Biden to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, 2021

[rhg2052]

now do Syria

[All Along The Watchtower]

Stand by for angry comments from a bunch of neocon ghouls about how Biden is letting the terrorists win or whatever

[President Johnson]

Long overdue decision. Afghanistan is pretty much a lost cause and the Western allies would be well advised to pull out instead of wasting more lives and billions of dollars to prolong the inevitable.

[YE]

Hopefully he follows through on this for once and for all.

[Mopsus]

This is a disaster waiting to happen.
Unfortunately it appears isolationism is back on the menu.

So was Nixon an "isolationist" for pulling troops out of Vietnam?

Nixon broke the peace process unnecessarily for cynical political gain. Above all else he was doing it for his own career.
That being said I do believe if we really wanted, we could have won the war in Vietnam.

[S019]

This will almost certainly surrender the country to the Taliban, which is definitely not a good idea. Not to mention the countless women and ethnic minorities who will be persecuted under a new Taliban regime, I really hope Biden doesn't do this.

[PSOL]

Does this count the troops stationed at the military bases in Afghanistan? Else, we aren’t actually leaving

[WD]

Bad decision. Afghanistan can’t be allowed to fall under the Taliban’s control again.

[President Johnson]

Bad decision. Afghanistan can’t be allowed to fall under the Taliban’s control again.

How long are we (NATO) supposed to stay then? It didn't work to get rid of the Taliban for 20 years because they are still supported by a substantial part of the population. As horrendous as they are.

[Badger]

Regardless of the resolve or wisdom of the by demonstrations decision here, to set the deadline on the 20th anniversary of 9/11 is... Odd at best, tone deaf at worst. Why pick the one day of the year most likely to highlight the reason we're in Afghanistan to begin with?

[S019]

Bad decision. Afghanistan can’t be allowed to fall under the Taliban’s control again.

How long are we (NATO) supposed to stay then? It didn't work to get rid of the Taliban for 20 years because they are still supported by a substantial part of the population. As horrendous as they are.

As long as it takes to defeat the Taliban. The Taliban taking over Afghanistan again would be awful as they'd persecute Afghani people and they'd also give sanctuary to Islamist groups. The United States is the only thing preventing Afghanistan from returning to the brutal Taliban regime, which was known for its human rights violations, cruel punishments, etc. Also, I strongly rebuke the idea that just because they're supported by a significant chunk of the population that it's okay for them to set policy. Under their regime, women were basically slaves, while a significant chunk of the US population supported slavery in the 1850s, abolishing it was the right decision, likewise finishing the War in Afghanistan and securing freedom for its citizens is the right decision here.

[WD]

Bad decision. Afghanistan can’t be allowed to fall under the Taliban’s control again.

How long are we (NATO) supposed to stay then? It didn't work to get rid of the Taliban for 20 years because they are still supported by a substantial part of the population. As horrendous as they are.

At the very least, there should be some US presence in Afghanistan. I do not believe that a complete, and absolute withdrawal is the right decision. If we leave the Afghan government and their armed forces to their own devices, it will be a matter of when, not if the Taliban retakes control of the country. And that would be a disastrous outcome for not just the people of Afghanistan, but the entire region and the United States.

[Big Abraham]

Bad decision. Afghanistan can’t be allowed to fall under the Taliban’s control again.

How long are we (NATO) supposed to stay then? It didn't work to get rid of the Taliban for 20 years because they are still supported by a substantial part of the population. As horrendous as they are.

As long as it takes to defeat the Taliban. The Taliban taking over Afghanistan again would be awful as they'd persecute Afghani people and they'd also give sanctuary to Islamist groups. The United States is the only thing preventing Afghanistan from returning to the brutal Taliban regime, which was known for its human rights violations, cruel punishments, etc. Also, I strongly rebuke the idea that just because they're supported by a significant chunk of the population that it's okay for them to set policy. Under their regime, women were basically slaves, while a significant chunk of the US population supported slavery in the 1850s, abolishing it was the right decision, likewise finishing the War in Afghanistan and securing freedom for its citizens is the right decision here.

Even setting aside your ludicrous comparison, that doesn't mean it would have been acceptable under any circumstances for a far-flung power in the 19th century to have invaded and occupied America for 20+ years, and engage in war crimes against its civilians, because "slavery bad."

[President Johnson]

Bad decision. Afghanistan can’t be allowed to fall under the Taliban’s control again.

How long are we (NATO) supposed to stay then? It didn't work to get rid of the Taliban for 20 years because they are still supported by a substantial part of the population. As horrendous as they are.

As long as it takes to defeat the Taliban. The Taliban taking over Afghanistan again would be awful as they'd persecute Afghani people and they'd also give sanctuary to Islamist groups. The United States is the only thing preventing Afghanistan from returning to the brutal Taliban regime, which was known for its human rights violations, cruel punishments, etc. Also, I strongly rebuke the idea that just because they're supported by a significant chunk of the population that it's okay for them to set policy. Under their regime, women were basically slaves, while a significant chunk of the US population supported slavery in the 1850s, abolishing it was the right decision, likewise finishing the War in Afghanistan and securing freedom for its citizens is the right decision here.

