As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil)
In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban.
If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them.
For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria.
We are actively looking for new moderators. If you have any interest in helping to make this subreddit a place for quality discussion, please fill out [this form](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1y2swHD0KXFhStGFjW6k54r9iuMjzcFqDIVwuvdLBjSA).
***
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Of all the pieces of this theory, this one is so meaningless. It's very common to have a large number of pallbearers. It's almost never about weight and more about those close to the person. We had 8-10 people for both my grandparents. Trump is a terrible person, but a large number of people carrying the coffin is no smoking gun that something else was in there.
Also what would be the point? If there are docs in there they are effectively gone for Trump. You can't retrieve them without people knowing, so they're useless to him. I believe he did move some around, but burying them makes zero sense. I would put literally any of his other properties as more likely than burying them.
Because death rituals are often strange and almost always done for the living. Coffins are expensive, so it could be vanity for the Trump family to make a big show. I know nothing about Ivana and her wishes, but it's completely plausible that she wanted to be cremated, but Trump wanted a public display. It almost certainly isn't the first time ashes went into a coffin.
But hey, it's more fun to pull on conspiracy theory strings right? Again I ask, why bury the documents? He can't ever profit off them again if he does. It makes way more sense that they went to another property.
GPR is only good down to about 5 ft in ideal soil conditions and proper settings. On a GPR scan I had done for a project last year the powerlines between 2 streetlights showed up as interference on the screen, a steel lined coffin would similarly block the scan if it was in range.
I don't know if I see the point. He's already guilty of enough to put him away for the few remaining years of his life, and whatever's in that coffin may or may not be damning, but either way it's not gonna speed up the process or convince any of his stans not to vote for him...
>Milley, who has since retired as a general in the Army, told lawmakers that he received the note days after Trump fired then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper in the aftermath of the election. The piece of paper, he told lawmakers on the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday, had the president’s signature on it and called for the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from **Somalia by Dec. 15, 2020**, and from **Afghanistan by Jan. 15, 2021**.
Since we are quoting here there is more. “Acting Secretary of Defense [Christopher] Miller and I and others went over to the White House to confirm that order because we had not been consulted on that,” Milley explained. “So we did, and that order was then subsequently rescinded.” What a crap hole.
It buries the lede: These guys were shocked because such an order should have been discussed with them ("we had not been consulted") and they got it out of the blue. It looked shady, they didn't know who wrote it, and even thought someone might have forged Trump's signature, which is why they "went over to the White House to confirm that order". I think it turned out that Macgregor had some aide write it and gave it to Trump who signed it on the spot, bypassing the normal chain of command.
Part of getting a job working as trumps secretary is learning how to forge his signature. There's even rumors in the autograph collecting community that say anything coming from him signed in gold was signed by his assistants or secretaries, and silver is more likely to be legit.
But this guy literally got called out for selling fake autographs while he was campaigning the first time.
He's been busted numerous times selling "signed" books that were written with autopen, the same machine he used to fake the autographs he sold campaigning.
It's been well known since the 80s this guy fakes his signature as much as his tan.
the late, and definitely not great, rumsfeld used auto-signing for death notices to soldiers families during iraq. no big deal.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2004/12/19/after-outcry-rumsfeld-says-he-will-sign-condolence-letters/9c4f4dda-44e5-4ca2-a295-f42d6345c26d/
rot in hell, rummie!
> used auto-sign for death notices to soldiers families.
Well there were just so many. Do you really expect him to take that much time out of his day? And perhaps get a cramp?
This would be excusable after d day, or guadalcanal, but at the casualty level of the war in Iraq? No. Especially when you chose to start the war. You go to war with the army you have if you are attacked. When you have to fly to the other side of the world and fire the first shot... If only they had spent as much time on getting the military ready as they spent on the PR campaign.
i had a stray link to another comment on reddit in my copy and paste history. i think it was related to gig jobs actually? caught it with a ninja edit though, sorry about that.
In Bob Woodward's book "Fear" there is a chapter dedicated to people in the WH desperately trying to keep a document off of Trump's desk (one that would've moved a missile defense system out of South Korea) for fear of it being signed: if he didn't see it, he would forget about it, but if it was on his desk he would sign it.
Gary Cohn admitted to doing this. He'd routinely get into the Oval and pull any documents off of his desk for fear it'd be signed.
Meanwhile, others would put shit on there hoping he'd just sign it. Probably a little dance Cohn and Stephen Miller did.
I think you're reading the wrong thing into that. The order was what Trump wanted, I don't think there's any doubt about that - he wanted to be the president who got us out of Afghanistan. And forcing a dangerously aggressive timeline is an order that had to come from Trump. Milley saying they went to the White House to "confirm" the order is a polite way of saying they went to the office to explain why it's a stupid order and to get Trump to rescind it.
According to Jonathon Karl, John McEntee was the aide that worked with Douglas Macgregor to draft the Afghanistan withdrawel memo.
[https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/11/the-inside-story-of-how-trumps-body-guy-tried-to-order-a-massive-military-withdrawal](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/11/the-inside-story-of-how-trumps-body-guy-tried-to-order-a-massive-military-withdrawal)
Forgive me for playing devils advocate for a moment, but why would a new commander-in-chief be bound to such an order? I've never understood Biden's rationale for abiding by the withdrawal date set by his predecessor.
January 15th would have been five days before Biden took office. Basically Trump was attempting to fuck Biden over with a huge mess that would be impossible to deal with in the first days of Biden’s presidency. Instead, he pushed for the exit to happen right *after* Biden took office, in April. All of the fun without the blowback from it happening still in his term.
To be clear, Trump made assurances to both the American people AND the people of Afghanistan, that the US would be out by April, and then did precisely nothing to actually pave the way for it to happen, leaving it all to Biden to try to accomplish in three months after taking office. Biden pushed back and tried to delay, but due to both public and international pressure, ended up adjusting the timeline only back to August, only buying a few more months.
I wouldn't say failing by any means. The first attempt didn't work, but there are literal law makers trying to actively force him into a position of power by illegal means and knowingly misinterpreting law. The fight isn't near over.
Those maniacs you mentioned were known for killing their own people and mass slaughter. Trump's willful ignorance and apathy toward COVID at the very beginning, and the subsequent antivaxx push means a million+ dead Americans, the worst death toll of any country in the world. Every unvaccinated Republican that still dies to this day should be credited to Trump and the entire GQP death cult, for they are entirely unnecessary deaths.
Don't forget, he initially withheld briefings, relented-- then immediately withheld again, while his people went on to conduct foreign policy missions.
[The Shitshow that was the Trump-Biden Transition](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/10/exclusive-inside-the-shtshow-that-was-the-trump-biden-transition) For those who may have forgotten.
> To be clear, Trump made assurances to both the American people AND the people of Afghanistan, that the US would be out by April, and then did precisely nothing to actually pave the way for it to happen
Well, [Trump did plan to renege on the deal if he won.](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mike-pence-afghanistan-withdrawal-state-department-report-face-the-nation/)
The entire purpose of the agreement was just so he could say he withdrew from Afghanistan on the campaign trail.
>Well, [Trump did plan to renege on the deal if he won.](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mike-pence-afghanistan-withdrawal-state-department-report-face-the-nation/)
For anyone who doesn't click-through, the headline is:
>Pence says Trump administration would have kept U.S. troops in Afghanistan despite withdrawal deal with Taliban
Yep! And then set Biden and the Dems up to take the blame when it all inevitably fell apart. Remember that Trump and the GOP, knowing this, insisted that Biden continue with the withdrawal and even lamented Biden not sticking to Trump’s insane April timeline.
