Last U.S. Troops Leave Afghanistan After Nearly 20 Years

Well, if the state department doesn't know, how would I??

It's reportedly <=200 and I'd like to know what prevented each case from making it to the airport OR to another border, if that was closer?

It wasn't a great 2 weeks, but the ending was much better than it could have been.

 

The Kabul airport is reportedly non functional.... I wouldn't bank on any of those flights being able to land, and I certainly wouldn't knowingly land at an airport with questionable air traffic control in charge...

https://www.reuters.com/business/ae...rolled-us-carriers-barred-flights-2021-08-30/

The Taliban is going to find out it's easier to take over a country than to run it to basic 2021 standards..

 

US based Airlines are not flying there, but others might as well, although lack of air traffic control certainly adds to the excitement. There are still plenty of civilians there including reporters who are (or will be) flying in and out.

Indeed. They already found out that the $10B they thought was in the central bank, is actually in NYC vaults.

 

The General on the ground yesterday said they could not safely get to the airport. I guess he could be lying but considering what we've seen I would bet they couldn't get to the airport safely with terrorist running around. I know I wouldn't want to ISI's next video promo getting my head cut off.

 

both Trump and Biden should have started the withdrawal of people sooner

to be fair to Trump and Biden, I think both thought people would evacuate on their own, but sadly that never happened

 

This covers most of the questions I've had and Biden bashing I've seen...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/theres-chaos-risk-afghanistan-exit-160009911.html

I'm just going to bookmark this and post it whenever I see one of these arguments... It's how I see it today...

 

good article, thanks

 

And from a national security standpoint and our war with the Islamic terrorist how are we better off?

And everyone on the left and this administration is saying Biden ONLY did what Trump had already set in place, his hands were tied, so why are you giving Biden credit rather than Trump?

 

It's a good article. The Trump/Pompeo Surrender document doesn't surprise me at all...be thankful they never completed a "deal" with China on Taiwan or with North Korea on Korea. Biden's actions, however, continue to disappointment me. Fortunately, neither Biden or Trump will ever be running for President again.

 

That is not true. We just abandoned American citizens. Even the administration has admitted this.

 

No, they didn't admitting abandoning anybody... and they haven't....

It's just going to be a different sort of evacuation effort going forward, since some claimed to be unable to get to the airport or out of the country another way before 8/31. It's sort of foolish to keep Plan A working when it's no longer effective, so you go to Plan B. That doesn't even mean Plan B is worse than Plan A, just that it's a different plan.

Much of the world has signed on to this as well... including all the resources VANATU has to offer!!

https://www.yahoo.com/now/u-97-other-countries-announce-151954655.html

 

It is available online where you can read it to your hearts content. There are detailed interactive maps online which will show you the advancing Taliban forces IN VIOLATION of the agreement starting in April. And I notice your "currently supporting" caveat. What about next month, next year? And yes how did the ISIS bombers get through those Taliban security checkpoints our own people could not get through?

The NYT published the list and I have heard it reiterating on other platforms and in the press briefings, have you missed all of those?

Their leaders are now the old guard which has been released and there is NO evidence they have changed their ultimate goal and have announced the Islamic law is now government all of Afghanistan, Sharia law.

Taliban Celebrate U.S. Exit From Afghanistan, Vow to Enforce Islamic Rule
Group’s leaders inspect Kabul airport, stage mock funerals for U.S. and NATO
https://www.wsj.com/articles/taliban-celebrate-u-s-exit-vow-to-enforce-islamic-rule-11630411843

You seem to ignore that Russia and China and Iran and Turkey and others are already offering their support while we and the NATO countries are threatening them with writing a nasty letter to them.

We are already seeing, we have been seeing for twenty years, we know what they vow. And we know their goal to spread that around the world.

I don't agree with the total withdrawal, I didn't agree with Trump's plan but knew that he had that safety valve that if the Taliban violated the agreement towards peace all hell would break loose and the agreement would be off I have been perfectly clear on that.

They have been making a fight of it since 2014 when the frontline operations were turned over to them and they have lost over 70,000 in that battle without fading away.

