Senator Mitt Romney too 'The Biden administration’s unwillingness to alter the Afghan withdrawal plan based on changing circumstances on the ground & the grave implications for US security interests is a tragedy & a cause for serious concern about how the administration will deal with global challenges.' https://twitter.com/SenatorRomney/status/1425528461628776448?s=20
Boris is also withdrawing... troops.
Only as Biden is, though yes Bush and Blair did a better job on this, as indeed did Obama in getting Bin Laden
Shame about all those wedding parties decimated by drone strikes under his reign, mind you
How many wedding parties were droned? More than one?
HUNDREDS of Paras will swoop into Kabul to evacuate the British Embassy and up to 4,000 Brits, contractors and staff – amid fears the city will fall to the Taliban.
Only a skeleton staff including ambassador Sir Laurie Bristow will stay in the besieged Afghan capital.
Shameful and this will define the Biden-Harris administration now, whatever else it does this will be the greatest US humiliation since Vietnam.
We are not much better either as we also prepare to abandon our Embassy, however we are not big enough alone to stay in Afghanistan and maintain security and keep out the Taliban and terrorists without US support
Damn right
Instead the Biden-Harris administration should be defined by propping up an unpopular regime in Afghanistan with US lives and money.
Correct. It would avoid another 9/11, 9/11 2 now very much on the cards.
There have still been fewer US troops killed in Afghanistan in 20 years than the number of US civilians killed in NYC on 9/11 in 1 day thanks to an attack planned by Bin Laden in Afghanistan
Absolutely farcical. Pretty sure rcs was being sarcastic which you've missed.
Bin Laden, the Taliban, and al'Qaeda have had almost free reign in Pakistan for the past twenty years. Our invasion of Afghanistan never defeated the Taliban, it just relocated them. It never defeated al'Qaeda, they just relocated.
Bush's failure to secure Pakistan as part of the war meant the whole invasion and its aftermath has been a miserable failure.
Occupying Afghanistan was not preventing the Taliban or al'Qaeda or other Islamists from operating pretty much with impunity.
It was the invasion which forced Bin Laden into Pakistan where Bin Laden was killed by US special forces.
Whatever you think of Pakistani PM Imran Khan he is also relatively westernised for the region, he is not the Taliban even if a solid Muslim
Pakistan has been home of the Taliban for decades.
The Pakistani regime either can not or will not control or eliminate the Taliban from its northern mountain ranges especially and we never went after them as part of Bush's Afghan war which is why it was a complete and total failure.
The legacy of which is now.
You can put your head in all the sand of the Middle East if you please but your simplistic black and white world view doesn't work here.
It was Bush who removed the Taliban and Al Qaeda from Afghanistan it is Biden letting them back in.
On your argument we should invade Pakistan too and go even further
Have you signed up to fight the Taliban yet?
When the next bomb explodes in London we may not have much choice
For the sake of your political career - step away from the keyboard and call it a night
Far from it, it was only our presence in Afghanistan which stopped another 9/11, it is weak defeatism to suggest otherwise and abandon it back to the terrorists.
I am a conservative not a handwringing leftist, we take the fight to the enemy
The USA and UK spent nearly 20 years training the Afghan army so that it would be able to defend the country when they decided to leave. That plan didn't even work for a few weeks. What a waste of time and money.
Mitt Romney was barely able to speak at the Republican convention in Utah for the boos at catcalls. The chances of him running for president are, I would suggest, faint.
By the way, will the British evacuees returning from the red traffic light country of Afghanistan have to quarantine weeks in sh*t hotels at huge cost to themselves?
The USA and UK spent nearly 20 years training the Afghan army so that it would be able to defend the country when they decided to leave. That plan didn't even work for a few weeks. What a waste of time and money.
Again, just for notes. The Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community were against this withdrawal at this time. This is not Westmoreland in Vietnam, the US miltary knows all too well the limitations in its presence in Afghanistan and sees this in very pragmatic terms. The DoD still opposed it.
Two other notes,
The best of the Afghan forces are in Kabul, some of what is in the provinces isnt up to much. You then have the other Ethinic groups. The Taliban is heavily Pashtun but if you look at the map I think in the Guardian showing the Taliban advance there is a very big hole there which is not in dispute. Its Tajik dominated so is an example of how this may end up looking.
The Taliban can rolll over territory if the ANA & ANP dont fight but as history has proven so many times over, you need a lot more staff to occupy and control than you do to invade.
It's not really comparable. The Taliban will put brutal overseers in place who will execute any person who tries to overthrow them. That will keep people in line quite easily because, and say it quietly, no idiot wants to die for the nation of Afghanistan, not even Afghanis.
The problem with the sauve qui peut on the part of the West in Afghanistan is that it will sooner or later have an impact on us. Millions of refugees will head West, and the country will again become a haven for anti-Western terrorist groups.
NATO forces could never eliminate the Taliban, but they were quite capable of containing them,. HYUFD is right about this.
Morally yes, but I am not sure Kabul falling .has as much political impact in the US as perhaps it should.
Until the next US skyscraper falls, which unfortunately it may well soon do as soon as Afghanistan becomes one big training camp for terrorists again
Does the (always inevitable) fall of Afghanistan somehow magically bypass all the airline security measures brought in since 9/11?
It only needs them to get through once, with thousands of terrorists back in Afghanistan trying it every day it will happen one day
The terrorists are going to successfully launch a 9/11 attack that they haven't been able to do in 20 years, just because the taliban have taken over Afghanistan?
You've truly lost it.
No, @HYUFD hasn't lost it, although it's unclear at present whether a Taliban-run Afghanistan will once again provide a free hand to Al Queda or its successors, as they did 20 years ago. I'd guess not, but it's one of a number of risks Biden is taking here.
If they do then we drone the hell out of them. No need for an occupying army.
This is Afghanistan. If it were easy to drone the hell out of them, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
The problem with the sauve qui peut on the part of the West in Afghanistan is that it will sooner or later have an impact on us. Millions of refugees will head West, and the country will again become a haven for anti-Western terrorist groups.
NATO forces could never eliminate the Taliban, but they were quite capable of containing them,. HYUFD is right about this.
Morally yes, but I am not sure Kabul falling .has as much political impact in the US as perhaps it should.
Until the next US skyscraper falls, which unfortunately it may well soon do as soon as Afghanistan becomes one big training camp for terrorists again
Does the (always inevitable) fall of Afghanistan somehow magically bypass all the airline security measures brought in since 9/11?
It only needs them to get through once, with thousands of terrorists back in Afghanistan trying it every day it will happen one day
I'm curious - do you know how many terror attacks have been carried out by Islamic fundamentalists NOT trained in Afghanistan?
All combined, fewer US and UK citizens have been killed by them than those killed on 9/11 by some margin
Is that what I asked you?
Clue - no it wasn't
Try again
Nope it was exactly the point, our citizens were killed, we had to respond.
It was the biggest postwar terrorist attack on westerners by some margin
And we responded by chasing them across the border into Pakistan and saying "ok Mission Accomplished, you stay there now and learn your lesson."
We should have stopped them escaping into Pakistan in the first place and if the War on Terror was meant to be serious we should have followed them into Pakistan and continued the fight there. No refuge for them, no safe harbour. That was kind of the point.
Instead Bush half arsed it then moved on to Iraq allowing the Taliban and al'Qaeda to survive and rebuild and have decades of training camps.
I agree Iraq was a mistake but he still kept troops in Afghanistan too and Al Qaeda could not return, Obama then correctly sent special forces to Pakistan to kill Bin Laden
HUNDREDS of Paras will swoop into Kabul to evacuate the British Embassy and up to 4,000 Brits, contractors and staff – amid fears the city will fall to the Taliban.
Only a skeleton staff including ambassador Sir Laurie Bristow will stay in the besieged Afghan capital.
Shameful and this will define the Biden-Harris administration now, whatever else it does this will be the greatest US humiliation since Vietnam.
We are not much better either as we also prepare to abandon our Embassy, however we are not big enough alone to stay in Afghanistan and maintain security and keep out the Taliban and terrorists without US support
Damn right
Instead the Biden-Harris administration should be defined by propping up an unpopular regime in Afghanistan with US lives and money.
Correct. It would avoid another 9/11, 9/11 2 now very much on the cards.
There have still been fewer US troops killed in Afghanistan in 20 years than the number of US civilians killed in NYC on 9/11 in 1 day thanks to an attack planned by Bin Laden in Afghanistan
Absolutely farcical. Pretty sure rcs was being sarcastic which you've missed.
Bin Laden, the Taliban, and al'Qaeda have had almost free reign in Pakistan for the past twenty years. Our invasion of Afghanistan never defeated the Taliban, it just relocated them. It never defeated al'Qaeda, they just relocated.
Bush's failure to secure Pakistan as part of the war meant the whole invasion and its aftermath has been a miserable failure.
Occupying Afghanistan was not preventing the Taliban or al'Qaeda or other Islamists from operating pretty much with impunity.
It was the invasion which forced Bin Laden into Pakistan where Bin Laden was killed by US special forces.
Whatever you think of Pakistani PM Imran Khan he is also relatively westernised for the region, he is not the Taliban even if a solid Muslim
Pakistan has been home of the Taliban for decades.
The Pakistani regime either can not or will not control or eliminate the Taliban from its northern mountain ranges especially and we never went after them as part of Bush's Afghan war which is why it was a complete and total failure.
The legacy of which is now.
You can put your head in all the sand of the Middle East if you please but your simplistic black and white world view doesn't work here.
It was Bush who removed the Taliban and Al Qaeda from Afghanistan it is Biden letting them back in.
On your argument we should invade Pakistan too and go even further
Have you signed up to fight the Taliban yet?
When the next bomb explodes in London we may not have much choice
For the sake of your political career - step away from the keyboard and call it a night
Far from it, it was only our presence in Afghanistan which stopped another 9/11, it is weak defeatism to suggest otherwise and abandon it back to the terrorists.
I am a conservative not a handwringing leftist, we take the fight to the enemy
"it was only our presence in Afghanistan which stopped another 9/11"
No.
9/11 stopped another 9/11.
Passengers on commercial airlines will now fight back. Because - and this may surprise you - most people don't want to die in a fireball as their plane crashes into the 22nd floor of the Nakatomi Plaza.
HUNDREDS of Paras will swoop into Kabul to evacuate the British Embassy and up to 4,000 Brits, contractors and staff – amid fears the city will fall to the Taliban.
Only a skeleton staff including ambassador Sir Laurie Bristow will stay in the besieged Afghan capital.
Shameful and this will define the Biden-Harris administration now, whatever else it does this will be the greatest US humiliation since Vietnam.
We are not much better either as we also prepare to abandon our Embassy, however we are not big enough alone to stay in Afghanistan and maintain security and keep out the Taliban and terrorists without US support
Damn right
Instead the Biden-Harris administration should be defined by propping up an unpopular regime in Afghanistan with US lives and money.
Correct. It would avoid another 9/11, 9/11 2 now very much on the cards.
There have still been fewer US troops killed in Afghanistan in 20 years than the number of US civilians killed in NYC on 9/11 in 1 day thanks to an attack planned by Bin Laden in Afghanistan
Absolutely farcical. Pretty sure rcs was being sarcastic which you've missed.
Bin Laden, the Taliban, and al'Qaeda have had almost free reign in Pakistan for the past twenty years. Our invasion of Afghanistan never defeated the Taliban, it just relocated them. It never defeated al'Qaeda, they just relocated.
Bush's failure to secure Pakistan as part of the war meant the whole invasion and its aftermath has been a miserable failure.
Occupying Afghanistan was not preventing the Taliban or al'Qaeda or other Islamists from operating pretty much with impunity.
It was the invasion which forced Bin Laden into Pakistan where Bin Laden was killed by US special forces.
Whatever you think of Pakistani PM Imran Khan he is also relatively westernised for the region, he is not the Taliban even if a solid Muslim
Pakistan has been home of the Taliban for decades.
The Pakistani regime either can not or will not control or eliminate the Taliban from its northern mountain ranges especially and we never went after them as part of Bush's Afghan war which is why it was a complete and total failure.
The legacy of which is now.
You can put your head in all the sand of the Middle East if you please but your simplistic black and white world view doesn't work here.
It was Bush who removed the Taliban and Al Qaeda from Afghanistan it is Biden letting them back in.
On your argument we should invade Pakistan too and go even further
Have you signed up to fight the Taliban yet?
When the next bomb explodes in London we may not have much choice
For the sake of your political career - step away from the keyboard and call it a night
Far from it, it was only our presence in Afghanistan which stopped another 9/11, it is weak defeatism to suggest otherwise and abandon it back to the terrorists.
I am a conservative not a handwringing leftist, we take the fight to the enemy
So how long do you want to stay in Afghanistan for? 30 years? 50 years? 100? Do you apply the same logic for any other place we get an attack from? Be that Libya, Somalia, Syria? Perhaps we should occupy the entire Muslim world for centuries.
The USA and UK spent nearly 20 years training the Afghan army so that it would be able to defend the country when they decided to leave. That plan didn't even work for a few weeks. What a waste of time and money.
Which was why John McCain was right, we should have kept troops there permanently, for decades or even centuries if required
'Under President Biden’s watch terrorists are on their way to taking over all of Afghanistan and we are urgently evacuating American citizens from our embassy.
The problem with the sauve qui peut on the part of the West in Afghanistan is that it will sooner or later have an impact on us. Millions of refugees will head West, and the country will again become a haven for anti-Western terrorist groups.
NATO forces could never eliminate the Taliban, but they were quite capable of containing them,. HYUFD is right about this.
Morally yes, but I am not sure Kabul falling .has as much political impact in the US as perhaps it should.
Until the next US skyscraper falls, which unfortunately it may well soon do as soon as Afghanistan becomes one big training camp for terrorists again
Does the (always inevitable) fall of Afghanistan somehow magically bypass all the airline security measures brought in since 9/11?
It only needs them to get through once, with thousands of terrorists back in Afghanistan trying it every day it will happen one day
The terrorists are going to successfully launch a 9/11 attack that they haven't been able to do in 20 years, just because the taliban have taken over Afghanistan?
You've truly lost it.
Of course, as Afghanistan was where they had the bases and camps to plan them
It was. Pakistan is where they've had the bases and camps to plan them from for two whole decades now.
Not to mention Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Iraq. At the very least.
The "War on Terror" was lost nearly twenty years ago when we gave an ultimatum to the Taliban to hand over Bin Laden or we invade - and we invaded and they fled to Pakistan and we responded by doing . . . nothing.
If we were serious about saying there should be no safe harbour for terrorists we could have said to the Pakistanis "hand over Bin Laden or we invade" but we didn't do so and they were secure in northern Pakistan for decades. Which is why the Taliban today aren't untrained amateurs.
HUNDREDS of Paras will swoop into Kabul to evacuate the British Embassy and up to 4,000 Brits, contractors and staff – amid fears the city will fall to the Taliban.
Only a skeleton staff including ambassador Sir Laurie Bristow will stay in the besieged Afghan capital.
Shameful and this will define the Biden-Harris administration now, whatever else it does this will be the greatest US humiliation since Vietnam.
We are not much better either as we also prepare to abandon our Embassy, however we are not big enough alone to stay in Afghanistan and maintain security and keep out the Taliban and terrorists without US support
Damn right
Instead the Biden-Harris administration should be defined by propping up an unpopular regime in Afghanistan with US lives and money.
Correct. It would avoid another 9/11, 9/11 2 now very much on the cards.
