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Likes: You do know even Trump wanted to withdraw troops?Originally Posted by BillyCarpenter
But you said nothing
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You do know even Trump wanted to withdraw troops?
But you said nothing
Fringe right-wing network One America News lost the appeal of its defamation suit against MSNBC and star host Rachel Maddow on Tuesday, with a panel upholding a previous federal court ruling against OAN that required them to pay $250,000 of the defendants’ legal fees.
US halted dollar shipments to Afghanistan to keep cash out of Taliban’s hands
U.S. officials are also blocking Taliban from Afghan government accounts managed by the Fed and U.S. banks
The Biden administration last week canceled bulk shipments of dollars headed for Afghanistan as Taliban fighters were poised to take control of the capital city of Kabul, part of a continuing scramble to keep hundreds of millions of dollars out of the hands of the terrorist group, according to people familiar with the matter.
The U.S. is also blocking Taliban access to government accounts managed by the Federal Reserve and other U.S. banks and working to prevent the group’s access to nearly half-billion dollars-worth of reserves at the International Monetary Fund, according to those people.
The actions represent the last vestiges of diplomatic leverage Washington hopes will help prevent a deepening political and humanitarian crisis.
"Any central bank assets the Afghan government has in the United States will not be made available to the Taliban," a Biden administration official said.
As the Taliban took over several provincial areas across the country and made its way toward Kabul last week, the U.S. Treasury Department made an emergency decision to halt shipment of the sealed pallets of cash, shipped by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, as they were flown to Afghanistan.
Ajmal Ahmady, Afghanistan’s central bank chief, who fled the country on Sunday, said in an interview that he learned on Friday that no more dollar shipments would be arriving, but he declined to comment further on the decision. He said the central bank has approximately $9 billion in reserves, nearly all of which are held outside the country.
With the U.S. move to block access to those reserves, "the amount accessible to the Taliban is almost 0.1%," Mr. Ahmady said Tuesday.
Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Tuesday that he was concerned that then-President Donald Trump "undermined" the US' 2020 agreement with the Taliban by pushing for US forces to leave Afghanistan without the Taliban meeting the conditions of the deal.
The Trump administration's "Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan" outlined a series of commitments from the US and the Taliban related to troop levels, counterterrorism and intra-Afghan dialogue aimed at bringing about "a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire."
Esper "my concern was that President Trump, by continuing to want to withdraw American forces out of Afghanistan, undermined the agreement, which is why in the fall when he was calling for a return of US forces by Christmas, I objected and formally wrote a letter to him, a memo based on recommendations from the military chain of command and my senior civilian leadership that we not go further -- that we not reduce below 4,500 troops unless and until conditions were met by the Taliban."
In his first public comments since the Taliban solidified control of Kabul, President Joe Biden on Monday laid blame on the Afghan security forces' unwillingness to fight and the decisions of previous administrations -- including the Trump administration -- while failing to directly address the chaos unfolding on his watch.
President Biden conceded that the Taliban takeover happened faster than anticipated, though he said he stands "squarely behind" his decision.
Joe didn't stick with Trump's policy on Iran and he didn't have to stick with his agreement with Afghanistan. It's time to stop blaming Trump. And then there's this:
President Biden assured Americans that the Taliban would not storm the U.S. Embassy in Kabul the same way the North Vietnamese stormed the U.S. Embassy in Saigon in 1975, but footage captured an eerily reminiscent scene on Sunday – completely disproving the confident prediction Biden made last month.
"The Taliban is not the south—the North Vietnamese army. They're not—they're not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There is going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy in the—of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable," Biden predicted in a news conference on July 8.
Just weeks later, U.S. troops flew helicopters to the embassy in Kabul, rescuing diplomats as the Taliban stormed the building. Photos of the rescue eerily echo photos of the U.S. helicopters rescuing diplomats from the embassy in Saigon in 1975.
Growth is found only in adversity.
REMEMBER he's got a short Pencil
Regarding Afghanistan, maybe we are all wrong as to the reason, it was never about liberating the country.
Fall of Afghanistan is NOW | Why AMERICA FAILED - YouTube
When you think you have made a procedure idiot proof your company employs a better idiot.
I watched the video. Certainly this is one author's opinion of what happened. Basically he puts forth a conspiracy theory to boost Patreon and PayPal revenues.
Certainly, the USA's huge Industrial Military complex needs an adversary to convince its politicians to continue to spend huge amounts of money purchasing products and creating high profits on very complex equipment with parts, supplies and maintenance contracts.
The same could be said for right wing media that generally supports and lobbies for the USA's industrial military complex. They are faux furious that President Biden is bringing the Afghan conflict to a close. The USA will need to procure less hardware and consumables to support this mission.
President Biden has stated that he plans redeploy these military assets to face other threats. President Biden also stated that via improved technology, the USA can still effect what happens in Afghanistan safely from a distance at low cost and with low risk to its soldiers.
I want to get some reactions from liberals:
F*** That': Biden In 2010 When Asked About Consequences for Afghan People After US Withdrawal
"F*ck that, we don’t have to worry about that," Biden said.
As President Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan leaves behind a number of Afghans who assisted the U.S. government, newly surfaced reports show that Biden responded “f*** that” to a question about America’s obligation to those people.
he New Yorker reported, in January 2002, “Biden went to Kabul, where he toured a new school — one that was bitterly cold, with plastic sheeting over the windows and a naked bulb hanging from the ceiling. When the visit was over and Biden started to leave, a young girl stood ramrod straight at her desk and said, ‘You cannot leave. You cannot leave.’”
“I promise I’ll come back,” Biden told her.
“You cannot leave,” the young girl insisted. “They will not deny me learning to read. I will read, and I will be a doctor like my mother. I will. America must stay.”
In a 2004 interview, Biden said that the child was effectively telling him, “Don’t f*** with me, Jack. You got me in here. You said you were going to help me. You better not leave me now.”
According to The Atlantic, when Biden was vice president, “he told Richard Holbrooke, Obama’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, that the U.S. had to leave Afghanistan regardless of the consequences for women or anyone else. According to Holbrooke’s diary, when he asked about American obligations to Afghans like the girl in the Kabul school, Biden replied with a history lesson from the final U.S. withdrawal from Southeast Asia in 1973: ‘F*** that, we don’t have to worry about that. We did it in Vietnam, Nixon and Kissinger got away with it.’”
Biden’s response was reminiscent of the disdain he showed for South Vietnamese people who helped the U.S. government.
In 1975, Biden, at that time a 32-year-old first-term senator from Delaware, said that he would not vote for sending U.S. troops to help evacuate Americans if it included evacuating a single South Vietnamese refugee.
“I feel put upon in being presented an all-or-nothing number,” Biden said on April 14, 1975. “I will vote for any amount for getting the Americans out. I don’t want it mixed with getting the Vietnamese out.”
few days later, Biden objected to a bill because “it would also authorize evacuation of ‘endangered foreign nationals,’” he said.
“I do not believe the United States has an obligation, moral or otherwise, to evacuate foreign nationals” other than diplomats of third countries, Biden added. “The United States has no obligation to evacuate one, or 100,001, South Vietnamese.”
Growth is found only in adversity.
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