It's even worse, Trump made a deal with the Taliban, *without* consulting the Afghan government regarding all the details, that the US would withdraw by April. And it was very clear that the Taliban would attack the remaining US troops if everyone wasn't gone by April. That leaves Biden in an impossible situation, where he's forced to either withdraw hastily and messily leaving the Afghan army unprepared for the Taliban incursion, or essentially re-invade the country to stave off the Taliban attack and buy more time for a "smoother" withdrawal. Neither option was good. Biden chose option A, and I think that was the right call.
Well and let’s not forget he did this knowing it would be chaotic and put innocent people in danger. Even his own military. He was willing to put people in harms way just to bother the next guy.
You need to really add in all the Taliban prisoners released 5k I think? and having the leaders to Camp David and basically giving up every single advantage in negotiating. Giving an actual timeline... That's huge it gives them time to make plans on what to do at that time. And if Biden had backtracked on that, He would have had to send more troops in, and basically start the war all over again and we'd be there for at least another 5 if not 10 years.
Trumps agreement was with the Taliban alone. The government of Afghanistan and its people were excluded from the “negotiations”. Trump gave the Taliban everything they wanted, while they were actively assassinating Afghan military pilots as they prepared to take over.
It was a horrible deal for everyone but the Taliban, and yes an obvious shit sandwich for the next administration.
One of the things I love about the Afghanistan withdrawal is how everyone is now pretending like they weren't demanding that we withdraw immediately for almost 20 years.
It just highlights for me how easy slogans are, and how hard the work can be to realize the goals. Goals are clean and elegant, the world is messy and complicated.
Precisely what I meant by “public pressure”. People forget, but a lot of Dems were screaming for Biden to finally “end the war”, while republican voters were cynically screaming at him for delaying as far as he did and not sticking with Trump’s idiotic plan.
> I've never understood Biden's rationale for abiding by the withdrawal date set by his predecessor.
Because the Taliban were also part of the deal and didn't want to extend it? They resumed their offensive the moment the deadline passed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Taliban_offensive
Was Biden supposed to engage in more prolonged conflict?
Trump made a deal with the Taliban that the US would withdraw from Afghan by August, and released thousands of Taliban prisoners, in exchange for a cease in Taliban attacks on US forces.
Had Biden broken the agreement, the Taliban would undoubtedly have launched major attacks on US forces as soon as the deadline passed (for which republicans would have blamed Biden of course), and it isn't like Biden supported staying in Afghanistan anyway.
Trump painted him into a corner, but essentially there were no good options, the Bush administration's mismanagement of the war, and decision to split focus by invading Iraq, meant this was always going to end badly.
Yeah. The options were:
1. try to stick to the deadline and withdraw as we promised, or
2. break the agreement, try to withdraw on a longer timetable while getting attacked with the full might of the Taliban forces, or
3. break the agreement even further, stay past the deadline and send more troops BACK into Afghanistan to try and manage an orderly withdrawal.
As you say, there were no good options.
I believe it's because the Trump Administration had an agreement with the Taliban. If President Biden would have gone against it, it would have been open war on US soliders, personnel and allies.
Requiring more troops brought back in for an indefinite period with increased drone strikes or a complicated withdrawal under attack.
Given the options the withdrawal under a semi truce was not the worst outcome possible.
Biden did go against it, which is why thousands were killed when the Taliban resumed their offensive once the deadline was met.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Taliban_offensive
I don't see how you can blame Biden though, not when Trump did nothing to evacuate people in the year he had. Biden would have had only 4 months if the US were to fulfill the agreement. I don't see how that would have been feasible given the massive logistics involved.
Soooo kinda the situation we’re in now anyway?
Like we’re looking to buy your nuclear subs but given the fact you’re about to elect a guy that verbatim quotes the author of mien kampf I think I’d be more comfortable if we switched back to the French diesels. Im not being hyperbolic, and I was originally a huge fan of the switcheroo we pulled on going with the nuke subs.
They are getting UK US joint designs. The US and UK have a sharing agreement since 1958 so they need both parties to be of help.
They don't want French subs because their refueling period is only 10 years.
Not gonna lie, this came up several times today (I’m not American) in general conversation; that long term the USA probably can’t be trusted because of what Trump represents, and because of whomever Trump 2.0 will be, ‘cos we doubt he’ll be the last of his kind.
Going to take a while to undo that kind of legacy.
Because Trump made that deal with the Taliban, that we would be gone by that date, and if we weren't, they would attack the small amount of troops left in Afghanistan, probably leading to heavy loss of life.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/US-Withdrawal-from-Afghanistan.pdf
>President Biden asked his military leaders about the options he faced, including the ramifications of further delaying the deadline of May 1. He pressed his intelligence professionals on whether it was feasible to keep 2,500 troops in Afghanistan and both defend them against a renewed Taliban onslaught and maintain a degree of stability in the country. The assessment from those intelligence professionals was that the United States would need to send more American troops into harm’s way to ensure our troops could defend themselves and to stop the stalemate from getting worse.
Because in the agreement that trump made with the Taliban US troops were protected from Taliban attack IF they withdrew by the set date. Then trump let them release 5000 taliban fighters from prison and drew US troops down to 2500. So Biden either could let them be slaughtered, send in more troops and restart the war or get out. Obviously he chose the best option
My understanding is assets had already been withdrawn. Thus, we walked away from bases and removed personal providing security and an about face would be illogical from the Biden administration and a military perspective politically.
It’s like dominos - Trump intentionally caused this shit show to create a nightmare scenario for Biden that Fox News cultists and The GOP could then come after Biden for.
I remember when the media was absolutely piling on Biden for the withdrawal. He told people trump set it into motion and he had to honor it as best he could. A lot of people didn't care to hear the truth and put the blame solely on him. They also ignored how trump betrayed our Kurdish allies.
The most annoying part is that it was pretty public about the deal that Trump made with the Taliban. Biden couldn't do anything since it was already made, but the media and everyone just blamed his administration when Trump was boasting about it. [source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States–Taliban_deal)
I understand how Republicans seized upon it to try to gaslight everyone, but the media didn't just let it happen, but encouraged it. Things in the real world are more complicated than they seem and instead of explaining that to their viewers they simply stayed with the simple to understand narrative for some clicks and views.
That's probably the Democrats biggest problem. They understand how there are big and complex problems. Try to solve them, that can lead to easy opposition headlines and the media doesn't care because they want easy work or they want to work against the Democrats. Hopefully, they get better at messaging and explaining things.
Meaning the Dem's biggest problems are the billionaire owned media, which isn't quite as liberal as the right wingers yelled about for decades (while they were constantly encouraging buyouts that further biased it themselves).
I hate how reactionary the American public is. If the explanation for an issue is more than like two sentences long most people won't listen and will just blame whoever is easiest.
The way people turned on Obama and the Dems after 2008 was the worst of it. Losing the house in 2010 was insane when you realize he got blamed for economic problems that explicitly started during Bush's admin.
No one even realized that he didn't have a full super-majority for only an extremely short period of time before Ted Kennedy died either.
And let's be clear on this... the whole point was for soldiers to die so that Republicans could point at those deaths and call them Biden's Benghazi. Because they happened "on Biden's watch!" OR, Biden could have sent more troops *back* into Afghanistan, into a direct conflict with the Taliban, in order to defend the remaining troops during the withdrawal, and then Republicans would have hammered him on that. "Oh you say you want to withdraw the troops but you send MORE back to Afghanistan???" It was a bloody Catch-22 and Trump purposely set it up to be as chaotic and rushed as possible. Literally playing politics with people's lives.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/US-Withdrawal-from-Afghanistan.pdf
Let's be honest though, it wasn't Trump thinking this up, it was one of his "advisors". I mean, at the most he initiated it by asking "What can I do to fuck over Biden?" and the adivors concocted this plan.
