Tunisian Revolution and the Middle East--And Now, The Withdrawal From Afghanistan (M.E.T.)

[BatteredFanSyndrome]

@clskinsfan

I consider the faux outrage by right wingers to be a celebration of sorts.  They don’t actually care about the afghans or our own citizens that were killed, they care about the political gain by this happening under Biden’s watch.  None of these folks are shedding any tears, it’s just more of their faux patriotic BS.  
 

 

[Dan T.]

 

[Dan T.]

The kneejerk bleats for impeachment and resignation are what's disgusting. 

 

I've seen people calling Biden a coward.  But you know what?  It takes some balls to stick to a plan to get the hell out of a 20 year quagmire when the slings and arrows are coming from all sides, and given that all previous Presidents didn't have the Presidential courage to do so. 

 

And his primary reason is his basic humanity and empathy for the servicemen stuck in that quagmire.  You know viscerally that the news of the last few days has gutted him.  Because he is the opposite of his predecessor.  He is not a sociopath.  He has the deepest respect for those who serve in the military, and is profoundly empathic toward those who suffer the loss of a child, in war or otherwise.

 

He will get through this and he will be remembered for - at long last - ending the longest war in U.S. history.

Edited August 27, 2021 by Dan T.

[BatteredFanSyndrome]

In fairness, I'd like to add to my previous statement, that if the shoe was on the other foot, and Trump was still president and these exact same events took place...

 

Democrats would absolutely be doing the exact same thing with all the outrage, calls for resignation, impeachment, calling it a stain on American history, etc.  The only difference is some of those liberals would actually care about the people who were hurt in all this.

[hail2skins]

We're coming up on the 20-year anniversary of 9/11 and I remember leaving work after a very long day and asking a friend to go to a bar to get a bite to eat and to decompress.  Vividly remember watching the bipartisan group of members of Congress on the steps singing hymns. We didn't wind up getting anything to eat, we were just so drained.

 

I don't want to think about the atmosphere if there was a 9/11-type event in today's political climate.

[tshile]

2 hours ago, BatteredFanSyndrome said:

that if the shoe was on the other foot, and Trump was still president

Yeah but trump had a scandal every week. Often multiple a week. There are scandals we forgot about because something else happened 18 hours later

 

theres a “what’s your favorite trump scandal” thread floating around here somewhere. 
 

I just… I just hate when the act of criticism is considered equal to other acts when that doesn’t hold past just looking at the act of criticizing. 
 

While this is a huge scandal for Biden, it’s one legit one among a bunch of  manufactured ones 

trumps on the other hand…

 

(I know you know that, just adding to the conversation)

[hail2skins]

But I think BFS's point, which I agree with, is that it seemed like there was a reluctance, even late last week when events on the ground were showing chaos, to be even remotely critical of the way the evacuation was being handled. One poster even suggested that everything that was happening was on Trump.

[Jumbo]

58 minutes ago, hail2skins said:

But I think BFS's point, which I agree with, is that it seemed like there was a reluctance, even late last week when events on the ground were showing chaos, to be even remotely critical of the way the evacuation was being handled. One poster even suggested that everything that was happening was on Trump.

 

 

i'd suggest engaging a specific poster doing the specific thing you're talking about and making a direct, specific rebuttal, and then see how they may justify what you're characterizing, but that's me

 

(i know how i'd do it rationally, tho i've been critical as have other posters in here, and lefties have been notably more self-critical then rw's nin general, so i'm not even agreeing with your main assertion as framed))

[Cooked Crack]

 

[tshile]

2 hours ago, hail2skins said:

there was a reluctance, even late last week when events on the ground were showing chaos, to be even remotely critical of the way the evacuation was being handled

i guess this may depend entirely on where you get your news from. 
 

while I do watch msnbc at times, I haven’t in the last week or two.  Ive been sorta limited to npr podcasts and my news reader and they were highly critical. In fact, ive probably listened to every The NPR Politics Podcast for the last 6 years and I’m not sure I’ve heard them say one negative thing about the Biden administration (after spending 4 years grilling Trump… daily) and they were very harsh on the administration. I believe incompetence was the main descriptor used, and the conversation of how he ran on being a competent president was the main “so uh wtf is this mess” piece of it all. Embarrassment was another commonly used descriptor. My news feeds populated by things like the post, times, bbc, Atlantic, and others were pretty harsh. 
 