The problem with defeating the Taliban is that it's not a traditional army the US and allies just can get rid of with pure menpower and bombs. As bad as they are, they still have major backing among the population, which is a fundamentally different society than ours, with totally different structures and hierarchies. That civilization has been cultivated that way for centuries, maybe aside from a couple of intellectuals living in metro areas. And that is not going to change just because some Americans, Brits or Germans tell them to. If anything changes in that country, and I hope it will for the better, that has primarily to come from within Afghanistan.

If certain concrete threats for the US or the EU emerge from Afghanistan or elsewhere, we should act with whatever necessary to eliminate the threat. But it doesn't require thousands of troops on the ground and billions of dollars thrown into the sand.

Otherwise, it's just an endless quagmire where hardly any progress can be archived but instead more lives and dollars are being lost. The experiences of Vietnam, Iraq and the USSR's invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 tell us exactly that.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Also, the Afghan Taliban are fully supported by the infamously jihadist-friendly Pakistani military and intelligence services, and Pakistan (which has nukes) is an increasingly close ally of China. Not sure we want to kick that hornets’ nest.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

Bad decision. Afghanistan can’t be allowed to fall under the Taliban’s control again.

As sad as it is, there’s really nothing that can be done to stop the Taliban from regaining control over the country. There's really no reason for us to be there.

[Ferguson97]

Bad decision. Afghanistan can’t be allowed to fall under the Taliban’s control again.

We've been trying to fix things for 20 years and it's not working. It's a lost cause.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Well, if this does happen (I'm still skeptical), it'll be another piece of evidence for the "Biden is a more progressive president than Obama" narrative.

This is unrelated to one's progressivism or lackthereof.

The military-industrial complex is a reactionary institution. Denying it is generally progressive. However, there are exceptions, such as:

now do Syria

Currently, a different scenario due to the lack of active conflict (I am referring to the principal deployment in Northeast Syria as opposed to whatever's involved in the short-sighted conflict with Iran and the Syrian government, which is largely taking place to the south/west). No serious number of casualties are being incurred where the US presence is and that presence prevents, as opposed to extending, bloodshed in Syria.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Well, if this does happen (I'm still skeptical), it'll be another piece of evidence for the "Biden is a more progressive president than Obama" narrative.

This is unrelated to one's progressivism or lackthereof.

The military-industrial complex is a reactionary institution. Denying it is generally progressive.

"Famous progressives Calvin Coolidge, Robert Taft, and Donald Trump..."

"Famous conservatives Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Hillary Clinton..."

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Well, if this does happen (I'm still skeptical), it'll be another piece of evidence for the "Biden is a more progressive president than Obama" narrative.

This is unrelated to one's progressivism or lackthereof.

The military-industrial complex is a reactionary institution. Denying it is generally progressive.

"Famous progressives Calvin Coolidge, Robert Taft, and Donald Trump..."

"Famous conservatives Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Hillary Clinton..."

A tendency is not a law (occasionally, helping the reactionary institution is better than allowing something worse to be empowered - e.g. the Nazis), but the Truman Doctrine and his use of the nuke ran counter to progressivism (now and, I'd argue, at the time).

Had Donald Trump succeeded in downscaling active US military interventions in the ways he'd promised, progressives would have had to acknowledge that as an positive good - and in the run-up to 2016, they generally praised him over other Reupublicans because of his rhetoric on these matters.

For his part, Calvin Coolidge was the very model of a socially progressive, economically right wing Republican. He even identified as a progressive, although (as HRC proves) one's own labels often don't mix with their ideology.

My argument is not that opposition to the military industrial complex belongs solely to self-identified progressives, but that such opposition meets progressive ends and should result in higher marks for any president from progressives.

[Cashew]

As much as it sucks that many Afghans will find themselves facing oppression when the Taliban return to power the past 20 years have shown that the status quo is clearly not working, and there exists little appetite for a more drastic and expensive rebuilding of Afghan society from the ground up, so might as well pull out now rather than cling to sunk cost fallacies.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Well, if this does happen (I'm still skeptical), it'll be another piece of evidence for the "Biden is a more progressive president than Obama" narrative.

This is unrelated to one's progressivism or lackthereof.

The military-industrial complex is a reactionary institution. Denying it is generally progressive.

"Famous progressives Calvin Coolidge, Robert Taft, and Donald Trump..."

"Famous conservatives Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Hillary Clinton..."

Hillary is a Republican on Foreign Policy

[Horus]

This is a disaster waiting to happen.
Unfortunately it appears isolationism is back on the menu.

Not playing world cop =\= isolationism

[Horus]

Regardless of the resolve or wisdom of the by demonstrations decision here, to set the deadline on the 20th anniversary of 9/11 is... Odd at best, tone deaf at worst. Why pick the one day of the year most likely to highlight the reason we're in Afghanistan to begin with?

Bin Laden is dead. Our mission was completed in that part of the world a decade ago. It's time to leave.

[Ferguson97]

This is a disaster waiting to happen.
Unfortunately it appears isolationism is back on the menu.

Not playing world cop =\= isolationism

I do believe we should leave Afghanistan, but in general we should be the world's police (since the alternative is China or Russia.)