Joe Biden 2021

[Beantown Express 2.0 6,586]

This all Russia's fault.  If they would have not ended their war with Afghanistan and kept fighting it all these years we wouldn't have had to start our own war with Afghanistan.  Actually, I am glad we are getting out because there was no good end to being in Afghanistan and it was always going to end with the Taliban back in charge.  I am upset about us leaving the interrupters and people like that without getting them out.  That is super shitty.  I am also furious at the politicization of this by the Right when many were for this when Trump announced it.  Blaming Biden is like blaming Gerald Ford for the Vietnam War since the fall of Saigon happened when he was in office.    It was a mistake to go in to Afghanistan and it was a mistake to stay.  We just need to tell the Taliban we will bomb the shit out of your country if you commit acts of terror against the US or if you harbor terrorists that fuck with the US.

[Dnaguy 12,582]

On 8/14/2021 at 2:01 PM, Dbeasy said:

Trump does nothing for four years on Afghanistan other than talk about leaving, which emboldened the Taliban. He leaves office after accomplishing zero. Now Biden has to clean up the mess, and because the Democrats are such horrible communicators, everyone is going to blame him for the Afghan government implosion that has been all but certain for years. Sigh. 

 

[Beau Vine 55,839]

50 minutes ago, Beantown Express 2.0 said:

I am upset about us leaving the interrupters

Fuck 'em.  Those people are just rude.

[Laga4 1,270]

 

Getting out of Afghanistan is about the only thing I ever agreed with Trump about. 

[Underdog 29,108]

Trump had a plan? 

[Biff Tannen 46,069]

1 hour ago, Laga4 said:

 

Getting out of Afghanistan is about the only thing I ever agreed with Trump about. 

That was fucking weird right?  Why was he anti-war?  Wouldn’t expect him to be pro-war, necessarily, but that was like the one thing he actually held a consistent position on. 

[Aqua Buddha 14,784]

3 hours ago, Laga4 said:

 

Getting out of Afghanistan is about the only thing I ever agreed with Trump about. 

But he didn't get us out of Afghanistan.  He made Joe Biden do it.

[washparkhorn 9,968]

It was the Soviets' fault. And our fault for arming religious fanatics to fight the Soviets. Bin Laden made a name for himself fighting Commies. We didn't have a plan for what would enter the void left by the Soviets. 

I am sorry for those left behind. 

[SmokeyTheBear 5,569]

13 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

That was fucking weird right?  Why was he anti-war?  Wouldn’t expect him to be pro-war, necessarily, but that was like the one thing he actually held a consistent position on. 

Easy political points since most of our country wanted out of there and done with war in general. We will be hungry for it again soon. 

[Neonmoon 38,130]

Speaking of Russia 

 

[Buzzrock 15,118]

But he didn't get us out of Afghanistan.  He made Joe Biden do it.

Favorite tweet so far is that the rapid withdrawal from Afghanistan was a gift from Trump to Putin, facilitated by Biden so that Trump wouldn’t retake office.

Talk about some nutbag whiplash.

[workswithseed 2,201]

I was told f-15s and nukes would all you need to stop a populace.

[atomheartbevo 90,557]

5 hours ago, mdmost said:

Sadly, Afghanistan was going to fall if we did this in 2021 or 2031. I just worry what year we'll be right back there again. 

1234. I don't like how it ended, but 20 years should have been enough for the Afghanistan people to be ready for this.

There's a shitload of women and girls who are going to be raped/enslaved/etc., who, for most, if not all, of their lives, didn't have to worry about the Taliban. 

[Aqua Buddha 14,784]

3 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

1234. I don't like how it ended, but 20 years should have been enough for the Afghanistan people to be ready for this.

There's a shitload of women and girls who are going to be raped/enslaved/etc., who, for most, if not all, of their lives, didn't have to worry about the Taliban. 

The truth is large parts of the Afghanistan population don't care about the girls and are fine with that.

