Don't Let Biden Sink Troops Back Into the Afghanistan Quagmire
We have an agreement to pull out by May. We should honor it regardless of the state of the country.
Will we ever get U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, ever? ABC News reports that President Joe Biden's administration is preparing for the likelihood that troops will remain in Afghanistan past a May deadline established in an agreement with the Taliban because of ongoing attacks and assassinations there.
During the Democratic primary debates, Biden said he wanted to end our wars in the Middle East and bring troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq, but he also made it clear he does want to keep some military presence within the country for antiterrorism and intelligence purposes.
As his presidential term ended, Donald Trump pushed for a faster withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, which drew criticism even though it's what Americans across the political spectrum actually want.
ABC points to this decision from Trump in an attempt to suggest that the drawdown is contributing to the challenge of actually leaving Afghanistan: "U.S. troops are at their lowest level in Afghanistan now, which the Pentagon said in a new report Monday has imposed 'limitations' on completing its mission."
The report they reference is from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). And while the office's quarterly report does say that the drawdown "introduces some limitations on force capacity and on the train, advise, and assist mission," the very next sentence says that leaders of the U.S. forces have said that that the drawdown to 2,500 troops was not currently adversely affecting its work.
It's slightly odd of ABC News to attempt to paint SIGAR as some sort of critic of Trump's troop withdrawal because for years now SIGAR reports have been the primary way that Americans who were still paying attention would know that our continued involvement in Afghanistan has absolutely failed to stabilize the country and served primarily as a massive money pit for defense spending and a threat to the lives of our troops.
The latest report is no different, and ABC News does take note of that:
"There has been no cease-fire agreement and high levels of insurgent and extremist violence continued in Afghanistan this quarter despite repeated pleas from senior U.S. and international officials to reduce violence in an effort to advance the peace process," John Sopko, the longtime special inspector general, wrote in the report's introduction. "Nor is it evident, as SIGAR discusses in this report, that the Taliban has broken ties with the al-Qaeda terrorists who orchestrated the 9/11 attacks on the United States."
So the agreement that's supposed to allow the U.S. to exit Afghanistan in May has not, in fact, led to peace.
What about political stability in Afghanistan? Have we at least given Afghan citizens a government to turn to? Today, SIGAR put out another report about the state of the country's election system. One of the major findings:
Election fraud in Afghanistan is rampant and takes many forms: Political leaders exert influence over senior election officials and, through them, lower-level staff, and election commissioners and their senior staff sell their services for financial gain. Senior election officials thus play an ambiguous role, serving variously as protectors of the process, perpetrators of fraud, illicit collaborators with senior government officials, and victims of their abuses. Fraud is also perpetrated by local powerbrokers trying to curry favor with candidates in the anticipation of reward, in the form of government contracts, jobs, or payoffs. It is difficult to detect and prove fraud, and even harder to reduce it. Anti-fraud measures are often co-opted to perpetrate more fraud, and even successful fraud mitigation can end up suppressing legitimate votes, sometimes in ways that favor one group over another.
We are bringing neither peace nor democracy to Afghanistan, and a sober read-through of SIGAR's reports makes it pretty clear that the country is likely to remain unstable for the near future.
After two decades of military intervention in Afghanistan, there is little reason to believe continued military participation, training of the country's police forces, or oversight of the nation's elections is going to work. Biden promised on the campaign trail to get the U.S. out of this quagmire. So did the prior two presidents. Trump did finally manage to get some troops out of there. Rather than treating this as some sort of reckless behavior—as through throwing billions of dollars away and losing thousands of U.S. troops there is not reckless—Biden needs to follow through on his promise.
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REASON VOTED FOR BIDEN THEY WANT THIS THEY CANT COMPLAIN THEY WERE MEAN TO TRUMP REASON SUCKS WAAAAAHHHH!!!!
Pathetic.
Why do they keep complaining when Biden does what he ran on doing?
For the same reason they gave kudos to Trump when he brought troops home.
