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You can't place Trump's staffing issues as reasons for Biden's performance in Afghanistan. Biden had his appointed secretary of defense, secretary of state, national security advisor, and complete national security cabinet. You can't place blame on unfilled deputy secretaries and unfilled undersecretaries, and use that foundation to vaguely gesture at Biden decisions. He had his advisors and he made his decisions and he owned them. If he wanted to be a coward and blame missing people below him in execution, he certainly could've. If you want to call Afghanistan an American surrender, you have two people on the podium and it's Donald J Trump and Joseph R Biden. Donald owns the Iran outcome and owns his own lack of service in Vietnam (and Biden owns his own lack of service in Vietnam, if you want the complete comparison).
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I just told you exactly why it's demonstrably Trump's fault and your response is essentially "nuh uh".
It takes seconds to destroy things it can take years, decades to build. That's just a fact. It's why smart people keep using adjectives like "generational" to describe the damage MAGA is causing.
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On June 17 2026 05:16 dyhb wrote:You can't place Trump's staffing issues as reasons for Biden's performance in Afghanistan. Biden had his appointed secretary of defense, secretary of state, national security advisor, and complete national security cabinet. You can't place blame on unfilled deputy secretaries and unfilled undersecretaries, and use that foundation to vaguely gesture at Biden decisions. He had his advisors and he made his decisions and he owned them. If he wanted to be a coward and blame missing people below him in execution, he certainly could've. If you want to call Afghanistan an American surrender, you have two people on the podium and it's Donald J Trump and Joseph R Biden. Donald owns the Iran outcome and owns his own lack of service in Vietnam (and Biden owns his own lack of service in Vietnam, if you want the complete comparison).
LightSpectra is not explaining well. Let me help.
The fact that Senate Democrats blockmaxxed Trump appointments from day 1 leading to unfilled ambassadorships and undersecretaries (like for "arms control") in 2018, is exactly why in August 2021 Biden and Blinken and Austin and Milley weren't prepared for a withdrawal that Biden chose to execute thinking he was ending a great war. There was no way for adults to predict that abandoning your last airbase before evacuating from a civilian airport would be bedlam unless they had access to random 2018 Trump apppintees who would have been out in January 2021 anyway as soon as the administrations changed. As president someone like Biden just doesn't have the power/authority to deal with the Taliban or foreign policy or war. That's not the president's job. It's entrusted to some random bureaucrats.
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Democrats voted to confirm innumerable qualified candidates Trump nominated. They wouldn't vote for grossly unqualified idiots, which you can thank them for because there'd be even more casualties if they had done so.
If the president is in charge of things like personally evacuating people from Afghanistan (was Biden literally driving the trucks?), maybe voting for an octogenarian that can't stay awake like Trump in 2024 was a really bad idea? Just a thought.
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On June 17 2026 05:37 LightSpectra wrote:
I just told you exactly why it's demonstrably Trump's fault and your response is essentially "nuh uh".
It takes seconds to destroy things it can take years, decades to build. That's just a fact. It's why smart people keep using adjectives like "generational" to describe the damage MAGA is causing. You just have a weak argument. You are saying that Biden's Afghanistan pullout was due to unfilled lower-level positions in the State Department and Defense Department. I'm saying that Biden had his own top-level people successfully appointed in their roles advising him months early, and Biden made that decision and owns that decision. Just make better arguments, or admit that Biden shares the damn podium. It isn't even partisan.
