Afghanistan Update: Islamic State claims responsibility for multiple bombings over last two days, including two Shia mosques

[SuperSpreader]

4 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

who asked this backwater what they think

 

 

We should economically sanction each one of them. 

[PaladinSolo]

1 hour ago, Brick said:

Wait I keep hearing that the war could have ended as early as December of 2001 with the capture of killing of Osama bin Laden. That is all kinds of infuriating if true. What's the story behind this? 

The Taliban offered to surrender basically, and were willing to hand Bin Laden over but just wanted proof, Bush instead ignored them and here we are.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

The Taliban is keeping their word as usual.

 

Afghanistan: Taliban carrying out door-to door manhunt, report says

WWW.BBC.COM

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The militants are searching for those who worked with Nato forces, a UN document warns.

 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

24 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

The Taliban is keeping their word as usual.

 

Afghanistan: Taliban carrying out door-to door manhunt, report says

WWW.BBC.COM

---

The militants are searching for those who worked with Nato forces, a UN document warns.

 

I'm guessing they said one thing in English and another in their native tongue

[Signifyin(g)Monkey]

10 hours ago, Kal-El814 said:

The American government made no small effort to convince the American public that this was a just and necessary endeavor, having someone say after the fact that we shouldn’t have been fooled is… a take.

 

Even after six years to see what it had gotten itself into, two-thirds of the country still thought it was a good idea.
 

The elites certainly aren’t blameless, but what gave them the power to keep this all going is the intellectual laziness of the median American.  (which is more or less what I think of as the ‘you’ discussed in the article, though the author might mean something different)

 

There was also, from the get go, a vocal antiwar movement this time around—it wasn’t like the median American was living in a heavily militarized Nazi or fascist-esque society where no alternative was openly presented.  The average American knew there was a choice—the way public opposition helped end the war in Vietnam is now a well-known historical narrative.

 

And they went ahead and chose poorly for 20 years anyway.

 

Id like to think they learned their lesson, but who are we kidding, they’re probably going to elect some version of Tom Cotton president in a few years and get right back to cheering the next campaign to bomb some brown people, as Carlin put it.

 

FWIW, very few if any of the people on this board probably fit the mold of this ‘median American’ of which I speak.  Y’all are not the ‘you’.

 

 

[Jason]

https://thepakistandaily.com/taliban-executes-is-leader-abu-omar-khorasani-one-day-after-afghanistan-conquest/

 

[Jwheel86]

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Trump’s Pledge to Exit Afghanistan Was a Ruse, His Final SecDef Says

WWW.DEFENSEONE.COM

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Chris Miller now says talk of a full withdrawal was a “play” to convince a Taliban-led government to keep U.S. counterterrorism forces.

 

 

Quote

 

President Donald Trump’s top national security officials never intended to pull all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, according to new statements by Chris Miller, Trump’s last acting defense secretary. 

 

Miller said the president’s public promise to finish withdrawing U.S. forces by May 1, as negotiated with the Taliban, was actually a “play” that masked the Trump administration’s true intentions: to convince Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to quit or accept a bitter power-sharing agreement with the Taliban, and to keep some U.S. troops in Afghanistan for counterrorism missions.

 

And by the end of 2020, when he was acting defense secretary, Miller asserted, many Trump administration officials expected that the United States would be able to broker a new shared government in Afghanistan composed primarily of Taliban officials. The new government would then permit U.S. forces to remain in country to support the Afghan military and fight terrorist elements. 

 

 

 

Quote

“The whole policy strategy going forward was ‘Ghani is going to have to deal with the Taliban.’ And it wasn’t going to be a 50-50 split between the Afghan government and Taliban. We knew that. It was going to be 75-25 [majority Taliban], and then you flip this thing into an interim government,” he said.

 

 

Quote

But Miller said there was never meant to be a full withdrawal; the “play” was to persuade the Ghani administration to accept an interim, coalition government or quit as the Taliban demanded. A new government then would be ratified by loya jirga, a traditional Pashtun legal assembly of tribal leaders, which likely would have transferred key ministerial posts and other powers to the Taliban. 

 

 

I have no idea if this was a stroke of genius or pure delusion.