I know the narrative is that Reason was 100% anti-Trump and never gave him credit for anything they all voted against him they’re all deranged blah blah blah… the truth is that they gave him credit when it was due from a libertarian point of view.
But don’t let the truth get in the way of the narrative.
But that narrative is exactly what happened, you lying, half-retarded sociopath.
This article is the first one ever published by Reason to admit that “Donald Trump pushed for a faster withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan”, and it only happened now that Trump is safely deposed.
All mentions prior to the election were about what a lying fuck Donald Trump was about withdrawal, because the troops were still there. You know this, because you were dishonestly crowing about it in the comments back then, you mendacious piece of shit.
This article also still deliberately omits mention of the fact that the House Democrats made it illegal last July for Trump to pull troops out of Afghanistan.
An appallingly psychotic action that every libertarian in the Western world should have been horrified by.
But not a peep out of Reason, Shackford or you. What a piece of shit you are.
You are a lying sack of shit.
A committee in one chamber voted that way. Not the whole chamber. Not both chambers. And no Presidential signature.
You are a fucking lying piece of shit.
One provision of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2021 would block funding for reducing the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan from 4,500 to 2,500 by Jan. 15, as ordered by Trump, until the Defense and State Departments verify that it was in the national interest.
Another provision of the NDAA essentially called on the incoming Biden administration to take a second look at Trump’s executive order to pull 12,000 U.S. troops from Germany.
https://news.yahoo.com/congress-moves-block-us-troop-135205904.html
Whoops.
Maybe read a little harder shithead, before you call people liars.
I said “the house Democrats”.
The House Armed Services Committee is made up a majority of (drum roll) house Democrats, and, aside from the daughter of a notorious neocon warmonger, most of the Republicans voted against the action.
Now explain to me again how you think that I lied.
He’ll be back shortly with a bunch of cites of Shackford praising Trump’s foreign policy accomplishments!
I didn’t know East German required only capital letters.
You supported Biden, so fuck you.
Hello Cleveland!
I suggest that more readers might read and take serious Shackford’s articles if he first issued a public apology (for trashing Trump and campaigning for Biden).
Hypocrites have no credibility.
Scott is one of only two who voted for Trump at Reason. There’s a reason he’s able to be open about how terrible it is that Biden took the office.
Any citations, as I don’t recall reading any articles by Shackford (or anyone else at Reason) that praised Trump’s policies or actions.
Nvm, I take it back. Looks like I got him confused with someone else: https://reason.com/2020/10/12/how-will-reason-staffers-vote-in-2020/
All of those who stated they voted for Biden because he is weak, moderate owe the libertarian movement an apology for so misreading the tea leaves. Also, Ken has been far more right than any of the Reason writers. Maybe he should be hired by Reason as their senior editor.
Is it even reading tea leaves when the DNC was pretty clear they were planning on doing most of this shit? Reading tea leaves implies you have to interpret something not obvious.
They ignored the DNC, and read the tea leaves to mean Biden would not do what the DNC and he said he would. So, it is in a way.
Ok!
This site could do a hell of a lot worse than to give Ken and Cyto permanent guest writing gigs.
BUT the President doesn’t send mean tweets. That’s the MOST important thing!
“We are bringing neither peace nor democracy to Afghanistan, and a sober read-through of SIGAR’s reports makes it pretty clear that the country is likely to remain unstable for the near future.”
The good news is that Afghanistan retains its place as the world’s top producer of opium, though actual figures are hard to come by because the US military hasn’t released them. They’re still wrangling over the size of their cut with the Taleban, the warlords, and government in Kabul.
We let them farm and harvest poppy. That was a purposeful, strategic decision. Don’t ask me how state department jives that with all of their counter drug mandates and treaties.
It is criminal activity. No attempt is made to jive it.
Nice picture, Shackelfart.
Alt-text suggestion:
Excessively white teeth are a sign of systemic racism.
Can we please give Biden a chance to really start governing before we rush to judgment?