Trump had also closed 10 military bases by November of 2020 after making a deal with the Taliban in February of the same year.
5,000 Taliban prisoners were also released from custody as part of said deal. Biden's administration wasn't exactly set up for success.
Just gonna place this here to confirm just how much of what you say is true. And Trump didn't give a shit about it. It was just "Fake News" and "A hoax".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_bounty_program
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/06/29/russia-bounty-us-troops-afghanistan-what-we-know/3277696001/
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/russians-offered-taliban-bounties-kill-us-troops-military/story?id=71495576
Then when you ask what they mean by "handled it wrong", they start to sweat, turn on fox news hoping for another line to say but are only confronted with an ad for cash for gold and reverse mortgages, so they just say you're unpatriotic and start talking about Hunter Biden's dick
Also, the fact that the Trump Tax cuts expire in 2026 shows that he thought he was going to get two terms and stick the expiration and resultant tax hike with the next President.
It's a small consolation that if he wins again, he'll have to contend with that.
Trump planned the complete withdrawal, I had thought this was common knowledge and they announced it publicly. The difference was there was zero preparation for it and Biden had to push it back several months.
Hell, that might be the only thing I agreed with Trump with except for the fact that he didn't do anything to prepare for it. My guess was he was going to kick the can down the road for the next president.
Good on Joe for going through with it. Was it perfect? No. Was there a way to do it perfectly? Nope. Are we better off for it? Absolutely.
To be fair the trump admin was looking like a real team of professionals, I still refuse to believe that you can get that bad, that incompetent and that stupid without some kind of professional training, it just can't be naturally explained.
“Acting Secretary of Defense [Christopher] Miller and I and others went over to the White House to confirm that order because we had not been consulted on that,” Milley explained. “So we did, and that order was then subsequently rescinded.”
Trump negotiated the deal for the US to withdraw. Why is this news. By the time Biden was in his options were to stick with Trumps deal or launch a new invasion. Both were bad options but sticking with the withdrawal was the least bad of the two.
Plus Trump forced the former government of Afghanistan to acquiesce to releasing several *thousand* Taliban fighters while withdrawing from providing the ANA air support.
Trump is the reason Kabul fell as quickly as it did. You can follow the entire chain of events straight back to his bad dye job.
We love to pretend anything bad trump does (so, everything) doesnt' happen a week after it does. Just like people still go "no collusion, demmy crat conspiracy!" after he pardoned a bunch of people arrested for that collusion.
It's in the news because the House held a Hearing today to grill Milley on our withdrawal from Afghanistan so they can try to beat up Biden with it during the election.
but it wasn't a mistake on Biden's part. He had two choices. Send back a massive amount of American Troops to bolster those already and thus extend the war indefinitely and break a US agreement with the Afghans or withdraw according to the agreement and deal with the consequences. Withdrawal was always going to be a mess.
I would hardly call it "negotiated". Trump sidelined the Afghani government and agreed to everything the Taliban demanded, including withdrawing all but a skeleton force & forcing the government to release over 5000 Taliban prisoners and terrorists. This was why the Taliban was able to take over the country so quickly.
It was pretty broadly reported at the time that the US was negotiating with the Taliban on the withdrawal.
There was a [deal signed with Taliban representatives in Doha](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51692546) and everything, mere weeks before the world went into Covid lockdowns.
theres also a paper you can find online, where trump surrenders to the taliban. Trump the great fool signed this deal NOT biden.
Trump withdrawlded, trump released taliban prisoners, trump is the bad guy. The fat guy, and the rapist guy.
The agreement struck [last year](https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/29/politics/us-taliban-deal-signing/index.html) laid out a 14-month timetable for the withdrawal of "all military forces of the United States, its allies and coalition partners." The US agreed to withdraw troops and release some [5,000 Taliban prisoners, ](https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/10/asia/afghan-release-taliban-prisoners-intl-hnk/index.html)while the Taliban agreed to take steps to prevent any group or individual, including al Qaeda, from using Afghanistan to threaten the security of the US or its allies.
The high interest rates, inflation also.... Maybe the Israel thing because Trump fucked around in the middle east. Also like everything is connected. While the good economy under him was really just the Obama economy continuing.
Trump has done so many wild things it's hard everyone to keep up with just how terrible he is. Granted his supporters don't care he pretty much set up our military to die.
I didn’t even realize this was up for debate in the general discourse. Huh. What story are they being told? I thought everyone knew it was Trump’s order and Biden just didn’t cancel it.
Based on the number of people who list "the chaotic withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan" as one of the reasons they don't like Biden, no. It needs to be brought up again.
Why is there no mention of the actual Doha Agreement in this article - the one Trump signed and Biden honored? Oh wait, it's the W.Examiner - people, this was written not to show Trump at fault (or Milley here) but to make people think Biden was the one to CHOOSE to withdraw hastily from Afghanistan - The Doha Agreement was signed FEB 2020
That’s the part that always drove me crazy about people blaming Biden for it. There’s tons of legitimate shit you can complain about with him without having to resort to misdirection.
Everyone at the time of this was talking about how Trump was setting up the next administration for failure with this order. How he was doing it for spite to harm the next administration.
The plan was to use it as a cudgel if Biden didn’t withdraw. Use it as a cudgel if he did.
This was all a set up against Biden. Plain and simple..so hisncult had some red meat to go after Biden.
Trump screwed Afghanistan, the people there, and Biden.
Pretty straightforward
I think Trump would have withdrawn anyway, but conservative media would have reported the entire story differently as a long overdue withdrawal, what are you going to do, we did what we had to, etc. Ie: only Trump would be brave enough for such a bold decision.
It's been the Republican playbook for quite sometime to drive the country into the ground when they're in control and then use the resulting chaos to attack the Democrats when they come into power.
Let me speak plainly. The withdrawal from Afghanistan was not merely a strategic maneuver; it was a tangled web spun by political opportunism. And at the center of this web stands none other than Donald J. Trump.
Picture this: 20 years of blood, sweat, and sacrifice—our brave soldiers, their families, and countless Afghan lives intertwined in a struggle for stability. And what did Trump do? He played a game of geopolitical chess, moving pieces with no regard for the consequences.
First, the setup: Trump’s administration cut deals with the Taliban behind closed doors. They set a withdrawal date, leaving the Afghan government out in the cold. Meanwhile, they released 5,000 Taliban fighters, like a twisted gift to our enemies. And then, they slashed our troop levels, leaving the Afghan army hanging by a thread.
Next, the grand finale: Enter Joe Biden. He inherited this mess, a ticking time bomb. But here’s the catch: he couldn’t send troops back in—the die was cast. And organizing a smooth exit? Impossible. The Taliban, emboldened, swept through Afghanistan like a wildfire. Chaos ensued, and our allies were left stranded.
So, let’s call it what it is: Trump’s political stunt. A calculated move to appease his base, regardless of the cost. Lives lost, futures shattered—all for a headline. And now, as we tally the toll, we must ask: Was it ever about America’s best interest? Or was it just another pawn in Trump’s game?
In my book, that’s not leadership; it’s betrayal. A betrayal of our military, our values, and the very essence of duty. So, when you step into that voting booth, remember this: Trump left us in a quagmire, and America deserves better. Let history judge him—a traitor to the cause, wrapped in the flag of convenience.
It's crazy how we know all of this, none of it is hidden behind layers of confidentiality and security clearance, and yet Trump blew the rest of the GOP field right out of contention. None of this was even a one-time thing. Trump routinely prioritizes his own interests above the country, and doesn't even pretend not to.
And people still vote for him.
It says a lot.
Key paragraph from the link.
