I support withdrawal too (should have been while the building were still smoldering from our invasion). The original withdrawal date was May, 2021. Early in the fighting season. We could have been rolling during the winter and early spring with civilians first then military trailing (original plan). Instead, we hit the prime months for T…
I support withdrawal too (should have been while the building were still smoldering from our invasion). The original withdrawal date was May, 2021. Early in the fighting season. We could have been rolling during the winter and early spring with civilians first then military trailing (original plan). Instead, we hit the prime months for Taliban mobility and armament. We vanished from forward bases and left the withdrawal hanging for months and our asses flapping in the breeze. How were that many military planners and "deciders" that far off to try for a bizarre 9/11 symbolic date?? At least the corporate military suppliers will get to see how their wares we surrendered will work in enemy hands, I guess.
This can't be repeated enough. During the winter the Taliban have a hard time moving around because of the weather. Once May hits, they get mobile. The original plan was to get our people out during winter when there's very very little resistance. Biden spent that time 'reviewing' Trump's plan -- finishing in very late April. By then it was clear Biden was going to break Trump's deal, and the Taliban were going to resume hostilities against Americans unless another deal was reached. And this one gave them 4 months to mobilize and plan.
Also by breaking the US's word by not withdrawing by the original May date, they ended up giving more propaganda fodder to the Taliban: "Look, the US is not gonna withdraw, they lied, come join us".
I do not think this was a military failure. That is too easy by half. There is something fatally wrong with the US and its people. (And I include others in the West.) To continue to carry out illegal and therefore murderous crimes against human beings especially in countries with people who are racially different requires especial viciousness. It also requires deep hostility towards non-White peoples that seems to be woven into the American and Western psyche. That viciousness elicits an unbeatable response. The failure is also down to woeful ignorance and insularity. You can beat a state perhaps, but a people is much more difficult. Will we learn anything, or will it be paramount to pick another country to victimize as quickly as possible so that the drums can beat again?
There is something fatally wrong with the US and its people. (And I include others in the West.) To continue to carry out illegal and therefore murderous crimes against human beings especially in countries with people who are racially different requires especial viciousness. It also requires deep hostility towards non-White peoples that seems to be woven into the American and Western psyche."
The U.S. and its people are fatally flawed by the deep hostility towards non-White peoples--a feature "woven into the American and Western psyche"?
" (And I include others in the West.)"
So, this is a "Western" culture thing.
Well, I wonder, where in the world are you from, Beverly? "Too (something, something) by half" is a phrase often said by British (i.e. esp. English) people.
Wouldn't, say, Barry Obama, Madelaine Albright, Condi Rice, and Hillary Clinton all be similarly tainted and flawed--by the vicious anti-Non-White "in-search-of-enemies" culture into which they were born and raised? And, if much of these abhorrent human--excuse me, Western European--failings of humane character are found in the same ways and to the same degrees in the bloody tyrannies of Black sub-Saharan Africa, I suppose that's not the fault of Africans. It must be "our fault"-- _my_ fault, really, as a child of the fatally-flawed U.S. & Western European culture.
I suppose you want, among I-don't-know-what-else, a reparation check. To whom should that be made payable and where should it be sent? Mogadishu?
I'll light a candle to your patron saint, Caterina de'Pazzi, the next time I'm in the Chiesa di San Giovanni Battista a Careggi. Finally, a specialist's problematic matter: where do find your supplier of instruments for mortification of the flesh? On-line? I guess I ought to get some in order to feel properly ashamed of myself.
Woven in. Not hand-stitched, mind you, woven. We're talkin' _looms_--it's in the warp and woof of our very making. Before the loom, either there was no such stuff in us--which is just hardly believable, is it?--or all that weaving had to be hand-done. So much hand-stitching, so little time!
Eventually, Watson and Crick would produce their landmark work, throwing millions of weavers (and looms) out of work.
I support withdrawal too (should have been while the building were still smoldering from our invasion). The original withdrawal date was May, 2021. Early in the fighting season. We could have been rolling during the winter and early spring with civilians first then military trailing (original plan). Instead, we hit the prime months for Taliban mobility and armament. We vanished from forward bases and left the withdrawal hanging for months and our asses flapping in the breeze. How were that many military planners and "deciders" that far off to try for a bizarre 9/11 symbolic date?? At least the corporate military suppliers will get to see how their wares we surrendered will work in enemy hands, I guess.
This can't be repeated enough. During the winter the Taliban have a hard time moving around because of the weather. Once May hits, they get mobile. The original plan was to get our people out during winter when there's very very little resistance. Biden spent that time 'reviewing' Trump's plan -- finishing in very late April. By then it was clear Biden was going to break Trump's deal, and the Taliban were going to resume hostilities against Americans unless another deal was reached. And this one gave them 4 months to mobilize and plan.
Also by breaking the US's word by not withdrawing by the original May date, they ended up giving more propaganda fodder to the Taliban: "Look, the US is not gonna withdraw, they lied, come join us".
One has to start wondering if it's incompetence or on purpose.
"Hanlon's razor is a principle or rule of thumb that states "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"."
I really disagree with Hanlon's razor now a days because it's always the same people who are making the same stupid decisions again and again.
I do not think this was a military failure. That is too easy by half. There is something fatally wrong with the US and its people. (And I include others in the West.) To continue to carry out illegal and therefore murderous crimes against human beings especially in countries with people who are racially different requires especial viciousness. It also requires deep hostility towards non-White peoples that seems to be woven into the American and Western psyche. That viciousness elicits an unbeatable response. The failure is also down to woeful ignorance and insularity. You can beat a state perhaps, but a people is much more difficult. Will we learn anything, or will it be paramount to pick another country to victimize as quickly as possible so that the drums can beat again?
There is something fatally wrong with the US and its people. (And I include others in the West.) To continue to carry out illegal and therefore murderous crimes against human beings especially in countries with people who are racially different requires especial viciousness. It also requires deep hostility towards non-White peoples that seems to be woven into the American and Western psyche."
The U.S. and its people are fatally flawed by the deep hostility towards non-White peoples--a feature "woven into the American and Western psyche"?
" (And I include others in the West.)"
So, this is a "Western" culture thing.
Well, I wonder, where in the world are you from, Beverly? "Too (something, something) by half" is a phrase often said by British (i.e. esp. English) people.
Wouldn't, say, Barry Obama, Madelaine Albright, Condi Rice, and Hillary Clinton all be similarly tainted and flawed--by the vicious anti-Non-White "in-search-of-enemies" culture into which they were born and raised? And, if much of these abhorrent human--excuse me, Western European--failings of humane character are found in the same ways and to the same degrees in the bloody tyrannies of Black sub-Saharan Africa, I suppose that's not the fault of Africans. It must be "our fault"-- _my_ fault, really, as a child of the fatally-flawed U.S. & Western European culture.
I suppose you want, among I-don't-know-what-else, a reparation check. To whom should that be made payable and where should it be sent? Mogadishu?
I'll light a candle to your patron saint, Caterina de'Pazzi, the next time I'm in the Chiesa di San Giovanni Battista a Careggi. Finally, a specialist's problematic matter: where do find your supplier of instruments for mortification of the flesh? On-line? I guess I ought to get some in order to feel properly ashamed of myself.
Woven in. Not hand-stitched, mind you, woven. We're talkin' _looms_--it's in the warp and woof of our very making. Before the loom, either there was no such stuff in us--which is just hardly believable, is it?--or all that weaving had to be hand-done. So much hand-stitching, so little time!
Eventually, Watson and Crick would produce their landmark work, throwing millions of weavers (and looms) out of work.