Yes more EO in his first two weeks than Trump did in three years. We just need to give him a chance (and I am aware you were being sarcastic, I am adding on to it).
Sarcasm? Biden is the gearing up to the the greatest president of the last two centuries. The press needs to give him a wide berth so he can truly do the work of the American People.
The press needs to give him a wide berth so he can truly do the work of the American People.
Lining up for the daily hair-sniff should do the trick.
Sarcasmic, note this is how you do it.
That would require him actually understanding comedy.
he can truly do the work of the American People
Yes. Central America.
The press needs to give him a wide berth so he can truly do the work o
fn the American People. And foreigners too.Does pre-screening questions for the press secretary count?
Most open and truthful presidency evah!
And at least he doesn’t do mean tweets at reporters.
Or give opinions that differ from theirs making them fact check them as false.
There’s a lot of people confusing opinion and fact on all sides.
Piss off shill.
The coming fascist nightmare belongs to you and the Reasonistas who demagogued against one of the most libertarian presidents in history, solely because the establishment mullahs hated him.
She’ll have to circle back on that one.
Pippi Longstocking for Reality Czar!
Assuming Jim Acosta and Baghdad Bob are unavailable, of course.
That is what Goldwater said when Bill Clinton was elected. Goldwater was a class act. It is ironic that the right kind of intervention at the proper time might have prevented the genocide in Rwanda. The greatest failure of Clinton was ignoring it.
LOL
Shackford, this is exactly what you campaigned for.
Go fuck yourself.
I hope his support of the democrats destroys him.
I was going to point out that the hypocrisy of writing this article, after ignoring the actual deal mentioned when Trump made it, is astounding. But above sarcasmic already cried about it, so I guess I’ll let it go.
It is pretty crazy if you think about it. A president makes a peace deal and a “libertarian” publication completely ignores it. No articles talking about the good and bad of it. Just ignores it. Same with the Abraham Acords.
I was just about to ask if anyone else found it odd that Reason would talk about the Afghanistan deal now and not, for example, when it was signed last year.
Not a peep back then. The one thing libertarians everywhere had longed for, for almost twenty years; and Reason deliberately ignored it when it happened because Trump wasn’t cool.
This was the first magazine I ever subscribed to as a teen, and to see it trash its principles and actually start to lie to and gaslight its readers, has been horrifying.
“…and to see it trash its principles and actually start to lie to and gaslight its readers, has been horrifying”
I have subscribed to Reason in the and had thought about doing it again, but not after their TDS antics of the past year.
It shows just how pathetic and petty they are. I do business with plenty of people I actively dislike because they are at least honest and competent professionals. Boehm and Sullum act like they have to go live with Trump.
I hate democrats, but if they started cutting taxes and regulations, I would give them credit for it.
https://reason.com/2020/03/03/the-afghanistan-deal-is-already-falling-apart/
That was not difficult.
Nice to see this entire conversation went soaring over your head.
“…To be blunt, the details of this deal are a distraction. For America, a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan is more urgent than the success or failure of a deal between the Taliban and Kabul…”
Nor was this.
You should read your links rather than com across as the fucking lefty ignoramus you are.
He literally posted a link that supported what we were saying.
You: “I was going to point out that the hypocrisy of writing this article, after ignoring the actual deal mentioned when Trump made it, is astounding.”
The reason article (written the day after the deal was made): “The U.S. just signed a peace deal with the Taliban that would see U.S. forces exit Afghanistan in 14 months…”
Reason did not ignore the deal, and I proved it. That you guys still don’t see that is just more proof that you are all stupid.
Still over your head.
So you’re going to ignore the negative tone of the article in regards to the deal then? Yeap, you’re an idiot.
Goal post move.
I’m starting to get the feeling this Biden fellow isn’t quite as libertarianish as I’d been led to believe. If only he’d had a few years experience and a little bit of a track record by which we could have judged him.
