Under a previous deal with the Taliban, the last U.S. troops are slated to pull out of Afghanistan in May. But as the Taliban closes in on Afghan cities, two decades of American blood and treasure will have been lost in vain if the Afghan government falls. Should President Biden still honor the Trump era deal and pull out?
Members fund this enterprise, and dozens of other programs each month. They access backstage content, the Member blog, forums and comments section. Join them today when you become a Member.
Video below hosted at Rumble.
21 replies on “No Good Choices: As Taliban Closes in, Should Biden Honor Deal to Pull Out U.S. of Afghanistan?”
The Russians tried to claim victory in Afghanistan for about 20 years or so and went back home with their tails between their legs.
An army that thinks it can invade a country without knowing its secrets are foolish. Afghan fighters know where to hide and fight very dirty.
The agreement with the Taliban should be taken with a grain of salt. If we don’t honor it, they will shame us (much like SJW’s) and gain a “cause”.
Islam allows for lying to “Infidels”. They will say anything, sign anything, to get what they want, but it’s all a lie. Once they get what they want, they will do as they have planned all along.
The longer a “war” goes on, the longer the MIC makes billions off the US taxpayer & reduces the population of the planet. Two birds and all . . .
War is a GRIFT. Provoked, started, planned, etc. by those who profit by war. Just like our govt. has protected people who sell arms to 3rd world countries for various reasons (coup, destabilization, civil war, etc.).
Anyone who’s been in the military for some time knows things like this. Anyone who’s a politician for some time knows this too. Those who don’t oppose are in on the grift and line their pockets. (Reason #431 for cleaning out our govt. “representatives”.)
Most Americans have no clue what all their govt. does. They trust their govt. and don’t want to hear truths.
We have been voting in the same people for decades. The names and faces change, but the behavior, theft, and killing does not.
The 2020 election was just a peek at their MO.
We SO need to wake up.
But whos going to bomb the children?
The Afghanistan people are still locked in the 4th Century BC when Alexander The Great conquered them. A point y’all noted. Our problem with how to win wars is that we never go in with a picture of the end state that we want, and a road map on how to get there. Right now, we refuse to attack the source of the Taliban, i.e. where they live. We did that with the Germans and Japanese in WWII. We have not done that in any war since, with the possible exception of the bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong during the Vietnam War. But even then, we relented right when we were on the verge of victory, as documented in Col Harry Summers’ book. We could defeat the Taliban in a month if we decided to do so. Of course, then what… Afghanistan will still be a 4th Century BC sh*thole.
Excellent episode, guys. All three made good (and interesting) points.
Scott: The problem is not if we have a good intel group on the ground.
The problems is with the klongs at the top decision levels.
In an earlier comment on another video this week I pointed out that one of the great mistakes of my Cold War generation was the false assumption that inside every adversary there was an American screaming to get out. This has proven untrue in my experience and I discussed that in the previous comment if anyone is interested.
The conflict in Afghanistan is a prime example of why that’s a mistake.
Afghanistan itself as a geopolitical consideration has done nothing to the United States of any note. It was Osama bin-Laden (a Saudi Arabian) and his Al Qaeda that perpetrated the 9/11 infamy. Not one single 9/11 terrorist was Afghani; they were all from Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., Lebanon and Egypt.
Afghanistan’s only real sin has been that it’s an area so politically disorganized and so difficult in climate and terrain that it was a natural base of operations for Al Qaeda.
So what does the US do? We go in there, stomp the guts out of Al Qaeda and try to build a nation according to our principles of what a nation should be. We did this “nation building” for good reasons not all of which are altruistic and this topic is more complicated than can be properly addressed in a video comment but … The upshot is that “nation building” is a mistake and a huge one at that.
Things in Afghanistan are not like things in Omaha or Boise and the people in Afghanistan are nothing like the Americans in those places. They are unlike us down to a decimal place. 10,000 years of harsh living, harsh men, war and later Islam* have shaped a type of human being virtually unrecognizable in character to the average American.
(*Islam is a religion tailor made for harsh men living in harsh conditions and war. That’s a whole ‘nother critter so I won’t go into it further.)
There were good, sound reasons for our attempt at nation building in Afghanistan. If that area could be civilized and organized into a politically self-disciplined nation that would go a long way towards preventing it being a hotbed and refuge for future terrorists. The reasons were solid for doing this.