There have still been fewer US troops killed in Afghanistan in 20 years than the number of US civilians killed in NYC on 9/11 in 1 day thanks to an attack planned by Bin Laden in Afghanistan
Absolutely farcical. Pretty sure rcs was being sarcastic which you've missed.
Bin Laden, the Taliban, and al'Qaeda have had almost free reign in Pakistan for the past twenty years. Our invasion of Afghanistan never defeated the Taliban, it just relocated them. It never defeated al'Qaeda, they just relocated.
Bush's failure to secure Pakistan as part of the war meant the whole invasion and its aftermath has been a miserable failure.
Occupying Afghanistan was not preventing the Taliban or al'Qaeda or other Islamists from operating pretty much with impunity.
It was the invasion which forced Bin Laden into Pakistan where Bin Laden was killed by US special forces.
Whatever you think of Pakistani PM Imran Khan he is also relatively westernised for the region, he is not the Taliban even if a solid Muslim
Pakistan has been home of the Taliban for decades.
The Pakistani regime either can not or will not control or eliminate the Taliban from its northern mountain ranges especially and we never went after them as part of Bush's Afghan war which is why it was a complete and total failure.
The legacy of which is now.
You can put your head in all the sand of the Middle East if you please but your simplistic black and white world view doesn't work here.
It was Bush who removed the Taliban and Al Qaeda from Afghanistan it is Biden letting them back in.
On your argument we should invade Pakistan too and go even further
Have you signed up to fight the Taliban yet?
When the next bomb explodes in London we may not have much choice
For the sake of your political career - step away from the keyboard and call it a night
Far from it, it was only our presence in Afghanistan which stopped another 9/11, it is weak defeatism to suggest otherwise and abandon it back to the terrorists.
I am a conservative not a handwringing leftist, we take the fight to the enemy
So how long do you want to stay in Afghanistan for? 30 years? 50 years? 100? Do you apply the same logic for any other place we get an attack from? Be that Libya, Somalia, Syria? Perhaps we should occupy the entire Muslim world for centuries.
50, 100 years, however long it takes.
If a big terrorist attack was launched on a major western city from those nations you mention then add them too
The problem with the sauve qui peut on the part of the West in Afghanistan is that it will sooner or later have an impact on us. Millions of refugees will head West, and the country will again become a haven for anti-Western terrorist groups.
NATO forces could never eliminate the Taliban, but they were quite capable of containing them,. HYUFD is right about this.
Morally yes, but I am not sure Kabul falling .has as much political impact in the US as perhaps it should.
Until the next US skyscraper falls, which unfortunately it may well soon do as soon as Afghanistan becomes one big training camp for terrorists again
Does the (always inevitable) fall of Afghanistan somehow magically bypass all the airline security measures brought in since 9/11?
It only needs them to get through once, with thousands of terrorists back in Afghanistan trying it every day it will happen one day
The terrorists are going to successfully launch a 9/11 attack that they haven't been able to do in 20 years, just because the taliban have taken over Afghanistan?
You've truly lost it.
No, @HYUFD hasn't lost it, although it's unclear at present whether a Taliban-run Afghanistan will once again provide a free hand to Al Queda or its successors, as they did 20 years ago. I'd guess not, but it's one of a number of risks Biden is taking here.
If they do then we drone the hell out of them. No need for an occupying army.
This is Afghanistan. If it were easy to drone the hell out of them, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
It is easy, but the civilian cost will be very high. Again, these are the reasons why we could never "win" against the likes of the Taliban. They simply give no fucks about the people. We stick rigidly to a set of rules in wartime that makes it difficult for us to win while the other side doesn't. I don't have any answers but I think understanding the issue is important.
The problem with the sauve qui peut on the part of the West in Afghanistan is that it will sooner or later have an impact on us. Millions of refugees will head West, and the country will again become a haven for anti-Western terrorist groups.
NATO forces could never eliminate the Taliban, but they were quite capable of containing them,. HYUFD is right about this.
Morally yes, but I am not sure Kabul falling .has as much political impact in the US as perhaps it should.
Until the next US skyscraper falls, which unfortunately it may well soon do as soon as Afghanistan becomes one big training camp for terrorists again
Does the (always inevitable) fall of Afghanistan somehow magically bypass all the airline security measures brought in since 9/11?
It only needs them to get through once, with thousands of terrorists back in Afghanistan trying it every day it will happen one day
The terrorists are going to successfully launch a 9/11 attack that they haven't been able to do in 20 years, just because the taliban have taken over Afghanistan?
You've truly lost it.
No, @HYUFD hasn't lost it, although it's unclear at present whether a Taliban-run Afghanistan will once again provide a free hand to Al Queda or its successors, as they did 20 years ago. I'd guess not, but it's one of a number of risks Biden is taking here.
If they do then we drone the hell out of them. No need for an occupying army.
This is Afghanistan. If it were easy to drone the hell out of them, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
We can certainly drone strike "training camps". Those places where they learn the valuable skill of swinging across monkey bars with an AK-47s strapped round their necks.
The problem with the sauve qui peut on the part of the West in Afghanistan is that it will sooner or later have an impact on us. Millions of refugees will head West, and the country will again become a haven for anti-Western terrorist groups.
NATO forces could never eliminate the Taliban, but they were quite capable of containing them,. HYUFD is right about this.
Morally yes, but I am not sure Kabul falling .has as much political impact in the US as perhaps it should.
Until the next US skyscraper falls, which unfortunately it may well soon do as soon as Afghanistan becomes one big training camp for terrorists again
Does the (always inevitable) fall of Afghanistan somehow magically bypass all the airline security measures brought in since 9/11?
It only needs them to get through once, with thousands of terrorists back in Afghanistan trying it every day it will happen one day
The terrorists are going to successfully launch a 9/11 attack that they haven't been able to do in 20 years, just because the taliban have taken over Afghanistan?
You've truly lost it.
No, @HYUFD hasn't lost it, although it's unclear at present whether a Taliban-run Afghanistan will once again provide a free hand to Al Queda or its successors, as they did 20 years ago. I'd guess not, but it's one of a number of risks Biden is taking here.
If they do then we drone the hell out of them. No need for an occupying army.
You cannot defeat terrorist organisation with drones and you cannot defeat a tribal government built on insurgency with drones
HUNDREDS of Paras will swoop into Kabul to evacuate the British Embassy and up to 4,000 Brits, contractors and staff – amid fears the city will fall to the Taliban.
Only a skeleton staff including ambassador Sir Laurie Bristow will stay in the besieged Afghan capital.
Shameful and this will define the Biden-Harris administration now, whatever else it does this will be the greatest US humiliation since Vietnam.
We are not much better either as we also prepare to abandon our Embassy, however we are not big enough alone to stay in Afghanistan and maintain security and keep out the Taliban and terrorists without US support
Damn right
Instead the Biden-Harris administration should be defined by propping up an unpopular regime in Afghanistan with US lives and money.
Correct. It would avoid another 9/11, 9/11 2 now very much on the cards.
There have still been fewer US troops killed in Afghanistan in 20 years than the number of US civilians killed in NYC on 9/11 in 1 day thanks to an attack planned by Bin Laden in Afghanistan
Absolutely farcical. Pretty sure rcs was being sarcastic which you've missed.
Bin Laden, the Taliban, and al'Qaeda have had almost free reign in Pakistan for the past twenty years. Our invasion of Afghanistan never defeated the Taliban, it just relocated them. It never defeated al'Qaeda, they just relocated.
Bush's failure to secure Pakistan as part of the war meant the whole invasion and its aftermath has been a miserable failure.
Occupying Afghanistan was not preventing the Taliban or al'Qaeda or other Islamists from operating pretty much with impunity.
It was the invasion which forced Bin Laden into Pakistan where Bin Laden was killed by US special forces.
Whatever you think of Pakistani PM Imran Khan he is also relatively westernised for the region, he is not the Taliban even if a solid Muslim
Pakistan has been home of the Taliban for decades.
The Pakistani regime either can not or will not control or eliminate the Taliban from its northern mountain ranges especially and we never went after them as part of Bush's Afghan war which is why it was a complete and total failure.
The legacy of which is now.
You can put your head in all the sand of the Middle East if you please but your simplistic black and white world view doesn't work here.
It was Bush who removed the Taliban and Al Qaeda from Afghanistan it is Biden letting them back in.
On your argument we should invade Pakistan too and go even further
Have you signed up to fight the Taliban yet?
When the next bomb explodes in London we may not have much choice
For the sake of your political career - step away from the keyboard and call it a night
Far from it, it was only our presence in Afghanistan which stopped another 9/11, it is weak defeatism to suggest otherwise and abandon it back to the terrorists.
I am a conservative not a handwringing leftist, we take the fight to the enemy
We did not take the fight to the enemy. The enemy was in Pakistan and we did nothing about them. We left the enemy safe and secure for decades with training camps operating with impunity.
You're in denial if you think training camps went away with the fall of Afghanistan.
'Under President Biden’s watch terrorists are on their way to taking over all of Afghanistan and we are urgently evacuating American citizens from our embassy.
NEW: In surprise move Amazon moves it’s $1bn Lord of the Rings production from New Zealand to the UK for season 2. Hands back hundreds of millions in rebates/incentives from NZ govt.
HUNDREDS of Paras will swoop into Kabul to evacuate the British Embassy and up to 4,000 Brits, contractors and staff – amid fears the city will fall to the Taliban.
Only a skeleton staff including ambassador Sir Laurie Bristow will stay in the besieged Afghan capital.
Shameful and this will define the Biden-Harris administration now, whatever else it does this will be the greatest US humiliation since Vietnam.
We are not much better either as we also prepare to abandon our Embassy, however we are not big enough alone to stay in Afghanistan and maintain security and keep out the Taliban and terrorists without US support
Damn right
Instead the Biden-Harris administration should be defined by propping up an unpopular regime in Afghanistan with US lives and money.
Correct. It would avoid another 9/11, 9/11 2 now very much on the cards.
There have still been fewer US troops killed in Afghanistan in 20 years than the number of US civilians killed in NYC on 9/11 in 1 day thanks to an attack planned by Bin Laden in Afghanistan
Absolutely farcical. Pretty sure rcs was being sarcastic which you've missed.
Bin Laden, the Taliban, and al'Qaeda have had almost free reign in Pakistan for the past twenty years. Our invasion of Afghanistan never defeated the Taliban, it just relocated them. It never defeated al'Qaeda, they just relocated.
Bush's failure to secure Pakistan as part of the war meant the whole invasion and its aftermath has been a miserable failure.
Occupying Afghanistan was not preventing the Taliban or al'Qaeda or other Islamists from operating pretty much with impunity.
It was the invasion which forced Bin Laden into Pakistan where Bin Laden was killed by US special forces.
Whatever you think of Pakistani PM Imran Khan he is also relatively westernised for the region, he is not the Taliban even if a solid Muslim
Pakistan has been home of the Taliban for decades.
The Pakistani regime either can not or will not control or eliminate the Taliban from its northern mountain ranges especially and we never went after them as part of Bush's Afghan war which is why it was a complete and total failure.
The legacy of which is now.
You can put your head in all the sand of the Middle East if you please but your simplistic black and white world view doesn't work here.
It was Bush who removed the Taliban and Al Qaeda from Afghanistan it is Biden letting them back in.
On your argument we should invade Pakistan too and go even further
Have you signed up to fight the Taliban yet?
When the next bomb explodes in London we may not have much choice
For the sake of your political career - step away from the keyboard and call it a night
Far from it, it was only our presence in Afghanistan which stopped another 9/11, it is weak defeatism to suggest otherwise and abandon it back to the terrorists.
I am a conservative not a handwringing leftist, we take the fight to the enemy
"it was only our presence in Afghanistan which stopped another 9/11"
No.
9/11 stopped another 9/11.
Passengers on commercial airlines will now fight back. Because - and this may surprise you - most people don't want to die in a fireball as their plane crashes into the 22nd floor of the Nakatomi Plaza.
HUNDREDS of Paras will swoop into Kabul to evacuate the British Embassy and up to 4,000 Brits, contractors and staff – amid fears the city will fall to the Taliban.
Only a skeleton staff including ambassador Sir Laurie Bristow will stay in the besieged Afghan capital.
Shameful and this will define the Biden-Harris administration now, whatever else it does this will be the greatest US humiliation since Vietnam.
We are not much better either as we also prepare to abandon our Embassy, however we are not big enough alone to stay in Afghanistan and maintain security and keep out the Taliban and terrorists without US support
Damn right
Instead the Biden-Harris administration should be defined by propping up an unpopular regime in Afghanistan with US lives and money.
Correct. It would avoid another 9/11, 9/11 2 now very much on the cards.
There have still been fewer US troops killed in Afghanistan in 20 years than the number of US civilians killed in NYC on 9/11 in 1 day thanks to an attack planned by Bin Laden in Afghanistan
Absolutely farcical. Pretty sure rcs was being sarcastic which you've missed.
Bin Laden, the Taliban, and al'Qaeda have had almost free reign in Pakistan for the past twenty years. Our invasion of Afghanistan never defeated the Taliban, it just relocated them. It never defeated al'Qaeda, they just relocated.
Bush's failure to secure Pakistan as part of the war meant the whole invasion and its aftermath has been a miserable failure.
Occupying Afghanistan was not preventing the Taliban or al'Qaeda or other Islamists from operating pretty much with impunity.
It was the invasion which forced Bin Laden into Pakistan where Bin Laden was killed by US special forces.
Whatever you think of Pakistani PM Imran Khan he is also relatively westernised for the region, he is not the Taliban even if a solid Muslim
Pakistan has been home of the Taliban for decades.
The Pakistani regime either can not or will not control or eliminate the Taliban from its northern mountain ranges especially and we never went after them as part of Bush's Afghan war which is why it was a complete and total failure.
The legacy of which is now.
You can put your head in all the sand of the Middle East if you please but your simplistic black and white world view doesn't work here.
It was Bush who removed the Taliban and Al Qaeda from Afghanistan it is Biden letting them back in.
On your argument we should invade Pakistan too and go even further
Have you signed up to fight the Taliban yet?
When the next bomb explodes in London we may not have much choice
For the sake of your political career - step away from the keyboard and call it a night
Far from it, it was only our presence in Afghanistan which stopped another 9/11, it is weak defeatism to suggest otherwise and abandon it back to the terrorists.
I am a conservative not a handwringing leftist, we take the fight to the enemy
"it was only our presence in Afghanistan which stopped another 9/11"
No.
9/11 stopped another 9/11.
Passengers on commercial airlines will now fight back. Because - and this may surprise you - most people don't want to die in a fireball as their plane crashes into the 22nd floor of the Nakatomi Plaza.
Were I an Afghan woman tonight, I would be doing whatever it takes to get out of the country. They - more than any other group - are hugely at risk under Taliban rule. As they were before.
But my guess is that we will see a lot of male Afghan refugees soon enough and no-one will ask what has happened to the women and girls.
No doubt true, but it is much harder for women to travel far in those parts. It doesn't mean the men are not legitimate refugees.
We could take female refugees from the camps in Pakistan if we wanted, but cannot see Priti pushing for that.
I'm sure the men are genuine refugees. But the women are more at risk and should be a priority. But they will - as usual - get forgotten.
The problem with the sauve qui peut on the part of the West in Afghanistan is that it will sooner or later have an impact on us. Millions of refugees will head West, and the country will again become a haven for anti-Western terrorist groups.
