Smoking Guns wrote:

They may have told them to leave but the mixed message that was he Afghan army had everything under control and Kabul wouldn’t fall probably didn’t give people any sense of urgency. It’s like “you should leave, but if you don’t, don’t worry because there are 300,000 Afghan troops well trained by the US and you should be fine.”

No one told them that.  Sure, Biden may have said that to the press a month before the fall of the nation, but the State Department has daily updates on the situation.  If you sat there in Kabul for weeks watching the Taliban strategically capture the nation, and still thought "man, this is all gonna blow over soon, I'm fine", you have culpability for your choices.  I understand leaving at the drop of a hat is an inconvenience, but we're talking about life or death here.  And the Air Force isn't going to let Americans pack up all their property to be flown on a C-17. 

ID brought up the cost thing the other day, but if you can't afford $2k, what fucking business do you have being in Afghanistan if you're not a government employee.

You can’t escalate this further and start shooting.

The United States negotiated a deal with the Taliban that they would leave by August 31st, excluding their ally the Afghan government from those negotiations. The Taliban are sticking to the date because they hold all the cards and have all the leverage as the US gave up all theirs.

The only way the US regains leverage is with incredible levels of bloodshed, levels that they’re probably not willing to accept.

The withdrawal was screwed with the terms of the deal negotiated, screwed when it wasn’t renegotiated, screwed in that it was time based not condition based and screwed with the execution of the withdrawal operation.

Smoking Guns wrote:

bigbri wrote:

If you go in with guns blazing like you suggest, there would be nothing stopping the Taliban from killing a bunch of Americans still there. They kind of hold the cards right now with no boots on the ground.

Who said guns a blazing?

But yeah, Biden has completely blown this and has put us in horrible situation

Who said guns blazing?

Smoking Guns wrote:

Put Trump on this situation and you think he is letting Tali’s call the shots? No fvcking way. Hi ass would be opening up Bagram Air Force base and sending a message.

If you go in with guns blazing like you suggest, there would be nothing stopping the Taliban from killing a bunch of Americans still there. They kind of hold the cards right now with no boots on the ground.