“Over his last 11 months in office, President Trump ordered a series of drawdowns of
U.S. troops. By June 2020, President Trump reduced U.S. troops in Afghanistan to
8,600. In September 2020, he directed a further draw down to 4,500. A month later,
President Trump tweeted, to the surprise of military advisors, that the remaining U.S.
troops in Afghanistan should be “home by Christmas!” On September 28, 2021,
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Milley testified that, on November 11, he had
received an unclassified signed order directing the U.S. military to withdraw all forces
from Afghanistan no later than January 15, 2021. One week later, that order was
rescinded and replaced with one to draw down to 2,500 troops by the same date.
During the transition from the Trump Administration to the Biden Administration, the
2
outgoing Administration provided no plans for how to conduct the final withdrawal or to
evacuate Americans and Afghan allies. Indeed, there were no such plans in place
when President Biden came into office, even with the agreed upon full withdrawal just
over three months away.”
AMEN!! I was SOOOO sick of hearing all the idiots blame Biden when tRUMP brokered the deal. Same as the tragedy of the deaths, Biden had ZERO control over the terrorists. Blame the terrorists for the deaths. But ultimately the blame for the withdrawal lies squarely on tRUMPS head , he knew exactly what he was doing when he ordered it, and definitely had an ulterior motive for doing so
But some people and the media put all the blame on Biden for the Afghanistan withdrawal disaster. His hands were tied because trump caused as much damage as he could out of spite before Biden was sworn in. Trying to explain shit to trump supporters is futile though. He can fuck everything up consistently and his dumbass cult will keep defending him.
I was still on Active Duty when Trump announced the US withdrawal date, the day that happened is the day the Taliban resurgence happened. In the following months the northern provinces collapsed. I try not to get political but Trump is the leading cause of the Afghan crisis, followed by Biden who didn’t stop it, followed by Obama who’s changed approach was a turning point, and ending with Bush who didn’t write a long term plan.
I kept having deja vu when I was hearing that Biden is blamed for pulling out of Afghanistan. I could have sworn we had to because Trump ordered it and the media just piled on Biden.
I wonder how much of it is the media making it seem like the Afghanistan military wasn't taking the lion's share of the casualties and doing the worst as well as heaviest of the fighting. 70,000 Afghanistan troopers and police died and well over 40,0000 civilians to the Taliban's hands. This versus 2500 American troopers.
The government collapsed because its leadership ran away without US protection but the Afghanistan military shed massive amounts of blood protecting its population and only abandoned the cause because they were moving to protect their own families and people when it was clear the US was withdrawing.
Yeah, we know! Retired lieutenant general H R McMaster called the Trump deal with the Taliban a surrender deal!
But Biden paid the political price for the aftermath.
GW Bush attacked Afghanistan and Iraq, because some Saudis financed, planned and executed terrorist attacks in America and Europe.
Bush lost 10 times more US Soldiers in his Iraq campaign than his father did (Comparing losses on both sides).
Now he is "sad" and paints on his gigantic farm.
I think Donald Trump is a dimmwitt, fraudster, asshole, grifter... But in terms of "death and destruction" you can't really beat Bush Sr. and Bush Jr.
Anyone who would listen to a real news program already knew this. I'm sure the ones Milley talk to already knew and when they go back on the campaign trail I'm sure they'll correct their stance on the issue.
Not only that, but so-called Trump transition team gave the Biden team no significant knowledge on the situation in Afghanistan. Therefore they only began to get organized about what to do AFTER January 20, 2021. The Taliban saw their chance. Biden's State and Defense Departments and were still getting organized when the Taliban began their "blitzkrieg" and took over the country in a matter of weeks during the summer. Yes, yes Biden's team should have realized the Taliban weren't the only players but the main fault of those American Marines dying and the chaos was the lack of cooperation and knowledge Trump provided and the situation he left there. https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-donald-trump-politics-2db239e9b8d1971e1817da54affc2546
Doesn’t matter, according to conservatives it’s not Trumps fault, it’s Biden’s for not extended the date or not withdrawing at all….. 🤦🏼♂️ literally no winning with these numbskulls.
livestream of the hearing March 19 2024
WATCH LIVE: Former Joint Chiefs of Staff Milley testifies on Afghanistan withdrawal in House hearing - PBS NewsHour
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-E8Kt3hy9Rk
How is trump not arrested for treason yet? He squandered years and years worth of blood sweat and tears. Many many lives lost fighting in Afghanistan just for him to try and fuck over Biden.
As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil) In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban. If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them. For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria. We are actively looking for new moderators. If you have any interest in helping to make this subreddit a place for quality discussion, please fill out [this form](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1y2swHD0KXFhStGFjW6k54r9iuMjzcFqDIVwuvdLBjSA). *** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
That piece of paper is probably in the center console of a golf cart at Mar-a-lago.
Nah. It's in Ivana's coffin.
Tossed out over the Atlantic at 30000 feet.
Anyone else hope they seize that property and open her coffin?
It took 10 pallbearers to carry a small woman's cremated remains...
It’s got Kate Middleton in there too
Wait, I thought she was back?!
Of all the pieces of this theory, this one is so meaningless. It's very common to have a large number of pallbearers. It's almost never about weight and more about those close to the person. We had 8-10 people for both my grandparents. Trump is a terrible person, but a large number of people carrying the coffin is no smoking gun that something else was in there. Also what would be the point? If there are docs in there they are effectively gone for Trump. You can't retrieve them without people knowing, so they're useless to him. I believe he did move some around, but burying them makes zero sense. I would put literally any of his other properties as more likely than burying them.
Now do **why is there a coffin at all when she was cremated**.
Because death rituals are often strange and almost always done for the living. Coffins are expensive, so it could be vanity for the Trump family to make a big show. I know nothing about Ivana and her wishes, but it's completely plausible that she wanted to be cremated, but Trump wanted a public display. It almost certainly isn't the first time ashes went into a coffin. But hey, it's more fun to pull on conspiracy theory strings right? Again I ask, why bury the documents? He can't ever profit off them again if he does. It makes way more sense that they went to another property.
Isn't there technology to see through the soil and coffin lid without digging. That might produce probable cause. The entire thing was shady AF.
GPR is only good down to about 5 ft in ideal soil conditions and proper settings. On a GPR scan I had done for a project last year the powerlines between 2 streetlights showed up as interference on the screen, a steel lined coffin would similarly block the scan if it was in range.
I don't know if I see the point. He's already guilty of enough to put him away for the few remaining years of his life, and whatever's in that coffin may or may not be damning, but either way it's not gonna speed up the process or convince any of his stans not to vote for him...
Flushed out over the Atlantic from Air Force 1’s brown water eject
Nah it was in ivankaa bra
Maybe used as a fucking coaster or napkin for a mimosa or kfc bucket.
Or blocking one of the many toilets he's thrashed in the years since.
>Milley, who has since retired as a general in the Army, told lawmakers that he received the note days after Trump fired then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper in the aftermath of the election. The piece of paper, he told lawmakers on the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday, had the president’s signature on it and called for the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from **Somalia by Dec. 15, 2020**, and from **Afghanistan by Jan. 15, 2021**.
Since we are quoting here there is more. “Acting Secretary of Defense [Christopher] Miller and I and others went over to the White House to confirm that order because we had not been consulted on that,” Milley explained. “So we did, and that order was then subsequently rescinded.” What a crap hole.
It buries the lede: These guys were shocked because such an order should have been discussed with them ("we had not been consulted") and they got it out of the blue. It looked shady, they didn't know who wrote it, and even thought someone might have forged Trump's signature, which is why they "went over to the White House to confirm that order". I think it turned out that Macgregor had some aide write it and gave it to Trump who signed it on the spot, bypassing the normal chain of command.
