The United States caused this clusterfuck situation and pulling out in an unorganized way could lead to a humanitarian crisis that leads to more people getting killed or our troops getting killed. I mean I get it and I want our troops gone as well but I feel that ship has sailed and we are obligated to help those counties as much as they want help.
I really don't think either Russia or China look at the mess that is the war in Afghanistan and say "oh shit, we want some of that".
The Taliban is a new name, but the US armed, trained and in many cases brought in religious fucknuts from other countries in order to lure the USSR into Afghanistan and then later to get them bogged down in that mess.
Ok but what do the actual Afghan citizens think about this? Do they want the Taliban to rule over them in the power vaccuum created by the US pulling out?
I mean the US itself doesn't think the conflict is winnable as evidenced by the Afghanistan papers.
I'm not a military strategist or a historian so I don't know. But we must have a better solution than cut and run...no?
We could keep killing Afghanis, radicalizing more people and funding corrupt officials and warlords or we could just admit it was a giant ~40 year mess of our own making and leave.
It just feels like there is no good solution for the Afghan people.
Ohhhh no less US military in the Middle East............
There isn't unfortunately. I would love it if there was some hidden strategy we could activate but if we haven't figured it out in 20 years....
Their messaging is always atrocious. It seems so obvious, but they always defer to being the other side of the coin and giving up the high ground.
I'm going to sound terrible for saying this...but is oppression by the Taliban really that much worse than oppression via the US Military?
We can and should give them and easy and clear pass for asylum in the US.
I can already see the GOP screams of "DEMS LETTIN' TERRYWRISTS INTO OUR CUNT'RY"
This is the logic that has kept us there for nearly 20 years.
If we just abandon Afghanistan and it becomes Syria situation then no I don't consider that an acceptable outcome. Sure we are no longer involved but I'd rather not make the situation worse. If we have to provide aid indefinitely then that is our punishment for getting involved to begin with. Otherwise we should do an automatic refugee offer and pullout.
Because withdrawing from a place doesn't necessarily mean an improvement on the ground, prime example being the rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria after the US got out. If you want the US to withdraw from Afghanistan that's fine by me, but that means you forfeit the right to be surprised when within a few years the Taliban runs the entire place, takes away every single right girls and women have there and straight op execute anyone who doesn't agree with them. Same with Iraq and Syria, withdraw all you want but now you're just giving Turkey and its jihadi friends free play against the Kurds with Russia also taking a slice of the pie.
Yeah it's basically this
I have 0 faith he's gonna do it in a smart way or for the right reasons but whatever.
Yeah, I basically agree with these sentiments.
Yup. He's going to try and take credit for a drawdown. And then he and the GOP will blame Biden if the situation happens to call for the original level of troops.
There isn't. The least bad outcome is probably withdrawal coupled with accepting large amounts of refugees/asylum seekers.
There are multiple bad things in the univers
This was an already planned withdrawal for spring of next year. Trump basically just told the Afghan govt, after negotiating directly with the Taliban and leaving them out of the talks earlier this year, that he is now not even giving them the few months of cover they had left to put a plan in place.
I mean, it was? Like even government officials and department of defense and military people admit this.
Americans get super concerned about the suffering of poor Muslims the moment someone suggest that we might stop bombing them. Not before, not after.
America hasn't left Syria. Don't worry, the Kurds are still guarding the oil fields for us.
It was far from a net positive, but the replacement of the Taliban with an attempt at representative government was at least something.
That's what we have been trying to accomplish for at least the last 10 years of the conflict.
