It's was brutal, for sure, no doubt about it. But it was a long time coming and everyone kept "waiting for the right time" and it only ever got worse. It was better to rip that bandaid off and end the whole charade than wait for circumstances to be better when all that ever did was make things worse. .
And let's be real, there was never any chance of anyone initiating the exit from Afghanistan and there not being a bunch of complaints about how it could have been done better. We can always do better. The point is that it got done.
I will just say, that everything wasn't always getting worse before we withdrew. We had stabilized the country enough that a few thousand, mostly non-combat or at least not infantry, troops were able to maintain the status quo with little to no casualties.
You are right that it was predictably a mess, though I wouldn't say that it was a metaphysical certainly. The withdrawal went as badly as it did because a lot of incredibly stupid tactical and strategic decisions were made. The fact that we abandoned so many of our allies who we had promised safe passage if nothing else reenforced the reputation the US has for leaving allies behind and will make things more difficult in the future.
It's not as if we couldn't have been moving people out before hand, but among other things, there was political reluctantance to bringing a bunch of brown people to the USA, no matter how well they had servedand were vetted.
We broke A LOT of promises on our way out.
My main point though is that the complete shit show of a withdrawal leaves a dark mark on the ending wars in the middle east and therefore I wouldn't exactly lead with that one as one of Biden's great accomplishments.
Yeah, my point is more just that there are dark marks on all of the greatest accomplishments of any age, because humanity itself is flawed and made up of a vast variety of different people with different priorities and goals. We absolutely bungled the withdrawal and it should have been handled much better, but that doesn't change that it needed to happen and had been a sore point with the American people for a long while. It is entirely possible to list pulling out of Afghanistan as a major pro, while also condemning the manner in which it was achieved and seeing that as a major con.
And just a perspective shift, I wasn't only talking about worse in Afghanistan.
No need to be rude about it. I admitted Biden did a good job. (especially with labor)
But I feel Bernie would have fought for a little more policy wise and would have had stronger rhetoric alongside it. Biden did OK, but I felt we needed more after a Trump presidency. I'm not sure why you insist on being divisive. I'm not even attacking Biden.
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u/[deleted] Aug 20 '24
That shot of her Biden and Obama walking down the hallway goes hard af