[Eskimohorn 5,677]

Reading a bio on US Grant, there’s chapter that reminds me of our occupation of Afghanistan.

As President during Reconstruction, he regularly cracked down on the KKK. In Louisiana alone, they estimated over 2,000 murders of black citizens in the decade following the Civil War. The terror was a well-organized effort to consolidate power and voting rights from the recently freed blacks.

Grant used federal troops until he didn’t. He was told in no uncertain terms that he would lose support within the Republican party. Even many abolitionists had moved on and grew tired of propping up the Carpetbagger authorities in the South. So, the mid term election of 1874 started the end of Reconstruction and beginning of Jim Crow.

What exactly could Grant do? He followed Andrew Johnson, who really fucked up the start of Reconstruction. How long could federal troops stay in southern states? Fighting states, citizens, supreme court decisions, the first great depression, and his own party, his options were limited.

And the white supremacists, like the Taliban, were better-armed, more violent and devious. They knew they could just wait it out until the Feds left. They had bad intentions, support in the press, access to weapons, and were embedded in a political party.

[The Ace of Aces 5,366]

1 hour ago, Aqua Buddha said:

The truth is large parts of the Afghanistan population don't care about the girls and are fine with that.

By a large part, you mean virtually every Afghan man. It's a graveyard for more than empires for a reason.

[GhostOfTomJoad 9,491]

Biden during his address on Afghanistan just a minute ago. "I will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth president. I am the President of the United States of America, and the buck stops with me."

 

[Beantown Express 2.0 6,586]

F the haters but that was one of the best and most truthful speeches I have heard a president give.  

[PenelopeWitherspoon 19,280]

 

10 minutes ago, GhostOfTomJoad said:

Biden during his address on Afghanistan just a minute ago. "I will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth president. I am the President of the United States of America, and the buck stops with me."

 

 

4 minutes ago, Beantown Express 2.0 said:

F the haters but that was one of the best and most truthful speeches I have heard a president give.  

This right here.  This was never going to go well.  We needed out.  

Edited August 16, 2021 by PenelopeWitherspoon

[The Ace of Aces 5,366]

15 minutes ago, Beantown Express 2.0 said:

F the haters but that was one of the best and most truthful speeches I have heard a president give.  

He'll need to address the "why" of the evacuation fuckup*, but agreed.

* he can say, rightly, the government making secret deals with the Taliban and fleeing overnight fucked their plans, but he'll need to explain what the plans were originally. Anything after the government bolts is crisis actions and can't be explained imo. 

[bad_teammate 13,483]

HUGE respect to Joseph Robinette on this one. Massive.

Mass media is shitting itself dry because it's rich lobbyist/industry friends are no longer going to get paid off this branch of the foreverwar

Damn, Joe, huge respect and love

[bad_teammate 13,483]

9 minutes ago, The Ace of Aces said:

He'll need to address the "why" of the evacuation fuckup*, but agreed.

nah, he should just ignore any questions about that. Irrelevant.

['stache 22,118]

3 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

HUGE respect to Joseph Robinette on this one. Massive.

Mass media is shitting itself dry because it's rich lobbyist/industry friends are no longer going to get paid off this branch of the foreverwar

Damn, Joe, huge respect and love

Oh they'll keep getting paid, they just need to find another reason. As long as Jim Inhofe's corpse continues its Weekend at Bernies routine, the money spigot will remain wide the fuck open.

[Michael Knight 13,198]

19 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

That was fucking weird right?  Why was he anti-war?  Wouldn’t expect him to be pro-war, necessarily, but that was like the one thing he actually held a consistent position on. 

He was anti-Bush, because Bush was a meanie to him. He didn't give two fucks about war or the soldiers

[Bullneck 19,454]

4 hours ago, workswithseed said:

I was told f-15s and nukes would all you need to stop a populace.

This jumps off the page.

[52-80 19,374]

Truthful president 

 

“its cuz the afghan army”

[Js1 87,008]

Was today the today Joe Biden became President?

