Wow , CNN is critical of Biden about Afghanistan

[durangodawood]

It's unlikely that very many Americans are indeed "quite confused" or "mesmerized" over the fall of Afghanistan. It is possible to argue that there had to be an end to our presence in that country sometime or other...or that a withdrawal would be dangerous and would require plenty of planning,

but Biden caused a calamity in several different ways with his "cut and run" approach, none of which had to be inevitable or unavoidable.

Then he literally went into hiding during the crisis, and now he shamelessly tries to excuse himself from the horrors currently unfolding and from those that will come because of him and him alone. There's no silver lining to this.

Yeah many Americans are quite confused into thinking the debacle at the airport is "the fall of Afghanistan".

The real horror is almost two decades of wasted lives and effort, against which the scene at the airport is just a blip..

 

[BeyondET]

Absolutely Obama is to blame, imo, for carrying on with the war.

But the ultimate blamee in the all-important blame game is the Bush administration and it's enablers who bought into the utopian fantasy of nation building in the first place.

yea it was pretty clear from the get go, that was going to be a very tall order.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Exactly.

“I started the process, all the troops are coming home, they (Biden) couldn’t stop the process. 21 years is enough. They (Biden) couldn’t stop the process, they (Biden) wanted to but couldn’t stop the process.”

https://twitter.com/theNuzzy/status/1427051039404957697?s=20

Someone you quoted can't do math. (I've seen this claim earlier today or yesterday about "21 years". It's just under 20 years. There was no Afghan war until after 9/11. The 20th anniversary of 9/11 is in a few weeks.

 

[returntosender]

The US military and the pres. Dropped the ball. They should have known that bananastan wasn't ready. Makes me sick. What a murderous decision.

 

[Toynbee]

I suppose you're going to try to convince everyone that FOX is balanced...

I wasn't talking to you.

 

[Isilwen]

Someone you quoted can't do math. (I've seen this claim earlier today or yesterday about "21 years". It's just under 20 years. There was no Afghan war until after 9/11. The 20th anniversary of 9/11 is in a few weeks.

That would be Trump. Those are his words. The only word added were Biden's name. Watch the video in the tweet, it is Trump speaking.

 

[wing2000]

The US military and the pres. Dropped the ball. They should have known that bananastan wasn't ready. Makes me sick. What a murderous decision.

How long were you willing to wait until Afghanistan was ready? Another 10, 20 or 50 years?

 

[returntosender]

How long were you willing to wait until Afghanistan was ready? Another 10, 20 or 50 years?

They were supposed to be prepared by our country. Our military should have known how well they were prepared. What have they been doing all these years? Smelling sand?

 

[Isilwen]

The US military and the pres. Dropped the ball. They should have known that bananastan wasn't ready. Makes me sick. What a murderous decision.

It was a deal brokered by Trump. Biden had to honor the deal.

 

[wing2000]

People are mesmerized by the images of the moment, possibly to avoid contemplating the big picture of near two decades of futility. (I count the first couple years as a war that at least achieved the routing of Al Qaeda.)

It's hard for ratings driven news organizations (all 24 hour news shows) from exploiting the images of the moment and assigning blame - immediately. Of course, all of the presidents - from George W. Bush to Joe Biden are accountable for their role in the Afghanistan debacle.

Answering how the Afghanistan government managed to collapse in a matter of days will require a lot more investigation and information. Clearly the US Gov (in it's entirety) was blind to political groundwork laid by the Taliban that allowed them to march into Afghan cities around the country with little resistance.

 

[returntosender]

It was a deal brokered by Trump. Biden had to honor the deal.

I know, blame it on Trump. That's the opposite of what Biden just said.
Looks to me like there are a bunch if idiots running the show here that after 20 years they didn't know Stan wasn't ready. Good grief!!!

 

[mark46]

The issue is poor intelligence or listening to the wrong people (ala Bush).