Brian Tyler Cohen (big player in hard left podcast world - I love him despite not being hard left at all, because the man is smart and runs a clean podcast geared around pumping the conversation with facts, and discussing strategy. It’s interesting) ran a podcast titled with the summary “The US pulls out of Afghanistan amid the country’s fall to the Taliban, the media drops the ball in its desperation to cry failure” which can be a accompanied by his tweet (which was posted earlier in thread) that was basically: the media is so desperate to cry foul on the Biden administration in an attempt to appear be fair <to the general public after going after trump constantly>…

 

So… I’m not saying you can’t craft a news feed where you didn’t see criticism of the Biden administration, but I didn’t see that. And i frequent what our conservative friends like to call “liberal rag(s)” for news…

 

I think at best you could say that in this thread the overwhelming initial sentiment was “well that sucks but people will probably forget (in terms of election impact) and at least we’re finally leaving” 

 

Which, if you go back and read it, I don’t think “reluctance to be even remotely critical” is fair…

Edited August 28, 2021 by tshile

[CousinsCowgirl84]

6 hours ago, Dan T. said:

 

 

I've seen people calling Biden a coward. 

I would be interested in how they got to coward.  There is criticism of Biden to be had for sure, but “coward” is pretty hard to justify.  To me he seemed indifferent to the consequences for anyone, except the US soldiers on the ground.

 

Also, I did go back and check. The closest anyone got to “not being remotely critically” was being indifferent and wanting to wait to see how it played out.

Edited August 28, 2021 by CousinsCowgirl84

[Barry.Randolphe]

I'm in the camp with Brian Tyler Cohen - I felt it was pretty sloppy in the beginning mostly because of the optics of the airport being overrun with people hanging on the airplane, but when you're given a turd to polish, it's not going to be pretty...at least to start. They figured it out pretty quickly and it was impressive how many people they've been able to evacuate. It certainly feels like the media is trying their hardest to appear unbiased....and besides the tragic situation yesterday, I'm struggling to see the issue. It was sloppy to start because they thought they had a little more time and didn't expect the Afghan Army to cut and run immediately...and because of the wonderful situation Stephen Miller left us in, the SIV process was ****ed up.

 

The calls for impeachment are are highly comical coming from dip****s like Hawley

 

[tshile]

I do not like the words the Biden administration is using. 
 

and I’ll preface this with: I think Biden wanted a clean exit, it’s killing him this is happening, and I imagine he’s bouncing between being livid at people running certain things, and being beside himself that this is how it’s playing out. I can only imagine how it feels to get the initial “several service members were killed” briefing. christ. 

 

also: not super up to date on every word Biden has said so, if there’s parts out there dealing with this then so be it. 
 

I hear phrases like…(paraphrasing)

”no one anticipated”

”unexpected”

”we hoped that the Afghan government…”

”I didn’t know”

etc

 

this is a tactical error. 
 

first, as a general take, you just gave the gop audio and video of you basically saying “yeah I’m in charge but we don’t know what’s going on”

 

second. There have been multiple leaks about how intelligence basically said this would happen. So, how do you not know? Are you not taking the briefings? Are you not paying attention? Is the cia not showing up? Like how do we square the intelligence community warned you but you didn’t know?

 

(Side note: interesting that the liberal rags the WaPo and nytimes are leaking damaging stories about the Biden administrations handling of the exit. )

 

third: it’s just a weak position to take. 
 

you’re the mother ****ing president of the United States of American. “I didn’t know” isn’t gonna fly. Just own the mistake and dedicate yourself to doing it right going forward. 
 

