Itemized Inventory of US equip. & weapons left behind

There is only one number that really matters, and that's this one: 350.

If Joe successfully gets them out - even if it's really ugly and with zero style points, and Oh My, is he ever not winning the Style Point Contest right now - we're out. Joe will hand out medals to a bunch of US servicemen, he'll throw Antony Blinken under the bus...and he'll skate. He'll even win brownie points for having the courage to end "America's longest war." Like it or not.

If he doesn't get them out, he'll likely wind up another Jimmy Carter. Still plenty of time left on the clock, still more than enough American civilians at risk to end his presidency, and if they wind up grabbed and beheaded on the Internet that's likely the end of Joe.

Genuinely curious how it's going to go. Joe probably is too; he doesn't control this process and his fate is largely in the hands of others right now.

I think it depends on whether or not the Taliban actually wants us out and wants quasi-legitimacy as a government, or if at heart they're still terrorist jihadists. Right now their leaders are showing ambition and even some statecraft and that's probably good for us, but again...what happens in these last couple days?

Dunno. I guess we'll see.

https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/afghanistan-kabul-taliban-us-news-08-28-21/h_c3494a7cd7bb00e7331eef6578aa0761

About 350 Americans still seeking to leave Afghanistan, State Department says

Thirteen US service members and dozens of Afghans were killed in an attack outside Kabul's airport, according to the Pentagon and Afghanistan's Ministry of Public Health. Follow here for the latest news.

quozzel

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Re: Itemized Inventory of US equip. & weapons left behind

Aug 28, 2021, 10:41 AM

This is the most idiotic argument I've seen.

These weapons, regrettably, were given to the various militias to combat the Taliban. Once given the USA had absolutely no power whatsoever to yank those weapons back because they no longer belonged to us.

That's the problem with propping up a puppet government. Once your hand is out of the puppet is that puppet going to have any bones in it whatsoever, enough to walk and talk and fight on its own? Clearly these Afghanistan militias did not.

That's a long-running institutional failure, unless all those weapons were given to these spineless militia during Biden's tenure. Were they? Because it seems they almost entirely were given under the Obama and Trump administrations.

You can blame Biden for a sloppy withdrawal, and he's certainly going to get blamed if there's mass US civilian death or hostage-taking on the way out, which may lead directly to President Kamala if the resultant sh!t-show is bad enough.

But the idea that Biden is somehow responsible for those weapons falling into the hands of the Taliban is pure idiocy. Biden had no power to confiscate those weapons; they weren't in the USA's possession anymore and those weapons were essentially "lost" the moment they were given because they were given to spineless militias that had no will to fight their enemy.

Not on Biden, though I'm plenty unhappy with Biden and especially his State Department who completely blew the pooch on the way out of Afghanistan. But sorry, the blame for arming the Taliban with our weapons falls squarely on Obama and Trump and even somewhat on Dubya, and what was largely a group of inept civilian contractors who trained these militias with all the amazing expertise and professionalism we've come to expect from our civilian contractor companies in war zones. (Great job, guys!)

There's a lot of lessons to be learned from this, though I question how well Washington will learn them since this particular hubris was so much like Vietnam we're almost getting re-run whiplash, and I have no doubt there's going to be an endless fresh legion of stuffed suits ready to ignore the guys on the ground the next war we fight; that seems to be the American Way, or at least the Washington Way.

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Re: Itemized Inventory of US equip. & weapons left behind

Is that you in the back seat?***

Thank God they don't have zip ties.

I know, remember what they did with box cutters?***

no politician can ever propose gun control again.***

It won't be as bad as the Americans left behind

Re: It won't be as bad as the Americans left behind

Pentagon cranking out the new orders as of last year....***

Re: Itemized Inventory of US equip. & weapons left behind

Re: Itemized Inventory of US equip. & weapons left behind

Re: Itemized Inventory of US equip. & weapons left behind

Re: Itemized Inventory of US equip. & weapons left behind

Re: Itemized Inventory of US equip. & weapons left behind

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