no. trump pulled out of Afghanistan, which is why it was a fucking shit show.
Trump had no choice, as the war was won by the Taliban in like a week's offensive.
Why was it a shit show? It was one of the most successful pull-outs of all time.
They just packed up and left instead of trying prolong it with a bloody civil war between the American pedo police and the Taliban
“The reason we were here is because we heard the terrible things the Taliban were doing to people, how they were taking away human rights,” said Dan Quinn, a former Special Forces captain who beat up an American-backed militia commander for keeping a boy chained to his bed as a sex slave. “But we were putting people into power who would do things that were worse than the Taliban did — that was something village elders voiced to me.”
President Biden’s choices for how to execute a withdrawal from Afghanistan were
severely constrained by conditions created by his predecessor.
....
Over his last 11 months in office, President Trump ordered a series of drawdowns of
U.S. troops. By June 2020, President Trump reduced U.S. troops in Afghanistan to
8,600. In September 2020, he directed a further draw down to 4,500. A month later,
President Trump tweeted, to the surprise of military advisors, that the remaining U.S.
troops in Afghanistan should be “home by Christmas!” On September 28, 2021,
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Milley testified that, on November 11, he had
received an unclassified signed order directing the U.S. military to withdraw all forces
from Afghanistan no later than January 15, 2021. One week later, that order was
rescinded and replaced with one to draw down to 2,500 troops by the same date.
During the transition from the Trump Administration to the Biden Administration, the
outgoing Administration provided no plans for how to conduct the final withdrawal or to
evacuate Americans and Afghan allies. Indeed, there were no such plans in place
when President Biden came into office, even with the agreed upon full withdrawal just
over three months away
Seriously... have you all forgotten what went down? Memories like goldfish.
Yeah Trump did an amazing job GTFO'ing afghanistan instead of starting another useless proxy war.
As much as I hate Orange man, withdrawing from Afghanistan has to be the best thing he actually did. There are plenty of reasons to hate on him such as ruining abortion and trying to prevent any non-white person from existing in America, but Afghanistan withdrawal is not one of them.
This was fully Biden's fault by the way:
The handling of the evacuation operation has been one of the areas where the administration and the State Department have received the most criticism, as thousands of Afghans who had served alongside US forces were left behind and those on the ground struggled through perilous circumstances to try to reach the airport and get out before government-led evacuation efforts ended.
Trump signed the deal in feb of '20, and started the process rolling. Trump took it from 13k troops to 2.5k by the time Biden took office. Biden continued along the nominal plan largely because you can't just stop massive troop movements like that.
as for it being a shit show; we left behind ~350k rifles, there were helicopters (littlebirds, blackhawks,) drones (boeing scan eagles); over 50 AFVs- mostly M1117's; 60 mortars and artilery pieces;
Over a hundred civilians died during the withdrawal, and thousands of civillians who worked with the US (on the promise of being protected, no less,) were left behind on the tarmac.
You're right. It wasn't a shit show. that's far too generous. It was a giant, shitty clusterfuck.
"Biden continued along the nominal plan largely because you can’t just stop massive troop movements like that."
Yes you can. He had every opportunity to stop and reverse the withdrawal.
And that's your shit show? That's the cleanest withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2000 years. With the Afghan gov. collapsing within days, how clean do you think it possibly could have been?
He'd have to have sent troops back when he got into office. We weren't getting the interpreters out without controlling the ground ourselves.
That was politically and logistically unfeasible.
Look at the time span from Biden entering office and the withdrawal, then look at the time span from September 11, 2001 to the invasion of Afghanistan. Reversing the withdrawal months in advance was logistically well within the capabilities of the US military and would have been politically less risky since withdrawals are extremely hard to execute as well as the US military executed this one.
edit:
Massive changes/reversals in military objectives are implausible on the scale of hours or even days, but making sudden changes, moving masses of men and material in a new direction to do a new thing on short notice is one of the abilities of a good military. The notion that the US military, a very good military, couldn't reverse itself when given months to do so isn't well thought out.
And what were we going to tell Pakistan? You realize the bulk of our supplies came by land through there?
What would the Afghan reaction be? Because at that point you lose credibility. They see it as a second invasion.
And yeah, what do you tell the American people who are severely war weary?
It was never about the military's internal ability. It was about the actual logistics chain and appearing to go back on a major deal in a county where that means people definitely start helping the terrorists because they lose faith in you ever leaving voluntarily.
no. trump pulled out of Afghanistan, which is why it was a fucking shit show.
