15 thoughts on “I would criticize Biden for the Afghan mess”

    1. That’s like blaming a false start in a race on the starting gun.

      Trump set the withdrawal in motion. Biden’s incompetent administration bungled it.

      1. Trump wanted to withdraw more rapidly. The GOP lives in the moment and doesn’t want to remember that.

      2. BTW, I wasn’t “blaming” Trump. I am just saying that if the policy is bad under Biden it was bad under Trump. I am inclined to think that it is indeed bad.

      3. True, Biden’s administration bungled the withdrawal. Yet, Trump committed to complete the withdrawal by the time he left office…but failed. Interestingly, when Trump vowed to withdraw, conservatives cheered. Now, that Biden has done it, not so much. Interestingly, they don’t note Trump’s failure nor that he signed an agreement with the Taliban. Is anyone surprised?

        https://youtu.be/PAr3NpYVkpI

        That said, blame is rightfully shared between Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden. Each played their part in creating what has occurred.

  2. The degree to which Trump deserves blame, no matter how great, doesn’t decrease the blame deserved by Biden by one iota. Biden is the current commander in chief, with the power to modify, improve, ignore, or reject Trump’s plans. What he ultimately chose to do is what he did. He’s 100% responsible and Trump’s role is wholly irrelevant to judging Biden; it is relevant only to judging Trump.

    And what Biden did, created a humanitarian and geopolitical disaster.

    1. You would have gotten the same with a continuation of Trump, and his so-called “conservative” followers would not have batted an eye about it. He was explicitly saying during his first campaign that withdrawal from Afghanistan is part and package with “make America great again.”

    2. I completely agree. Biden and his administration is to be held accountable. Yet, if Trump hadn’t failed in completing what he committed to and it resulted in a humanitarian/geopolitical disaster, would conservative have held him accountable? We’ll never know, but I have my suspicions.

      1. Again, your and Robin’s comments are accurate, but relevant only to the question of the intelligence and integrity of Trump’s supporters, and wholly irrelevant to the question of whether Biden who was entirely free to do something different, is responsible for what he did. I’m not even sure why the intelligence and integrity of a former president’s supporters forms a part of a conversation about the actions of a sitting president and their consequences.

        1. Again, it’s been acknowledged that Biden is culpable and it’s appropriate to criticize for him for his actions. Yet, it’s also reasonable to acknowledge that some who are criticizing Biden would likely not criticize Trump if he took the same action with the same results. So, that brings into question “if” accountability is the only issue at play.

          1. The fact that Trump was in favor of withdrawing from Afghanistan and set in motion such a course of action is highly relevant to the racist narrative that Fox is starting to push. According to this narrative, Biden is working for the Deep State towards the end of the Great Replacement. By withdrawing from Afghanistan he creates a refugee crisis which will create an urgency to accept more brown people to replace the white people. That is allegedly orchestrated by the likes of Soros (read: Jews). The GOP will keep playing this card in support of Trump, but then it can be pointed out that Trump would be no less part of the Deep State than Biden if that there kooky narrative were true.

    3. I’m of the opinion it was always going to be a sh*t show. The Afghan army was trained by the US for 20 years, given better weaponry than the Taliban, have more troops (4x I read) than the Taliban…and it’s like watching the blitzkrieg to Paris–except the national army has better weapons, but somehow no will to fight.

      How does it not end this way? Maybe some air support? Maybe delaying the pullout until we get every Afghani we want out? Can they immigrate to PA or MD or ?

      1. Since this has now been recognized as a humanitarian disaster by some conservatives, I wonder if they’d be willing to allow Afghanis to immigrate to the US? Or will they merely criticize Biden and complain about how bad it is for political advantage?

      2. What I’ve been hearing is that the Afghan army was trained to function with a certain level of American air and tactical support, which was not supposed to simply vanish overnight. I can’t speak for the accuracy of that report or assess its relevance, but that’s what I’ve heard.

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