Afghanistan

[Alf'Omega]

Our ancestors had generals like George Washington, Ulysses Grant, my avatar, and Douglas MacCarthur. Our generation gets Mark Milley. It's not surprising that Joe Biden's handlers prefer to have him watching Matlock than answering questions about this.

The Biden administration is focused on combating “white supremacy” as Americans are in peril in Afghanistan, Kash Patel, former chief of staff to the acting secretary of defense, remarked on Monday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow.

Patel, former head of the National Counterterrorism Center at the National Security Council during the Trump administration, said the Taliban have no fear of consequences from President Joe Biden.

“The Taliban knew that President Trump was leaving office and that Joe Biden was coming in,” assessed Patel. “All they had to do was wait, but if you look at the withdrawal — the controlled conditions-based withdrawal we executed under President Trump — it was just that. It was done with the Taliban fearing U.S. reprisal if they hurt security interests of the American people. It was done with the Taliban fearing that if they didn’t show up for negotiations in good faith, then harm would fall upon them and their populace.”

He continued, “All of that disappeared when Joe Biden took office, because the Taliban knew Joe Biden did not have a controlled plan of withdrawal, and on top of that, they knew Joe Biden didn’t have the backbone that President Trump did when it came to Afghanistan.”

Patel noted how Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley warned of “white rage” and “white supremacy” as top national security threats. In June, Biden framed “terrorism from white supremacy” as “the most lethal threat to the homeland.”

He said, “Mark Milley is supposed to be the most apolitical person [as] the highest-ranking uniformed military officer in the U.S. government, and this is what happens when that individual politicizes the national security interests of the United States just to try and keep his job.”

“[Mark Milley] is running up to Capitol Hill when Biden gets elected to talk about ‘white rage,’ and him and Secretary Austin issued a stand-down border saying the biggest threat [according] to the Department of Defense is ‘white supremacy,” he recalled. “When you order three million people to review that posture, you know what they’re not doing? Protecting American interests and serving in Afghanistan and other places around the world. That’s just the nature of the national security apparatus.”

The Biden administration undermines national security in its ostensible pursuit of the illusory phenomenon of “white supremacy,” Patel held.

He remarked, “If you refuse to collect intelligence on terrorist threats and refuse to support your soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan because you’re focused on ‘white supremacy’ — a phantom ghost that doesn’t exist — because you want to satisfy a media headline, then you hurt national security interests, and that’s what Mark Milley has done.”

https://www.breitbart.com/radio/2021/08 ... tan-burns/

Why in the world would you trust the opinion pieces from a source like Brietbart?

[canpakes]

How is Viet Nam today?

Eating our lunch.

“Vietnam is currently our 13th largest goods trading partner with $77.5 billion in total (two way) goods trade during 2019. Goods exports totaled $10.9 billion; goods imports totaled $66.6 billion. The U.S. goods trade deficit with Vietnam was $55.8 billion in 2019.”

https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/sout ... ic/vietnam

[Alf'Omega]

How is Viet Nam today?

Eating our lunch.

“Vietnam is currently our 13th largest goods trading partner with $77.5 billion in total (two way) goods trade during 2019. Goods exports totaled $10.9 billion; goods imports totaled $66.6 billion. The U.S. goods trade deficit with Vietnam was $55.8 billion in 2019.”

https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/sout ... ic/vietnam

The Chinese and Vietnamese typically don't have enough money to buy our goods, whereas Americans typically can easily afford goods they create.

[canpakes]

”All they had to do was wait, but if you look at the withdrawal — the controlled conditions-based withdrawal we executed under President Trump — it was just that. It was done with the Taliban fearing U.S. reprisal if they hurt security interests of the American people. It was done with the Taliban fearing that if they didn’t show up for negotiations in good faith, then harm would fall upon them and their populace.”

ajax, please explain what is different between the Trump-brokered deal that Biden is implementing now and the same Trump-brokered deal that Trump was hoping would have troops out by Christmas, but was not able to implement, leaving it to be implemented by Biden now?

[canpakes]

Eating our lunch.