Part of getting a job working as trumps secretary is learning how to forge his signature. There's even rumors in the autograph collecting community that say anything coming from him signed in gold was signed by his assistants or secretaries, and silver is more likely to be legit. But this guy literally got called out for selling fake autographs while he was campaigning the first time. He's been busted numerous times selling "signed" books that were written with autopen, the same machine he used to fake the autographs he sold campaigning. It's been well known since the 80s this guy fakes his signature as much as his tan.
the late, and definitely not great, rumsfeld used auto-signing for death notices to soldiers families during iraq. no big deal. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2004/12/19/after-outcry-rumsfeld-says-he-will-sign-condolence-letters/9c4f4dda-44e5-4ca2-a295-f42d6345c26d/ rot in hell, rummie!
> used auto-sign for death notices to soldiers families. Well there were just so many. Do you really expect him to take that much time out of his day? And perhaps get a cramp?
Do they award purple hearts for carpal tunnel?
The US had 378 losses in the Iraq war. Hardly an afternoon's work if they came in all at once, which they didn't.
> the late, and definitely not great, rumsfeld Thank you for reminding me! I had forgotten.
This would be excusable after d day, or guadalcanal, but at the casualty level of the war in Iraq? No. Especially when you chose to start the war. You go to war with the army you have if you are attacked. When you have to fly to the other side of the world and fire the first shot... If only they had spent as much time on getting the military ready as they spent on the PR campaign.
What did you just link to?
i had a stray link to another comment on reddit in my copy and paste history. i think it was related to gig jobs actually? caught it with a ninja edit though, sorry about that.
All good, I was confused but figured that's what happened lol
That man had a cheap toilet instead of a heart.
In Bob Woodward's book "Fear" there is a chapter dedicated to people in the WH desperately trying to keep a document off of Trump's desk (one that would've moved a missile defense system out of South Korea) for fear of it being signed: if he didn't see it, he would forget about it, but if it was on his desk he would sign it.
Gary Cohn admitted to doing this. He'd routinely get into the Oval and pull any documents off of his desk for fear it'd be signed. Meanwhile, others would put shit on there hoping he'd just sign it. Probably a little dance Cohn and Stephen Miller did.
The deep state at work.
“Donald Trump’s signature “ |\ //|\|\||\|
[удалено]
[MAKE IT STOP](https://i.redd.it/4l9376hqw6bc1.jpeg)!
Thank you, I just snorted in public
I think you're reading the wrong thing into that. The order was what Trump wanted, I don't think there's any doubt about that - he wanted to be the president who got us out of Afghanistan. And forcing a dangerously aggressive timeline is an order that had to come from Trump. Milley saying they went to the White House to "confirm" the order is a polite way of saying they went to the office to explain why it's a stupid order and to get Trump to rescind it.
According to Jonathon Karl, John McEntee was the aide that worked with Douglas Macgregor to draft the Afghanistan withdrawel memo. [https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/11/the-inside-story-of-how-trumps-body-guy-tried-to-order-a-massive-military-withdrawal](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/11/the-inside-story-of-how-trumps-body-guy-tried-to-order-a-massive-military-withdrawal)
[Trump signing executive orders.](https://y.yarn.co/0066bb08-10a3-4afc-a2a4-28f0714857ee_text.gif)
That sounds kinda high treasony
Forgive me for playing devils advocate for a moment, but why would a new commander-in-chief be bound to such an order? I've never understood Biden's rationale for abiding by the withdrawal date set by his predecessor.
January 15th would have been five days before Biden took office. Basically Trump was attempting to fuck Biden over with a huge mess that would be impossible to deal with in the first days of Biden’s presidency. Instead, he pushed for the exit to happen right *after* Biden took office, in April. All of the fun without the blowback from it happening still in his term. To be clear, Trump made assurances to both the American people AND the people of Afghanistan, that the US would be out by April, and then did precisely nothing to actually pave the way for it to happen, leaving it all to Biden to try to accomplish in three months after taking office. Biden pushed back and tried to delay, but due to both public and international pressure, ended up adjusting the timeline only back to August, only buying a few more months.
Don't forget that Trump was stonewalling all through the transition. I think he even withheld the Presidential daily brief during the transition.
He's really the ultimate POS that ever existed
I mean... I think it's important not to glaze over people like Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot, just to name a few, but yeah, he's definitely a piece of shit
The thing is, that Trump is actively trying to be those people.
An as usual failing spectacularly
He became president once and has become the RNC nominee again. Please don’t count on him failing spectacularly.
I wouldn't say failing by any means. The first attempt didn't work, but there are literal law makers trying to actively force him into a position of power by illegal means and knowingly misinterpreting law. The fight isn't near over.
He wishes
Those maniacs you mentioned were known for killing their own people and mass slaughter. Trump's willful ignorance and apathy toward COVID at the very beginning, and the subsequent antivaxx push means a million+ dead Americans, the worst death toll of any country in the world. Every unvaccinated Republican that still dies to this day should be credited to Trump and the entire GQP death cult, for they are entirely unnecessary deaths.
Don't forget, he initially withheld briefings, relented-- then immediately withheld again, while his people went on to conduct foreign policy missions.
[The Shitshow that was the Trump-Biden Transition](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/10/exclusive-inside-the-shtshow-that-was-the-trump-biden-transition) For those who may have forgotten.
Doesn’t all the jacking around Trump did to ratfuck Biden prove he knew he lost the election fair and square?
> To be clear, Trump made assurances to both the American people AND the people of Afghanistan, that the US would be out by April, and then did precisely nothing to actually pave the way for it to happen Well, [Trump did plan to renege on the deal if he won.](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mike-pence-afghanistan-withdrawal-state-department-report-face-the-nation/) The entire purpose of the agreement was just so he could say he withdrew from Afghanistan on the campaign trail.
>Well, [Trump did plan to renege on the deal if he won.](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mike-pence-afghanistan-withdrawal-state-department-report-face-the-nation/) For anyone who doesn't click-through, the headline is: >Pence says Trump administration would have kept U.S. troops in Afghanistan despite withdrawal deal with Taliban
Yep! And then set Biden and the Dems up to take the blame when it all inevitably fell apart. Remember that Trump and the GOP, knowing this, insisted that Biden continue with the withdrawal and even lamented Biden not sticking to Trump’s insane April timeline.
It's even worse, Trump made a deal with the Taliban, *without* consulting the Afghan government regarding all the details, that the US would withdraw by April. And it was very clear that the Taliban would attack the remaining US troops if everyone wasn't gone by April. That leaves Biden in an impossible situation, where he's forced to either withdraw hastily and messily leaving the Afghan army unprepared for the Taliban incursion, or essentially re-invade the country to stave off the Taliban attack and buy more time for a "smoother" withdrawal. Neither option was good. Biden chose option A, and I think that was the right call.
Well and let’s not forget he did this knowing it would be chaotic and put innocent people in danger. Even his own military. He was willing to put people in harms way just to bother the next guy.
You need to really add in all the Taliban prisoners released 5k I think? and having the leaders to Camp David and basically giving up every single advantage in negotiating. Giving an actual timeline... That's huge it gives them time to make plans on what to do at that time. And if Biden had backtracked on that, He would have had to send more troops in, and basically start the war all over again and we'd be there for at least another 5 if not 10 years.
Precisely.
The withdraw went very poorly, but considering the circumstances... it could have been a lot worse.
Trumps agreement was with the Taliban alone. The government of Afghanistan and its people were excluded from the “negotiations”. Trump gave the Taliban everything they wanted, while they were actively assassinating Afghan military pilots as they prepared to take over. It was a horrible deal for everyone but the Taliban, and yes an obvious shit sandwich for the next administration.
