Kabul preparing to fall

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They are both puppets. May as well have Elmo and the Cookie Monster in the White House.

From an outsider's POV, American politics is, erm, "Interesting".

I agree with the points you have mentioned, but that doesn't mean I want Trump to have another crack at the Presidency.
2 crackpot Presidents in series if quite enough, thank you very much.
We don't need a hattrick.

I thought Reagan was a bad move.
But in comparison, boy, was I wrong.

For the most part, I think you and I should recognize that we will never agree. However, please don't ever lump me as a "you people." It's a dismissive and unimaginative phrase that is reflexively rude. Also, be aware that it isn't like I formed my overall views of Trump from just his presidency; I've followed the man's career since roughly 1990, and have some shared business connections. I actually like him when he's in roles that I think match his skill set and ego in a more positive way. His presidency would have made a great reality TV show. Problem is, I've never wanted to live in a reality TV show and I don't understand why everyone can't see the drama oriented scripting.

Pulling out of a loosing war is ...always graceful...especially if the war is in Afghanistan.

Back in 1837 the Brits did a much better job of ...hauling ass out of Afganistan!

I'm just curious to see what will happen to China once they get involved with the 'Graveyard of Empires'.

I almost feel like saying "Don't laugh at us China, your humiliation is next".

FYI, the 83B figure is misleading. That is not the value of the equipment, but the value of the equipment plus all the training, support and personnel that came with it. Some of the equipment cannot be operated without the support functions. The numbers on the estimated value of the hard assets vary, but it seems to be under 30% of the amount spent.

I imagine the Russians could blame the Americans and Sylvester Stallone for their pullout from Afghanistan

A man walked up to a beautiful woman and offered her a million dollars to sleep with him.
The woman jumped at the offer.
The man then offered her $50.
The woman was extremely insulted and asked the man what he thought she was.

The man replied:
"We have established what you are.
We are simply haggling over the price."

Please "Connect the dots".

No one will be held accountable for this debacle.

When saying "But....Trump!" is the answer for every bad thing that happens in the world kinda gets one lumped into a certain group that makes Trump the source of all evil in the world.
Try to be objective and ask why Trump got elected despite being the joke candidate of 2016. What happened? Why did the Republican party hate him so much? He wasn't my first choice either but the zeitgeist of the country was definitely different in 2016. The same movement that took Trump to the top also took Berine to the top. (Although the DNC Primary was stolen from Bernie.) The government/media complex has done a great job of making Trump into a huge villain. Why? Think about this stuff objectively and honestly and you might be surprised.

I know what got Trump elected. I did take the time to find out. I wrote extensively about our failures with respect to the middle class at the time, realizing that other politicians needed to finally pay attention, more than lip service, and figure out something. My problem with Trump was and is that while he successfully read the room and knew what to speak to, he played it for his own political self-interest instead of actually solving the problem. I’ve spent time deep into how we got here, with the middle class basically screwed, and it wasn’t any of the convenient scape goats he blasted for five years. He increased hate and division but didn’t actually solve a thing, and watching him sell his own strongest supporters down the river as he has done pisses me off more than any single bad policy proposal. So much smoke and mirrors … while all politicians do it, he upped the game 10 fold. The promises he kept won’t get his supporters what they actually need, and that is reality as i see it. The biggest thing I feel he did right, getting all that vaccine, fell prey to ill conceived short term messaging.

I don’t like to spend time saying “but Trump.” But it isn’t appropriate to ignore the constraints put on Biden by a treaty negotiated by the Trump administration. We cannot, as a country, regularly ignore treaties negotiated by prior administrations without huge costs to our ability to act on an international stage. We have to stand by our word, even when we don’t like it.

Nor can I look at Biden’s failures without wondering what the world would like if a different candidate had won. In this case, that means Trump; he was the alternate candidate. Our only options were A or B. It’s different than wondering what Obama would have done while Trump was president because Obama wasn’t an option. Hilary was. If people wanted to speculate how Hilary would have handled it, I could understand.

This is simply hyperpartisan nonsense.
But it only works on simple-minded people.
Those who can think for themselves don't blindly believe every cockamamy thing that comes their way.

I think it works on the principle of:
"Tell a big enough lie and it will be believed."
And it incorporates the groupthink mindset.

I believe Trump Hitler said this, but that might also be a cockamamy idea.

Damn!
Saul Alinsky has a lot to answer for.

My understanding was that *neither* party wanted to stay in Afghanistan.
If I am correct, why are you pushing this fact to one side?

Biden wasn't pushed.
He jumped at the chance.

I know Biden was eager to get out, but it isn't as simple as wanting to get out. If it was, no one would care how well it was handled.

Biden was constrained by the negotiated timing of the Trump deal. And the fact that the negotiated agreement left no incentive for the Taliban to play nice with the Afghan government at the time. Even, so Biden did get an extension of 3 months, which hopefully helped. What the perfect timing would have been we will never know.

I think people are just upset, even if they agreed we had to get out. There is no pretty way to take such a step, especially knowing what life is like with the Taliban, and it's hard to watch.

But you do accept some ways are better than others, right?

As people keep on saying, it wasn't getting out of Afghanistan that was the problem, here.
It was the way it was implemented.