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Old 08-16-2021, 09:23 AM   #133
FlameOn
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Originally Posted by oldschoolcalgary View Post
Trump treaty for withdrawl was for May, so the GOP cannot act like their hands are clean on this either.

That being said, there is no question that Biden, and a bunch of western nations botched this...While this is a massive intelligence failure, the buck stops at the president.


The biggest question for me is whether anything was done between May and now to prepare for this withdraw ... from the face of it, it does not seem like it...

As mentioned, there was a small force of advisors in Afghanistan, not that different than what still exists in Iraq...whether having them remain and thereby breaking that treaty with Taliban would have been worth it, is a fair question to ask.

Regardless, the scenes at the airport make me sick...Hopefully, they can do something to help these people.
For sure but most Western intelligence reports were saying the Afghan government wouldn't last the year once US troops pulled out. Just turns out Afghan military units weren't going to fight to the last man and slowly die just so Western interests could pulled out their remaining assets when Trump hobbled all of their support in the treaty.

Breaking the treaty would likely have required a large scale redeployment of US troops again, not sure Biden could have sold that to Congress. It wouldn't have made a difference anyway in the long run, other than a more orderly evacuation of allies on the ground.
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