On June 17 2026 05:38 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On June 17 2026 05:16 dyhb wrote:You can't place Trump's staffing issues as reasons for Biden's performance in Afghanistan. Biden had his appointed secretary of defense, secretary of state, national security advisor, and complete national security cabinet. You can't place blame on unfilled deputy secretaries and unfilled undersecretaries, and use that foundation to vaguely gesture at Biden decisions. He had his advisors and he made his decisions and he owned them. If he wanted to be a coward and blame missing people below him in execution, he certainly could've. If you want to call Afghanistan an American surrender, you have two people on the podium and it's Donald J Trump and Joseph R Biden. Donald owns the Iran outcome and owns his own lack of service in Vietnam (and Biden owns his own lack of service in Vietnam, if you want the complete comparison). LightSpectra is not explaining well. Let me help. The fact that Senate Democrats blockmaxxed Trump appointments from day 1 leading to unfilled ambassadorships and undersecretaries (like for "arms control") in 2018, is exactly why in August 2021 Biden and Blinken and Austin and Milley weren't prepared for a withdrawal that Biden chose to execute thinking he was ending a great war. There was no way for adults to predict that abandoning your last airbase before evacuating from a civilian airport would be bedlam unless they had access to random 2018 Trump apppintees who would have been out in January 2021 anyway as soon as the administrations changed. As president someone like Biden just doesn't have the power/authority to deal with the Taliban or foreign policy or war. That's not the president's job. It's entrusted to some random bureaucrats. I can't really justify why somebody would make such a seriously weak argument, other than trying to excuse Biden's responsibility for partisan reasons. The arguable positions are the speed of the collapse and political considerations around the former Trump deal that Biden changed. Understaffing is just insulting the reader's intelligence. We didn't know about the importance of Bagram because the institutional knowledge was held in the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Afghanistan, and Jeff left 5 years ago.
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Republicans, who spend their entire lives bitching about how unions and labor boards make it impossible to fire people, who spent Trump's entire first term blaming every blunder on the "deep state" bureaucrats that were traitors but simply couldn't be fired, are suddenly bewildered to discover incompetent hires during the Trump administration might continue being incompetent the second a Democrat becomes president. Aight.
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On June 17 2026 05:58 LightSpectra wrote:
Republicans, who spend their entire lives bitching about how unions and labor boards make it impossible to fire people, who spent Trump's entire first term blaming every blunder on the "deep state" bureaucrats that were traitors but simply couldn't be fired, are suddenly bewildered to discover incompetent hires during the Trump administration might continue being incompetent the second a Democrat becomes president. Aight. I know that if I were the President coming after Trump I would have every single senior position he filled evaluated.
They might be competent people who can do the job and stay, but there is also a good chance they should just be strait fired
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On June 17 2026 04:34 KT_Elwood wrote:Show nested quote +On June 17 2026 03:00 LightSpectra wrote:
Don't get me wrong, surrendering to the Taliban was one of the best things adjudicated rapist Donald Trump did, the war was arguably already lost while George W. Bush was president. The only shame is that he left the Defense and State Departments in such a bad state understaffed or with incompetent appointments that Biden wasn't able to fix before the pullout date, resulting in numerous unnecessary deaths.
Don't really feel much point in quibbling about the term "major". If we're paying more reparations than the Weimar Republic did after World War I even after adjusting for inflation, that's a major loss. USAfghanistan collapsed at lightspeed. No amount of preperation would have prevented this. Afghanistan would have needed at least 200 years of occupation and re-education to nut succumb to the clan and warlord structure again. It's a shithole that is suprisingly having much in common with MAGA and what rightwing populists want for europe - isolationism - racism - underage marriage - religious fundametalism dictating everyday rules - no tolerance of other religions - opression of women - science and education are perceived as evil and ungodly It's basicly the "Hegseth" recipe of how the world should be made for weak men with fragile egos.
From what I've read, there were several reasons why the Afghan army collapsed so fast. First of all, it was hollowed out by corruption. Many troops existed only on paper, as a means of defrauding money. Secondly, its whole doctrine was based around various enablers provided by the US, such as air force, intelligence, etc. Trump promised the Taliban that the US would withdraw that support... Finally, the Afghan men had little incentive to fight. It's not their lives that would become a living hell, it's the Afghan women's lives.
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On June 17 2026 05:58 LightSpectra wrote:
Republicans, who spend their entire lives bitching about how unions and labor boards make it impossible to fire people, who spent Trump's entire first term blaming every blunder on the "deep state" bureaucrats that were traitors but simply couldn't be fired, are suddenly bewildered to discover incompetent hires during the Trump administration might continue being incompetent the second a Democrat becomes president. Aight. You really need to learn more about the responsibilities of political appointees versus lifetime bureaucrats. I've been reading your posts, and the only thing that makes them make sense is if you think Joe Biden, Tony Blinken, Lloyd Austin, and the entire NSC were Trump leftovers and brutally incompetent.