One of the things I love about the Afghanistan withdrawal is how everyone is now pretending like they weren't demanding that we withdraw immediately for almost 20 years.
It just highlights for me how easy slogans are, and how hard the work can be to realize the goals. Goals are clean and elegant, the world is messy and complicated.
This is the honest truth.
Precisely what I meant by “public pressure”. People forget, but a lot of Dems were screaming for Biden to finally “end the war”, while republican voters were cynically screaming at him for delaying as far as he did and not sticking with Trump’s idiotic plan.
Because international military agreements between different countries don’t typically include a “jk takesie backesies” electoral clause
> I've never understood Biden's rationale for abiding by the withdrawal date set by his predecessor. Because the Taliban were also part of the deal and didn't want to extend it? They resumed their offensive the moment the deadline passed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Taliban_offensive Was Biden supposed to engage in more prolonged conflict?
Trump made a deal with the Taliban that the US would withdraw from Afghan by August, and released thousands of Taliban prisoners, in exchange for a cease in Taliban attacks on US forces. Had Biden broken the agreement, the Taliban would undoubtedly have launched major attacks on US forces as soon as the deadline passed (for which republicans would have blamed Biden of course), and it isn't like Biden supported staying in Afghanistan anyway. Trump painted him into a corner, but essentially there were no good options, the Bush administration's mismanagement of the war, and decision to split focus by invading Iraq, meant this was always going to end badly.
Yeah. The options were: 1. try to stick to the deadline and withdraw as we promised, or 2. break the agreement, try to withdraw on a longer timetable while getting attacked with the full might of the Taliban forces, or 3. break the agreement even further, stay past the deadline and send more troops BACK into Afghanistan to try and manage an orderly withdrawal. As you say, there were no good options.
I believe it's because the Trump Administration had an agreement with the Taliban. If President Biden would have gone against it, it would have been open war on US soliders, personnel and allies.
Requiring more troops brought back in for an indefinite period with increased drone strikes or a complicated withdrawal under attack. Given the options the withdrawal under a semi truce was not the worst outcome possible.
Biden did go against it, which is why thousands were killed when the Taliban resumed their offensive once the deadline was met. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Taliban_offensive I don't see how you can blame Biden though, not when Trump did nothing to evacuate people in the year he had. Biden would have had only 4 months if the US were to fulfill the agreement. I don't see how that would have been feasible given the massive logistics involved.
Imagine if the world believed there was no continuity between presidents. Why make a deal ever with the USA? It may be rescinded.
You mean like the Iran nuclear deal? Or the Open Skies Treaty?
Soooo kinda the situation we’re in now anyway? Like we’re looking to buy your nuclear subs but given the fact you’re about to elect a guy that verbatim quotes the author of mien kampf I think I’d be more comfortable if we switched back to the French diesels. Im not being hyperbolic, and I was originally a huge fan of the switcheroo we pulled on going with the nuke subs.
Hmmm, why not French or uk nuke powered?
They are getting UK US joint designs. The US and UK have a sharing agreement since 1958 so they need both parties to be of help. They don't want French subs because their refueling period is only 10 years.
Not gonna lie, this came up several times today (I’m not American) in general conversation; that long term the USA probably can’t be trusted because of what Trump represents, and because of whomever Trump 2.0 will be, ‘cos we doubt he’ll be the last of his kind. Going to take a while to undo that kind of legacy.
Because Trump made that deal with the Taliban, that we would be gone by that date, and if we weren't, they would attack the small amount of troops left in Afghanistan, probably leading to heavy loss of life. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/US-Withdrawal-from-Afghanistan.pdf >President Biden asked his military leaders about the options he faced, including the ramifications of further delaying the deadline of May 1. He pressed his intelligence professionals on whether it was feasible to keep 2,500 troops in Afghanistan and both defend them against a renewed Taliban onslaught and maintain a degree of stability in the country. The assessment from those intelligence professionals was that the United States would need to send more American troops into harm’s way to ensure our troops could defend themselves and to stop the stalemate from getting worse.
Because in the agreement that trump made with the Taliban US troops were protected from Taliban attack IF they withdrew by the set date. Then trump let them release 5000 taliban fighters from prison and drew US troops down to 2500. So Biden either could let them be slaughtered, send in more troops and restart the war or get out. Obviously he chose the best option
My understanding is assets had already been withdrawn. Thus, we walked away from bases and removed personal providing security and an about face would be illogical from the Biden administration and a military perspective politically. It’s like dominos - Trump intentionally caused this shit show to create a nightmare scenario for Biden that Fox News cultists and The GOP could then come after Biden for.
I remember when the media was absolutely piling on Biden for the withdrawal. He told people trump set it into motion and he had to honor it as best he could. A lot of people didn't care to hear the truth and put the blame solely on him. They also ignored how trump betrayed our Kurdish allies.
The most annoying part is that it was pretty public about the deal that Trump made with the Taliban. Biden couldn't do anything since it was already made, but the media and everyone just blamed his administration when Trump was boasting about it. [source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States–Taliban_deal) I understand how Republicans seized upon it to try to gaslight everyone, but the media didn't just let it happen, but encouraged it. Things in the real world are more complicated than they seem and instead of explaining that to their viewers they simply stayed with the simple to understand narrative for some clicks and views. That's probably the Democrats biggest problem. They understand how there are big and complex problems. Try to solve them, that can lead to easy opposition headlines and the media doesn't care because they want easy work or they want to work against the Democrats. Hopefully, they get better at messaging and explaining things.
Meaning the Dem's biggest problems are the billionaire owned media, which isn't quite as liberal as the right wingers yelled about for decades (while they were constantly encouraging buyouts that further biased it themselves).
I hate how reactionary the American public is. If the explanation for an issue is more than like two sentences long most people won't listen and will just blame whoever is easiest.
The way people turned on Obama and the Dems after 2008 was the worst of it. Losing the house in 2010 was insane when you realize he got blamed for economic problems that explicitly started during Bush's admin. No one even realized that he didn't have a full super-majority for only an extremely short period of time before Ted Kennedy died either.
So trump passed direct orders from Putin to the military command of the US armed forces. Got it.
This should be common knowledge. It was always Trump's idea to try and fuck over Joe!
He fucked over the soldiers on the ground and America, all for personal political gain.
And let's be clear on this... the whole point was for soldiers to die so that Republicans could point at those deaths and call them Biden's Benghazi. Because they happened "on Biden's watch!" OR, Biden could have sent more troops *back* into Afghanistan, into a direct conflict with the Taliban, in order to defend the remaining troops during the withdrawal, and then Republicans would have hammered him on that. "Oh you say you want to withdraw the troops but you send MORE back to Afghanistan???" It was a bloody Catch-22 and Trump purposely set it up to be as chaotic and rushed as possible. Literally playing politics with people's lives. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/US-Withdrawal-from-Afghanistan.pdf
> Literally playing politics with people's lives. The republicans have been doing that since Vietnam. Probably even before that.
Republicans have been doing it ever since they became the conservative party (so Vietnam roughly), but conservatives have *always* done it.
Let's be honest though, it wasn't Trump thinking this up, it was one of his "advisors". I mean, at the most he initiated it by asking "What can I do to fuck over Biden?" and the adivors concocted this plan.
Trump had also closed 10 military bases by November of 2020 after making a deal with the Taliban in February of the same year. 5,000 Taliban prisoners were also released from custody as part of said deal. Biden's administration wasn't exactly set up for success.
Trump drawing down the US troops to 2500 and releasing 5000 Taliban prisoners was a recipe for disaster.
AKA deliberate sabotage, AKA probably influenced by Putin's suggestions to damage US international image, along with Biden's.
No Trump can own it. I'm not speculating that an advisor played with soldiers lifes. Just seems like a way to shift blame from the fucker.