Fucking A Joe, said all the right things and is owning this decision.  Being President is about making the hard choice, not the easy choice or the one that will poll the best.  And, let's not forget, Joe Biden is the first President since, Eisenhower I think (?), who actually sent a child to combat.  

[Bullneck 19,454]

40 minutes ago, GhostOfTomJoad said:

Biden during his address on Afghanistan just a minute ago. "I will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth president. I am the President of the United States of America, and the buck stops with me."

 

 

34 minutes ago, Beantown Express 2.0 said:

F the haters but that was one of the best and most truthful speeches I have heard a president give.  

There won't be any political price for him to pay because most people don't care much about Afghanistan.  

It's horrible what's going on there but it's not worth any more of our blood.

[Bullneck 19,454]

2 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

“its cuz the afghan army”

 

We can't care more than them.  If that's the case, it's a hopeless cause.

[Js1 87,008]

2 minutes ago, Bullneck said:

We can't care more than them.  If that's the case, it's a hopeless cause.

If they can't stand up and defend their own country, why should we? That's not our god damn job. 

[workswithseed 2,201]

4 minutes ago, Bullneck said:

This jumps off the page.

Yeah, it was stupid to say that after we all that work we just did lost to proto aggy.

[aggie08 21,745]

3 minutes ago, workswithseed said:

Yeah, it was stupid to say that after we all that work we just did lost to proto aggy.

English, mother fucker.

[52-80 19,374]

4 minutes ago, Bullneck said:

We can't care more than them.  If that's the case, it's a hopeless cause.

Absolutely true. But the inheritance of the Afghan mess, and the duty to clean it properly comes with the territory.
 

He ran for this position. He acknowledged the legacy. And he promised this in April 

 

“We will not conduct a hasty rush to the exit.  We’ll do it — we’ll do it responsibly, deliberately, and safely.”

 

whoops

[workswithseed 2,201]

Just now, aggie08 said:

English, mother fucker.

Sorry, take out the we, add in that Biden shouldn't have said "we have f-15s and nukes."

[Bullneck 19,454]

2 hours ago, workswithseed said:

Yeah, it was stupid to say that after we all that work we just did lost to proto aggy.

 

2 hours ago, 52-80 said:

Absolutely true. But the inheritance of the Afghan mess, and the duty to clean it properly comes with the territory.
 

He ran for this position. He acknowledged the legacy. And he promised this in April 

 

“We will not conduct a hasty rush to the exit.  We’ll do it — we’ll do it responsibly, deliberately, and safely.”

 

whoops

Actually, no.  It's not "our" mess.  We were there to eliminate terrorist training grounds.  The monkey bar camps.  That's it.  Blow those up and go home. 

By the way, the Afghan government has known for some time we were leaving.  I mean, we're allowed to leave, right?  We're not there to create a 51st state.  Their duty is to not run away after decades of our sacrifice.  

Edited August 16, 2021 by Bullneck

[wildcat09 29,569]

I don't think we can wash our hands of our responsibility for what the Afghan government was. It was a shitty, corrupt little tinpot fake-democracy that was good for helping us carry out counter-insurgency operations with substantial US support and nothing else, because that's what we designed it to be. That's what we always design our puppet governments to be. But staying another 20 or even 40 years wouldn't have fixed that problem. 

[Anastasis 23,704]

4 minutes ago, Bullneck said:

 

Actually, no.  It's not "our" mess.  We were there to eliminate terrorist training grounds.  The monkey bar camps.  That's it.  Blow those up and go home. 

By the way, the Afghan government has known for some time we were leaving.  I mean, we're allow to leave, right?  We're not there to create a 51 state.  Their duty is to not run away after decades of our sacrifice.  

I agree with this sentiment.  But I also think that the problem is that once you set up shop for two decades it becomes more and more our mess every day we stay there.  We should have got the fuck out of dodge years and years ago.  Get in, break shit, get out. 