The practice not so much because as it turns out the goal is for all practical purposes unattainable without a century or so of boots-on-the-ground power forcing multiple generations and diverse locations of Afghanis into the modern world. It’s not just a matter of offering Afghanis the benefits of being a (more) modern civilized nation, it’s a matter of changing the character of the whole society that considers itself Afghani. If there were an American inside every Afghani screaming to get out, this was a doable task. There isn’t and it’s not.
That is why this fallacy that everyone deep-down wants what we have and to be like us is so incredibly dangerous. It is a siren song that feels just and compassionate but as it turns out it’s also self-delusional. To be fair, we didn’t know that and our default impulse is, because of who we are, to be compassionate and just. That’s who we are, that’s not who the Afghanis are.
We badly need to learn this lesson and adjust our policies accordingly.
Americans with their hands stretched forth holding an olive branch wrapped by the US Constitution with the promise of late model vehicles and large flat screen TVs is a message received on a different frequency than which it was sent. There are people in the world that perceive this as an unequivocal sign of weakness and in a way they are right, from their perspective.
The lesson such people learn is not “Gee, if we accept what America is offering we can be like America.” They do not want to “be like America”, they want to be like Afghanis. If they wanted to be something else they’ve had thousands of years to become that something else. The lesson they learn is that they can soak up a whole bunch of America’s wealth and as long as they mumble the proper phrases America will keep sending wealth … Until America wises up to the con job and then the Americans will leave and they can go right back to being Afghanis. Meanwhile the most successful mumblers rise to the top of local power propped up by American might.
I have some ideas on how American policies need to be adapted to this reality but this comment is already long enough. I think that olive branch diplomacy needs to be replaced with big stick diplomacy … If anyone wants to discuss this, feel free to reply and we’ll do that.
Very good points, sir.
I’m sad to say that Biden will likely choose the option that is the absolute WORST for the United States. Scott mentioned that the troops don’t need to be far away and we have the capability of projecting power. That’s true but I rather think that Biden and this horrible administration will do the exact opposite.
I’m forced to agree. I can’t recall to whom to attribute the quote, but someone is on record saying that Biden has been on the wrong side of EVERY major foreign policy decision he’s ever been involved with.
He just has NO ability to see the right thing.
That he managed to stay in Congress for 47 years is a testament to how screwed up our government is.
It is important to remember that the Taliban are terrorists, and they do not believe that they need any justification for their collective acts of terror against the enemies of Islam. All of us who do not bend a knee to their decrees are enemies of Islam, which sounds to me like the collective philosophy of the modern Democrat Party and its BLM and AntiFa enforcers. All who willingly bend a knee to Islam are called dhimmi, and they are to be treated as protected slaves — such protection is clearly defined by anyone familiar with the shakedowns commonly performed by street thugs.
—
My mother in law was born in Yemen and moved to Israel (Palestine at the time) as a child… her father had applied to build a second story but was denied because his house could not be taller than his Muslim neighbour… that was the point when they left everything in place and snuck out during the night to begin the long trek to Aden and from there to Egypt and the train to Haifa… where they were immediately offloaded to the British internment camp… but that’s another story…
I lived in that part of the world for a while and have heard a lot of stories like yours. This has changed my viewpoint over time because I did not live those stories and until I met people who had, my thinking was different before than it has become afterwards.
I grew up in rural Minnesota, the fifth/sixth generation of Americans who immigrated here from Denmark. My family homesteaded the area where I was born and my antecedents life was very different than the picture you paint. This is important because while I’m not at all stupid my worldview was shaped by my own and my progenitors experience. I’m not stupid but I didn’t know any better, ignorance and stupidity are not the same thing. That makes it really hard for someone who grew up like I did to imagine deep down and viscerally what it’s like for other people in other parts of the world … If they are never exposed to those people.
I’ve been home many time since and I still see that charming, lovable but terribly naive attitude every time I talk with people there.
Thank you for pointing out a different frame of reference. I hope people will read what you say and genuinely try to understand rather than rationalize.
as in many things these days… the level of ignorance is incredible… especially in any UN based organization… which never recognized the 800,000 Jewish refugees from Arab lands to Palestine in the 40’s and 50’s…
It is gratifying to finally see some fundamental changes in the region with the advent of the Abraham Accords…
just read the review of a book that you might find interesting…
https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2021/february-web-only/john-phelan-separated-siblings-evangelical-judaism.html
I’m probably like a lot of people, my views of the War in Afghanistan have altered nearly 100% in the 20 years since we went in.