LightSpectra is MAGA 2028: If the Democrats win, they'll just blame the prior admin for their failures anyways.
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United States44077 Posts
For those who were waiting on the text of the MOU, it doesn’t say $300,000,000,000 in the final draft. It specifies that the funding made available must be at least $300,000,000,000. That’s the floor number.
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Canada11537 Posts
re: Afghanistan
By the time Biden took over, Trump had already drawn down the military from 13,000 to 2500, released 5000 Taliban prisoners over the protests of the Afghan government (the released prisoners then promptly rejoined the fight), and gave a definitive date of withdrawal for the Taliban to stock up and prepare for. And all the while the Taliban continued to attack the Afghani military. Neither political base had an appetite for another surge of troops.
Like forced moves in an end game of chess, were there really that many choices with what Trump left? My guess is the decision to delay until August was negligible and had Trump been there to complete what he set up, the outcome would be largely unchanged... though maybe Trump would empty half of the US arsenal of long range missiles into some mountains as a parting gift?
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On June 17 2026 12:39 Falling wrote:
re: Afghanistan
By the time Biden took over, Trump had already drawn down the military from 13,000 to 2500, released 5000 Taliban prisoners over the protests of the Afghan government (the released prisoners then promptly rejoined the fight), and gave a definitive date of withdrawal for the Taliban to stock up and prepare for. And all the while the Taliban continued to attack the Afghani military. Neither political base had an appetite for another surge of troops.
Like forced moves in an end game of chess, were there really that many choices with what Trump left? My guess is the decision to delay until August was negligible and had Trump been there to complete what he set up, the outcome would be largely unchanged... though maybe Trump would empty half of the US arsenal of long range missiles into some mountains as a parting gift? I accept, conditionally, that Biden would've paid a heavy price for cancelling the pullout. He still could convince America that a miniscule presence of mechanics and support staff on an airbase was worth tens of millions of Afghani girls receiving an education and a bright future. Or declare Trump a fool for his actions to date and give 10k troops and an extra year for the evacuation. Preferably with Bagram
But this is 10x a better argument to make than the stupid "Biden did this, because two departments were understaffed!" That's just reverse-Trumpism. Pick the flimsiest arguments that get your guy out of trouble, and double down again and again.
Biden's approval rating never recovered after the Abbey Gate bombing that killed 13 Americans. That's #2 for me in Trump's win in 2024, sitting behind Biden's selfish choice to run for re-election instead of handing off the reins to a primary winner.
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On June 17 2026 11:19 KwarK wrote:
For those who were waiting on the text of the MOU, it doesn’t say $300,000,000,000 in the final draft. It specifies that the funding made available must be at least $300,000,000,000. That’s the floor number.
Yeah I had dinner the other day and the price was $24.72. But that's just the floor. Theoretically with tip it could be unlimited. Similarly Iran could technically be securing 5 quadrillion dollars in investment.
On June 17 2026 05:41 LightSpectra wrote:
Democrats voted to confirm innumerable qualified candidates Trump nominated.
New 2028 campaign ad just dropped.
On June 17 2026 05:41 LightSpectra wrote:
They wouldn't vote for grossly unqualified idiots, which you can thank them for because there'd be even more casualties if they had done so.
If the president is in charge of things like personally evacuating people from Afghanistan (was Biden literally driving the trucks?), maybe voting for an octogenarian that can't stay awake like Trump in 2024 was a really bad idea? Just a thought.
Milley (chairman of the joint chiefs), McKenzie (CENTCOM), and Miller (commander of US/NATO in Afghanistan) are ALL on record that they advised against troop drawdown to 0 and recommended maintaining what's variously described as a residual force, a footprint, a support force, an ability to surge.
You could know this if you watched Austin and Milley at Congressional hearings years ago when this was news.
Blinken wanted to keep the State Department in Kabul even after the military left. That's also what required the NEO operation when the military then had to go BACK in to get them. Biden probably had no idea what the fuck was going on and just knew one day he ordered "military out" and took his nap knowing he did Good Thing.
