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


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I guess the time is about right for these types of articles to show up:

 

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WWW.NEWYORKER.COM

It’s a dishonorable end that weakens U.S. standing in the world, perhaps irrevocably.

 

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It’s not just an epic defeat for the United States. The fall of Kabul may serve as a bookend for the era of U.S. global power. In the nineteen-forties, the United States launched the Great Rescue to help liberate Western Europe from the powerful Nazi war machine. It then used its vast land, sea, and air power to defeat the formidable Japanese empire in East Asia. Eighty years later, the U.S. is engaged in what historians may someday call a Great Retreat from a ragtag militia that has no air power or significant armor and artillery, in one of the poorest countries in the world.

 

 

From my perspective, the global standing of the United States of America was irreparably, irrevocably weakened on 20 March 2003.  Everything that's happened since that point onwards has merely been the supporting evidence.

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This really does shed some light on Biden's actions over the last several days:

 

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WWW.BUSINESSINSIDER.COM

"F--- that, we don't have to worry about that. We did it in Vietnam, Nixon and Kissinger got away with it," Biden reportedly said.

 

 

And apparently this attitude ain't exactly new:

 

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When Biden was a senator in 1975, he objected to providing funding to help evacuate South Vietnamese, many of whom were desperate to get out of the country as it fell to North Vietnamese troops. "The US has no obligation to evacuate one, or 100,001, South Vietnamese," Biden said at the time, though after Saigon fell he did vote in favor of a resolution welcoming Vietnamese refugees. 

 

 

 

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13 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

This really does shed some light on Biden's actions over the last several days:

 

611aaaaca4b07b0018adce7b?width=1200&form
WWW.BUSINESSINSIDER.COM

"F--- that, we don't have to worry about that. We did it in Vietnam, Nixon and Kissinger got away with it," Biden reportedly said.

 

 

And apparently this attitude ain't exactly new:

 

 

 

War never changes.

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I stand behind my decision...I always promised the American people that I would be straight with you. The truth is this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated, so what happened, Afghanistan’s political leaders gave up and fled the country, the Afghan military collapsed, sometimes without even trying to fight.

 

There is no chance one more year, five more years or 20 more years of American boots on the ground would make any difference.

 

It is wrong to ask American troops when Afghanistan’s would not.

 

How many more generations of America’s daughters and sons would you have me send to fight Afghanistan’s civil war?

 

 

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2 minutes ago, Jason said:
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WWW.THEONION.COM

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN—In a development that sent shock waves through the international community and negated two decades of effort by American-led coalition forces, reports...

 

I completely misread that headline by reading "couple" as two people, which strangely enough was not any stranger than the actual Onion headline.

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11 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

That speech was essentially:

 

I made my decision.  I'm sticking with my decision.  If you don't like my decision, then go fuck yourself - I'm the President of the United States of America and you're not.

 

 

I kinda respect this. There was some shade thrown at Obama too. 

 

"I opposed the surge in 2009 as Vice President."

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3 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

I really don’t think he could have said anything better without absolute bullshitting.

 

The speech was ENTIRELY directed at the domestic political audience, right down to what borders on "victim blaming" of the (former) Afghan government and military.

 

But if you're someone who worked with the US forces and is currently huddled with your family in a house in Kabul hoping against hope to get out before the Taliban discovers you, that speech was absolutely NOT reassuring in the least.

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1 minute ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

The speech was ENTIRELY directed at the domestic political audience, right down to what borders on "victim blaming" of the (former) Afghan government and military.

 

But if you're someone who worked with the US forces and is currently huddled with your family in a house in Kabul hoping against hope to get out before the Taliban discovers you, that speech was absolutely NOT reassuring in the least.

 

Agreed 100%

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This was shockingly harsh rhetoric to be levelled against people who were ostensibly our former allies and I bet that it has caused more than a few in the international community to sit up and notice.

 

One former US diplomat on Al-Jazeera has commented it appeared from that speech that Biden seemed to have "disdain" for the Afghan people and not just the government/military.

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In regard to former Afghan president  Ashraf Ghani:

 

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WWW.REUTERS.COM

Russia's embassy in Kabul said on Monday that Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had fled the country with four cars and a helicopter full of cash and had to leave some money behind as it would not all fit in, the RIA news agency reported.

 

 

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"As for the collapse of the (outgoing) regime, it is most eloquently characterised by the way Ghani fled Afghanistan," Nikita Ishchenko, a spokesman for the Russian embassy in Kabul, was quoted as saying by RIA.


"Four cars were full of money, they tried to stuff another part of the money into a helicopter, but not all of it fit. And some of the money was left lying on the tarmac," he was quoted as saying.

 

 

 

Afghan Cease-Fire Deal Struck in Doha Collapsed After Ghani Fled (Bloomberg)

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Afghan president Ashraf Ghani destroyed the opportunity for a two-week ceasefire when he fled Afghanistan, Bloomberg reports.

 

The agreement had been brokered by government and Taliban negotiators and depended on Ghani resigning from his position and the opening of talks on a transitional government.

 

According to the report his departure, which he said was to prevent a bloodbath, surprised his own negotiators and aides, as well as the Americans.

 

 

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