Did anyone really believe that Biden (or, at least, the people pulling his strings) actually wanted out of Afghanistan? Look how much left-liberals freaked out that he was making serious attempts to wrap things up there, and having those efforts undercut in Congress by neocon/neoliberal trash like Liz Cheney and Jason Crow.
If Biden does pull our folks out, like Obama in Iraq when the SOFA expired, it will be entirely due to what his predecessor put in place before he took the seat. He’ll certainly take all the credit for it, of course, just like his former boss did.
The last thing the Uniparty wants is to end our 30-year-long overseas combat operation in Southwest Asia, so any “pullout” is going to leave behind some military residue.
At this point, Afghanistan is just a really nice live fire/moving targets range for “operational vetting” of all the new tech.
Which makes you completely erect, doesn’t it?
I don’t want to talk with you about my erections, thanks.
Lack of denial noted.
Same thing as his stolen valor, he doesn’t actually get them.
Which is ironic, considering we might have gotten quite a bit more use out of the legacy air platforms, and held off recapitalization for a while longer, if we hadn’t flown them into the ground over the last 30 years, and the last 15 or so in particular.
Thank goodness the Taliban never had modern anti-aircraft systems shipped to them from Russia, China, or Iran, or our bomber fleet and A-10s would have been grounded from there a long time ago.
No one is interested in making those platforms last longer. The air force has been trying to kill the a10 for 20 years, despite the demonstrated effectiveness. Proposed replacing it with a fucking JSF.
It’s all about getting that sweet executive suite job after government service. If you aren’t getting stock options from raytheon after you retire, you fucked up.
Raytheon makes neither the A10 nor the JSF dummy.
It may not but DOL is right about the USAF’s priorities.
I don’t know who makes either aircraft, but I’m willing to bet good money that raytheon makes some component, radio, radar, or munition for use on both airframes.
Raytheon is a ubiquitous purveyor of military hardware, dummy.
He’s got to pull out of Afghanistan!
Those troops are needed in D.C.
Tulsi Gabbard ticks every single box the Democrats love to show off, but because she’s 100% truly anti-war, she needs to be run out of town.
That tells you everything you need to know about our “new” foreign policy.
Shackford, the *point* of voting for Biden was that ‘if he’s wrong, he’ll be wrong within normal parameters’.
What did you people think was ‘normal parameters’?
Because the rest of us were seeing ‘forever war’ as our normal, pre-Trump.
Dude runs on a return to the center, a return to what we used to do, and you complain that he’s gonna do what we used to do
Only recent president to not start any wars was Trump.
If you were anti-war, voting for Biden was dumb.
About 95% of the anti-war people are apparently just liars. Or they’re anti-war but it’s below their own vanity on their priority list.
Wasn’t that “wrong within normal parameters” bit coined by P.J. O’Rourke to describe Anybody (of either party) But Trump? So sad to see the Republican Party Reptile so thoroughly co-opted by the cocktail sippers.
He really lost his fastball after having kids. Nice guy though, the one time I met him. I hope he does well, and we’ll always have “Parliament Of Whores.”
Finest and funniest book on politics ever written
When I said “he” I was referring to Trump trying to close things down there.
In the picture, Biden’s telling the troops how he got his son a commission at 43, with no prior military experience and a know drug history. Only to have the football-bat fail his first piss test and get kicked out.
Now, now. Give him a little credit. He failed his 3rd or 4th drug test. He actually passed a few. Granted, he failed for coke, which only pops up if you used in the last 72 hours…
Hunter was commissioned one month. The military has changed quite a bit since I was in if they’re giving “3 or 4” piss tests in a month.
Maybe he had some whiz quizzes when he was at OCS?
It does take some doing to piss hot for coke though. Cretin.
Having served myself, I can confirm that this isn’t completely unknown. It’s rare, but it happens, and if Beau was already a known substance abuser when he got his commission, it wouldn’t take much for the DDR chief to suddenly give Biden his full attention.