NATO forces could never eliminate the Taliban, but they were quite capable of containing them,. HYUFD is right about this.
Morally yes, but I am not sure Kabul falling .has as much political impact in the US as perhaps it should.
Until the next US skyscraper falls, which unfortunately it may well soon do as soon as Afghanistan becomes one big training camp for terrorists again
Does the (always inevitable) fall of Afghanistan somehow magically bypass all the airline security measures brought in since 9/11?
It only needs them to get through once, with thousands of terrorists back in Afghanistan trying it every day it will happen one day
The terrorists are going to successfully launch a 9/11 attack that they haven't been able to do in 20 years, just because the taliban have taken over Afghanistan?
You've truly lost it.
No, @HYUFD hasn't lost it, although it's unclear at present whether a Taliban-run Afghanistan will once again provide a free hand to Al Queda or its successors, as they did 20 years ago. I'd guess not, but it's one of a number of risks Biden is taking here.
If they do then we drone the hell out of them. No need for an occupying army.
You cannot defeat terrorist organisation with drones and you cannot defeat a tribal government built on insurgency with drones
I was thinking maybe EU red tape would be the best way to do them in. Could we possibly persuade them to apply for membership?
The problem with the sauve qui peut on the part of the West in Afghanistan is that it will sooner or later have an impact on us. Millions of refugees will head West, and the country will again become a haven for anti-Western terrorist groups.
NATO forces could never eliminate the Taliban, but they were quite capable of containing them,. HYUFD is right about this.
Morally yes, but I am not sure Kabul falling .has as much political impact in the US as perhaps it should.
Until the next US skyscraper falls, which unfortunately it may well soon do as soon as Afghanistan becomes one big training camp for terrorists again
Does the (always inevitable) fall of Afghanistan somehow magically bypass all the airline security measures brought in since 9/11?
It only needs them to get through once, with thousands of terrorists back in Afghanistan trying it every day it will happen one day
The terrorists are going to successfully launch a 9/11 attack that they haven't been able to do in 20 years, just because the taliban have taken over Afghanistan?
You've truly lost it.
No, @HYUFD hasn't lost it, although it's unclear at present whether a Taliban-run Afghanistan will once again provide a free hand to Al Queda or its successors, as they did 20 years ago. I'd guess not, but it's one of a number of risks Biden is taking here.
If they do then we drone the hell out of them. No need for an occupying army.
You cannot defeat terrorist organisation with drones and you cannot defeat a tribal government built on insurgency with drones
We can't defeat them with a 20 year occupation either, given they come roaring back the moment we left. What we can do is make clear it is not in the Taliban's interest to attack the West again, and drone strikes can do that perfectly well.
The problem with the sauve qui peut on the part of the West in Afghanistan is that it will sooner or later have an impact on us. Millions of refugees will head West, and the country will again become a haven for anti-Western terrorist groups.
NATO forces could never eliminate the Taliban, but they were quite capable of containing them,. HYUFD is right about this.
Morally yes, but I am not sure Kabul falling .has as much political impact in the US as perhaps it should.
Until the next US skyscraper falls, which unfortunately it may well soon do as soon as Afghanistan becomes one big training camp for terrorists again
Does the (always inevitable) fall of Afghanistan somehow magically bypass all the airline security measures brought in since 9/11?
It only needs them to get through once, with thousands of terrorists back in Afghanistan trying it every day it will happen one day
The terrorists are going to successfully launch a 9/11 attack that they haven't been able to do in 20 years, just because the taliban have taken over Afghanistan?
You've truly lost it.
Of course, as Afghanistan was where they had the bases and camps to plan them
It was. Pakistan is where they've had the bases and camps to plan them from for two whole decades now.
Not to mention Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Iraq. At the very least.
The "War on Terror" was lost nearly twenty years ago when we gave an ultimatum to the Taliban to hand over Bin Laden or we invade - and we invaded and they fled to Pakistan and we responded by doing . . . nothing.
If we were serious about saying there should be no safe harbour for terrorists we could have said to the Pakistanis "hand over Bin Laden or we invade" but we didn't do so and they were secure in northern Pakistan for decades. Which is why the Taliban today aren't untrained amateurs.
We invaded Afghanistan and removed Al Qaeda and then special forces were sent to Pakistan to kill Bin Laden
The problem with the sauve qui peut on the part of the West in Afghanistan is that it will sooner or later have an impact on us. Millions of refugees will head West, and the country will again become a haven for anti-Western terrorist groups.
NATO forces could never eliminate the Taliban, but they were quite capable of containing them,. HYUFD is right about this.
Morally yes, but I am not sure Kabul falling .has as much political impact in the US as perhaps it should.
Until the next US skyscraper falls, which unfortunately it may well soon do as soon as Afghanistan becomes one big training camp for terrorists again
Does the (always inevitable) fall of Afghanistan somehow magically bypass all the airline security measures brought in since 9/11?
It only needs them to get through once, with thousands of terrorists back in Afghanistan trying it every day it will happen one day
The terrorists are going to successfully launch a 9/11 attack that they haven't been able to do in 20 years, just because the taliban have taken over Afghanistan?
You've truly lost it.
No, @HYUFD hasn't lost it, although it's unclear at present whether a Taliban-run Afghanistan will once again provide a free hand to Al Queda or its successors, as they did 20 years ago. I'd guess not, but it's one of a number of risks Biden is taking here.
If they do then we drone the hell out of them. No need for an occupying army.
This is Afghanistan. If it were easy to drone the hell out of them, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
That reminds me of all those theories about Bin Laden's palatial underground lair.
The problem with the sauve qui peut on the part of the West in Afghanistan is that it will sooner or later have an impact on us. Millions of refugees will head West, and the country will again become a haven for anti-Western terrorist groups.
NATO forces could never eliminate the Taliban, but they were quite capable of containing them,. HYUFD is right about this.
Morally yes, but I am not sure Kabul falling .has as much political impact in the US as perhaps it should.
Until the next US skyscraper falls, which unfortunately it may well soon do as soon as Afghanistan becomes one big training camp for terrorists again
Does the (always inevitable) fall of Afghanistan somehow magically bypass all the airline security measures brought in since 9/11?
It only needs them to get through once, with thousands of terrorists back in Afghanistan trying it every day it will happen one day
The terrorists are going to successfully launch a 9/11 attack that they haven't been able to do in 20 years, just because the taliban have taken over Afghanistan?
You've truly lost it.
No, @HYUFD hasn't lost it, although it's unclear at present whether a Taliban-run Afghanistan will once again provide a free hand to Al Queda or its successors, as they did 20 years ago. I'd guess not, but it's one of a number of risks Biden is taking here.
If they do then we drone the hell out of them. No need for an occupying army.
This is Afghanistan. If it were easy to drone the hell out of them, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
We are having this discussion because Joe Biden is not the president 99% of people on here said he was.
The problem with the sauve qui peut on the part of the West in Afghanistan is that it will sooner or later have an impact on us. Millions of refugees will head West, and the country will again become a haven for anti-Western terrorist groups.
NATO forces could never eliminate the Taliban, but they were quite capable of containing them,. HYUFD is right about this.
Morally yes, but I am not sure Kabul falling .has as much political impact in the US as perhaps it should.
Until the next US skyscraper falls, which unfortunately it may well soon do as soon as Afghanistan becomes one big training camp for terrorists again
Does the (always inevitable) fall of Afghanistan somehow magically bypass all the airline security measures brought in since 9/11?
It only needs them to get through once, with thousands of terrorists back in Afghanistan trying it every day it will happen one day
The terrorists are going to successfully launch a 9/11 attack that they haven't been able to do in 20 years, just because the taliban have taken over Afghanistan?
You've truly lost it.
Of course, as Afghanistan was where they had the bases and camps to plan them
It was. Pakistan is where they've had the bases and camps to plan them from for two whole decades now.
Not to mention Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Iraq. At the very least.
The "War on Terror" was lost nearly twenty years ago when we gave an ultimatum to the Taliban to hand over Bin Laden or we invade - and we invaded and they fled to Pakistan and we responded by doing . . . nothing.
If we were serious about saying there should be no safe harbour for terrorists we could have said to the Pakistanis "hand over Bin Laden or we invade" but we didn't do so and they were secure in northern Pakistan for decades. Which is why the Taliban today aren't untrained amateurs.
That's not right. Yes, they fled elsewhere and weren't completely neutralised, but they were on the run and in hiding. Nothing like the near-complete, undisturbed freedom of action Al Queda had in Afghanistan under the Taliban.
Also, you seem to be eliding the Taliban with Al Queda. They weren't the same then, and they're not now.
How many US Vice Presidents have managed eight years (or more) in the office?
Come on guys - I want to see some serious guesses.
Are you counting them staying on or returning as President after their Vice Presidential tenure is over?
Eight years (or more) in the job as Vice President.
Or, to put it another way, two full terms as Veep.
Said terms do not have to be consecutive. Or to have the same President each time.
Without looking it up, post-war I can think of Nixon, Gore and Cheney off the top of my head, but there's probably more than that.
Thinking it through Biden is the 46th President. A lot of Presidents never served two terms, sadly some because they died and were replaced by their Veep elevating to the top job.
Most Presidents have chosen their own Veep and not kept a predecessor as far as I know. So I'd guess most to serve eight years did so with the same POTUS, though there might be exceptions to the rule.
Sometimes Presidents have replaced their Veep with a different one after a term.
So from all that I'd guess maybe a bit over a quarter of 46? So I'm going to guess a baker's dozen is the total. Thirteen.
The problem with the sauve qui peut on the part of the West in Afghanistan is that it will sooner or later have an impact on us. Millions of refugees will head West, and the country will again become a haven for anti-Western terrorist groups.
NATO forces could never eliminate the Taliban, but they were quite capable of containing them,. HYUFD is right about this.
Morally yes, but I am not sure Kabul falling .has as much political impact in the US as perhaps it should.
Until the next US skyscraper falls, which unfortunately it may well soon do as soon as Afghanistan becomes one big training camp for terrorists again
Does the (always inevitable) fall of Afghanistan somehow magically bypass all the airline security measures brought in since 9/11?
It only needs them to get through once, with thousands of terrorists back in Afghanistan trying it every day it will happen one day
The terrorists are going to successfully launch a 9/11 attack that they haven't been able to do in 20 years, just because the taliban have taken over Afghanistan?
You've truly lost it.
No, @HYUFD hasn't lost it, although it's unclear at present whether a Taliban-run Afghanistan will once again provide a free hand to Al Queda or its successors, as they did 20 years ago. I'd guess not, but it's one of a number of risks Biden is taking here.
If they do then we drone the hell out of them. No need for an occupying army.
This is Afghanistan. If it were easy to drone the hell out of them, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
That reminds me of all those theories about Bin Laden's palatial underground lair.
The problem with the sauve qui peut on the part of the West in Afghanistan is that it will sooner or later have an impact on us. Millions of refugees will head West, and the country will again become a haven for anti-Western terrorist groups.
NATO forces could never eliminate the Taliban, but they were quite capable of containing them,. HYUFD is right about this.
Morally yes, but I am not sure Kabul falling .has as much political impact in the US as perhaps it should.
Until the next US skyscraper falls, which unfortunately it may well soon do as soon as Afghanistan becomes one big training camp for terrorists again
Does the (always inevitable) fall of Afghanistan somehow magically bypass all the airline security measures brought in since 9/11?
It only needs them to get through once, with thousands of terrorists back in Afghanistan trying it every day it will happen one day
The terrorists are going to successfully launch a 9/11 attack that they haven't been able to do in 20 years, just because the taliban have taken over Afghanistan?
You've truly lost it.
No, @HYUFD hasn't lost it, although it's unclear at present whether a Taliban-run Afghanistan will once again provide a free hand to Al Queda or its successors, as they did 20 years ago. I'd guess not, but it's one of a number of risks Biden is taking here.
If they do then we drone the hell out of them. No need for an occupying army.
This is Afghanistan. If it were easy to drone the hell out of them, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
We are having this discussion because Joe Biden is not the president 99% of people on here said he was.
The problem with the sauve qui peut on the part of the West in Afghanistan is that it will sooner or later have an impact on us. Millions of refugees will head West, and the country will again become a haven for anti-Western terrorist groups.
NATO forces could never eliminate the Taliban, but they were quite capable of containing them,. HYUFD is right about this.
Morally yes, but I am not sure Kabul falling .has as much political impact in the US as perhaps it should.
Until the next US skyscraper falls, which unfortunately it may well soon do as soon as Afghanistan becomes one big training camp for terrorists again
Does the (always inevitable) fall of Afghanistan somehow magically bypass all the airline security measures brought in since 9/11?
It only needs them to get through once, with thousands of terrorists back in Afghanistan trying it every day it will happen one day
The terrorists are going to successfully launch a 9/11 attack that they haven't been able to do in 20 years, just because the taliban have taken over Afghanistan?
You've truly lost it.
No, @HYUFD hasn't lost it, although it's unclear at present whether a Taliban-run Afghanistan will once again provide a free hand to Al Queda or its successors, as they did 20 years ago. I'd guess not, but it's one of a number of risks Biden is taking here.
If they do then we drone the hell out of them. No need for an occupying army.
You cannot defeat terrorist organisation with drones and you cannot defeat a tribal government built on insurgency with drones
I was thinking maybe EU red tape would be the best way to do them in. Could we possibly persuade them to apply for membership?
To paraphrase Stalin, how many divisions does the European Union have?
The problem with the sauve qui peut on the part of the West in Afghanistan is that it will sooner or later have an impact on us. Millions of refugees will head West, and the country will again become a haven for anti-Western terrorist groups.
NATO forces could never eliminate the Taliban, but they were quite capable of containing them,. HYUFD is right about this.
Morally yes, but I am not sure Kabul falling .has as much political impact in the US as perhaps it should.
Until the next US skyscraper falls, which unfortunately it may well soon do as soon as Afghanistan becomes one big training camp for terrorists again
Does the (always inevitable) fall of Afghanistan somehow magically bypass all the airline security measures brought in since 9/11?
It only needs them to get through once, with thousands of terrorists back in Afghanistan trying it every day it will happen one day
The terrorists are going to successfully launch a 9/11 attack that they haven't been able to do in 20 years, just because the taliban have taken over Afghanistan?
You've truly lost it.
No, @HYUFD hasn't lost it, although it's unclear at present whether a Taliban-run Afghanistan will once again provide a free hand to Al Queda or its successors, as they did 20 years ago. I'd guess not, but it's one of a number of risks Biden is taking here.
If they do then we drone the hell out of them. No need for an occupying army.
This is Afghanistan. If it were easy to drone the hell out of them, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
We are having this discussion because Joe Biden is not the president 99% of people on here said he was.
Were I an Afghan woman tonight, I would be doing whatever it takes to get out of the country. They - more than any other group - are hugely at risk under Taliban rule. As they were before.
But my guess is that we will see a lot of male Afghan refugees soon enough and no-one will ask what has happened to the women and girls.
No doubt true, but it is much harder for women to travel far in those parts. It doesn't mean the men are not legitimate refugees.
We could take female refugees from the camps in Pakistan if we wanted, but cannot see Priti pushing for that.
I'm sure the men are genuine refugees. But the women are more at risk and should be a priority. But they will - as usual - get forgotten.
Men are more likely to be killed in war time than women. But you are correct that asylum should be considered based on need rather than who gets here.
We did not take the fight to the enemy. The enemy was in Pakistan and we did nothing about them. We left the enemy safe and secure for decades with training camps operating with impunity.
