I have decided I have no opinion on all this. That's because I really have...

[TreasonousBastard]

no idea what happened.

Sure, I know we pulled out, the Taliban own the place without hardly firing a shot, thousands are stuck there, and the whole thing stinks.

But the back room deals, small decisions, compromises, and other myriad things that go into an operation like this won't be known for years.

We're dealing with war, and some very bad people. Not as bad as the Mongol hordes, or some others who tortured and killed for sport, but bad enough. And things have to be done, maybe some of them not so nice. Italy allied itself with Germany so Mussolini could get some African colonies back. Half of France said OK to the German occupiers, not wanting to relive the horror of the previous war. We let thousands die on the beaches on D-Day basically because it was easier to storm the beaches than other options.

And we dropped an atomic bomb, killing thousands more Japanese than we already killed firebombing Tokyo.

Bad shit happens. And sometimes you simply have to charge in and let the bodies fall. It shouldn't be, but as long as we have war, that's the way it is. I don't like it, but I'm not a God who could stop it.

Even today, we're arguing Saigon, and studying the options for the final surge into Germany. Did Ike really go for the long front because Monty wanted more action and didn't want to be Patton's anvil?

So, Biden gave the order. Maybe he could have done it better, and no doubt there were weeks of arguing over it before it happened. At some point he just said "Enough! This is what we're doing." And we did it.

And it sucks, but life sucks. And it could have been worse. That's no comfort-- no more than knowing many books will be written about all the plans and arguments.

So, it happened. It's over. And it sucks.

[msongs]

1. one suspects taliban are not invaders, they are from there and part of that culture. right now they

are the dominant part but may not be so if they are attacked by other members of the culture, the tribal heads and warlords

[TreasonousBastard]

2. Just one more small part of the puzzle-- didn't Reagan fund the Taliban, or...

al Qaeda, or whatever, to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan?

Just more of the kind of shit that can get out of hand.

[Hekate]

3. See the movie Charlie Wilson's War for an amazing take on how that happened

[TreasonousBastard]

6. I remember the movie, but not much of what happened...

I'll have to watch it again.

[Hekate]

10. It's actually rather enjoyable, about how one Southern congressman had a passion for "the 'Stans"

He had discovered that his district would allow him to do anything he wanted to do as long as he paid attention to things like their need to put up Nativity scenes in public places at Christmas.

The guy was apparently quite a character as he went along wheeling and dealing, and that’s the fun part. But as I watched it I knew all along where this was going (having read both the movie reviews and the daily paper), and that was the discordant note.

Yeah, he arranged for them to be armed, thinking he was helping them out.

[marie999]

9. The Mujahideen

[Laffy Kat]

4. I know we needed to pull-out, I just feel sick for the women and girls.

They must feel betrayed. I wish to god we could train them and arm them.

[secondwind]

5. I think they exist, these trained women. In Afghanistan

I think I saw a short documentary on trained women soldiers in Afghanistan. Will look this up later today.

[msfiddlestix]

16. That is a reality that could never be changed there.

Women and Children are the victims of War through the ages. Bush Cheney should have established an operation for Afghan women and children who were not part of the Taliban escape from there. Bush and Cheney had 8 years to do that.

It was never going to end any differently. We just prolonged the pain.

[MuseRider]

7. I would argue

that they do torture and kill for sport. What on earth could any of the women there have done to deserve what kind of life they have now? That is done just because, there is no reason for it except that they can do it to them. Same with the stoning and imprisoning women for absolutely anything they make up. So I would argue that not killing or torturing the men does not make them less bad that those who did. I do not believe killing and torturing only the women makes them better.

[TreasonousBastard]

11. I would think that targeting women the way they do makes...

them worse.

I've been reading too much ancient history lately, and the Assyrians had such an horrific reputation that sll they had to do was show up outside of town and everyone would surrender. The old and very young would then be slaughtered, with healthy men enslaved and women taken off for breeding. Still better than the way they would all be hacked to pieces if they resisted.

We have gotten a bit better, but have long way to go.

[MuseRider]

15. Interesting.

Thanks for this answer. I have read a LOT of things but never really ventured into ancient history much. That is hard to read but not at all, not one bit surprising.