I have not served. But I did hold a commercial drivers license in CA, and random drug tests were part of that, per the DoT. Funny how, working in coastal California with hospitality workers, the guys who publicly didn’t smoke weed were the ones who always got called in during “random” drug testing. Versus the co-worker at another job who was called at home (first mistake, answering the phone) in mid bong rip, and told he had to go in to whiz. LOL.
Anyway, I’m still surprised that politician’s kid was interfered with in any way, shape, or form. He must have been a titanic asshole to his command.
Yeah, the fact he got kicked out, given his family connections, shows just what a colossal fuckup Beau really is.
Pull our forces out, tell them “don’t make us come back”, and be done with it.
“ABC News reports that President Joe Biden’s administration is preparing for the likelihood that troops will remain in Afghanistan past a May deadline established in an agreement with the Taliban because of ongoing attacks and assassinations there.”
That isn’t the half of it.
“Biden’s team also has made a point of underscoring the importance of human rights and women’s rights in Afghanistan. The Taliban, known for their draconian rule and repression of Afghan women during their reign from 1996-2001, made no pledges on the status of women in their agreement with the United States.”
—-NBC News, January 30, 2021
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/biden-signals-tougher-line-taliban-n1256227
We can’t leave until the feminists win?!
If the Biden administration refuses to leave Afghanistan until the Taliban decides to stop being Islamic fundamentalists and treat women the way feminists want, then the Biden administration never intends to leave Afghanistan.
They have no intention of leaving Afghanistan. The Biden administration never said they intended to leave Afghanistan. And just because the press in the United States refused to even acknowledge Trump’s peace deal with the Taliban, that doesn’t mean the Taliban doesn’t expect the U.S. to abide by the terms.
Trump’s peace deal with the Taliban was with the United States–not the U.S. backed government in Kabul, and the Taliban has not targeted a single American since Trump signed the peace deal with the Taliban ten months ago.
.If the U.S. backed government in Kabul still wants to be at war with the Taliban, they should be free to do so. However, because the Kabul government chooses to remain at war with the Taliban–and continues to initiate strikes against them–is no reason for the United States to remain in Afghanistan. The peace talks between the Kabul government and the Taliban have been ongoing for months.
The Kabul government has been dragging their feet on negotiations with the Taliban in Doha in the hope that Biden would win the election and refuse to leave Afghanistan. Those talks became more or less defunct the moment that Biden won the election.
If and when the U.S. fails to leave Afghanistan by the end of April, we will have violated our agreement with the Taliban, and the Taliban will start targeting Americans again. Make no mistake, the alternative to leaving Afghanistan is not the status quo. We have been at peace with the Taliban for ten months. As soon as it becomes clear that the Biden administration has no intention of leaving Afghanistan, we will be at war with the Taliban again.
And it should be noted that this was not only foreseeable but also foreseen. The Biden administration wants to be at war with the Taliban until there is no more Taliban–which means forever. Every voter who didn’t want to be at war with the Taliban forever had a way to avoid it, and they blew that chance in November.
P.S. It’s hard for people who weren’t politically aware circa 2003 – 2005 to believe that the arguments for war were at one time almost entirely about the good of the people we were invading.
It’s also hard for people who weren’t there to believe that the justification for sending a militarized police force into black communities all over the country was justified in terms of the helping the black community fight against the scourge of marijuana and crack cocaine. Nowadays, it seems obvious that the police were an oppressive force. Back then? People thought the drug warriors were doing the Lord’s work and helping people.
Right here in this comment section, circa 2003-2005, you could be called out as a racist and a bigot for questioning whether the Iraqis really wanted us to bomb, invade, and occupy their country. Of course they wanted us to bomb, invade, and occupy their country–because they want the same things we do! And once they get them, freedom and democracy will flourish, not just in Iraq but all over the Muslim world. Iraq’s gonna be so great, everyone else in the Muslim world will want to be just like them!
The people of Idaho and Montana resent thousands of Californians moving there and telling them how to change things for the better, but the people of Iraq will welcome us in to change their society and their culture with open arms?