You're in denial if you think training camps went away with the fall of Afghanistan.
He's talking absolute rubbish.
In late 2001 the Pakistani ISI evacuated much of the Taliban leadership, and then the US pretended it didn't happen, and essentially allowed the Taliban to rebuild in Pakistan. The US was never serious about defeating the Taliban.
HUNDREDS of Paras will swoop into Kabul to evacuate the British Embassy and up to 4,000 Brits, contractors and staff – amid fears the city will fall to the Taliban.
Only a skeleton staff including ambassador Sir Laurie Bristow will stay in the besieged Afghan capital.
Shameful and this will define the Biden-Harris administration now, whatever else it does this will be the greatest US humiliation since Vietnam.
We are not much better either as we also prepare to abandon our Embassy, however we are not big enough alone to stay in Afghanistan and maintain security and keep out the Taliban and terrorists without US support
Damn right
Instead the Biden-Harris administration should be defined by propping up an unpopular regime in Afghanistan with US lives and money.
Correct. It would avoid another 9/11, 9/11 2 now very much on the cards.
There have still been fewer US troops killed in Afghanistan in 20 years than the number of US civilians killed in NYC on 9/11 in 1 day thanks to an attack planned by Bin Laden in Afghanistan
Absolutely farcical. Pretty sure rcs was being sarcastic which you've missed.
Bin Laden, the Taliban, and al'Qaeda have had almost free reign in Pakistan for the past twenty years. Our invasion of Afghanistan never defeated the Taliban, it just relocated them. It never defeated al'Qaeda, they just relocated.
Bush's failure to secure Pakistan as part of the war meant the whole invasion and its aftermath has been a miserable failure.
Occupying Afghanistan was not preventing the Taliban or al'Qaeda or other Islamists from operating pretty much with impunity.
It was the invasion which forced Bin Laden into Pakistan where Bin Laden was killed by US special forces.
Whatever you think of Pakistani PM Imran Khan he is also relatively westernised for the region, he is not the Taliban even if a solid Muslim
Pakistan has been home of the Taliban for decades.
The Pakistani regime either can not or will not control or eliminate the Taliban from its northern mountain ranges especially and we never went after them as part of Bush's Afghan war which is why it was a complete and total failure.
The legacy of which is now.
You can put your head in all the sand of the Middle East if you please but your simplistic black and white world view doesn't work here.
It was Bush who removed the Taliban and Al Qaeda from Afghanistan it is Biden letting them back in.
On your argument we should invade Pakistan too and go even further
Have you signed up to fight the Taliban yet?
When the next bomb explodes in London we may not have much choice
For the sake of your political career - step away from the keyboard and call it a night
Far from it, it was only our presence in Afghanistan which stopped another 9/11, it is weak defeatism to suggest otherwise and abandon it back to the terrorists.
I am a conservative not a handwringing leftist, we take the fight to the enemy
So how long do you want to stay in Afghanistan for? 30 years? 50 years? 100? Do you apply the same logic for any other place we get an attack from? Be that Libya, Somalia, Syria? Perhaps we should occupy the entire Muslim world for centuries.
50, 100 years, however long it takes.
If a big terrorist attack was launched on a major western city from those nations you mention then add them too
The problem with the sauve qui peut on the part of the West in Afghanistan is that it will sooner or later have an impact on us. Millions of refugees will head West, and the country will again become a haven for anti-Western terrorist groups.
NATO forces could never eliminate the Taliban, but they were quite capable of containing them,. HYUFD is right about this.
Morally yes, but I am not sure Kabul falling .has as much political impact in the US as perhaps it should.
Until the next US skyscraper falls, which unfortunately it may well soon do as soon as Afghanistan becomes one big training camp for terrorists again
Does the (always inevitable) fall of Afghanistan somehow magically bypass all the airline security measures brought in since 9/11?
It only needs them to get through once, with thousands of terrorists back in Afghanistan trying it every day it will happen one day
The terrorists are going to successfully launch a 9/11 attack that they haven't been able to do in 20 years, just because the taliban have taken over Afghanistan?
You've truly lost it.
Of course, as Afghanistan was where they had the bases and camps to plan them
It was. Pakistan is where they've had the bases and camps to plan them from for two whole decades now.
Not to mention Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Iraq. At the very least.
The "War on Terror" was lost nearly twenty years ago when we gave an ultimatum to the Taliban to hand over Bin Laden or we invade - and we invaded and they fled to Pakistan and we responded by doing . . . nothing.
If we were serious about saying there should be no safe harbour for terrorists we could have said to the Pakistanis "hand over Bin Laden or we invade" but we didn't do so and they were secure in northern Pakistan for decades. Which is why the Taliban today aren't untrained amateurs.
That's not right. Yes, they fled elsewhere and weren't completely neutralised, but they were on the run and in hiding. Nothing like the near-complete, undisturbed freedom of action Al Queda had in Afghanistan under the Taliban.
Also, you seem to be eliding the Taliban with Al Queda. They weren't the same then, and they're not now.
They were operating with near impunity, they weren't simply "in hiding".
Why do you think the Taliban are not complete amateurs only getting training and experience now for the first time? The training camps existed already because they weren't hiding. They were training with freedom to operate with pretty much impunity. Because we let them. Because Bush failed.
Yes I'm eliding the Taliban with al Qaeda, because the failure to handle one provided the risk for the other. Do you think Islamists have been persona non grata at the Taliban's Pakistani training camps? But they'll suddenly be welcomed once the Taliban are back in charge in Afghanistan?
The problem with the sauve qui peut on the part of the West in Afghanistan is that it will sooner or later have an impact on us. Millions of refugees will head West, and the country will again become a haven for anti-Western terrorist groups.
NATO forces could never eliminate the Taliban, but they were quite capable of containing them,. HYUFD is right about this.
Morally yes, but I am not sure Kabul falling .has as much political impact in the US as perhaps it should.
Until the next US skyscraper falls, which unfortunately it may well soon do as soon as Afghanistan becomes one big training camp for terrorists again
Does the (always inevitable) fall of Afghanistan somehow magically bypass all the airline security measures brought in since 9/11?
It only needs them to get through once, with thousands of terrorists back in Afghanistan trying it every day it will happen one day
The terrorists are going to successfully launch a 9/11 attack that they haven't been able to do in 20 years, just because the taliban have taken over Afghanistan?
You've truly lost it.
No, @HYUFD hasn't lost it, although it's unclear at present whether a Taliban-run Afghanistan will once again provide a free hand to Al Queda or its successors, as they did 20 years ago. I'd guess not, but it's one of a number of risks Biden is taking here.
If they do then we drone the hell out of them. No need for an occupying army.
You cannot defeat terrorist organisation with drones and you cannot defeat a tribal government built on insurgency with drones
I was thinking maybe EU red tape would be the best way to do them in. Could we possibly persuade them to apply for membership?
To paraphrase Stalin, how many divisions does the European Union have?
You misunderstand.
If we could just get Afghanistan to apply for EU membership (you know, sell it to the EU as a massive step forward after Brexit, while promising Taliban that it opens up 500 million European heathens for conversion), we can get them bogged down with accession treaties, Schengen and the correct subsidies for opium production.
The problem with the sauve qui peut on the part of the West in Afghanistan is that it will sooner or later have an impact on us. Millions of refugees will head West, and the country will again become a haven for anti-Western terrorist groups.
NATO forces could never eliminate the Taliban, but they were quite capable of containing them,. HYUFD is right about this.
Morally yes, but I am not sure Kabul falling .has as much political impact in the US as perhaps it should.
Until the next US skyscraper falls, which unfortunately it may well soon do as soon as Afghanistan becomes one big training camp for terrorists again
Does the (always inevitable) fall of Afghanistan somehow magically bypass all the airline security measures brought in since 9/11?
It only needs them to get through once, with thousands of terrorists back in Afghanistan trying it every day it will happen one day
The terrorists are going to successfully launch a 9/11 attack that they haven't been able to do in 20 years, just because the taliban have taken over Afghanistan?
You've truly lost it.
No, @HYUFD hasn't lost it, although it's unclear at present whether a Taliban-run Afghanistan will once again provide a free hand to Al Queda or its successors, as they did 20 years ago. I'd guess not, but it's one of a number of risks Biden is taking here.
If they do then we drone the hell out of them. No need for an occupying army.
You cannot defeat terrorist organisation with drones and you cannot defeat a tribal government built on insurgency with drones
We can't defeat them with a 20 year occupation either, given they come roaring back the moment we left. What we can do is make clear it is not in the Taliban's interest to attack the West again, and drone strikes can do that perfectly well.
It won't. The Taliban have already decided whether they will harbour groups such as Al Qaeda. They will either honour what the Americans think they got which is a commitment not to, or they will just disregard it. Will the Taliban be able to effect a reasonable (and thats measured differently in Afghanistan) central government control in the country. Its there that your leverage against them is best. You want to keep the Taliban in check, you make that very difficult and that isnt drones.
The problem with the sauve qui peut on the part of the West in Afghanistan is that it will sooner or later have an impact on us. Millions of refugees will head West, and the country will again become a haven for anti-Western terrorist groups.
NATO forces could never eliminate the Taliban, but they were quite capable of containing them,. HYUFD is right about this.
Morally yes, but I am not sure Kabul falling .has as much political impact in the US as perhaps it should.
Until the next US skyscraper falls, which unfortunately it may well soon do as soon as Afghanistan becomes one big training camp for terrorists again
Does the (always inevitable) fall of Afghanistan somehow magically bypass all the airline security measures brought in since 9/11?
It only needs them to get through once, with thousands of terrorists back in Afghanistan trying it every day it will happen one day
The terrorists are going to successfully launch a 9/11 attack that they haven't been able to do in 20 years, just because the taliban have taken over Afghanistan?
You've truly lost it.
No, @HYUFD hasn't lost it, although it's unclear at present whether a Taliban-run Afghanistan will once again provide a free hand to Al Queda or its successors, as they did 20 years ago. I'd guess not, but it's one of a number of risks Biden is taking here.
If they do then we drone the hell out of them. No need for an occupying army.
This is Afghanistan. If it were easy to drone the hell out of them, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
That reminds me of all those theories about Bin Laden's palatial underground lair.
I remember when he went to Ibiza - ‘All Summer Been Largin It’
The problem with the sauve qui peut on the part of the West in Afghanistan is that it will sooner or later have an impact on us. Millions of refugees will head West, and the country will again become a haven for anti-Western terrorist groups.
NATO forces could never eliminate the Taliban, but they were quite capable of containing them,. HYUFD is right about this.
Morally yes, but I am not sure Kabul falling .has as much political impact in the US as perhaps it should.
Until the next US skyscraper falls, which unfortunately it may well soon do as soon as Afghanistan becomes one big training camp for terrorists again
Does the (always inevitable) fall of Afghanistan somehow magically bypass all the airline security measures brought in since 9/11?
It only needs them to get through once, with thousands of terrorists back in Afghanistan trying it every day it will happen one day
The terrorists are going to successfully launch a 9/11 attack that they haven't been able to do in 20 years, just because the taliban have taken over Afghanistan?
You've truly lost it.
No, @HYUFD hasn't lost it, although it's unclear at present whether a Taliban-run Afghanistan will once again provide a free hand to Al Queda or its successors, as they did 20 years ago. I'd guess not, but it's one of a number of risks Biden is taking here.
If they do then we drone the hell out of them. No need for an occupying army.
You cannot defeat terrorist organisation with drones and you cannot defeat a tribal government built on insurgency with drones
I was thinking maybe EU red tape would be the best way to do them in. Could we possibly persuade them to apply for membership?
To paraphrase Stalin, how many divisions does the European Union have?
You misunderstand.
If we could just get Afghanistan to apply for EU membership (you know, sell it to the EU as a massive step forward after Brexit, while promising Taliban that it opens up 500 million European heathens for conversion), we can get them bogged down with accession treaties, Schengen and the correct subsidies for opium production.
It'd be win, win for the world.
I look forward to the great opium mountain of 2030.
The problem with the sauve qui peut on the part of the West in Afghanistan is that it will sooner or later have an impact on us. Millions of refugees will head West, and the country will again become a haven for anti-Western terrorist groups.
NATO forces could never eliminate the Taliban, but they were quite capable of containing them,. HYUFD is right about this.
Morally yes, but I am not sure Kabul falling .has as much political impact in the US as perhaps it should.
Until the next US skyscraper falls, which unfortunately it may well soon do as soon as Afghanistan becomes one big training camp for terrorists again
Does the (always inevitable) fall of Afghanistan somehow magically bypass all the airline security measures brought in since 9/11?
It only needs them to get through once, with thousands of terrorists back in Afghanistan trying it every day it will happen one day
The terrorists are going to successfully launch a 9/11 attack that they haven't been able to do in 20 years, just because the taliban have taken over Afghanistan?
You've truly lost it.
No, @HYUFD hasn't lost it, although it's unclear at present whether a Taliban-run Afghanistan will once again provide a free hand to Al Queda or its successors, as they did 20 years ago. I'd guess not, but it's one of a number of risks Biden is taking here.
If they do then we drone the hell out of them. No need for an occupying army.
This is Afghanistan. If it were easy to drone the hell out of them, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
We are having this discussion because Joe Biden is not the president 99% of people on here said he was.
He's not old?
He isn't entirely with it i'm afraid
Really? My goodness, and there was me thinking all the TV clips of him floundering were fake.
The problem with the sauve qui peut on the part of the West in Afghanistan is that it will sooner or later have an impact on us. Millions of refugees will head West, and the country will again become a haven for anti-Western terrorist groups.
NATO forces could never eliminate the Taliban, but they were quite capable of containing them,. HYUFD is right about this.
Morally yes, but I am not sure Kabul falling .has as much political impact in the US as perhaps it should.
Until the next US skyscraper falls, which unfortunately it may well soon do as soon as Afghanistan becomes one big training camp for terrorists again
Does the (always inevitable) fall of Afghanistan somehow magically bypass all the airline security measures brought in since 9/11?
It only needs them to get through once, with thousands of terrorists back in Afghanistan trying it every day it will happen one day
The terrorists are going to successfully launch a 9/11 attack that they haven't been able to do in 20 years, just because the taliban have taken over Afghanistan?
You've truly lost it.
Of course, as Afghanistan was where they had the bases and camps to plan them
It was. Pakistan is where they've had the bases and camps to plan them from for two whole decades now.
Not to mention Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Iraq. At the very least.
The "War on Terror" was lost nearly twenty years ago when we gave an ultimatum to the Taliban to hand over Bin Laden or we invade - and we invaded and they fled to Pakistan and we responded by doing . . . nothing.
If we were serious about saying there should be no safe harbour for terrorists we could have said to the Pakistanis "hand over Bin Laden or we invade" but we didn't do so and they were secure in northern Pakistan for decades. Which is why the Taliban today aren't untrained amateurs.
That's not right. Yes, they fled elsewhere and weren't completely neutralised, but they were on the run and in hiding. Nothing like the near-complete, undisturbed freedom of action Al Queda had in Afghanistan under the Taliban.
Also, you seem to be eliding the Taliban with Al Queda. They weren't the same then, and they're not now.
They were operating with near impunity, they weren't simply "in hiding".
Why do you think the Taliban are not complete amateurs only getting training and experience now for the first time? The training camps existed already because they weren't hiding. They were training with freedom to operate with pretty much impunity. Because we let them. Because Bush failed.