Who decides whether the US military and state department are in a country or not? The Secretary of State and Commander-in-Chief? Blinken and Biden? Or a random fucking person in a position who was so key that Trump didn't hire anyone out of spite, and yet somehow Biden missed and also forgot to hire when he fell into office?
Biden, the commander in chief, ordered the military to leave, then had to send the military back to evacuate everyone else in a way the military had to rush and wing it by taking control of Kabul airport (the "NEO").
Also you don't know how the Senate works. Nobody needed a Democrat vote in 2018. The Senate was Republican majority. Schumer's game was obstructionist procedural stalling. Delay everything as long as possible.
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On June 17 2026 06:45 maybenexttime wrote:Show nested quote +On June 17 2026 04:34 KT_Elwood wrote:On June 17 2026 03:00 LightSpectra wrote:
Don't get me wrong, surrendering to the Taliban was one of the best things adjudicated rapist Donald Trump did, the war was arguably already lost while George W. Bush was president. The only shame is that he left the Defense and State Departments in such a bad state understaffed or with incompetent appointments that Biden wasn't able to fix before the pullout date, resulting in numerous unnecessary deaths.
Don't really feel much point in quibbling about the term "major". If we're paying more reparations than the Weimar Republic did after World War I even after adjusting for inflation, that's a major loss. USAfghanistan collapsed at lightspeed. No amount of preperation would have prevented this. Afghanistan would have needed at least 200 years of occupation and re-education to nut succumb to the clan and warlord structure again. It's a shithole that is suprisingly having much in common with MAGA and what rightwing populists want for europe - isolationism - racism - underage marriage - religious fundametalism dictating everyday rules - no tolerance of other religions - opression of women - science and education are perceived as evil and ungodly It's basicly the "Hegseth" recipe of how the world should be made for weak men with fragile egos. From what I've read, there were several reasons why the Afghan army collapsed so fast. First of all, it was hollowed out by corruption. Many troops existed only on paper, as a means of defrauding money. Secondly, its whole doctrine was based around various enablers provided by the US, such as air force, intelligence, etc. Trump promised the Taliban that the US would withdraw that support... Finally, the Afghan men had little incentive to fight. It's not their lives that would become a living hell, it's the Afghan women's lives.
In general the people there will always fall back to be loyal to their "family" or the most powerful local "family".
The guy who could summon CAS in 12 seconds naturally and had knowledge of every group larger than 5 people moving anywhere in the hills was the most powerful leader.
The second the US withdrew even their intelligence and no longer provided heavy weapons, the afghans completely collapsed back to serving the dude that would likely serve them best - just like an american would immediately hop jobs when the contract wents from "$100/Day" to likely death" when the counteroffer is "food for family and not death".
The roman empire had a hard time to occupy northern europe because of the tribe mentality, the catholic church had better results in spread their belief first, and then ban cousin marriage, effectively breaking the tribe's mode of consolidating power within a rulers family.
And then, like Butter spread on too much bread, the power deluted amongst more people and became breakable.
But it takes decades, if not centuries.
And since MAGA and Taliban basicly align 100% in common values, there wasn't much interest in protecting afghan women
or the corrupt afghan government.
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Canada11537 Posts
What is a residual force? To me, 2500 is already residual.
Yet that 2500 wasn't going to stay under Trump either. When Biden said he didn't think he could make the May 1st deadline to get the 2500 out, Trump criticized him.
"we can and should get out earlier. Nineteen years is enough, in fact, far too much and way too long. I made early withdraw possible by already pulling much of our billions of dollars of equipment out and, more importantly, reducing our military presence to less than 2000 troops from the 16,000 level that was there (likewise in Iraq, and zero troops in Syria except for the area where we KEPT THE OIL) ...I planned to withdraw on May 1st, and we should keep as close to that schedule as possible"
From that, it seems to me unless there was OIL to KEEP, Trump was pulling up stakes entirely whether the Taliban continued to attack (which they had been all along) or not. This is consistent with how he conducts wars as well in first term and second. Empty the missile arsenal. But minimal troop deployments.