“Vietnam is currently our 13th largest goods trading partner with $77.5 billion in total (two way) goods trade during 2019. Goods exports totaled $10.9 billion; goods imports totaled $66.6 billion. The U.S. goods trade deficit with Vietnam was $55.8 billion in 2019.”

https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/sout ... ic/vietnam

The Chinese and Vietnamese typically don't have enough money to buy our goods, whereas Americans typically can easily afford goods they create.

True, but we’re working on that. ; )

[ajax18]

Eating our lunch.

“Vietnam is currently our 13th largest goods trading partner with $77.5 billion in total (two way) goods trade during 2019. Goods exports totaled $10.9 billion; goods imports totaled $66.6 billion. The U.S. goods trade deficit with Vietnam was $55.8 billion in 2019.”

https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/sout ... ic/vietnam

It is odd but the Chinese, Vietnamese, and Russian people are probably more self reliant and capitalist than the people who currently occupy the US right now.

[Alf'Omega]

Eating our lunch.

“Vietnam is currently our 13th largest goods trading partner with $77.5 billion in total (two way) goods trade during 2019. Goods exports totaled $10.9 billion; goods imports totaled $66.6 billion. The U.S. goods trade deficit with Vietnam was $55.8 billion in 2019.”

https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/sout ... ic/vietnam

It is odd but the Chinese, Vietnamese, and Russian people are probably more self reliant and capitalist than the people who currently occupy the US right now.

So? This has been true for quite some time now.

[ajax18]

ajax, please explain what is different between the Trump-brokered deal that Biden is implementing now and the same Trump-brokered deal that Trump was hoping would have troops out by Christmas, but was not able to implement, leaving it to be implemented by Biden now?

It's in the article I posted.

“The Taliban knew that President Trump was leaving office and that Joe Biden was coming in,” assessed Patel. “All they had to do was wait, but if you look at the withdrawal — the controlled conditions-based withdrawal we executed under President Trump — it was just that. It was done with the Taliban fearing U.S. reprisal if they hurt security interests of the American people. It was done with the Taliban fearing that if they didn’t show up for negotiations in good faith, then harm would fall upon them and their populace.”

He continued, “All of that disappeared when Joe Biden took office, because the Taliban knew Joe Biden did not have a controlled plan of withdrawal, and on top of that, they knew Joe Biden didn’t have the backbone that President Trump did when it came to Afghanistan.”

It's hard to blame Biden for this when I know he's never been completely with us since before he took office. But guess what, the rest of the world knows this as well.

[ajax18]

So? This has been true for quite some time now.

We fought an extraordinarily costly war in money and lives to stop the spread of global communism and preserve a free market economy only to have communism rise to power in the US itself through democratic (albeit rigged) elections.

Who would have thought Russis would one day seek to join NATO and Bernie Sanders would lead the dominant US political party.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Cam in your estimation could our exit have been handled differently with regard to to a better outcome for U.S. and Afghan allies? If so, how?

Well. In my average guy after the fact 20/40 hindsight opinion the best outcome would've happened during Trump’s presidency. Had he executed the withdrawal his fanbase would’ve supported it instead of trying to use it to bash Libs, and the Democrats would’ve offered up a tepid criticism for the most part - most Democrats afaia didn’t want a military presence there anyway.

Now. This exit? There’s literally nothing we could’ve done better, with the exception of low-key airlifting all our Afghan allies out a month or so ago. All the weapons and equipment, for the most part, were gifted to the Afghan central government, the ANA, municipalities, and whatever else was expedient to hand over to the Northern Alliance and other tribal coalitions.

I really can’t overemphasize how thoroughly corrupt and immoral Afghans are. A socially woke person might take me to task over my Euro-centric morality and white privilege for having said that, but the Afghan Islamic patriarchy is nothing but realpolitik, money, and degeneracy. That’s, in fact, why the Taliban is so popular. They’re the antithesis of the Afghan power structure and patriarchy. But that’s waaaaay oversimplifying things. I mean the Taliban isn’t popular everywhere; would you like to be subject to the DezNat version of Mormonism? Whatever. We were there for stupid reasons.

Anyway. Don’t be surprised with us arming the NA and China+Russia supporting the Taliban. There are geopolitical gas and natural resources at play.

- Doc