['stache 22,118]

I think all prior presidents knew it would be a fucking disaster and chose endless war over bad press. I'm happy this president had the balls to pull the plug and take the criticisms. I think he'll gain more support than anything he loses. The vast majority of people criticizing are people who would criticize no matter what anyway, like tan suits, because they are position-less, value-less sycophants who only care to hate the "other" guy.

Edited August 16, 2021 by 'stache

[bad_teammate 13,483]

23 minutes ago, Bullneck said:

We can't care more than them.  If that's the case, it's a hopeless cause.

 

20 minutes ago, Js1 said:

If they can't stand up and defend their own country, why should we? That's not our god damn job. 

 

lol what the fuck is this horseshit?

[Js1 87,008]

1 minute ago, 'stache said:

I think all prior presidents knew it would be a fucking disaster and chose endless war over bad press. I'm happy this president had the balls to pull the plug and take the criticisms. I think he'll gain more support than anything he looses. The vast majority of people criticizing are people who would criticize no matter what, like tan suits, because they are positionless sycophants who only care to hate the "other" guy.

Right.  And the media, because they spent years cheerleading this war and they need war to make money.  

I will take, everyday, the President who was willing to take a big giant L 7 months into his first term for the right decision, over the last 3 presidents who kept kicking it down the road.  Even Trump made sure to kick it into his hypothetical second term, where it couldn't hurt him electorally. 

[jimmyjazz 46,990]

Objectively, I don't think it's a problem with a quality solution, whether that's us being there propping up a very fragile peace or us out of there letting all hell break loose.  "We" as a people do tend to feel that all humans have rights and tend to err on the side of protecting those rights.  At some point, "we" probably need to figure out that nation-building across vast cultural chasms just isn't possible, which makes it hard to reconcile "protection" with "doing any good".

Beyond that, "we" need to stop creating these strawman international policies to prop up the war industry here at home.

[David Dennison 19,442]

17 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Objectively, I don't think it's a problem with a quality solution, whether that's us being there propping up a very fragile peace or us out of there letting all hell break loose.  "We" as a people do tend to feel that all humans have rights and tend to err on the side of protecting those rights.  At some point, "we" probably need to figure out that nation-building across vast cultural chasms just isn't possible, which makes it hard to reconcile "protection" with "doing any good".

Beyond that, "we" need to stop creating these strawman international policies to prop up the war industry here at home.

Ike knew some things.

[bad_teammate 13,483]

It also doesn't help that our mass media creates a cartoon version of world affairs that fuels the White Man's Burden mindset seen among liberals and conservatives alike

[jimmyjazz 46,990]

15 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

It also doesn't help that our mass media creates a cartoon version of world affairs that fuels the White Man's Burden mindset seen among liberals and conservatives alike

Media doesn't create, it reacts.

[Bullneck 19,454]

2 hours ago, bad_teammate said:

 

 

lol what the fuck is this horseshit?

What do you mean?  Be specific.

(Edit: just read the three following posts from JS1, JJ, and DD.  If you're still confused put in a written request and I'll try to get to it before October).

Edited August 16, 2021 by Bullneck

[bad_teammate 13,483]

1 minute ago, Bullneck said:

What do you mean?  Be specific.

The "well I guess they don't love FREEDOM enough to fight for it!" horseshit.

[Aqua Buddha 14,784]

2 hours ago, Js1 said:

If they can't stand up and defend their own country, why should we? That's not our god damn job. 

 Be glad to trade you some Afghan. Ain't never been fired and only dropped once.

[skeeter 455]

On 8/15/2021 at 4:49 PM, JimmyJames said:

Trump is bitching that Biden didn’t follow his “plan.” That means of course that Biden is doing the right thing. 

[Johnny Sack 8,397]

So brave.  Pussy refused to take questions and went back to his vacation.

Of course the cloak roomers praise him.

[bad_teammate 13,483]

Real courage is keeping men in foreign nations dying for no reasons and THEN going on vacation