The people of southcentral LA and the people of Iraq might be better off if we’d just worried about our own selfish interests instead of sending people with guns to solve their cultural, economic, and social problems. But that’s the progressive way. It flows naturally from Marxism, just like neoconservatism does. They believe that the purpose of government is to force people to do what’s in the common good–the best interests of others.
How do they know what’s in the best interests of others? How do you know what my best interest is?
This is what Biden is selling as the reason to be Afghanistan. If we can’t leave until the feminists are happy with the condition of women under the Taliban, then we’re never leaving. And where do we invade next? How are women being treated in Syria? What about Iran–do they want us to bomb, invade, and occupy their country, too?
It is not in our best interests as a nation to remain in constant conflict with Islamic terrorism forever. Won’t someone please think about
the childrenthemselves?Bravo good sir. Bravo.
If Afghanistan became a “quagmire,” it’s only because Drumpf let it happen.
By 2016, Obama had the Taliban on the verge of total defeat. Hillary Clinton would have finished the job, ended the war, and brought our troops home. Alas, Russia hacked the election and installed Drumpf. Who promptly made a mess of things.
Whatever Biden decides to do, I’ll support him. Because I know the government is now controlled by patriots who have America’s — not Russia’s — best interests in mind.
#LibertariansForBiden
#(EspeciallyWithRespectToForeignPolicy)
If you are for open borders do you lock your door at home? Or just “expect” you neighbors to leave you alone?
Only a fool wouldn’t have seen this coming. Syria and Libya and Mali will be next.
Too late on Syria. The illegitimate president Biden already sent the troops that Trump pulled out back in.
And it should be noted that Reason often complained about Trump keeping troops in Syria despite pulling them out but Reason is now silent on Biden keeping troops in Syria despite putting them in.
Reason staff complained about Trump abandoning the Kurds.
They were doublethinking Trump abandoning the Kurds and Trump keeping troops in Syria.
Let’s not forget shit like this:
“Turkey is not only a NATO member, U.S. ally, and recipient of American aid and arms; it’s also a place where Trump has personal business. Many commentators have highlighted a Trump tweet from 2012 announcing the opening of Trump Towers Istanbul”
“U.S. Consents to a Turkish Invasion in Syria; Kurdish Forces Call It ‘A Stab in the Back'”
https://reason.com/2019/10/07/u-s-consents-to-a-turkish-invasion-in-syria-kurdish-forces-call-it-a-stab-in-the-back/
They were still hoping to impeach him back then, so everything was an impeachable offense.
That article should have gotten ENB and most of the senior editors fired.
It was a stab in the back, and it made no sense in the broader picture of US policy toward the region. It made no sense. And Trump didn’t bring anyone back home or out of harm’s way. Those troops and their replacements moved just over the border to N Iraq.
The only way that Trump’s sudden decision, which undid years of work and long range planning, is if you look for a personal motivation. Which is why it becomes relevant to talk about Trump’s business and other connections to Turkey.
Which brings us back to emoluments and avoiding the appearance of conflict of interest. Which were universally accepted concepts in America up until Trump started a cult.
I get where you’re coming from on this. But statements like, “which undid years of work and long range planning” really undo your point.
Especially because the whole point of supporting the SDF wasn’t to ultimately establish a Kurdish ethnostate in northern Syria. It was to kick out Assad, then changed to using them as an on-ground proxy in the fight against ISIS after the Obama administration was essentially shamed into it by the international press while the siege of Kobani was going on.
The US is overcommitted in the region. Anything the USA does can be viewed as stabbing someone in the back, because all our “friends” are enemies of each other.
At least the USA committed openly instead of secretly like the British. Or maybe we could say the USA committed brazenly instead of sneakily.
“It was a stab in the back”
The legitimate purpose of government is to protect our rights, and the legitimate purpose of the military is to protect our rights from foreign threats.
The legitimate purpose of the military is not to protect the Kurds. If protecting the Kurds is in the best interests of the United States, then by all means, we should do so. Protecting the Kurds was not in the best interests of the United States. Getting into a full blown war in Syria was not in the best interests of the United States.
