Now that Afghanistan, sadly, is about to be completely overrun by the Taliban as we depart that country at long last, a bunch of “armchair warriors” out there are apportioning blame for the fact that our efforts over nearly 20 years may be completely wiped out (along with anyone who helped us with intelligence or acted as a translator - and since we’re talking about the Taliban, that surely means their families and friends too...I don’t think a single word can connote how awful that truly is).
Do you want to blame Biden for not ensuring the safety of those in that country who helped us, allowing them to escape also (as just noted)? That’s fair I guess, since this is happening on his watch. Do you want to also blame Generalissimo Trump (and, by extension, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo) for coming up with the deadline for withdrawal in negotiation with the Taliban (as much as you can negotiate with them of course) that Biden claims has “tied his hands”? I definitely agree with that (more here).
Some on Twitter have said we should also blame The Sainted Ronnie R for deciding to arm the Mujahideen in Afghanistan against the former Soviet Union in the ‘80s, given that those weapons would eventually be used against us when that group turned into al Qaeda. Oh, I definitely think that that’s fair all right.
But more than anybody else, I think we should blame this guy.
Oh, and by extension (as Oliver Willis, among others, has pointed out on Twitter), that goes for anybody on the Lincoln Project or some MSNBC pundits (including this one) who was a cheerleader for Number 43.
I’m old enough to remember when Dubya, after 9/11, had the opportunity to say to the Taliban, “All right, listen. We know you guys are ruthless bastards, and we don’t like you and you don’t like us, but just turn over to us everyone associated with al Qaeda and we’ll leave. That’s all we want.” Hell, even Putin, of all people, was down with that! And, of course, we could have done more to sanction our dear friends the Saudis, since 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia.
But no, Dubya and Cheney didn’t do that. Former President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History gave that incredibly insulting (to the rest of the world) address to Congress, basically saying, “You’re with the terrists or you’re with us” (here - and of course, Dubya got a standing “O” for that) and basically declared war also on any country harboring terrorists, in addition to the terrorists themselves. Oh, and after a few months, the regime of #43 said, “OK, we’ve defeated the Taliban. Let’s leave a skeleton force in Afghanistan while we do the invasion we really want to do, which of course is Iraq.” And when the Taliban recovered and started making gains in that country again, what did Dubya do? He outsourced the Afghan war to Pakistan (remember all of those utterly pointless meetings with Musharraf, who was in charge of that country?). Apparently, the whole world (except the Bush gang, of course), KNEW Pakistan was continually giving al Qaeda and the Taliban safe haven (after all, what country was bin Laden in when we finally got him?), but we felt they were honest actors in this anyway!
So yeah, there’s plenty of blame for what has happened (and likely will happen) in Afghanistan. But as far as I’m concerned, when you’re in a hole and you want to get out, you should stop digging. And though what’s playing out is tragic, I’ll give Biden the tiniest bit of credit for realizing that (more here and here).
Anyway, here is a well-done commentary from Mehdi Hasan (and Biden said we wouldn't have a "fall of Saigon" moment - I respectfully disagree)...
With Afghanistan in crisis, lots of back and forth this weekend over 'Biden's to blame' vs 'Trump started it' and so I thought I'd open the @MehdiHasanShow on @MSNBC tonight by pointing out the U.S. president who actually kicked off this whole damn thing:pic.twitter.com/kqV4mT0UQN
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) August 16, 2021
...and I think Beau brings us yet another good take, this time on our pullout from Afghanistan...
Update 1: More here and here.
Update 2: This is the only "take" on all of this I've found yet that's 100 percent correct.
Update 8/22/21: I skimmed over this New York Times Op-Ed by Ryan Crocker criticizing Biden and Trump on Afghanistan, where Crocker says that Bush went into Afghanistan because the Taliban wouldn’t hand over bin Lden to us. There’s some truth in that, but there’s also a hell of a lot of missing context.
As noted here, the Taliban offered to hand over bin Laden, but to a neutral country. And part of that has to do with the fact that we were already bombing Afghanistan at the time. We know what the Taliban is, but you truly would have to be as dumb and arrogant as Number 43 to expect ANYONE to work with us while we’re already dropping bombs on them!
...and returning to our regularly scheduled plague, David Shuster brings us another Rebel HQ video with a Mississippi spokesman talking pretty much about statewide hospital failure, and of course that loon MTG tries to rationalize this insanity by saying “we can’t live forever”...fine, bitch – you can go first...and by the way, I’m not hearing a word from "Caribou Barbie" about “death panels” now...
...and Sam and Emma of TMR bring us this guy making a Tick Tock video telling the anti-vaxxers to “stick to their f*cking guns,” though he definitely doesn’t mean it the way you might think (very NSFW/H but for a damn good reason - oh, and that goes for this guy too, turned-around-collar or not)...
...and Farron Cousins (who is based in FLA) brings us more on #DeathSantis and his state’s COVID outbreak...
...and sticking with The Sunshine State, John and Brett Erlich tell us more on the stuff with Matt Gaetz and Joel Greenberg...the stuff about MDMA is particularly sickening IMO...I was kind of wondering where Brett Erlich was going in some of his comments to John I., but I think Erlich is ultimately saying that Trump has lowered the bar of expectations so much for Republicans and their supporters that most go “meh” any more in response to Gaetz-related allegations, which I think is a pretty huge problem in and of itself...
...and Robert Reich tells us that there is no longer a “reasonable center” in our media coverage, which is assumed in the typically ridiculous “both sides” narrative that our esteemed fourth estate keeps trying to resuscitate (and speaking of ridiculous media moments, I give you this...Reich is correct, but I have to admit that I'm a little unnerved by his use of the term "mainstream media," since that's a creation of the wingnutosphere more than anyone else, but I should probably just get over myself and deal with it)...
...and RIP Nanci Griffith.
No comments:
Post a Comment