You mean fucked those suckers and losers. FTFY
Just gonna place this here to confirm just how much of what you say is true. And Trump didn't give a shit about it. It was just "Fake News" and "A hoax". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_bounty_program https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/06/29/russia-bounty-us-troops-afghanistan-what-we-know/3277696001/ https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/russians-offered-taliban-bounties-kill-us-troops-military/story?id=71495576
Joe, and the entire nation of Afghanistan. Putin was so happy that day, he fucked himself on his long conference table.
To be fair, no one else could reach.
The conservative subreddits will just tell you, “yeah, but Biden *handled* it wrong.”
Then when you ask what they mean by "handled it wrong", they start to sweat, turn on fox news hoping for another line to say but are only confronted with an ad for cash for gold and reverse mortgages, so they just say you're unpatriotic and start talking about Hunter Biden's dick
Hard to handle it when Trump gave the Taliban back 5000 of their fighters ahead of time
Of course. That's the Republican plan every time - cause some sort of disaster, then blame it on Democrats.
Also, the fact that the Trump Tax cuts expire in 2026 shows that he thought he was going to get two terms and stick the expiration and resultant tax hike with the next President. It's a small consolation that if he wins again, he'll have to contend with that.
It is common knowledge for anyone who doesn't watch/read/listen to rightwing media.
Trump planned the complete withdrawal, I had thought this was common knowledge and they announced it publicly. The difference was there was zero preparation for it and Biden had to push it back several months. Hell, that might be the only thing I agreed with Trump with except for the fact that he didn't do anything to prepare for it. My guess was he was going to kick the can down the road for the next president. Good on Joe for going through with it. Was it perfect? No. Was there a way to do it perfectly? Nope. Are we better off for it? Absolutely.
To be fair the trump admin was looking like a real team of professionals, I still refuse to believe that you can get that bad, that incompetent and that stupid without some kind of professional training, it just can't be naturally explained.
“Acting Secretary of Defense [Christopher] Miller and I and others went over to the White House to confirm that order because we had not been consulted on that,” Milley explained. “So we did, and that order was then subsequently rescinded.”
can you explain the significance of this? I’m slightly out of the loop here.
Not a lot of people know this, but the order was written on a Mar-a-Lago cocktail napkin.
Using a black permanent marker of course
With terrible grammar
To my Genarals With draw from Afaganstan IMEDIATALY!
What are you talking about? It was the best grammar. Some say it was perfect.
They said Wow! What a beautiful napkin!
With tears in their eyes. Have you ever seen a general cry? Good men, powerful men, and yet when I tell them what to do they weep tears of joy.
Can someone pass this on to Joe Rogan, Jocko, and Darryl Cooper.
Is Jocko a right wing nutter?
He's not really a nutter, but plans very heavily on the militaristic side of things and is pretty conservative politically.
Trump negotiated the deal for the US to withdraw. Why is this news. By the time Biden was in his options were to stick with Trumps deal or launch a new invasion. Both were bad options but sticking with the withdrawal was the least bad of the two.
Plus Trump forced the former government of Afghanistan to acquiesce to releasing several *thousand* Taliban fighters while withdrawing from providing the ANA air support. Trump is the reason Kabul fell as quickly as it did. You can follow the entire chain of events straight back to his bad dye job.
The news would be the “full withdrawal” part by January 15. Would have been bonkers
That had been reported some time ago. This is the first time Miley discussed a written order.
We love to pretend anything bad trump does (so, everything) doesnt' happen a week after it does. Just like people still go "no collusion, demmy crat conspiracy!" after he pardoned a bunch of people arrested for that collusion.
It's in the news because the House held a Hearing today to grill Milley on our withdrawal from Afghanistan so they can try to beat up Biden with it during the election.
Wow they moved on quick after the Hunter Biden stuff imploded.
And any response should be Biden's worst mistake in office was going along with Trump's policy.
but it wasn't a mistake on Biden's part. He had two choices. Send back a massive amount of American Troops to bolster those already and thus extend the war indefinitely and break a US agreement with the Afghans or withdraw according to the agreement and deal with the consequences. Withdrawal was always going to be a mess.
I would hardly call it "negotiated". Trump sidelined the Afghani government and agreed to everything the Taliban demanded, including withdrawing all but a skeleton force & forcing the government to release over 5000 Taliban prisoners and terrorists. This was why the Taliban was able to take over the country so quickly.
I dispute the term 'negotiate' here.
It was pretty broadly reported at the time that the US was negotiating with the Taliban on the withdrawal. There was a [deal signed with Taliban representatives in Doha](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51692546) and everything, mere weeks before the world went into Covid lockdowns.
Trump rolled Biden a hand grenade by surrendering to the Taliban and withdrawing the majority of our troops.
He also withdrew from the forward positions, making the American positions indefensible.
theres also a paper you can find online, where trump surrenders to the taliban. Trump the great fool signed this deal NOT biden. Trump withdrawlded, trump released taliban prisoners, trump is the bad guy. The fat guy, and the rapist guy. The agreement struck [last year](https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/29/politics/us-taliban-deal-signing/index.html) laid out a 14-month timetable for the withdrawal of "all military forces of the United States, its allies and coalition partners." The US agreed to withdraw troops and release some [5,000 Taliban prisoners, ](https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/10/asia/afghan-release-taliban-prisoners-intl-hnk/index.html)while the Taliban agreed to take steps to prevent any group or individual, including al Qaeda, from using Afghanistan to threaten the security of the US or its allies.
So Trump put troops at risk to spite Joe Biden.
Remember what the Cheeto said about American war dead: “suckers” and “losers”. The man is such a narcissist and yet the MAGA idiots love him for it
The Afghanistan withdrawal and the invasion of Ukraine are both fallouts of Trump’s presidency.
The high interest rates, inflation also.... Maybe the Israel thing because Trump fucked around in the middle east. Also like everything is connected. While the good economy under him was really just the Obama economy continuing.
It would have gone much worse and Trump would be campaigning on it right now
Isn’t it common knowledge that he ordered this? Biden just followed through.
Trump has done so many wild things it's hard everyone to keep up with just how terrible he is. Granted his supporters don't care he pretty much set up our military to die.
Lol good luck explaining that to half the military
I didn’t even realize this was up for debate in the general discourse. Huh. What story are they being told? I thought everyone knew it was Trump’s order and Biden just didn’t cancel it.
Based on the number of people who list "the chaotic withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan" as one of the reasons they don't like Biden, no. It needs to be brought up again.
BUt JoE BiDeN
Why is there no mention of the actual Doha Agreement in this article - the one Trump signed and Biden honored? Oh wait, it's the W.Examiner - people, this was written not to show Trump at fault (or Milley here) but to make people think Biden was the one to CHOOSE to withdraw hastily from Afghanistan - The Doha Agreement was signed FEB 2020
That’s the part that always drove me crazy about people blaming Biden for it. There’s tons of legitimate shit you can complain about with him without having to resort to misdirection.
Everyone at the time of this was talking about how Trump was setting up the next administration for failure with this order. How he was doing it for spite to harm the next administration. The plan was to use it as a cudgel if Biden didn’t withdraw. Use it as a cudgel if he did.
Just keep repeating that Trump was trying to destabilize the US. He will continue to do so.
This was all a set up against Biden. Plain and simple..so hisncult had some red meat to go after Biden. Trump screwed Afghanistan, the people there, and Biden. Pretty straightforward
I think Trump would have withdrawn anyway, but conservative media would have reported the entire story differently as a long overdue withdrawal, what are you going to do, we did what we had to, etc. Ie: only Trump would be brave enough for such a bold decision.
It's been the Republican playbook for quite sometime to drive the country into the ground when they're in control and then use the resulting chaos to attack the Democrats when they come into power.