[cusideabelincoln]

 

5 hours ago, Signifyin(g)Monkey said:

 

Even after six years to see what it had gotten itself into, two-thirds of the country still thought it was a good idea.
 

The elites certainly aren’t blameless, but what gave them the power to keep this all going is the intellectual laziness of the median American.  (which is more or less what I think of as the ‘you’ discussed in the article, though the author might mean something different)

 

There was also, from the get go, a vocal antiwar movement this time around—it wasn’t like the median American was living in a heavily militarized Nazi or fascist-esque society where no alternative was openly presented.  The average American knew there was a choice—the way public opposition helped end the war in Vietnam is now a well-known historical narrative.

 

And they went ahead and chose poorly for 20 years anyway.

 

Id like to think they learned their lesson, but who are we kidding, they’re probably going to elect some version of Tom Cotton president in a few years and get right back to cheering the next campaign to bomb some brown people, as Carlin put it.

 

FWIW, very few if any of the people on this board probably fit the mold of this ‘median American’ of which I speak.  Y’all are not the ‘you’.

 

 

 

Sitting at my work's lunch table with your typical midwestern median American, this guy turns to me after briefly glancing at the Fox-News headline on the TV and says, "It's crazy these people just took over an entire country.  Hey, do you want to go over there with me and just kill them all?"  People really have no idea what's going on, and they have no idea what it's like to live a slightly different life nor do they really care to know.  His statements demonstrated this ignorance, which is exacerbated by bombastic news clips.

 

3 hours ago, Jwheel86 said:

 

 

Was she only letting children on and was there free pizza on the plane?

[Brick]

6 hours ago, PaladinSolo said:

The Taliban offered to surrender basically, and were willing to hand Bin Laden over but just wanted proof, Bush instead ignored them and here we are.

 

What the, and I can't stress this enough, fuck?!

[Jason]

5 hours ago, Jwheel86 said:

 

 

It's a trap! She's probably sending them straight to the pizza basement.

[thewhyteboar]

The same shitheads who got us into this war don't want to ever end it. Every pundit/politician who got us into Iraq and Afghanistan are still around, advocating for Forever War.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

50 minutes ago, thewhyteboar said:

The same shitheads who got us into this war don't want to ever end it. Every pundit/politician who got us into Iraq and Afghanistan are still around, advocating for Forever War.

They may also be working for media companies or ngos with significant uae and ksa ties

[Anathema-]

"This war is your fault," claims Tom Nichols, inexplicably wearing a hot dog suit. 

[Signifyin(g)Monkey]

31 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

They may also be working for media companies or ngos with significant uae and ksa ties

The military contractors that cashed in on this with the help of their buddies in the Bush clan and elsewhere in the government are looking around and going “Wait, what?  Why would you ever want this to end?!  Go back dammit! $$$!”

 

In case anyone is unclear on this point, btw:

Quote

More than 70 American companies and individuals have won up to $8 billion in contracts for work in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan over the last two years, according to a new study by the Center for Public Integrity.
…

Nearly 60 percent of the companies had employees or board members who either served in or had close ties to the executive branch for Republican and Democratic administrations, for members of Congress of both parties, or at the highest levels of the military.

 

[CitizenVectron]

7 hours ago, Brick said:

 

What the, and I can't stress this enough, fuck?!

 

Have you also heard that Saddam Hussein offered to leave Iraq in exile in 2003 for $1 billion and hand the country over to the US, but the US refused? The point of these invasions wasn't liberation, it was to make people a hell of a lot of money. Can't make money unless guns are fired.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

14 hours ago, PaladinSolo said:

The Taliban offered to surrender basically, and were willing to hand Bin Laden over but just wanted proof, Bush instead ignored them and here we are.

 

7 hours ago, Brick said:

 

What the, and I can't stress this enough, fuck?!

 

 

Quote

On Oct. 14, 2001, the Taliban offered to discuss giving Osama bin Laden, then the lead of al Qaeda, to a third country for trial if the United States provided evidence of bin Laden’s involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks. The White House rejected the offer.

 

[CitizenVectron]

 

[osxmatt]

29 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

 

 

 

Yep. This Washington Post article has been making the rounds the past few days.

