ground?

Quote the post Jono... stop deflecting.

Yes US contractors are US contractors... What sort of question is that re: airstrikes - I'd like to have seen 69 Jono? Are you just trying to sealion with inane questions here because you've got an unsupportable position but you think badgering me with nonsense is now the way to go?
 
I've just watched US corporate media 'journalists' interrogating Joe Biden, he likes eating chocolate chip ice cream and having kids stroke his hairy legs by the pool. I'll report back after his next hard hitting press appearance.
 
I'm not a "Biden boy" (just lol at that term too). I think he is a bit of a "meh" president overall (but thankfully not a "LOL WTF, are you Serious?" president like the last one). I just think it's utterly bizarre to put so much blame on him for this scenario. A scenario that was put in motion and exacerbated by the previous administration, incredibly likely to happen with a full US withdrawal of troops, and a scenario that perhaps might be the best and least bloody outcome compared with an extended stay by US troops and an impatient Taliban.

If you look at the US statements, schedule they were moving things to and posture it is almost certain they thought they had at least 2-3 months yet to finalise the withdrawal probably at the expense of 1000s of Afghan lives as the army were slowly beaten back.

There was nothing planned about how things turned out, I was watching on plane radar, Twitter, etc. as things went into panic mode when it became apparent Kabul was going to be under Taliban control in 2-3 hours at most.

Even a fighting retreat with US support could have been carried out in a more controlled manner with minimal lives lost and getting most people out before this crazy mess at the end - it might have come at the cost of some soldiers but instead we are seeing the loss of live of mostly civilians including women and children.

Ultimately this is almost certain Biden rushing at seeing his name in lights for getting the job done, troops home, etc. with the expectation that Afghan would descend more slowly into chaos by which time most of the blame can be shifted purely to the Afghans.
 
Quote the post Jono... stop deflecting.

Yes US contractors are US contractors... What sort of question is that re: airstrikes - I'd like to have seen 69 Jono? Are you just trying to sealion with inane questions here because you've got an unsupportable position but you think badgering me with nonsense is now the way to go?

Well you said they could have provided more support with air strikes..which they are already doing. So how many more air strikes and how much more aerial support do you think they should be giving them.

and Lol, how is my position unsupportable? My position is that this scenario may have been the best we got in terms of a full troop withdrawal. It most certainly isn't perfect but then I'm not under some silly illusion that this would have gone 100% smoothly.

Your position is based on a load of buzzwords and terms you've read in the media and imagining yourself to be some sort of arm chair general who would definitely have done things so differently and made everything better.
 
Well you said they could have provided more support with air strikes..which they are already doing. So how many more air strikes and how much more aerial support do you think they should be giving them.

this is inane, I told you; 69.

Still haven't seen you back up your claim yet..

My position is that this scenario may have been the best we got in terms of a full troop withdrawal.

Well I think your armchair general position there is clearly nonsense tbh..
 
Your alternative plan that would have made everything go so smoothly. All i seem to have had are a few buzzwords and vague things like how they should have tried to negotiate more, or delay leaving for a bit.

For one they left the Afghan army strung out trying to defend isolated outposts, configured to US interests still - even just taking the time to transition the Afghan army into a configuration for their own interests would have at least given them a fighting chance - never mind all the messing about with the situation with their air-force, which largely seems to have been driven by politics and making money - leaving them with a fast depleting stock of Russian helicopters and a messy situation trying to adapt to US helicopters which were delayed in delivery any way.
 
this is inane, I told you; 69.

Correct it is inane. It displays how meaningless and without merit your alternative ideas are about what they could have done differently.

Nonetheless, you best get on the phone to the US government and tell them to up their airstrikes to 69 then as that will make the situation loads better.


Well I think your armchair general position there is clearly nonsense tbh..

Well I think yours are clearly nonsense. See how pointless this is? At least I'm not pretending to know a vast amount more about the US strategy and military infrastructure in Afghanistan than i actually do ;)

The reality of it is that neither of us know **** all about the greater details and intricacies of what went on and what is going on, and you have zero idea that your vague ideas about negotiations and more airstrikes or more contractors would have made a blind bit of difference ( in a positive way), or whether they would have made the situation even worse.
 
It displays how meaningless and without merit your alternative ideas are about what they could have done differently.

Just shows how clueless you are...

still waiting for that quote, what a surprise you can't provide it...

The reality of it is that neither of us know **** all

Yet you're still sticking with the current situaiton being the best option even though that's pretty clearly nonsense.
 
You just tried to prove that and failed miserably. Mostly because you have no idea how any of the alternative scenarios you have vaguely described would have played out.

Still no quote from you. What a surprise...

Tried to "prove" what exactly. I've pointed out that there were a range of possile scenarios, that you don't like that fact isn't on me, it's just you sticking your head in the sand and ignoring reality.

If you think that the current scenario was a particularly desirable one or couldn't have been improved upon then you're spectacularly naive - that you seem to believe that one needs to be some expert military strategist in order to be able to deduce that is just further naivety.
 
Its pretty much the opposite actually :D

Sure... in your alternative Biden Boy reality where the total farce we're now in over there was seemingly the best we could have gotten...

All the politicians, academics, journalists critical of it just don't understand how masterful it was of the US to end up surrounded at the Airport and Kabul overrun so rapidly.
 
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