Less than a month ago, Biden assured everyone that a Taliban win was NOT a foregone conclusion after the US left. He pointed out that the 300,000 man Afghan army was well trained, had strong leadership and had the most modern equipment available . Biden assured us that the rag-tag poorly trained and led 75,000 man Taliban "army" would likely be no match for the Afghans. !!!!!

EVERYONE on the ground knew better. The 300K was a phantom number. There were many fewer, and fewer with any interest in fighting the Taliban. There was little allegiance to the corrupt government. There are many arguments about how much we should have been involved. For me, once Bin Laden was defeated, there was little left to do other than to support sorties against ISIS and Al Qaeda. These could have come out of Kuwait or Qatar or the UAE. Obama should have left Afghanistan. I have no blame for Trump or Biden.

HOWEVER, the current situation is 100% a result of poor intelligence or listening to the wrong intelligence. CNN and MSNBC have had many interviews over the past two weeks. The consensus was clear. Almost all were with past military leaders and intelligence folks. They interviewed senators regularly supporting our translators who needed to get out. The delay has been unconscionable.

Biden was misinformed or not telling us the truth. The idea that it would take 30-60 days to take Kabul was just plain silly, after most of the other major cities were taken. Biden's folks were promoting Kabul as some kind of fortress.

BUT LET'S BE CLEAR
We should have been out long ago. Biden's job was a safe exit our diplomats, citizens, military and a safe exit for the Afghans who helped us (as we have done in past wars).

 

[Landon Caeli]

I noticed CNN being critical of Biden for 20 minutes so I started this thread because that surprised, but lol, as I was typing this I heard "Trump is to blame as well"
perhaps the money making strategy for CNN will be attack Trump and Biden

CNN follows European trends as their primary leadership model. They'll parrot whatever the Europeans say first... Then bash Trump as Democrats second.

 

[Isilwen]

I know, blame it on Trump. That's the opposite of what Biden just said.
Looks to me like there are a bunch if idiots running the show here that after 20 years they didn't know Stan wasn't ready. Good grief!!!

Watch the video I posted on the first page if you don't believe Trump has at least some blame that needs to be thrown his way. Listen to him gloat.

 

[returntosender]

20 years for not and they had no clue? Not to mention all the lives lost for nothing. The only thing they achieved in 20 years was death

 

[Landon Caeli]

Absolutely Obama is to blame, imo, for carrying on with the war.

But the ultimate blamee in the all-important blame game is the Bush administration and it's enablers who bought into the utopian fantasy of nation building in the first place.

We should have just bowed our heads and waled after the twin towers. That would have been wise.

 

[wing2000]

HOWEVER, the current situation is 100% a result of poor intelligence or listening to the wrong intelligence. CNN and MSNBC have had many interviews over the past two weeks. The consensus was clear. Almost all were with past military leaders and intelligence folks.

It's easy for former officials to comment....in hind site. If you asked them 10 days ago how soon Kabul would fall, none of them would have predicted the events of the last 72 hours.

 

[Landon Caeli]

It's easy for former officials to comment....in hind site. If you asked them 10 days ago how soon Kabul would fall, none of them would have predicted the events of the last 72 hours.

Nobody is accepting excuses at this time, from the global power. Sorry.

 

[JSRG]

Blame? They both deserve credit for finally dropping the curtain on our longest war.

While the argument for withdrawal from Afghanistan is reasonable, and the events of the last few days actually offering evidence in a way for why ("if we were there for this long and the moment we started leaving this happened, why would we think that staying there for longer would have led to a different result?"), it seems pretty clear to me that the way we went about withdrawing was certainly not very good.

It was a deal brokered by Trump. Biden had to honor the deal.

All Biden would have to do is say that the Taliban weren't holding up their end of the deal (as I understand it, they weren't) and that was his reason for cancelling it.

I'm not saying we should have necessarily stayed in. But I don't think that "Trump made the deal and Biden had to agree with it" can be used as an excuse.

 

[Landon Caeli]

It was a deal brokered by Trump. Biden had to honor the deal.

No he didn't have to honor it.