Incidentally, I expect the Kurds to only work in the best interests of the United States when it’s in the best interests of the Kurds to do so. If we’d taken our own interests into account, we wouldn’t have blundered into Iraq or Vietnam. Thank goodness we avoided blundering into Rwanda and Syria.
All that’s awful and everything, but Trump’s tweets were really obnoxious–to certain people. Let’s not forget about that.
Do people still buy the story that we’re “training” the Afghans? FFS if we couldn’t train them enough in 20 years then we’re not exactly doing a bang-up job of training.
We can’t pull out because we have to few people there. then you will never pull out but we know thats the intent. if you only cut half of the remaining cake you will never run out of cake.
Made a correction:
“Election fraud in
Afghanistanthe United States is rampant and takes many forms: Political leaders exert influence over senior election officials and, through them, lower-level staff, and election commissioners and their senior staff sell their services for financial gain. Senior election officials thus play an ambiguous role, serving variously as protectors of the process, perpetrators of fraud, illicit collaborators with senior government officials, and victims of their abuses. Fraud is also perpetrated by local powerbrokers trying to curry favor with candidates in the anticipation of reward, in the form of government contracts, jobs, or payoffs. It is difficult to detect and prove fraud, and even harder to reduce it. Anti-fraud measures are often co-opted to perpetrate more fraud, and even successful fraud mitigation can end up suppressing legitimate votes, sometimes in ways that favor one group over another.“Election fraud in Afghanistan the United States is rampant ”
I call BS on this. Every study done shows that any real fraud is small. Why don’t you back this statement up instead of just throwing it out there like it was fact.
Every study ever done consists solely at looking at number of convictions. Which are small when no D.A.s actually investigate.
Biden said he wanted to end our wars in the Middle East and bring troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq,
Biden said a lot of things – – – – – – – – – –
There’s a super highway of smack flowing from Afghanistan right through Iran, home of the world’s highest concentration of addicts, and eventually on to Russia and Europe. That flow will continue as long as the US , under whose auspices the traffic has grown and flourished, has a presence there. Ignore what Trump or Biden says, as they will never discuss the strategic advantages of the situation.
“…That flow will continue as long as the US , under whose auspices the traffic has grown and flourished, ..”
I’m sure you have the same evidence for that claim as you do for every other pile of shit you’ve shoveled here:
None.
Read the report linked to in the article. Or don’t.
That war was lost May 28, 1998. https://fas.org/nuke/guide/pakistan/nuke/chron.htm Note also in that cite, how many instances it was claimed Pakistan had deliverable weapons before they actually popped their cherry with an overt test. There’s a lesson there…
Anyway, the war against the Pashtun will never be won without building a literal mountain of skulls in the KP, which no one wants to do. Albeit, if there really are 11 digits worth of mineral wealth in those hills, the Chinese might give it a go.
Bring the guys home already. Don’t be surprised though when ISIS, 2.0, shows up, with all sorts of atrocities for the news.
I hope that President Biden does bring the troops home. When he does he needs support, because there will always be criticism. We have to accept that when we leave there will be back sliding till a new equilibrium is reached. We are going to have to accept this, because if we can not we are there forever.
Don’t Let Biden Sink Troops Back Into the Afghanistan Quagmire
To late Reason, your hate of Trump and support of a left wing dictatorship means we will remain in the quagmire.
Reason Magazine: Libertarians for a left wing dictatorship.
Does anyone at Reason understand what a dictatorship is and how it operates? A dictatorship does not care about it’s citizens opinions, not even the ones that support the dictatorship.
“Don’t Let Biden…”?
The Emperor will do what the Emperor will do.
I’m surprised that Reason doesn’t know how Democracy works.
Fucking hilarious.
I did my part on election day. If there’s anything more I try not to “let” our new President do, I’m pretty sure I’ll be arrested & jailed for life, if not shot on sight.
I’m rather shocked that Reason would so openly seditious.
