Biden to address the nation at 3:45pm

[Horus]

He’d better not reverse course. He did something right. To hell with the war party.

Hopefully not. I've been really proud of him for standing his ground on the withdrawal. Let us all hope he doesn't give into the MIC.

[Horus]

Good. The Taliban's advance was unexpectedly rapid, and the consequences of our withdrawal are turning out to be as horrible as feared. But above and beyond that, we have failed to evacuate our Afghani allies who counted on us and our own people. Biden needs to lead here, and I hope he does so.

And that sucks, but at the end of the day the job of the president is to look out for American citizens first, and far as I know, none have been killed in the withdrawal.

[Horus]

Jesus, I'm watching CNN waiting for this and it's like I'm watching Fox News.  Just incredibly loaded language and relentless attacks on Biden coming from Jake Tapper.

I’ve never seen the media be so out of touch. Not like this

Sure, this is really bad. And it’s news worthy. But 99% of Americans do not care and the media has gone nuts

I've been thinking about the Afghan people all day. I have an Afghan coworker who has family still there and was so visibly and painfully devastated today.

The president made the right decision in leaving.

He clearly didn't rush people out because he thought a panic would cause a quicker collapse and didn't realize the weakness of the corrupt Ghani regime or that the Afghan "army" would immediately sell out the people they were charged with defending. America cannot force a country to defend itself at immense moral and financial cost.

Now we need to get as many people out of that hellhole as possible - particularly women and kids.

This is the moment for Americans and all free people to demand Afghan refugees be allowed entry, and to show the world our superior sense of charity to the violent, stupid zealots.

If I were Biden, I'd open up the gates right now and let 'em in. Say "America first, not America alone." This is civic nationalism and diplomacy at its best.

Even as an immigration hawk, I agree. We ruined their country and it's the least we can do.

[Horus]

The Biden statement was atrocious that's the consensus everywhere except here hahahaha

I'm sure that's the consensus in Moscow, yes.

[Horus]

It’s funny reading the American response being so positive (though I’m not convinced this forum is representative on this issue). Around the world this is being received as badly, if not worse, than anything Trump did. Clearly you don’t care, and perhaps you don’t have to, but what little moral authority the US had left is now gone.

The rest of the world s--ts on USA for 20 years because we were in Afghanistan, and then s--ts on us when we leave.  Least surprising news of the day.

What few friends the USA had left were those who believed in R2P and the American desire to promote freedom. Again, I see that you don’t care, and perhaps you will never need to. But America is now utterly friendless, because the world has seen what you do to those who help you.

In all fairness though, we should have lost these friends many years ago - probably around the time we invaded Iraq. I'm scratching my head at why *this* decision is the final straw.

You can’t understand why American allies are disturbed to see you abandon an ally to subjugation and death? That is rather cold blooded.

We can't save everyone, nor is it our job to. Perhaps the rest of the world should stop expecting us to perform miracles. The hypercriticism of America is very tiring. In the past 20 years we have had a neocon foreign policy, followed by a neolib foreign policy, followed by a right wing nationalist foreign policy and now we are hopefully seeing the birth of a left wing nationalist foreign policy.

No matter what we do, the European chattering class will complain about us.