 

Bush Rejects Taliban Offer On Bin Laden - The Washington Post

WWW.WASHINGTONPOST.COM

 

[Jwheel86]

 

This will end well. 

[Uaarkson]

The longest running tragedy in modern history

[Jwheel86]

 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

4 minutes ago, Jwheel86 said:

 

What's the damn point of our worldwide military presence if we can't use it for refugee resettlement in an emergency

[CayceG]

8 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

What's the damn point of our worldwide military presence if we can't use it for refugee resettlement in an emergency

 

I think the point is that that's NOT what the worldwide military presence is for. 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

Just now, CayceG said:

 

I think the point is that that's NOT what the worldwide military presence is for. 

Hm maybe we should shut the whole thing down until we can figure out what the hell is going on

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

 

 

[Zaku3]

3 hours ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

Hm maybe we should shut the whole thing down until we can figure out what the hell is going on

 

Keeping the empire going and enforcing hegemony.

[CitizenVectron]

5 hours ago, Jwheel86 said:

 

 

If only there was a large country that could accept these refugees. A country with huge global power, and with the guilt of causing the situation in the first place.

 

[Jason]

1 hour ago, CitizenVectron said:

 

If only there was a large country that could accept these refugees. A country with huge global power, and with the guilt of causing the situation in the first place.

 

 

new phone who dis

[Air_Delivery]

3 hours ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

 

 

I lay some blame on Bidens feet but I think the main reason for this shit show was the US military brass bullshitting through the last decade or so of the war.

[Fizzzzle]

I think the people saying "we should have pulled all the allies and civilians out before the military" are kind of missing that it seems like even doing that would have led to collapse just as fast. Of course hindsight and all that, but people would have surely noticed "hey, weird, the Americans just evacuated the entire embassy, maybe something is afoot" and the afghan military would have just given up then and there, and we'd be in the same situation.

[Brick]

10 hours ago, CitizenVectron said:

 

Have you also heard that Saddam Hussein offered to leave Iraq in exile in 2003 for $1 billion and hand the country over to the US, but the US refused? The point of these invasions wasn't liberation, it was to make people a hell of a lot of money. Can't make money unless guns are fired.

 

I can't tell if you're joking or not and that was an actual thing. 

 

9 hours ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

On Oct. 14, 2001, the Taliban offered to discuss giving Osama bin Laden, then the lead of al Qaeda, to a third country for trial if the United States provided evidence of bin Laden’s involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks. The White House rejected the offer.

 

Why? Wasn't there plenty of proof? Didn't bin Laden admit on camera to the attacks? Was it just because America wanted to be the one to imprison him and not some other country, which could have gone poorly, maybe even leading to his escape or something because of a lack of trust with other countries in the region to properly keep him imprisoned? 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

1 hour ago, Brick said:

Why? Wasn't there plenty of proof? Didn't bin Laden admit on camera to the attacks? Was it just because America wanted to be the one to imprison him and not some other country, which could have gone poorly, maybe even leading to his escape or something because of a lack of trust with other countries in the region to properly keep him imprisoned? 

 

If OBL was going to be put on trial, it was going to be in an American court and not in a third country or the ICC.

 

 

1 hour ago, Brick said:

I can't tell if you're joking or not and that was an actual thing. 

 

Bush thought Saddam was prepared to flee: report | Reuters

WWW.REUTERS.COM

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Saddam Hussein was prepared to take $1 billion and go into exile before the Iraq war, according to a transcript of talks between U.S. President George W. Bush and an ally, Spanish newspaper El Pais reported on Wednesday.

 

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

5 hours ago, CitizenVectron said:

 

If only there was a large country that could accept these refugees. A country with huge global power, and with the guilt of causing the situation in the first place.

 

Russia won’t take them. 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

1 hour ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

If OBL was going to be put on trial, it was going to be in an American court and not in a third country or the ICC.

 

 

 

Bush thought Saddam was prepared to flee: report | Reuters

WWW.REUTERS.COM

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Saddam Hussein was prepared to take $1 billion and go into exile before the Iraq war, according to a transcript of talks between U.S. President George W. Bush and an ally, Spanish newspaper El Pais reported on Wednesday.

 

Iirc saddam also thought the war talk was bluster. Miscalculations left and right!