I mean, even for a purportedly libertarian publication, this kind of disloyal speech clearly crosses the line. It’s downright un-American!
Someone should report them.
…would be so…
Lissin my sonny bowa, wah be a money makin thang so it ain’t no thang, chicken wang. We goin back ta wah. Biden got shit to do an money does grow on treez.
Well we would be pulling up stakes but you all pimped Biden and hated on Trump. So fuck you.
The interesting thing is how the authoritarian left has become a supporter of American imperialism and intervention. I think it has to do with the allure of power and the belief that america should enforce wokness on the rest of the world. This is why you get the Diversity/Equity authoritarians promoting “patriotism” to mean an acceptance of socialism, cultural marxism and marginalizing certain “tribes”. It also helps that America is not fighting communists anymore and we have no draft.
Biden will leave office with more troops in Afghanistan and more troops and wars in other countries….bet on it…wokies
Lack of a draft has profoundly changed the equation. The federal government is much freer to be much more militarily adventurous. There are no more conscripts, or friends or family of same, to protest their unwilling participation in an unjust war.
The draft sucked and I’m glad it’s gone, but without the moral anchor of compulsory service, we are militarily adrift.
“The federal government is much freer to be much more militarily adventurous. ”
If, like me, you are against Empire, you have to see the beauty of the US and its mercenary army getting sucked into Afghanistan. The place has been the graveyard of empires since Alexander the Great tried and failed to subdue it. Sinking into the quagmire is probably the easiest way to destroy the empire, especially when teamed up with the covid 19 and economic collapse.
“Don’t let” ….. as if they give a shit what we think.
Isn’t it China’s turn to invade or liberate Afghanistan?
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Trump reduced troops and the military and the political establishment fought him every step of the way. The establishment is back in charge. The war will not only continue but escalate. Too many military contracts to profit from.
Really, folks, Xiden isn’t “doing” anything except what he is told by his masters in Beijing.
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The one where the President doesn’t send mean tweets. That’s the MOST important thing!
Well, the faggots at this establishment were jerking their cocks so hard at getting rid of Trump, they didn’t stop to think.
And of course, Bidet is worse.
One where Reason led the way to put Biden in this position and now wants to complain about the consequences of their own bad choices.
He’s just practicing his nazispeak
Post-Erdogan? Ehhhhh. I do wonder if the US ended up yanking the special weapons out of Incirlik.
They’re in NATO, I guess. So are we, for reasons. Silly to think they were going to ever give up SE Turkey—which is the only thing that might mollify the PKK—especially after the Turks did their version of the TVA within it
Maybe cheap imported labor for Koch Industries is even more important.
I won’t be surprised if Turkey exits NATO, or they even get kicked out, in the next 10-15 years. Erdogan has pretty strong economic ties to Iran, he’s probably part of the Muslim Brotherhood, and strategically, we really don’t need them these days like we did during the Cold War. Being there now is basically a security liability.
The only real reason we included them in the first place was to deny the Russian navy a means to go through the Dardanelles.
If, for example, the United States suddenly started pressing for Catalan independence, and challenged Spanish sovereignty and control in the Iberian peninsula, you can be certain that the government of Spain would have something to say about it – being a NATO member state and all. It would be a diplomatic and possibly military nightmare.
Exactly. Just imagine if Australia started supporting Native American insurrectionist movements trying to expand reservation lands into national parks and forests, for instance. We’d probably start questioning our alliance with them, too.
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Just an “R” by the dictator’s name will suffice. That is incontrovertible evidence that he is literally Hitler, and it’s also impeachable, by the way. Just for future reference.
What’s next after being broken? Becoming a gimp! Just make sure you keep him stocked up on booze and sarcasmic won’t mind.
AOC will make a fine Empress.
You’d have to ask the CIA, but I suspect it was the same as the other Color Revolutions they kicked off during the Arab Spring.
During his first week in office, Biden also abolished a Trump-era rule that DRsz imposed some measure of accountability on the federal bureaucracy.……..MORE READ
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