 

Edited August 28, 2021 by tshile

[tmandoug1]

Awful quiet in here......where is everyone?

[China]

1 hour ago, tmandoug1 said:

Awful quiet in here......where is everyone?

 

It's Saturday night, maybe they have lives.  Or maybe they're mourning the pitiful performance of the WFT against the Ravens?

[skinsmarydu]

9 minutes ago, China said:

 

It's Saturday night, maybe they have lives.  Or maybe they're mourning the pitiful performance of the WFT against the Ravens?

I was gonna respond with "game fatigue"?...but I stopped myself. 

Thanks, @China.

[hail2skins]

7 hours ago, tmandoug1 said:

Awful quiet in here......where is everyone?

Seems like, aside from the strike vs ISIS-K and the apparent continued threat of another incident near the airport, yesterday was a pretty quiet day as far as Afghanistan news. I have no idea how many people remain the airport itself, nor how many people are outside the gates. Looks like Ida is about to replace Afghanistan and covid delta as the top story for the next few days.

[tmandoug1]

10 hours ago, China said:

 

It's Saturday night, maybe they have lives.  Or maybe they're mourning the pitiful performance of the WFT against the Ravens?

It was pretty bad......

[Ball Security]

Evidently we struck a vehicle that was full of explosives heading to the airport.

[TradeTheBeal!]

On 8/27/2021 at 3:44 PM, BatteredFanSyndrome said:

@clskinsfan

I consider the faux outrage by right wingers to be a celebration of sorts.  They don’t actually care about the afghans or our own citizens that were killed, they care about the political gain by this happening under Biden’s watch.  None of these folks are shedding any tears, it’s just more of their faux patriotic BS.  
 

 

You can find this claim by the hundreds on MAGA Twitter.  It is blatantly false and was cooked up and echo-chambered before the fallen ever even arrived at Dover, naturally.  There is no bottom.

 

 

[skinsmarydu]

And there's absolutely no way he would miss such a solemn moment.  

Everyone should know that about him. 

[Ball Security]

16 minutes ago, TryTheBeal! said:

You can find this claim by the hundreds on MAGA Twitter.  It is blatantly false and was cooked up and echo-chambered before the fallen ever even arrived at Dover, naturally.  There is no bottom.

 

 

 

 

[Jumbo]

14 hours ago, tmandoug1 said:

Awful quiet in here......where is everyone?

 

they're waiting in ambush for the drop-in trolls

 

 

 

39 minutes ago, Ball Security said:

Evidently we struck a vehicle that was full of explosives heading to the airport.

 

current reporting is saying the vehicle was carrying multiple suicide bombers who planned to disperse along the airport perimeter---it's being said that intel 'eavesdropping' equipment got sufficient details and confirmations

 

btw afaic,  to whatever specific failures biden will be held to as his to own in the long run---and i don't think his part in this is as bad as being made out by even the "liberal" media, but still plenty bad enough---he needs to own that part more fulsomely and acknowledge specifics in an after action presser...i don't see 'now' as the right time for a fully thorough and transparent mea culpa

 

but even with all that's happening, it certainly doesn't even begin to offset what an even more disastrous ****plie this would have been with trump &co at the helm, or what a sewer the entire gop still is (as they're showing of course) and will be for some time as far as i can tell, nor do i see any other dem candidates from 2020 that i just automatically think "oh, they'd have been way better" with this messy effed up situation even just as it has devolved in the last 3-4 years

 

the gop is still 85% a sewer and anyone who still wants gop ****heads in control is right where they belong

 

[skinsmarydu]

Just as an aside...

There's a great short movie (just a little more than an hour) with Kevin Bacon called "Taking Chance" about how he escorts a fallen hero home.  It's old, I watched it way back then.  A real tearjerker, but so worth it. 

Don't forget what it costs. 

[Cooked Crack]

 

Clown ****