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United States44077 Posts
On June 17 2026 13:19 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On June 17 2026 11:19 KwarK wrote:
For those who were waiting on the text of the MOU, it doesn’t say $300,000,000,000 in the final draft. It specifies that the funding made available must be at least $300,000,000,000. That’s the floor number. Yeah I had dinner the other day and the price was $24.72. But that's just the floor. Theoretically with tip it could be unlimited. Similarly Iran could technically be securing 5 quadrillion dollars in investment.
Oblade: "I love this restaurant"
KwarK: "I heard that at the restaurant they shit in the food"
Oblade: "I refuse to believe that unless there's shit specified on the menu"
KwarK: "People are leaking copies of the menu and apparently it literally does specify that there's a shit on every plate"
Oblade: "I refuse to believe that until I see the menu"
KwarK: "Okay, so we can all see the menu now and it turns out it it doesn't say a shit, it says at least one shit per plate, so there could be more than that"
Oblade (actively eating shit): "Yeah, that's just the floor, it could be a quadrillion shits. Don't be ridiculous."
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On June 17 2026 17:20 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On June 17 2026 13:19 oBlade wrote:On June 17 2026 11:19 KwarK wrote:
For those who were waiting on the text of the MOU, it doesn’t say $300,000,000,000 in the final draft. It specifies that the funding made available must be at least $300,000,000,000. That’s the floor number. Yeah I had dinner the other day and the price was $24.72. But that's just the floor. Theoretically with tip it could be unlimited. Similarly Iran could technically be securing 5 quadrillion dollars in investment. Oblade: "I love this restaurant" KwarK: "I heard that at the restaurant they shit in the food" Oblade: "I refuse to believe that unless there's shit specified on the menu" KwarK: "People are leaking copies of the menu and apparently it literally does specify that there's a shit on every plate" Oblade: "I refuse to believe that until I see the menu" KwarK: "Okay, so we can all see the menu now and it turns out it it doesn't say a shit, it says at least one shit per plate, so there could be more than that" Oblade (actively eating shit): "Yeah, that's just the floor, it could be a quadrillion shits. Don't be ridiculous."
In the words of Eminem, snap back to reality.
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United States44077 Posts
On June 17 2026 17:32 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On June 17 2026 17:20 KwarK wrote:On June 17 2026 13:19 oBlade wrote:On June 17 2026 11:19 KwarK wrote:
For those who were waiting on the text of the MOU, it doesn’t say $300,000,000,000 in the final draft. It specifies that the funding made available must be at least $300,000,000,000. That’s the floor number. Yeah I had dinner the other day and the price was $24.72. But that's just the floor. Theoretically with tip it could be unlimited. Similarly Iran could technically be securing 5 quadrillion dollars in investment. Oblade: "I love this restaurant" KwarK: "I heard that at the restaurant they shit in the food" Oblade: "I refuse to believe that unless there's shit specified on the menu" KwarK: "People are leaking copies of the menu and apparently it literally does specify that there's a shit on every plate" Oblade: "I refuse to believe that until I see the menu" KwarK: "Okay, so we can all see the menu now and it turns out it it doesn't say a shit, it says at least one shit per plate, so there could be more than that" Oblade (actively eating shit): "Yeah, that's just the floor, it could be a quadrillion shits. Don't be ridiculous." In the words of Eminem, snap back to reality.
Bold words from a man who doesn’t believe in Iran.
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Had a dumb thought, assume the deal ever gets signed. What are the odds Trump tries to solve it the Trump way and just refuse to pay. So Trump declares total and complete victory and a few months from now Iran closes the strait again because the US isn't paying, and Trump pretends its not his fault anymore.
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On June 17 2026 17:38 Gorsameth wrote:
Had a dumb thought, assume the deal ever gets signed. What are the odds Trump tries to solve it the Trump way and just refuse to pay. So Trump declares total and complete victory and a few months from now Iran closes the strait again because the US isn't paying, and Trump pretends its not his fault anymore.
Totally possible, and might happen if it were actually Trump paying. But it isn't Trump, it is just US public money, and Trump has shown time and time again that he puts basically zero value on that, and believes it to be available in infinite quantities.
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EPT