My much beloved son-in-law is an Afghan. Before 9/11, back when Jay Leno’s wife was raising money to help women and girls in Afghanistan because of the Taliban, we would have long discussions on why the people didn’t just rise up and throw out the Taliban, who were a group of ignorant bullies. He told us that the population was so beaten down by wars that they just wanted to ‘keep their heads down’. I thought that meant that they were war-weary, but waiting and hoping for a hero to come and lead them to victory over the Taliban at some point. I thought they would see it the way I would.
When the Afghan War started, this seemed the perfect time for the people to rise up and throw tyranny out, with the help and support of American might and money. My son-in-law was always skeptical. No one would ever crack the code over there, he said, because everything is so tribal and there is no hard and fast set of values. They live their lives by situational ethics and count on their enemies’ reaching a breaking point, faced with disillusionment when there’s no lasting good after so much blood and treasure is gone. He appreciated what his fellow Americans were sacrificing on behalf of his homeland, but he never believed it would make much difference.
It took me years to realize he was right. We were never fighting a war that the local population believed in. They always knew the Taliban would come back, because that’s what always happens. And I think they not-so-secretly take gleeful pride in defeating the great powers by simply waiting them out. We were too idealistic, which is deeply American, and the Afghans always saw this as weakness. It’s a deeply cynical mindset, and I resisted believing it was true for so long because I consider it to be despicable. How could people live that way? How can anyone live so cynically? But we all know the answer to that.
And now after 20 years it’s time to let them have the keys back. And yes, there are some who do ‘get it’, who have sacrificed their lives to try and plant a kind of Freedom in that place. We must protect them now, if we can.
My son-in-law and his dad have spent the last 2 decades bringing as many family members to America as they could. They watch what happens over there with great interest, always hoping for the best.
When one gets older, one realizes when to cut one’s losses. Throwing money at something that never culminates in a win or even progress, becomes futile. Expecting different results by doing the same thing is the definition of insanity. We have lost too many soldiers. We have spent too much money. To keep doing it is tantamount to insanity. We need to stop wasting American lives and spending tax payer dollars. We need that money to perhaps fund the illegal aliens flooding across our borders.
two thoughts:
1) keeping our agreements here is also signaling both the Afghans and our NATO partners that they have responsibilities to step up as well. Freedom is not free and all who want it need to be willing to pay for it. [Yeah, big talk from the retiree behind the keyboard, I know!].
2) strictly speaking, this enemy is not terrorists or terrorism, but devoted dedicated zealous Islamic Jihadists. Bringing conversion to their enemies by violence and force when more gentle means don’t prove fruitful. People following a pretty literal interpretation of their scriptural documentation. Those violent and political ideas/aspects don’t appeal to all Moslems and thus I suspect many Moslems are really “Islamic” kinda sorta in name only, to the extent that they have backed away from the most belligerent and hateful elements of the Ideology of Islam. But they will passively accept the actions of their more devout co-ideologues, if not providing any real direct or indirect support. For me, the answer is a “hearts and minds” campaign of education and indoctrination and propaganda to wean enough of them away from the politicized elements of their belief system. Might take a generation, but there are many holes in their version of historical “reality” and we need to keep poking at those to turn their beliefs around to something approximating what we in the West believe about liberty, individual rights, etc.
It’s called “The Graveyard of Empires” for a reason.
It’s called “Throwing good money after bad” for a reason, too.
And really, once we got Bin Laden, we no longer had any real reason to be there in the first place, did we?
Not that I wanted to see the war expand, but for as long as the enemy could strike from Pakistan or Iran and go back into hiding without fear of being tracked to those places guarunteed that we could never win. Granted, my idea hardly promises victory, but without it winning can never happen
No good choices, but the reality is we have an agreement in place. Part of the whole transfer of power theatre and the purpose of congressional approval and oversight is that these types of international relations are not at the whim of an administration. Therefore, we should honor the pull out agreement and be ready to use our technological advantage to take care of problems that arise.
We do have more MOAB available and apparently the BUFFs can fly another 70 years for other types of ordinance as well. No need for 1000s of troops in “country”.
I will make an obvious distinction with the Paris Climate Accord (or whatever it was called). That agreement was never ratified by the senate, therefore it was essentially an EO. And as we have seen this past month, EO can be over-written by other EO.