Yes I'm eliding the Taliban with al Qaeda, because the failure to handle one provided the risk for the other. Do you think Islamists have been persona non grata at the Taliban's Pakistani training camps? But they'll suddenly be welcomed once the Taliban are back in charge in Afghanistan?
We did not take the fight to the enemy. The enemy was in Pakistan and we did nothing about them. We left the enemy safe and secure for decades with training camps operating with impunity.
You're in denial if you think training camps went away with the fall of Afghanistan.
He's talking absolute rubbish.
In late 2001 the Pakistani ISI evacuated much of the Taliban leadership, and then the US pretended it didn't happen, and essentially allowed the Taliban to rebuild in Pakistan. The US was never serious about defeating the Taliban.
You are correct that the US strategy was ultimately not about Taliban defeat, it was to deny Al Qaeda a truly free territory to operate and led from. Despite what people say about Pakistan, Afghanistan was a degree higher up there in what it provided. The Taliban defeat was simply an objective on the way to another objective.
The problem with the sauve qui peut on the part of the West in Afghanistan is that it will sooner or later have an impact on us. Millions of refugees will head West, and the country will again become a haven for anti-Western terrorist groups.
NATO forces could never eliminate the Taliban, but they were quite capable of containing them,. HYUFD is right about this.
Morally yes, but I am not sure Kabul falling .has as much political impact in the US as perhaps it should.
Until the next US skyscraper falls, which unfortunately it may well soon do as soon as Afghanistan becomes one big training camp for terrorists again
Does the (always inevitable) fall of Afghanistan somehow magically bypass all the airline security measures brought in since 9/11?
It only needs them to get through once, with thousands of terrorists back in Afghanistan trying it every day it will happen one day
The terrorists are going to successfully launch a 9/11 attack that they haven't been able to do in 20 years, just because the taliban have taken over Afghanistan?
You've truly lost it.
No, @HYUFD hasn't lost it, although it's unclear at present whether a Taliban-run Afghanistan will once again provide a free hand to Al Queda or its successors, as they did 20 years ago. I'd guess not, but it's one of a number of risks Biden is taking here.
If they do then we drone the hell out of them. No need for an occupying army.
You cannot defeat terrorist organisation with drones and you cannot defeat a tribal government built on insurgency with drones
I was thinking maybe EU red tape would be the best way to do them in. Could we possibly persuade them to apply for membership?
To paraphrase Stalin, how many divisions does the European Union have?
You misunderstand.
If we could just get Afghanistan to apply for EU membership (you know, sell it to the EU as a massive step forward after Brexit, while promising Taliban that it opens up 500 million European heathens for conversion), we can get them bogged down with accession treaties, Schengen and the correct subsidies for opium production.
It'd be win, win for the world.
Nigel Farage would have a field day though...
' I said they were going to let Turkey join, in the event it was even WORSE!'
NEW: In surprise move Amazon moves it’s $1bn Lord of the Rings production from New Zealand to the UK for season 2. Hands back hundreds of millions in rebates/incentives from NZ govt.
HUNDREDS of Paras will swoop into Kabul to evacuate the British Embassy and up to 4,000 Brits, contractors and staff – amid fears the city will fall to the Taliban.
Only a skeleton staff including ambassador Sir Laurie Bristow will stay in the besieged Afghan capital.
Shameful and this will define the Biden-Harris administration now, whatever else it does this will be the greatest US humiliation since Vietnam.
We are not much better either as we also prepare to abandon our Embassy, however we are not big enough alone to stay in Afghanistan and maintain security and keep out the Taliban and terrorists without US support
Damn right
Instead the Biden-Harris administration should be defined by propping up an unpopular regime in Afghanistan with US lives and money.
Correct. It would avoid another 9/11, 9/11 2 now very much on the cards.
There have still been fewer US troops killed in Afghanistan in 20 years than the number of US civilians killed in NYC on 9/11 in 1 day thanks to an attack planned by Bin Laden in Afghanistan
Absolutely farcical. Pretty sure rcs was being sarcastic which you've missed.
Bin Laden, the Taliban, and al'Qaeda have had almost free reign in Pakistan for the past twenty years. Our invasion of Afghanistan never defeated the Taliban, it just relocated them. It never defeated al'Qaeda, they just relocated.
Bush's failure to secure Pakistan as part of the war meant the whole invasion and its aftermath has been a miserable failure.
Occupying Afghanistan was not preventing the Taliban or al'Qaeda or other Islamists from operating pretty much with impunity.
It was the invasion which forced Bin Laden into Pakistan where Bin Laden was killed by US special forces.
Whatever you think of Pakistani PM Imran Khan he is also relatively westernised for the region, he is not the Taliban even if a solid Muslim
Pakistan has been home of the Taliban for decades.
The Pakistani regime either can not or will not control or eliminate the Taliban from its northern mountain ranges especially and we never went after them as part of Bush's Afghan war which is why it was a complete and total failure.
The legacy of which is now.
You can put your head in all the sand of the Middle East if you please but your simplistic black and white world view doesn't work here.
It was Bush who removed the Taliban and Al Qaeda from Afghanistan it is Biden letting them back in.
On your argument we should invade Pakistan too and go even further
Have you signed up to fight the Taliban yet?
When the next bomb explodes in London we may not have much choice
For the sake of your political career - step away from the keyboard and call it a night
Far from it, it was only our presence in Afghanistan which stopped another 9/11, it is weak defeatism to suggest otherwise and abandon it back to the terrorists.
I am a conservative not a handwringing leftist, we take the fight to the enemy
So why haven't you signed up to fight the Taliban?
HUNDREDS of Paras will swoop into Kabul to evacuate the British Embassy and up to 4,000 Brits, contractors and staff – amid fears the city will fall to the Taliban.
Only a skeleton staff including ambassador Sir Laurie Bristow will stay in the besieged Afghan capital.
Shameful and this will define the Biden-Harris administration now, whatever else it does this will be the greatest US humiliation since Vietnam.
We are not much better either as we also prepare to abandon our Embassy, however we are not big enough alone to stay in Afghanistan and maintain security and keep out the Taliban and terrorists without US support
Damn right
Instead the Biden-Harris administration should be defined by propping up an unpopular regime in Afghanistan with US lives and money.
Correct. It would avoid another 9/11, 9/11 2 now very much on the cards.
There have still been fewer US troops killed in Afghanistan in 20 years than the number of US civilians killed in NYC on 9/11 in 1 day thanks to an attack planned by Bin Laden in Afghanistan
Absolutely farcical. Pretty sure rcs was being sarcastic which you've missed.
Bin Laden, the Taliban, and al'Qaeda have had almost free reign in Pakistan for the past twenty years. Our invasion of Afghanistan never defeated the Taliban, it just relocated them. It never defeated al'Qaeda, they just relocated.
Bush's failure to secure Pakistan as part of the war meant the whole invasion and its aftermath has been a miserable failure.
Occupying Afghanistan was not preventing the Taliban or al'Qaeda or other Islamists from operating pretty much with impunity.
It was the invasion which forced Bin Laden into Pakistan where Bin Laden was killed by US special forces.
Whatever you think of Pakistani PM Imran Khan he is also relatively westernised for the region, he is not the Taliban even if a solid Muslim
Pakistan has been home of the Taliban for decades.
The Pakistani regime either can not or will not control or eliminate the Taliban from its northern mountain ranges especially and we never went after them as part of Bush's Afghan war which is why it was a complete and total failure.
The legacy of which is now.
You can put your head in all the sand of the Middle East if you please but your simplistic black and white world view doesn't work here.
It was Bush who removed the Taliban and Al Qaeda from Afghanistan it is Biden letting them back in.
On your argument we should invade Pakistan too and go even further
Have you signed up to fight the Taliban yet?
When the next bomb explodes in London we may not have much choice
For the sake of your political career - step away from the keyboard and call it a night
Far from it, it was only our presence in Afghanistan which stopped another 9/11, it is weak defeatism to suggest otherwise and abandon it back to the terrorists.
I am a conservative not a handwringing leftist, we take the fight to the enemy
So why haven't you signed up to fight the Taliban?
As I am not a trained professional soldier, that is what we have the army for.
If we had conscription to fight them of course I would have to fight
HUNDREDS of Paras will swoop into Kabul to evacuate the British Embassy and up to 4,000 Brits, contractors and staff – amid fears the city will fall to the Taliban.
Only a skeleton staff including ambassador Sir Laurie Bristow will stay in the besieged Afghan capital.
Shameful and this will define the Biden-Harris administration now, whatever else it does this will be the greatest US humiliation since Vietnam.
We are not much better either as we also prepare to abandon our Embassy, however we are not big enough alone to stay in Afghanistan and maintain security and keep out the Taliban and terrorists without US support
Damn right
Instead the Biden-Harris administration should be defined by propping up an unpopular regime in Afghanistan with US lives and money.
Correct. It would avoid another 9/11, 9/11 2 now very much on the cards.
There have still been fewer US troops killed in Afghanistan in 20 years than the number of US civilians killed in NYC on 9/11 in 1 day thanks to an attack planned by Bin Laden in Afghanistan
Absolutely farcical. Pretty sure rcs was being sarcastic which you've missed.
Bin Laden, the Taliban, and al'Qaeda have had almost free reign in Pakistan for the past twenty years. Our invasion of Afghanistan never defeated the Taliban, it just relocated them. It never defeated al'Qaeda, they just relocated.
Bush's failure to secure Pakistan as part of the war meant the whole invasion and its aftermath has been a miserable failure.
Occupying Afghanistan was not preventing the Taliban or al'Qaeda or other Islamists from operating pretty much with impunity.
It was the invasion which forced Bin Laden into Pakistan where Bin Laden was killed by US special forces.
Whatever you think of Pakistani PM Imran Khan he is also relatively westernised for the region, he is not the Taliban even if a solid Muslim
Pakistan has been home of the Taliban for decades.
The Pakistani regime either can not or will not control or eliminate the Taliban from its northern mountain ranges especially and we never went after them as part of Bush's Afghan war which is why it was a complete and total failure.
The legacy of which is now.
You can put your head in all the sand of the Middle East if you please but your simplistic black and white world view doesn't work here.
It was Bush who removed the Taliban and Al Qaeda from Afghanistan it is Biden letting them back in.
On your argument we should invade Pakistan too and go even further
Have you signed up to fight the Taliban yet?
When the next bomb explodes in London we may not have much choice
For the sake of your political career - step away from the keyboard and call it a night
Far from it, it was only our presence in Afghanistan which stopped another 9/11, it is weak defeatism to suggest otherwise and abandon it back to the terrorists.
I am a conservative not a handwringing leftist, we take the fight to the enemy
So why haven't you signed up to fight the Taliban?
As I am not a trained professional soldier, that is what we have the army for.
If we had conscription to fight them of course I would have to fight
You could always volunteer and get yourself trained up, you know.
The problem with the sauve qui peut on the part of the West in Afghanistan is that it will sooner or later have an impact on us. Millions of refugees will head West, and the country will again become a haven for anti-Western terrorist groups.
NATO forces could never eliminate the Taliban, but they were quite capable of containing them,. HYUFD is right about this.
Morally yes, but I am not sure Kabul falling .has as much political impact in the US as perhaps it should.
Until the next US skyscraper falls, which unfortunately it may well soon do as soon as Afghanistan becomes one big training camp for terrorists again
Does the (always inevitable) fall of Afghanistan somehow magically bypass all the airline security measures brought in since 9/11?
It only needs them to get through once, with thousands of terrorists back in Afghanistan trying it every day it will happen one day
The terrorists are going to successfully launch a 9/11 attack that they haven't been able to do in 20 years, just because the taliban have taken over Afghanistan?
You've truly lost it.
Of course, as Afghanistan was where they had the bases and camps to plan them
It was. Pakistan is where they've had the bases and camps to plan them from for two whole decades now.
Not to mention Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Iraq. At the very least.
The "War on Terror" was lost nearly twenty years ago when we gave an ultimatum to the Taliban to hand over Bin Laden or we invade - and we invaded and they fled to Pakistan and we responded by doing . . . nothing.
If we were serious about saying there should be no safe harbour for terrorists we could have said to the Pakistanis "hand over Bin Laden or we invade" but we didn't do so and they were secure in northern Pakistan for decades. Which is why the Taliban today aren't untrained amateurs.
That's not right. Yes, they fled elsewhere and weren't completely neutralised, but they were on the run and in hiding. Nothing like the near-complete, undisturbed freedom of action Al Queda had in Afghanistan under the Taliban.
Also, you seem to be eliding the Taliban with Al Queda. They weren't the same then, and they're not now.
They were operating with near impunity, they weren't simply "in hiding".
Why do you think the Taliban are not complete amateurs only getting training and experience now for the first time? The training camps existed already because they weren't hiding. They were training with freedom to operate with pretty much impunity. Because we let them. Because Bush failed.
Yes I'm eliding the Taliban with al Qaeda, because the failure to handle one provided the risk for the other. Do you think Islamists have been persona non grata at the Taliban's Pakistani training camps? But they'll suddenly be welcomed once the Taliban are back in charge in Afghanistan?
You don't think Bin Laden was in hiding? Really?
He was operating for many years from a fairly well equipped compound right next to a Pakistani military academy, where he was operating with impunity until he was finally killed a decade after 9/11. He wasn't exactly like Saddam Hussein found hiding in a hole in the ground months after the war began.
The problem with the sauve qui peut on the part of the West in Afghanistan is that it will sooner or later have an impact on us. Millions of refugees will head West, and the country will again become a haven for anti-Western terrorist groups.
NATO forces could never eliminate the Taliban, but they were quite capable of containing them,. HYUFD is right about this.
Morally yes, but I am not sure Kabul falling .has as much political impact in the US as perhaps it should.
Until the next US skyscraper falls, which unfortunately it may well soon do as soon as Afghanistan becomes one big training camp for terrorists again
Does the (always inevitable) fall of Afghanistan somehow magically bypass all the airline security measures brought in since 9/11?
It only needs them to get through once, with thousands of terrorists back in Afghanistan trying it every day it will happen one day
The terrorists are going to successfully launch a 9/11 attack that they haven't been able to do in 20 years, just because the taliban have taken over Afghanistan?
You've truly lost it.
Of course, as Afghanistan was where they had the bases and camps to plan them
It was. Pakistan is where they've had the bases and camps to plan them from for two whole decades now.
Not to mention Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Iraq. At the very least.
The "War on Terror" was lost nearly twenty years ago when we gave an ultimatum to the Taliban to hand over Bin Laden or we invade - and we invaded and they fled to Pakistan and we responded by doing . . . nothing.
If we were serious about saying there should be no safe harbour for terrorists we could have said to the Pakistanis "hand over Bin Laden or we invade" but we didn't do so and they were secure in northern Pakistan for decades. Which is why the Taliban today aren't untrained amateurs.
That's not right. Yes, they fled elsewhere and weren't completely neutralised, but they were on the run and in hiding. Nothing like the near-complete, undisturbed freedom of action Al Queda had in Afghanistan under the Taliban.
Also, you seem to be eliding the Taliban with Al Queda. They weren't the same then, and they're not now.
They were operating with near impunity, they weren't simply "in hiding".
Why do you think the Taliban are not complete amateurs only getting training and experience now for the first time? The training camps existed already because they weren't hiding. They were training with freedom to operate with pretty much impunity. Because we let them. Because Bush failed.
Yes I'm eliding the Taliban with al Qaeda, because the failure to handle one provided the risk for the other. Do you think Islamists have been persona non grata at the Taliban's Pakistani training camps? But they'll suddenly be welcomed once the Taliban are back in charge in Afghanistan?