Trump had no choice, as the war was won by the Taliban in like a week's offensive.
Why was it a shit show? It was one of the most successful pull-outs of all time.
They just packed up and left instead of trying prolong it with a bloody civil war between the American pedo police and the Taliban
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/30/politics/state-deparment-afghanistan-withdrawal-report/index.html
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/30/us-afghanistan-war-military-pullout-report-biden-trump
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/biden-report-afghanistan-withdrawal-blames-trump-2023-04-06/
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/US-Withdrawal-from-Afghanistan.pdf
From the last one:
Seriously... have you all forgotten what went down? Memories like goldfish.
Oh, lets take a look at articles detailing the equipment left behind:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/27/politics/afghan-weapons-left-behind/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/27/politics/afghan-weapons-left-behind/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/27/politics/afghan-weapons-left-behind/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/27/politics/afghan-weapons-left-behind/index.html
Oh... and if that's not enough for you, lets talk about the human cost of
packing upjust leaving:https://www.nbcnews.com/investigations/us-left-78000-afghan-allies-ngo-report-rcna18119
https://www.hudson.org/foreign-policy/helping-afghan-allies-america-left-behind-luke-coffey
https://www.npr.org/2022/08/29/1119973093/how-u-s-allies-view-the-country-a-year-after-its-withdraw-from-afghanistan
https://www.factcheck.org/2021/09/how-many-americans-and-allies-are-left-in-afghanistan/
oh, and our reputation on the world stage, because you know, we weren't the only western power in Afghansistan: https://www.npr.org/2022/08/29/1119973093/how-u-s-allies-view-the-country-a-year-after-its-withdraw-from-afghanistan
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/afghanistan/2021-09-02/american-credibility-after-afghanistan
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/afghanistan/2021-09-02/american-credibility-after-afghanistan
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/afghanistan/2021-09-02/american-credibility-after-afghanistan
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/afghanistan/2021-09-02/american-credibility-after-afghanistan
TL/DR: It was a shit show.
Yeah Trump did an amazing job GTFO'ing afghanistan instead of starting another useless proxy war.
As much as I hate Orange man, withdrawing from Afghanistan has to be the best thing he actually did. There are plenty of reasons to hate on him such as ruining abortion and trying to prevent any non-white person from existing in America, but Afghanistan withdrawal is not one of them.
This was fully Biden's fault by the way:
No he didn't and no it wasn't.
you, uh, sure about that?
Trump signed the deal in feb of '20, and started the process rolling. Trump took it from 13k troops to 2.5k by the time Biden took office. Biden continued along the nominal plan largely because you can't just stop massive troop movements like that.
as for it being a shit show; we left behind ~350k rifles, there were helicopters (littlebirds, blackhawks,) drones (boeing scan eagles); over 50 AFVs- mostly M1117's; 60 mortars and artilery pieces;
Over a hundred civilians died during the withdrawal, and thousands of civillians who worked with the US (on the promise of being protected, no less,) were left behind on the tarmac.
You're right. It wasn't a shit show. that's far too generous. It was a giant, shitty clusterfuck.
"Biden continued along the nominal plan largely because you can’t just stop massive troop movements like that."
Yes you can. He had every opportunity to stop and reverse the withdrawal.
And that's your shit show? That's the cleanest withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2000 years. With the Afghan gov. collapsing within days, how clean do you think it possibly could have been?
He'd have to have sent troops back when he got into office. We weren't getting the interpreters out without controlling the ground ourselves.
That was politically and logistically unfeasible.
Look at the time span from Biden entering office and the withdrawal, then look at the time span from September 11, 2001 to the invasion of Afghanistan. Reversing the withdrawal months in advance was logistically well within the capabilities of the US military and would have been politically less risky since withdrawals are extremely hard to execute as well as the US military executed this one.
edit: Massive changes/reversals in military objectives are implausible on the scale of hours or even days, but making sudden changes, moving masses of men and material in a new direction to do a new thing on short notice is one of the abilities of a good military. The notion that the US military, a very good military, couldn't reverse itself when given months to do so isn't well thought out.
And what were we going to tell Pakistan? You realize the bulk of our supplies came by land through there?
What would the Afghan reaction be? Because at that point you lose credibility. They see it as a second invasion.
And yeah, what do you tell the American people who are severely war weary?
It was never about the military's internal ability. It was about the actual logistics chain and appearing to go back on a major deal in a county where that means people definitely start helping the terrorists because they lose faith in you ever leaving voluntarily.