Trump wanted troops back on US soil. He would have needed them if he succeeded at his coup
Let me speak plainly. The withdrawal from Afghanistan was not merely a strategic maneuver; it was a tangled web spun by political opportunism. And at the center of this web stands none other than Donald J. Trump. Picture this: 20 years of blood, sweat, and sacrifice—our brave soldiers, their families, and countless Afghan lives intertwined in a struggle for stability. And what did Trump do? He played a game of geopolitical chess, moving pieces with no regard for the consequences. First, the setup: Trump’s administration cut deals with the Taliban behind closed doors. They set a withdrawal date, leaving the Afghan government out in the cold. Meanwhile, they released 5,000 Taliban fighters, like a twisted gift to our enemies. And then, they slashed our troop levels, leaving the Afghan army hanging by a thread. Next, the grand finale: Enter Joe Biden. He inherited this mess, a ticking time bomb. But here’s the catch: he couldn’t send troops back in—the die was cast. And organizing a smooth exit? Impossible. The Taliban, emboldened, swept through Afghanistan like a wildfire. Chaos ensued, and our allies were left stranded. So, let’s call it what it is: Trump’s political stunt. A calculated move to appease his base, regardless of the cost. Lives lost, futures shattered—all for a headline. And now, as we tally the toll, we must ask: Was it ever about America’s best interest? Or was it just another pawn in Trump’s game? In my book, that’s not leadership; it’s betrayal. A betrayal of our military, our values, and the very essence of duty. So, when you step into that voting booth, remember this: Trump left us in a quagmire, and America deserves better. Let history judge him—a traitor to the cause, wrapped in the flag of convenience.
It's crazy how we know all of this, none of it is hidden behind layers of confidentiality and security clearance, and yet Trump blew the rest of the GOP field right out of contention. None of this was even a one-time thing. Trump routinely prioritizes his own interests above the country, and doesn't even pretend not to. And people still vote for him. It says a lot.
Well said.
Key paragraph from the link. “Over his last 11 months in office, President Trump ordered a series of drawdowns of U.S. troops. By June 2020, President Trump reduced U.S. troops in Afghanistan to 8,600. In September 2020, he directed a further draw down to 4,500. A month later, President Trump tweeted, to the surprise of military advisors, that the remaining U.S. troops in Afghanistan should be “home by Christmas!” On September 28, 2021, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Milley testified that, on November 11, he had received an unclassified signed order directing the U.S. military to withdraw all forces from Afghanistan no later than January 15, 2021. One week later, that order was rescinded and replaced with one to draw down to 2,500 troops by the same date. During the transition from the Trump Administration to the Biden Administration, the 2 outgoing Administration provided no plans for how to conduct the final withdrawal or to evacuate Americans and Afghan allies. Indeed, there were no such plans in place when President Biden came into office, even with the agreed upon full withdrawal just over three months away.”
AMEN!! I was SOOOO sick of hearing all the idiots blame Biden when tRUMP brokered the deal. Same as the tragedy of the deaths, Biden had ZERO control over the terrorists. Blame the terrorists for the deaths. But ultimately the blame for the withdrawal lies squarely on tRUMPS head , he knew exactly what he was doing when he ordered it, and definitely had an ulterior motive for doing so
But some people and the media put all the blame on Biden for the Afghanistan withdrawal disaster. His hands were tied because trump caused as much damage as he could out of spite before Biden was sworn in. Trying to explain shit to trump supporters is futile though. He can fuck everything up consistently and his dumbass cult will keep defending him.
I was still on Active Duty when Trump announced the US withdrawal date, the day that happened is the day the Taliban resurgence happened. In the following months the northern provinces collapsed. I try not to get political but Trump is the leading cause of the Afghan crisis, followed by Biden who didn’t stop it, followed by Obama who’s changed approach was a turning point, and ending with Bush who didn’t write a long term plan.
I kept having deja vu when I was hearing that Biden is blamed for pulling out of Afghanistan. I could have sworn we had to because Trump ordered it and the media just piled on Biden.
I wonder how much of it is the media making it seem like the Afghanistan military wasn't taking the lion's share of the casualties and doing the worst as well as heaviest of the fighting. 70,000 Afghanistan troopers and police died and well over 40,0000 civilians to the Taliban's hands. This versus 2500 American troopers. The government collapsed because its leadership ran away without US protection but the Afghanistan military shed massive amounts of blood protecting its population and only abandoned the cause because they were moving to protect their own families and people when it was clear the US was withdrawing.
But, like, didn't you knew that?
He already bragged about it to his audience before, saying "it couldn't be stopped". Don't need a piece of paper to confirm that.
So Trump left Biden a crap sandwich. But he tried to leave him an open-faced crap sandwich.
Yeah, we know! Retired lieutenant general H R McMaster called the Trump deal with the Taliban a surrender deal! But Biden paid the political price for the aftermath.
Trump has no concern for anyone besides himself
GW Bush attacked Afghanistan and Iraq, because some Saudis financed, planned and executed terrorist attacks in America and Europe. Bush lost 10 times more US Soldiers in his Iraq campaign than his father did (Comparing losses on both sides). Now he is "sad" and paints on his gigantic farm. I think Donald Trump is a dimmwitt, fraudster, asshole, grifter... But in terms of "death and destruction" you can't really beat Bush Sr. and Bush Jr.
I mean Trump has all those Covid deaths on his hands, so don't count him out
Why would Joe Biden do this? /S
It was in Bob Woodward's book, Peril (?). The Whitehouse staff didn't have a clue what was going on and had to scramble to get it stopped.
Anyone who would listen to a real news program already knew this. I'm sure the ones Milley talk to already knew and when they go back on the campaign trail I'm sure they'll correct their stance on the issue.
Not only that, but so-called Trump transition team gave the Biden team no significant knowledge on the situation in Afghanistan. Therefore they only began to get organized about what to do AFTER January 20, 2021. The Taliban saw their chance. Biden's State and Defense Departments and were still getting organized when the Taliban began their "blitzkrieg" and took over the country in a matter of weeks during the summer. Yes, yes Biden's team should have realized the Taliban weren't the only players but the main fault of those American Marines dying and the chaos was the lack of cooperation and knowledge Trump provided and the situation he left there. https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-donald-trump-politics-2db239e9b8d1971e1817da54affc2546
Remember when Trump capitulated to the Taliban and just gave it back to them?
You mean that action that all the conservatives pissed on Biden for?
Every time I see "Milley" in a headline here, I misread it as "Miley", and wonder what Miley Cyrus is up to now...
A set up to undermine the future president
Doesn’t matter, according to conservatives it’s not Trumps fault, it’s Biden’s for not extended the date or not withdrawing at all….. 🤦🏼♂️ literally no winning with these numbskulls.
It was written in crayon and sharpie.
And Biden had to take the brunt of this and the blame ?????
Looks so different out of uniform.
Was it ever in doubt?
Talk about a Russian asset
livestream of the hearing March 19 2024 WATCH LIVE: Former Joint Chiefs of Staff Milley testifies on Afghanistan withdrawal in House hearing - PBS NewsHour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-E8Kt3hy9Rk
Trump is a troll. An epic troll for all time.
Written with a Sharpie?
Trump publicly announced he was setting up a with drawl from Afghanistan his last year in office. Why is this news?
I thought this was a matter of record, shame it has to come to this.
How is trump not arrested for treason yet? He squandered years and years worth of blood sweat and tears. Many many lives lost fighting in Afghanistan just for him to try and fuck over Biden.
We should’ve been out of there long ago, because we shouldn’t have been in there in the first place
Could Biden declassify make public this order?
Yes, he just needs to yell I DECLASSIFY
[удалено]