You don't think Bin Laden was in hiding? Really?
He was operating for many years from a fairly well equipped compound right next to a Pakistani military academy, where he was operating with impunity until he was finally killed a decade after 9/11. He wasn't exactly like Saddam Hussein found hiding in a hole in the ground months after the war began.
So they displayed Saddam after he'd been captured, but no pics of Bin Laden after he was, ah, "processed"?
How many US Vice Presidents have managed eight years (or more) in the office?
Come on guys - I want to see some serious guesses.
Eight or nine if you include John Adams. Edit - Seven or eight.
Definites
Thomas Marshall, John Nance Garner, Richard Nixon, George H. W. Bush, Al Gore, Dick Cheney, Joe Biden.
Substance over form.
John Adams.
Pretty good, it was indeed nine.
Next question. Since the founding of the US Presidential system in 1789, for how many months has the US been without a Vice President?
Quite a few I think. First theres presumably periods after assassinations when the new president might not appoint a successor as vice right away, and deaths of VPs not immediately replaced.
How many US Vice Presidents have managed eight years (or more) in the office?
Come on guys - I want to see some serious guesses.
Eight or nine if you include John Adams. Edit - Seven or eight.
Definites
Thomas Marshall, John Nance Garner, Richard Nixon, George H. W. Bush, Al Gore, Dick Cheney, Joe Biden.
Substance over form.
John Adams.
Pretty good, it was indeed nine.
Next question. Since the founding of the US Presidential system in 1789, for how many months has the US been without a Vice President?
Quite a few I think. First theres presumably periods after assassinations when the new president might not appoint a successor as vice right away, and deaths of VPs not immediately replaced.
The commentariat Biden rampers recoiling in horror as they see his regime for what it is really is, is quite funny.
The Taliban need to asses what relationship they want to have with the international community, says Jen Psaki as they end all education for women.....
How many US Vice Presidents have managed eight years (or more) in the office?
Come on guys - I want to see some serious guesses.
Eight or nine if you include John Adams. Edit - Seven or eight.
Definites
Thomas Marshall, John Nance Garner, Richard Nixon, George H. W. Bush, Al Gore, Dick Cheney, Joe Biden.
Substance over form.
John Adams.
Pretty good, it was indeed nine.
Next question. Since the founding of the US Presidential system in 1789, for how many months has the US been without a Vice President?
Quite a few I think. First theres presumably periods after assassinations when the new president might not appoint a successor as vice right away, and deaths of VPs not immediately replaced.
I'll guess 25
Much more than, for centuries there was no mechanism to replace a Vice President.
The 25th Amendment in 1967 changed all that.
So if the VP died, resigned, or was promoted to POTUS the office of VP would remain much vacant until the next election.
How many US Vice Presidents have managed eight years (or more) in the office?
Come on guys - I want to see some serious guesses.
Eight or nine if you include John Adams. Edit - Seven or eight.
Definites
Thomas Marshall, John Nance Garner, Richard Nixon, George H. W. Bush, Al Gore, Dick Cheney, Joe Biden.
Substance over form.
John Adams.
Pretty good, it was indeed nine.
Next question. Since the founding of the US Presidential system in 1789, for how many months has the US been without a Vice President?
I wasn't too far off guessing 13 then. Surprisingly much less common before recent decades.
Incredible to think nearly half of those have been in my lifetime from HW Bush onwards.
In the past the Veep wasn't replaced if they took office were they? Until the 25th Amendment I don't think a Veep vacancy could be filled until the next election - and even at the next election it would originally take a better part of almost a year between the election and inauguration day.
So I may be overestimating again but I'd have thought the time without a Veep could be measured in years not months. From all the times the Veep themselves have died in office, or have gone on to become President in their own right.
So my guess this time is 60 months. Five years worth.
The commentariat Biden rampers recoiling in horror as they see his regime for what it is really is, is quite funny.
The Taliban need to asses what relationship they want to have with the international community, says Jen Psaki as they end all education for women.....
Isn't he just continuing the policy of the previous administration in this area?
The commentariat Biden rampers recoiling in horror as they see his regime for what it is really is, is quite funny.
The Taliban need to asses what relationship they want to have with the international community, says Jen Psaki as they end all education for women.....
His "regime". I would say you have gone off the deep end, but you weren't ever on it.
How many US Vice Presidents have managed eight years (or more) in the office?
Come on guys - I want to see some serious guesses.
Eight or nine if you include John Adams. Edit - Seven or eight.
Definites
Thomas Marshall, John Nance Garner, Richard Nixon, George H. W. Bush, Al Gore, Dick Cheney, Joe Biden.
Substance over form.
John Adams.
Pretty good, it was indeed nine.
Next question. Since the founding of the US Presidential system in 1789, for how many months has the US been without a Vice President?
Quite a few I think. First theres presumably periods after assassinations when the new president might not appoint a successor as vice right away, and deaths of VPs not immediately replaced.
The problem with the sauve qui peut on the part of the West in Afghanistan is that it will sooner or later have an impact on us. Millions of refugees will head West, and the country will again become a haven for anti-Western terrorist groups.
NATO forces could never eliminate the Taliban, but they were quite capable of containing them,. HYUFD is right about this.
Morally yes, but I am not sure Kabul falling .has as much political impact in the US as perhaps it should.
Until the next US skyscraper falls, which unfortunately it may well soon do as soon as Afghanistan becomes one big training camp for terrorists again
Does the (always inevitable) fall of Afghanistan somehow magically bypass all the airline security measures brought in since 9/11?
It only needs them to get through once, with thousands of terrorists back in Afghanistan trying it every day it will happen one day
The terrorists are going to successfully launch a 9/11 attack that they haven't been able to do in 20 years, just because the taliban have taken over Afghanistan?
You've truly lost it.
No, @HYUFD hasn't lost it, although it's unclear at present whether a Taliban-run Afghanistan will once again provide a free hand to Al Queda or its successors, as they did 20 years ago. I'd guess not, but it's one of a number of risks Biden is taking here.
If they do then we drone the hell out of them. No need for an occupying army.
You cannot defeat terrorist organisation with drones and you cannot defeat a tribal government built on insurgency with drones
We can't defeat them with a 20 year occupation either, given they come roaring back the moment we left. What we can do is make clear it is not in the Taliban's interest to attack the West again, and drone strikes can do that perfectly well.
It won't. The Taliban have already decided whether they will harbour groups such as Al Qaeda. They will either honour what the Americans think they got which is a commitment not to, or they will just disregard it. Will the Taliban be able to effect a reasonable (and thats measured differently in Afghanistan) central government control in the country. Its there that your leverage against them is best. You want to keep the Taliban in check, you make that very difficult and that isnt drones.
If they don't invite Al Qaeda back, we leave them alone as just another Islamist armpit in the world. If they do, we keep blowing stuff up from afar until they get the message.
Actually didn't an early President die just days or weeks after inauguration? Supposedly because of getting sick on inauguration day?
His Veep alone would have never been replaced so would have been close to four years by him alone. So I'm going to change my guess to at least 15 years cumulative. 18 months, might be underestimating it still.
HUNDREDS of Paras will swoop into Kabul to evacuate the British Embassy and up to 4,000 Brits, contractors and staff – amid fears the city will fall to the Taliban.
Only a skeleton staff including ambassador Sir Laurie Bristow will stay in the besieged Afghan capital.
Shameful and this will define the Biden-Harris administration now, whatever else it does this will be the greatest US humiliation since Vietnam.
We are not much better either as we also prepare to abandon our Embassy, however we are not big enough alone to stay in Afghanistan and maintain security and keep out the Taliban and terrorists without US support
Damn right
Instead the Biden-Harris administration should be defined by propping up an unpopular regime in Afghanistan with US lives and money.
Correct. It would avoid another 9/11, 9/11 2 now very much on the cards.
There have still been fewer US troops killed in Afghanistan in 20 years than the number of US civilians killed in NYC on 9/11 in 1 day thanks to an attack planned by Bin Laden in Afghanistan
Absolutely farcical. Pretty sure rcs was being sarcastic which you've missed.
Bin Laden, the Taliban, and al'Qaeda have had almost free reign in Pakistan for the past twenty years. Our invasion of Afghanistan never defeated the Taliban, it just relocated them. It never defeated al'Qaeda, they just relocated.
Bush's failure to secure Pakistan as part of the war meant the whole invasion and its aftermath has been a miserable failure.
Occupying Afghanistan was not preventing the Taliban or al'Qaeda or other Islamists from operating pretty much with impunity.
It was the invasion which forced Bin Laden into Pakistan where Bin Laden was killed by US special forces.
Whatever you think of Pakistani PM Imran Khan he is also relatively westernised for the region, he is not the Taliban even if a solid Muslim
Pakistan has been home of the Taliban for decades.
The Pakistani regime either can not or will not control or eliminate the Taliban from its northern mountain ranges especially and we never went after them as part of Bush's Afghan war which is why it was a complete and total failure.
The legacy of which is now.
You can put your head in all the sand of the Middle East if you please but your simplistic black and white world view doesn't work here.
It was Bush who removed the Taliban and Al Qaeda from Afghanistan it is Biden letting them back in.
On your argument we should invade Pakistan too and go even further
Have you signed up to fight the Taliban yet?
When the next bomb explodes in London we may not have much choice
For the sake of your political career - step away from the keyboard and call it a night
Far from it, it was only our presence in Afghanistan which stopped another 9/11, it is weak defeatism to suggest otherwise and abandon it back to the terrorists.
I am a conservative not a handwringing leftist, we take the fight to the enemy
So why haven't you signed up to fight the Taliban?
As I am not a trained professional soldier, that is what we have the army for.
If we had conscription to fight them of course I would have to fight
Worry not, we have an embarrassment of trained pros.
HUNDREDS of Paras will swoop into Kabul to evacuate the British Embassy and up to 4,000 Brits, contractors and staff – amid fears the city will fall to the Taliban.
Only a skeleton staff including ambassador Sir Laurie Bristow will stay in the besieged Afghan capital.
Shameful and this will define the Biden-Harris administration now, whatever else it does this will be the greatest US humiliation since Vietnam.
We are not much better either as we also prepare to abandon our Embassy, however we are not big enough alone to stay in Afghanistan and maintain security and keep out the Taliban and terrorists without US support
Damn right
Instead the Biden-Harris administration should be defined by propping up an unpopular regime in Afghanistan with US lives and money.
Correct. It would avoid another 9/11, 9/11 2 now very much on the cards.
There have still been fewer US troops killed in Afghanistan in 20 years than the number of US civilians killed in NYC on 9/11 in 1 day thanks to an attack planned by Bin Laden in Afghanistan
Absolutely farcical. Pretty sure rcs was being sarcastic which you've missed.
Bin Laden, the Taliban, and al'Qaeda have had almost free reign in Pakistan for the past twenty years. Our invasion of Afghanistan never defeated the Taliban, it just relocated them. It never defeated al'Qaeda, they just relocated.
Bush's failure to secure Pakistan as part of the war meant the whole invasion and its aftermath has been a miserable failure.
Occupying Afghanistan was not preventing the Taliban or al'Qaeda or other Islamists from operating pretty much with impunity.
It was the invasion which forced Bin Laden into Pakistan where Bin Laden was killed by US special forces.
Whatever you think of Pakistani PM Imran Khan he is also relatively westernised for the region, he is not the Taliban even if a solid Muslim
Pakistan has been home of the Taliban for decades.
The Pakistani regime either can not or will not control or eliminate the Taliban from its northern mountain ranges especially and we never went after them as part of Bush's Afghan war which is why it was a complete and total failure.
The legacy of which is now.
You can put your head in all the sand of the Middle East if you please but your simplistic black and white world view doesn't work here.
It was Bush who removed the Taliban and Al Qaeda from Afghanistan it is Biden letting them back in.
On your argument we should invade Pakistan too and go even further
Have you signed up to fight the Taliban yet?
When the next bomb explodes in London we may not have much choice
For the sake of your political career - step away from the keyboard and call it a night
Far from it, it was only our presence in Afghanistan which stopped another 9/11, it is weak defeatism to suggest otherwise and abandon it back to the terrorists.
I am a conservative not a handwringing leftist, we take the fight to the enemy
So why haven't you signed up to fight the Taliban?
As I am not a trained professional soldier, that is what we have the army for.
If we had conscription to fight them of course I would have to fight
How convenient it is other people's sons and daughters that have to fight your forever war.
NEW: In surprise move Amazon moves it’s $1bn Lord of the Rings production from New Zealand to the UK for season 2. Hands back hundreds of millions in rebates/incentives from NZ govt.
HUNDREDS of Paras will swoop into Kabul to evacuate the British Embassy and up to 4,000 Brits, contractors and staff – amid fears the city will fall to the Taliban.
Only a skeleton staff including ambassador Sir Laurie Bristow will stay in the besieged Afghan capital.
Shameful and this will define the Biden-Harris administration now, whatever else it does this will be the greatest US humiliation since Vietnam.
We are not much better either as we also prepare to abandon our Embassy, however we are not big enough alone to stay in Afghanistan and maintain security and keep out the Taliban and terrorists without US support
Damn right
Instead the Biden-Harris administration should be defined by propping up an unpopular regime in Afghanistan with US lives and money.
Correct. It would avoid another 9/11, 9/11 2 now very much on the cards.
There have still been fewer US troops killed in Afghanistan in 20 years than the number of US civilians killed in NYC on 9/11 in 1 day thanks to an attack planned by Bin Laden in Afghanistan
Absolutely farcical. Pretty sure rcs was being sarcastic which you've missed.
Bin Laden, the Taliban, and al'Qaeda have had almost free reign in Pakistan for the past twenty years. Our invasion of Afghanistan never defeated the Taliban, it just relocated them. It never defeated al'Qaeda, they just relocated.
Bush's failure to secure Pakistan as part of the war meant the whole invasion and its aftermath has been a miserable failure.
Occupying Afghanistan was not preventing the Taliban or al'Qaeda or other Islamists from operating pretty much with impunity.
It was the invasion which forced Bin Laden into Pakistan where Bin Laden was killed by US special forces.
Whatever you think of Pakistani PM Imran Khan he is also relatively westernised for the region, he is not the Taliban even if a solid Muslim
Pakistan has been home of the Taliban for decades.
The Pakistani regime either can not or will not control or eliminate the Taliban from its northern mountain ranges especially and we never went after them as part of Bush's Afghan war which is why it was a complete and total failure.
The legacy of which is now.
You can put your head in all the sand of the Middle East if you please but your simplistic black and white world view doesn't work here.
It was Bush who removed the Taliban and Al Qaeda from Afghanistan it is Biden letting them back in.
On your argument we should invade Pakistan too and go even further
Have you signed up to fight the Taliban yet?
When the next bomb explodes in London we may not have much choice
For the sake of your political career - step away from the keyboard and call it a night
Far from it, it was only our presence in Afghanistan which stopped another 9/11, it is weak defeatism to suggest otherwise and abandon it back to the terrorists.
I am a conservative not a handwringing leftist, we take the fight to the enemy
So why haven't you signed up to fight the Taliban?
As I am not a trained professional soldier, that is what we have the army for.
If we had conscription to fight them of course I would have to fight
Worry not, we have an embarrassment of trained pros.
HYUFD believes in "taking the fight to the enemy" direct from an armchair in Epping...