Personally I think the Mother is getting ready to shed herself of the riff raff known as human beings. Sadly good creatures will go too but she needs a restart for sure. Shaking us off as the annoying and thoughtless fleas we are. Hope for her healing, this is a really nice planet.

I think I must have misunderstood your comment, my meaning being I thought you said we were better.

[Hekate]

8. If you get MSNBC at all I highly recommend DVRing both Nicolle Wallace & Rachel Maddow...

They seldom have an off day or bad guest, but today they were both superb.

Rachel had the sleepless Richard Engel on from Afghanistan, and she let him say his piece in full. She also gave a stunning rundown of how Trump and Pompeo set this up with their “deal” with the Taliban 18 months ago, complete with telling the Taliban when we’d be pulling out.

The Taliban used their time to the fullest, going out to villages and provinces and making deals of their own, all the way up and down the line. So when the great day came, the so-called president flew out with his family and friends and a shit tonne of cash — and the Taliban took Kabul without firing a shot. They took possession of the Capitol rather professionally, in the sense that unlike our 1/6 insurrectionists they were neatly dressed and didn’t feel the need to desecrate the building. They now have themselves a country. That doesn’t make them nice people, but it does show they are a lot smarter that we’ve given them credit for.

Furthermore, while I'm doing this brain dump, Rachel posed 2 questions about the US contributions to this fiasco, namely incredible sums of money and incredible amounts of military hardware. The country was poor when we came and it is still poor now. The elites skimmed off most of the money and the poor in the city got jobs building fancy gated neighborhoods for them, in full-on dictator-chic (as she called it). The poor in the countryside got approximately bupkis.

As for the military hardware, a lot of it has been destroyed by our troops on the way out, but so much remains that she reckons the Taliban are now the best-equipped of their kind in the world. All that and their own country, too.

Nicolle’s show is called Deadline Whitehouse and airs at 4:00 Eastern/1:00 California. They decided to give her 2 whole hours, but I can’t always do all of it.

Rachel’s show is of course The Rachel Maddow Show, and airs at 9:00 pm Eastern/6:00 pm California, and repeats at 12:00 midnight Eastern/ 9:00 pm California.

[TreasonousBastard]

12. I caught some of each of them today. This seems simply...

a repeat of Nam and our escapades in Central America.

To this day no one knows who blew up the Maine, but that forced McKinley to go to war with Spain to get Cuba for the protection of the canal, and making Guatemala safe for United Fruit.

Same shit, different day.

[betsuni]

13. The coverage I saw was so horrible, all blaming Biden: failed, catastrophe, disaster, Biden's

blaming Trump and voters will quickly tire of it, first the border chaos and now this, everybody's going to totally vote for Republicans. May have all been Fox News. I had to stop and watch movies until I calmed down. Now watching Rachel.

[Hekate]

17. I kept the TV off for 3 or so days, knowing events on the ground were horrible & news presentation

…was going to be ghastly, blaming Biden, ignoring Trump.

This chaos was all foretold, dammit, and I didn’t need a crystal ball. I wanted there to be some distance from the initial shock, and there were only a handful of folks I wanted to hear from.

sigh

[abqtommy]

14. A few years ago on one of the anniversaries of the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan I

researched the firebombing of Tokyo*. The estimates of civilian casualties in that operation were
120,000 to 200,000. And that was using only conventional incendiary bombs. That's certainly
equivalent to the deaths caused by the atomic blasts. Thanks for the reminder that War is indeed its own hell.

*I found this information on a website that lists the casualties of many different bombing operations
during WWII.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_of_strategic_bombing

[CTyankee]

20. Lest we think that only the Japanese suffered firebombing we did the same thing to Dresden.

But only Japan got nuked.

[ismnotwasm]

18. This has been in the works for years

Obama began the withdrawal. Trump did jack shit except pretend to “make deals”

There was no way this was NOT going to happen.

So I do have an opinion, I guess, but mostly, yeah, it sucks.

[GoodRaisin]

19. Winner.

Only the people involved in the planning and execution know what has happened and continuing to happen. So, to go onto TV and social media spewing all this blame over the withdrawal is pretty dumb. Notice that everyone knocking Joe hasn't presented their own "bellwether" plans. Just a lot of mindless conjecture and blame.