Which war? There have been several. He voted for the original authorization so you can't divorce him of that. He was in charge for 8 years during Obama's term. And he was not bound by anything Trump did and in fact made a drastic change in the Trump agreement going from a conditional withdrawal of forces to that core group that was left to a total unconditional surrender that even the Washington Post has a STINGING slamming critique calling it a moral failure on HIS part today in their editorial page by the editorial staff

There is no way to put lipstick on this pig and the question remains what now.

 

The "war on terror" is as big of a joke as the war on drugs and the war on poverty.

We are better off because we are no longer going further into debt spending money on a country that was always going to revert to form we left. We are better off because we are no longer sacrificing the lives of our service members in a country that does not want us there.

Because I am not on the left nor part of the administration so I do not need to parrot talking points. I give Trump credit for starting the process, I do wish he would have finished but he choose not to.

 

The pentagon spokesman has admitted that they left Americans behind. He tried to justify it.

Most people are very angry about this.

 

What contingencies are you referring to?

 

Biden never wanted to be in Afghanistan. Overseeing our surrender is a self-fulling prophecy for him. The actual "surrender document" was negotiated by Trump & Company. But, it could have been rejected by Biden and renegotiated. Problem is that would have required sending more troops back into the country and increasing our negotiating leverage get a better deal. Most of our withdrawal had already been done under the Trump administration. Biden was/is largely caught between "the rock and the hard place" and damned if he withdrew and damned if he did not.

Oh yeah..."deconflict" seems to be the new DoD word for "retreat." We never retreat, we just deconflict. Even if this is a "strategic retreat" to realign global defense policies, at least call it what it is. And, where has Congress been during all of this? Hiding under their desks in response to an Executive Branch attack on the Capitol?

 

Trumps only contingency was that someone else do it. Leaving was always gonna be ugly, that’s why nobody else had done it.

 

It could have been better, no doubt.
After the Afghan Army gave up, it could have been disastrous.

Leaving a war zone is never clean and easy.

 

Yep, the 2X impeached liar can never finish anything he started.
Always kicks the can down the road.

 

Trump's gone and the odds are overwhelming that he'll never run for public office again. If the "Surrender document" hurts anyone's political career, it's Pompeo, who may be the first West Point graduate since Wainwright (Philippines in WW II) to surrender to the enemy. IMO, it's up to Democratic and Republican moderates/centrists to form bi-partisan coalitions (and eventually possibly a third party) to end the polarization restore public confidence in government.

 

I've wanted a 3rd party for 30 yrs or so.
The 2 party system has a stanglehold on the system and will not allow it.
The people need to abort both parties, but there's too many who are too gullible.

 

Democracy hasn't failed, but the two-party system may have failed democracy.

 

Where did I defend anything? I asked a question…

Was the bulk of the materials “left” actually the property of the Afghan military?

No, I haven’t seen the list — can you cite it (preferably from a non-partisan source)

 

LOL this is so yummy.

Per the Article:

1. Trump set the deadline so it's his fault, uhh Biden moved the deadline so it's not Biden's plan??? LOL
2. Dumbass author doesn't realize Kabul didn't fall until our troops got out. He goes on and on about how it was going to be chaos running things. UHH hey dumbass that's why you get your people out before whatever deadline you set. Biden removed our troops before our people and this allowed the Taliban to take over. A 10th grader could figure this one out.
3 then this guys says that Washington couldn't have given more warning they were leaving in the cover of darkness. UHH hey dipshit they had to go save the AMERICAN EMBASSY EMPLOYEES, uhh were they informed???? I think that last hit off the bong was a little heavy for him on this dumb point.
4. We didn't abandoned our allies, uhh call the British parliament and let them know because they obviously are confused and a yahoo writer knows.

Sorry that's all I could stomach from this half ass effort from a wacko lefty reporter.

 

I think we're talking about different things. Obviously the stuff they got off the Afghan military is very unfortunate. We also left Weapons lockers and other ordinates for the afghan forces on the bases we abandoned, that was a horrible decision but hey it's what happens when you sneak off in the dark.