NEW: In surprise move Amazon moves it’s $1bn Lord of the Rings production from New Zealand to the UK for season 2. Hands back hundreds of millions in rebates/incentives from NZ govt.
HUNDREDS of Paras will swoop into Kabul to evacuate the British Embassy and up to 4,000 Brits, contractors and staff – amid fears the city will fall to the Taliban.
Only a skeleton staff including ambassador Sir Laurie Bristow will stay in the besieged Afghan capital.
Shameful and this will define the Biden-Harris administration now, whatever else it does this will be the greatest US humiliation since Vietnam.
We are not much better either as we also prepare to abandon our Embassy, however we are not big enough alone to stay in Afghanistan and maintain security and keep out the Taliban and terrorists without US support
Damn right
Instead the Biden-Harris administration should be defined by propping up an unpopular regime in Afghanistan with US lives and money.
Correct. It would avoid another 9/11, 9/11 2 now very much on the cards.
There have still been fewer US troops killed in Afghanistan in 20 years than the number of US civilians killed in NYC on 9/11 in 1 day thanks to an attack planned by Bin Laden in Afghanistan
Absolutely farcical. Pretty sure rcs was being sarcastic which you've missed.
Bin Laden, the Taliban, and al'Qaeda have had almost free reign in Pakistan for the past twenty years. Our invasion of Afghanistan never defeated the Taliban, it just relocated them. It never defeated al'Qaeda, they just relocated.
Bush's failure to secure Pakistan as part of the war meant the whole invasion and its aftermath has been a miserable failure.
Occupying Afghanistan was not preventing the Taliban or al'Qaeda or other Islamists from operating pretty much with impunity.
It was the invasion which forced Bin Laden into Pakistan where Bin Laden was killed by US special forces.
Whatever you think of Pakistani PM Imran Khan he is also relatively westernised for the region, he is not the Taliban even if a solid Muslim
Pakistan has been home of the Taliban for decades.
The Pakistani regime either can not or will not control or eliminate the Taliban from its northern mountain ranges especially and we never went after them as part of Bush's Afghan war which is why it was a complete and total failure.
The legacy of which is now.
You can put your head in all the sand of the Middle East if you please but your simplistic black and white world view doesn't work here.
It was Bush who removed the Taliban and Al Qaeda from Afghanistan it is Biden letting them back in.
On your argument we should invade Pakistan too and go even further
Have you signed up to fight the Taliban yet?
When the next bomb explodes in London we may not have much choice
For the sake of your political career - step away from the keyboard and call it a night
Far from it, it was only our presence in Afghanistan which stopped another 9/11, it is weak defeatism to suggest otherwise and abandon it back to the terrorists.
I am a conservative not a handwringing leftist, we take the fight to the enemy
So why haven't you signed up to fight the Taliban?
As I am not a trained professional soldier, that is what we have the army for.
If we had conscription to fight them of course I would have to fight
How convenient it is other people's sons and daughters that have to fight your forever war.
If you join the army part of your role is fighting, that is what they are there for, that is what they are paid for.
In my view they should be paid more.
As I said earlier more US and UK civilians were killed on 9/11 in one day in a terror attack planned and launched from Afghanistan than all the US troops killed in Afghanistan combined in the last 20 years. There is a reason we were there
HUNDREDS of Paras will swoop into Kabul to evacuate the British Embassy and up to 4,000 Brits, contractors and staff – amid fears the city will fall to the Taliban.
Only a skeleton staff including ambassador Sir Laurie Bristow will stay in the besieged Afghan capital.
Shameful and this will define the Biden-Harris administration now, whatever else it does this will be the greatest US humiliation since Vietnam.
We are not much better either as we also prepare to abandon our Embassy, however we are not big enough alone to stay in Afghanistan and maintain security and keep out the Taliban and terrorists without US support
Damn right
Instead the Biden-Harris administration should be defined by propping up an unpopular regime in Afghanistan with US lives and money.
Correct. It would avoid another 9/11, 9/11 2 now very much on the cards.
There have still been fewer US troops killed in Afghanistan in 20 years than the number of US civilians killed in NYC on 9/11 in 1 day thanks to an attack planned by Bin Laden in Afghanistan
Absolutely farcical. Pretty sure rcs was being sarcastic which you've missed.
Bin Laden, the Taliban, and al'Qaeda have had almost free reign in Pakistan for the past twenty years. Our invasion of Afghanistan never defeated the Taliban, it just relocated them. It never defeated al'Qaeda, they just relocated.
Bush's failure to secure Pakistan as part of the war meant the whole invasion and its aftermath has been a miserable failure.
Occupying Afghanistan was not preventing the Taliban or al'Qaeda or other Islamists from operating pretty much with impunity.
It was the invasion which forced Bin Laden into Pakistan where Bin Laden was killed by US special forces.
Whatever you think of Pakistani PM Imran Khan he is also relatively westernised for the region, he is not the Taliban even if a solid Muslim
Pakistan has been home of the Taliban for decades.
The Pakistani regime either can not or will not control or eliminate the Taliban from its northern mountain ranges especially and we never went after them as part of Bush's Afghan war which is why it was a complete and total failure.
The legacy of which is now.
You can put your head in all the sand of the Middle East if you please but your simplistic black and white world view doesn't work here.
It was Bush who removed the Taliban and Al Qaeda from Afghanistan it is Biden letting them back in.
On your argument we should invade Pakistan too and go even further
Have you signed up to fight the Taliban yet?
When the next bomb explodes in London we may not have much choice
For the sake of your political career - step away from the keyboard and call it a night
Far from it, it was only our presence in Afghanistan which stopped another 9/11, it is weak defeatism to suggest otherwise and abandon it back to the terrorists.
I am a conservative not a handwringing leftist, we take the fight to the enemy
So why haven't you signed up to fight the Taliban?
As I am not a trained professional soldier, that is what we have the army for.
If we had conscription to fight them of course I would have to fight
How convenient it is other people's sons and daughters that have to fight your forever war.
If you join the army part of your role is fighting, that is what they are there for, that is what they are paid for.
In my view they should be paid more
But you can't "take the fight to the enemy" from an armchair in Epping, can you?
HUNDREDS of Paras will swoop into Kabul to evacuate the British Embassy and up to 4,000 Brits, contractors and staff – amid fears the city will fall to the Taliban.
Only a skeleton staff including ambassador Sir Laurie Bristow will stay in the besieged Afghan capital.
Shameful and this will define the Biden-Harris administration now, whatever else it does this will be the greatest US humiliation since Vietnam.
We are not much better either as we also prepare to abandon our Embassy, however we are not big enough alone to stay in Afghanistan and maintain security and keep out the Taliban and terrorists without US support
Damn right
Instead the Biden-Harris administration should be defined by propping up an unpopular regime in Afghanistan with US lives and money.
Correct. It would avoid another 9/11, 9/11 2 now very much on the cards.
There have still been fewer US troops killed in Afghanistan in 20 years than the number of US civilians killed in NYC on 9/11 in 1 day thanks to an attack planned by Bin Laden in Afghanistan
Absolutely farcical. Pretty sure rcs was being sarcastic which you've missed.
Bin Laden, the Taliban, and al'Qaeda have had almost free reign in Pakistan for the past twenty years. Our invasion of Afghanistan never defeated the Taliban, it just relocated them. It never defeated al'Qaeda, they just relocated.
Bush's failure to secure Pakistan as part of the war meant the whole invasion and its aftermath has been a miserable failure.
Occupying Afghanistan was not preventing the Taliban or al'Qaeda or other Islamists from operating pretty much with impunity.
It was the invasion which forced Bin Laden into Pakistan where Bin Laden was killed by US special forces.
Whatever you think of Pakistani PM Imran Khan he is also relatively westernised for the region, he is not the Taliban even if a solid Muslim
Pakistan has been home of the Taliban for decades.
The Pakistani regime either can not or will not control or eliminate the Taliban from its northern mountain ranges especially and we never went after them as part of Bush's Afghan war which is why it was a complete and total failure.
The legacy of which is now.
You can put your head in all the sand of the Middle East if you please but your simplistic black and white world view doesn't work here.
It was Bush who removed the Taliban and Al Qaeda from Afghanistan it is Biden letting them back in.
On your argument we should invade Pakistan too and go even further
Have you signed up to fight the Taliban yet?
When the next bomb explodes in London we may not have much choice
For the sake of your political career - step away from the keyboard and call it a night
Far from it, it was only our presence in Afghanistan which stopped another 9/11, it is weak defeatism to suggest otherwise and abandon it back to the terrorists.
I am a conservative not a handwringing leftist, we take the fight to the enemy
"it was only our presence in Afghanistan which stopped another 9/11"
No.
9/11 stopped another 9/11.
Passengers on commercial airlines will now fight back. Because - and this may surprise you - most people don't want to die in a fireball as their plane crashes into the 22nd floor of the Nakatomi Plaza.
It's notable that there are loads of examples of this kind of thing post 9/11 and precious few before.
HUNDREDS of Paras will swoop into Kabul to evacuate the British Embassy and up to 4,000 Brits, contractors and staff – amid fears the city will fall to the Taliban.
Only a skeleton staff including ambassador Sir Laurie Bristow will stay in the besieged Afghan capital.
Shameful and this will define the Biden-Harris administration now, whatever else it does this will be the greatest US humiliation since Vietnam.
We are not much better either as we also prepare to abandon our Embassy, however we are not big enough alone to stay in Afghanistan and maintain security and keep out the Taliban and terrorists without US support
Damn right
Instead the Biden-Harris administration should be defined by propping up an unpopular regime in Afghanistan with US lives and money.
Correct. It would avoid another 9/11, 9/11 2 now very much on the cards.
There have still been fewer US troops killed in Afghanistan in 20 years than the number of US civilians killed in NYC on 9/11 in 1 day thanks to an attack planned by Bin Laden in Afghanistan
Absolutely farcical. Pretty sure rcs was being sarcastic which you've missed.
Bin Laden, the Taliban, and al'Qaeda have had almost free reign in Pakistan for the past twenty years. Our invasion of Afghanistan never defeated the Taliban, it just relocated them. It never defeated al'Qaeda, they just relocated.
Bush's failure to secure Pakistan as part of the war meant the whole invasion and its aftermath has been a miserable failure.
Occupying Afghanistan was not preventing the Taliban or al'Qaeda or other Islamists from operating pretty much with impunity.
It was the invasion which forced Bin Laden into Pakistan where Bin Laden was killed by US special forces.
Whatever you think of Pakistani PM Imran Khan he is also relatively westernised for the region, he is not the Taliban even if a solid Muslim
Pakistan has been home of the Taliban for decades.
The Pakistani regime either can not or will not control or eliminate the Taliban from its northern mountain ranges especially and we never went after them as part of Bush's Afghan war which is why it was a complete and total failure.
The legacy of which is now.
You can put your head in all the sand of the Middle East if you please but your simplistic black and white world view doesn't work here.
It was Bush who removed the Taliban and Al Qaeda from Afghanistan it is Biden letting them back in.
On your argument we should invade Pakistan too and go even further
Have you signed up to fight the Taliban yet?
When the next bomb explodes in London we may not have much choice
For the sake of your political career - step away from the keyboard and call it a night
Far from it, it was only our presence in Afghanistan which stopped another 9/11, it is weak defeatism to suggest otherwise and abandon it back to the terrorists.
I am a conservative not a handwringing leftist, we take the fight to the enemy
So why haven't you signed up to fight the Taliban?
As I am not a trained professional soldier, that is what we have the army for.
If we had conscription to fight them of course I would have to fight
How convenient it is other people's sons and daughters that have to fight your forever war.
If you join the army part of your role is fighting, that is what they are there for, that is what they are paid for.
In my view they should be paid more
The army is not there to occupy a place on the other side of the world in perpetuity. And, presumably, all the other unstable Islamist hellholes as they emerge.
Incredible how many of these were close to the full four year terms.
How did I forget Lincoln and FDR as having died close to the full four years too 🤦♂️ . . . while remembering instead the story of the President who died from the rain on inauguration day instead?
HUNDREDS of Paras will swoop into Kabul to evacuate the British Embassy and up to 4,000 Brits, contractors and staff – amid fears the city will fall to the Taliban.
Only a skeleton staff including ambassador Sir Laurie Bristow will stay in the besieged Afghan capital.
Shameful and this will define the Biden-Harris administration now, whatever else it does this will be the greatest US humiliation since Vietnam.
We are not much better either as we also prepare to abandon our Embassy, however we are not big enough alone to stay in Afghanistan and maintain security and keep out the Taliban and terrorists without US support
Damn right
Instead the Biden-Harris administration should be defined by propping up an unpopular regime in Afghanistan with US lives and money.
Correct. It would avoid another 9/11, 9/11 2 now very much on the cards.
There have still been fewer US troops killed in Afghanistan in 20 years than the number of US civilians killed in NYC on 9/11 in 1 day thanks to an attack planned by Bin Laden in Afghanistan
Absolutely farcical. Pretty sure rcs was being sarcastic which you've missed.
Bin Laden, the Taliban, and al'Qaeda have had almost free reign in Pakistan for the past twenty years. Our invasion of Afghanistan never defeated the Taliban, it just relocated them. It never defeated al'Qaeda, they just relocated.
Bush's failure to secure Pakistan as part of the war meant the whole invasion and its aftermath has been a miserable failure.
Occupying Afghanistan was not preventing the Taliban or al'Qaeda or other Islamists from operating pretty much with impunity.
It was the invasion which forced Bin Laden into Pakistan where Bin Laden was killed by US special forces.
Whatever you think of Pakistani PM Imran Khan he is also relatively westernised for the region, he is not the Taliban even if a solid Muslim
Pakistan has been home of the Taliban for decades.
The Pakistani regime either can not or will not control or eliminate the Taliban from its northern mountain ranges especially and we never went after them as part of Bush's Afghan war which is why it was a complete and total failure.
The legacy of which is now.
You can put your head in all the sand of the Middle East if you please but your simplistic black and white world view doesn't work here.
It was Bush who removed the Taliban and Al Qaeda from Afghanistan it is Biden letting them back in.
On your argument we should invade Pakistan too and go even further
Have you signed up to fight the Taliban yet?
When the next bomb explodes in London we may not have much choice
For the sake of your political career - step away from the keyboard and call it a night
Far from it, it was only our presence in Afghanistan which stopped another 9/11, it is weak defeatism to suggest otherwise and abandon it back to the terrorists.
I am a conservative not a handwringing leftist, we take the fight to the enemy
So why haven't you signed up to fight the Taliban?
As I am not a trained professional soldier, that is what we have the army for.
If we had conscription to fight them of course I would have to fight
How convenient it is other people's sons and daughters that have to fight your forever war.
If you join the army part of your role is fighting, that is what they are there for, that is what they are paid for.
In my view they should be paid more
The army is not there to occupy a place on the other side of the world in perpetuity. And, presumably, all the other unstable Islamist hellholes as they emerge.
Didn't know they couldn't replace the VP until recently. Itll be 100+ months then surely.
Distracted by reading Master and Commander - the word floccinaucinihilipilification just came up. I seem to recall JRM used it once, without the 'pili' part.
This can’t be true. When Trump and Pompeo made these claims they were routinely derided and Trunp criticised for calling it the China virus.
The ridiculousness started early in 2020 when the Trump administration started briefing that the virus almost certainly came from the lab. On the basis of very little evidence indeed. The pushback against that was justified - but went beyond that to the line that a lab origin wasn't conceivable.
The reality of what evidence there is lies somewhere between those two poles. (IMO, and FWIW, a natural zoonotic event remains the more likely explanation.)
NEW: In surprise move Amazon moves it’s $1bn Lord of the Rings production from New Zealand to the UK for season 2. Hands back hundreds of millions in rebates/incentives from NZ govt.
NEW: In surprise move Amazon moves it’s $1bn Lord of the Rings production from New Zealand to the UK for season 2. Hands back hundreds of millions in rebates/incentives from NZ govt.
I'm surprised Amazon has found suitable studio space in the UK - unless the plan is to use Scotland once Good Omens and Anasi Boys are finished
There is studio space in Belfast that could do it and they have a habit of making such geek fantasy dramas over here now.
If they could film Game of Thrones in Northern Ireland, there's little reason they couldn't film Lord of the Rings.
Well one of the studio complexes, currently wrapping up filming some Dungeons & Dragons TV show/film, is right next to Amazon's local depot so theyd have no problem bringing in anything in they need......they could package the actors and deliver them next day with Prime...
Didn't know they couldn't replace the VP until recently. Itll be 100+ months then surely.
Distracted by reading Master and Commander - the word floccinaucinihilipilification just came up. I seem to recall JRM used it once, without the 'pili' part.
In those days there was also a theory that the VP remained VP but became acting President as well but not the actual President if there was a vacancy for the Presidency.
The theory was a proper President could only be elected, direct succession was a bit royalist and the Presidency was designed to be anything but a monarchy.
Didn't know they couldn't replace the VP until recently. Itll be 100+ months then surely.
Distracted by reading Master and Commander - the word floccinaucinihilipilification just came up. I seem to recall JRM used it once, without the 'pili' part.
In those days there was also a theory that the VP remained VP but became acting President as well but not the actual President if there was a vacancy for the Presidency.
The theory was a proper President could only be elected, direct succession was a bit royalist and the Presidency was designed to be anything but a monarchy.
Of course the Constitution didn't say that the Veep became the President but the first time the vacancy arose, the Veep took the oath of office anyway and nobody successfully challenged him on it so it became precedent.
Oddly enough after checking Wiki that was the one I was thinking off, where newly inaugurated President Harrison became sick due to staying outside on inauguration day and died as a complication - so Vice President John Tyler became POTUS for virtually the entire full four years as a result.
Were I an Afghan woman tonight, I would be doing whatever it takes to get out of the country. They - more than any other group - are hugely at risk under Taliban rule. As they were before.
But my guess is that we will see a lot of male Afghan refugees soon enough and no-one will ask what has happened to the women and girls.
I think that's wrong - quite a lot of the recent journalism on the country has been about the potential fate of those who have benefitted from a partial emancipation over the last decade.
But you're right in suggesting that it's likely there'll be little in the way of practical response.
NEW: In surprise move Amazon moves it’s $1bn Lord of the Rings production from New Zealand to the UK for season 2. Hands back hundreds of millions in rebates/incentives from NZ govt.
NEW: In surprise move Amazon moves it’s $1bn Lord of the Rings production from New Zealand to the UK for season 2. Hands back hundreds of millions in rebates/incentives from NZ govt.
'Under President Biden’s watch terrorists are on their way to taking over all of Afghanistan and we are urgently evacuating American citizens from our embassy.
That's an implicit attack on Trump too presumably.
Yes, it's a very clear desire to differentiate herself from Trump.
The question is, can she avoid drawing his ire?
One feature of Trumpism, in so far there is an ideology beyond self agrandisment, is the opposition to foreign wars. He dumped Syria before Afghanistan. I don't think that there will be enthusiasm to redeploy in another flyblown hell.
I lived in America 1975-79, in the aftermath of Vietnam. My teachers were an interesting mix of those that had been there, and those who had campaigned against the war. There was no enthusiasm to have another fight like that, at least not for another decade. I expect America to be more isolationist.
The problem with the sauve qui peut on the part of the West in Afghanistan is that it will sooner or later have an impact on us. Millions of refugees will head West, and the country will again become a haven for anti-Western terrorist groups.
NATO forces could never eliminate the Taliban, but they were quite capable of containing them,. HYUFD is right about this.
Morally yes, but I am not sure Kabul falling .has as much political impact in the US as perhaps it should.
Until the next US skyscraper falls, which unfortunately it may well soon do as soon as Afghanistan becomes one big training camp for terrorists again
I am not sure if your enthusiasm for a future Republican President hasn't led you down a rather disturbing and macabre blind alley.
Sounds like Kabul will fall to the Taleban shortly. They've played the long game there, and will now have US to update their Russian hardware. You have to wonder what the point of everything there was.
The rapid fall seems to mirror the Iraqi army when IS spread there. Except the Taliban is more entrenched with greater support.
You need to remember that the speed of advance isn’t the Taliban “winning” or “conquering”.
It’s simply tribal leaders switching sides.
Daily life will continue much as before with tribute going to a new overlord somewhere
HUNDREDS of Paras will swoop into Kabul to evacuate the British Embassy and up to 4,000 Brits, contractors and staff – amid fears the city will fall to the Taliban.
Only a skeleton staff including ambassador Sir Laurie Bristow will stay in the besieged Afghan capital.
Shameful and this will define the Biden-Harris administration now, whatever else it does this will be the greatest US humiliation since Vietnam.
We are not much better either as we also prepare to abandon our Embassy, however we are not big enough alone to stay in Afghanistan and maintain security and keep out the Taliban and terrorists without US support
Damn right
Instead the Biden-Harris administration should be defined by propping up an unpopular regime in Afghanistan with US lives and money.
Correct. It would avoid another 9/11, 9/11 2 now very much on the cards.
There have still been fewer US troops killed in Afghanistan in 20 years than the number of US civilians killed in NYC on 9/11 in 1 day thanks to an attack planned by Bin Laden in Afghanistan
Absolutely farcical. Pretty sure rcs was being sarcastic which you've missed.
Bin Laden, the Taliban, and al'Qaeda have had almost free reign in Pakistan for the past twenty years. Our invasion of Afghanistan never defeated the Taliban, it just relocated them. It never defeated al'Qaeda, they just relocated.
Bush's failure to secure Pakistan as part of the war meant the whole invasion and its aftermath has been a miserable failure.
Occupying Afghanistan was not preventing the Taliban or al'Qaeda or other Islamists from operating pretty much with impunity.
It was the invasion which forced Bin Laden into Pakistan where Bin Laden was killed by US special forces.
Whatever you think of Pakistani PM Imran Khan he is also relatively westernised for the region, he is not the Taliban even if a solid Muslim
Pakistan has been home of the Taliban for decades.
The Pakistani regime either can not or will not control or eliminate the Taliban from its northern mountain ranges especially and we never went after them as part of Bush's Afghan war which is why it was a complete and total failure.
The legacy of which is now.
You can put your head in all the sand of the Middle East if you please but your simplistic black and white world view doesn't work here.
It was Bush who removed the Taliban and Al Qaeda from Afghanistan it is Biden letting them back in.
On your argument we should invade Pakistan too and go even further
Have you signed up to fight the Taliban yet?
When the next bomb explodes in London we may not have much choice
For the sake of your political career - step away from the keyboard and call it a night
Far from it, it was only our presence in Afghanistan which stopped another 9/11, it is weak defeatism to suggest otherwise and abandon it back to the terrorists.
I am a conservative not a handwringing leftist, we take the fight to the enemy
So why haven't you signed up to fight the Taliban?
As I am not a trained professional soldier, that is what we have the army for.
If we had conscription to fight them of course I would have to fight
How convenient it is other people's sons and daughters that have to fight your forever war.
If you join the army part of your role is fighting, that is what they are there for, that is what they are paid for.
The issue is that the British public and hence the political class have almost zero tolerance for casualties. This cripples the capability of the occupying force. Toward the end of my time with CHF in Basra we had no military objectives beyond force protection. Our only job was not to take casualties so you can imagine how good we were at fighting the Mahdi Army and other extravagantly bearded scofflaws - not very.
One the coffins draped in Johnson's Underpants start rolling out of C-17s at Brize on a regular basis then the adventure would be over whether mission accomplished or not.
Comments
I am a conservative not a handwringing leftist, we take the fight to the enemy
By the way, will the British evacuees returning from the red traffic light country of Afghanistan have to quarantine weeks in sh*t hotels at huge cost to themselves?
I guess the answer is yes.
No.
9/11 stopped another 9/11.
Passengers on commercial airlines will now fight back. Because - and this may surprise you - most people don't want to die in a fireball as their plane crashes into the 22nd floor of the Nakatomi Plaza.
Or, to put it another way, two full terms as Veep.
Said terms do not have to be consecutive. Or to have the same President each time.
Trump supporters don't like democrats. But they simply cannot stand George Bush country club neo-cons. That ship has sailed.
Not to mention Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Iraq. At the very least.
The "War on Terror" was lost nearly twenty years ago when we gave an ultimatum to the Taliban to hand over Bin Laden or we invade - and we invaded and they fled to Pakistan and we responded by doing . . . nothing.
If we were serious about saying there should be no safe harbour for terrorists we could have said to the Pakistanis "hand over Bin Laden or we invade" but we didn't do so and they were secure in northern Pakistan for decades. Which is why the Taliban today aren't untrained amateurs.
If a big terrorist attack was launched on a major western city from those nations you mention then add them too
You're in denial if you think training camps went away with the fall of Afghanistan.
NEW: In surprise move Amazon moves it’s $1bn Lord of the Rings production from New Zealand to the UK for season 2. Hands back hundreds of millions in rebates/incentives from NZ govt.
https://twitter.com/marksweney/status/1425925849975513103?s=20
Also, you seem to be eliding the Taliban with Al Queda. They weren't the same then, and they're not now.
Thinking it through Biden is the 46th President. A lot of Presidents never served two terms, sadly some because they died and were replaced by their Veep elevating to the top job.
Most Presidents have chosen their own Veep and not kept a predecessor as far as I know. So I'd guess most to serve eight years did so with the same POTUS, though there might be exceptions to the rule.
Sometimes Presidents have replaced their Veep with a different one after a term.
So from all that I'd guess maybe a bit over a quarter of 46? So I'm going to guess a baker's dozen is the total. Thirteen.
In late 2001 the Pakistani ISI evacuated much of the Taliban leadership, and then the US pretended it didn't happen, and essentially allowed the Taliban to rebuild in Pakistan. The US was never serious about defeating the Taliban.
Well, you live and learn.
Why do you think the Taliban are not complete amateurs only getting training and experience now for the first time? The training camps existed already because they weren't hiding. They were training with freedom to operate with pretty much impunity. Because we let them. Because Bush failed.
Yes I'm eliding the Taliban with al Qaeda, because the failure to handle one provided the risk for the other. Do you think Islamists have been persona non grata at the Taliban's Pakistani training camps? But they'll suddenly be welcomed once the Taliban are back in charge in Afghanistan?
If we could just get Afghanistan to apply for EU membership (you know, sell it to the EU as a massive step forward after Brexit, while promising Taliban that it opens up 500 million European heathens for conversion), we can get them bogged down with accession treaties, Schengen and the correct subsidies for opium production.
It'd be win, win for the world.
Definites
Daniel Tompkins, Thomas Marshall, John Nance Garner, Richard Nixon, George H. W. Bush, Al Gore, Dick Cheney, Joe Biden.
Substance over form.
John Adams.
' I said they were going to let Turkey join, in the event it was even WORSE!'
If we had conscription to fight them of course I would have to fight
Next question. Since the founding of the US Presidential system in 1789, for how many months has the US been without a Vice President?
I'll guess 25
Anyone else?
The Taliban need to asses what relationship they want to have with the international community, says Jen Psaki as they end all education for women.....
The 25th Amendment in 1967 changed all that.
So if the VP died, resigned, or was promoted to POTUS the office of VP would remain much vacant until the next election.
I reckon it must be closer to 500 months.
Incredible to think nearly half of those have been in my lifetime from HW Bush onwards.
In the past the Veep wasn't replaced if they took office were they? Until the 25th Amendment I don't think a Veep vacancy could be filled until the next election - and even at the next election it would originally take a better part of almost a year between the election and inauguration day.
So I may be overestimating again but I'd have thought the time without a Veep could be measured in years not months. From all the times the Veep themselves have died in office, or have gone on to become President in their own right.
So my guess this time is 60 months. Five years worth.
His Veep alone would have never been replaced so would have been close to four years by him alone. So I'm going to change my guess to at least 15 years cumulative. 18 months, might be underestimating it still.
https://twitter.com/Theuniondivvie/status/1425951162910511104?s=20
Office vacant April 20, 1812 – March 4, 1813
Office vacant November 23, 1814 – March 4, 1817
Office vacant December 28, 1832 – March 4, 1833
Office vacant April 4, 1841 – March 4, 1845
Office vacant July 9, 1850 – March 4, 1853
Office vacant April 18, 1853 – March 4, 1857
Office vacant April 15, 1865 – March 4, 1869
Office vacant November 22, 1875 – March 4, 1877
Office vacant September 19, 1881 – March 4, 1885[
Office vacant November 25, 1885 – March 4, 188
Office vacant November 21, 1899 – March 4, 1901
Office vacant September 14, 1901 – March 4, 1905
Office vacant October 30, 1912 – March 4, 1913
Office vacant August 2, 1923 – March 4, 1925
Office vacant April 12, 1945 – January 20, 1949
Office vacant November 22, 1963 – January 20, 1965
Office vacant October 10 – December 6, 1973
Office vacant August 9 – December 19, 1974
In my view they should be paid more.
As I said earlier more US and UK civilians were killed on 9/11 in one day in a terror attack planned and launched from Afghanistan than all the US troops killed in Afghanistan combined in the last 20 years. There is a reason we were there
https://www.entertainmentdaily.co.uk/news/woman-fined-85000-after-severe-case-of-air-rage-meant-fellow-passengers-had-to-restrain-her-chloe-haines/
How did I forget Lincoln and FDR as having died close to the full four years too 🤦♂️ . . . while remembering instead the story of the President who died from the rain on inauguration day instead?
We need a bigger army too
Distracted by reading Master and Commander - the word floccinaucinihilipilification just came up. I seem to recall JRM used it once, without the 'pili' part.
The pushback against that was justified - but went beyond that to the line that a lab origin wasn't conceivable.
The reality of what evidence there is lies somewhere between those two poles. (IMO, and FWIW, a natural zoonotic event remains the more likely explanation.)
https://twitter.com/LibDems/status/1425827915455942656?s=20
The theory was a proper President could only be elected, direct succession was a bit royalist and the Presidency was designed to be anything but a monarchy.
Oddly enough after checking Wiki that was the one I was thinking off, where newly inaugurated President Harrison became sick due to staying outside on inauguration day and died as a complication - so Vice President John Tyler became POTUS for virtually the entire full four years as a result.
But you're right in suggesting that it's likely there'll be little in the way of practical response.
If Amazon are coming in with Lord of the Rings and someone else is coming in with who knows and who cares, then which is going to get the facilities?
I lived in America 1975-79, in the aftermath of Vietnam. My teachers were an interesting mix of those that had been there, and those who had campaigned against the war. There was no enthusiasm to have another fight like that, at least not for another decade. I expect America to be more isolationist.
It’s simply tribal leaders switching sides.
Daily life will continue much as before with tribute going to a new overlord somewhere
One the coffins draped in Johnson's Underpants start rolling out of C-17s at Brize on a regular basis then the adventure would be over whether mission accomplished or not.