Doomsought
Well-known member
The man wanted to have sex with the woman, but the woman did not. Ther social worker suggested they compromise so she got groped instead.
United States Biden administration policies and actions - megathread
- Thread starter Tyzuris
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Chaos Marine
Well-known member
Oh I'm so surprised the taliban is taking over now that we're leaving. Shocked.
Arlos
Sad Monarchist
Sometime, silence is best.
prinCZess
Warrior, Writer, Performer, Perv
In fairness, administration is also using non boots-on-ground stuff to try and shore-up the...'friendly'...Afghan government.
The US is sending B-52s and AC-130 gunships back in Afghanistan to slow its impending collapse
The Taliban have captured six provincial capitals.
taskandpurpose.com
Of course, especially with some of the bombers at work being the same model (potentially the same ones, even?), it's hard not to make comparisons to the Nixon administrations Linebacker bombing campaign in Vietnam...Which, though allowing a US withdrawal, didn't do much to actually shore-up the friendly government and, well...We know how that ended. Stage seems to be set for Afghanistan to end the same way.
f1onagher
Well-known member
God-fucking-dammit Cornyn you should know better. I actually met that asshole once. He certainly knew how to talk a big game.
strunkenwhite
Well-known member
This is actually one power mode of the class of vehicle known as plug-in hybrids. The battery runs out, the engine turns on. IIRC, the Chevy Volt's power system was a little more complicated than "engine is a glorified battery charger", but some other vehicles are actually that simple, and either way the concept holds up. I very nearly bought one, and occasionally wish I had (but not enough to swap out what I did buy). This allows the battery to be much, much smaller than all-electric vehicles: enough to get a supermajority of Americans through their usual commute, and for the times it's not enough they are not tethered to the battery range in the way that regular electric cars are.
Cornyn is a POS. He's only in it to play the game. Never met a principle he's willing to actually be counted on that I can tell.
He is simply incorrect. The Afghanistan military didn't have any real fight in them to begin with. It wouldn't have mattered if the US had pulled out when Trump originally ordered or a year later or a year earlier. The Afghan officials have a nasty habit of pretending there are more troops in their area then there actually are, so they can steal the money for themselves. Nor is it uncommon for Afghan troops to go unpaid for up to several months. These factors, combined with ethnic tensions within Afghanistan and a lack of a national identity, does not make a persuasive argument for the frontline troops to fight on behalf of a government that is in some cases, both very distant and very useless to their own lives.
Did Biden make it worse? Maybe. Did he make it better? Who can say.
What I can say is that Afghanistan was doomed to fall into this sort of chaos the moment the US troops started pulling out.
Chaos Marine
Well-known member
Doomsought
Well-known member
The problem is that the Taiban is still an effective force after a decade of occupation.
Because we have our hands tied behind our back, and the Afghan military are worse then the Norks.
Much worse. At least there has to be some level of fiscal responsibility within the Nork army. Because they're the ones who pay the bills. Here, the Afghan military took advantage of the fact that the US basically pays the bills AND did the heavy lifting when it came to the fighting. All the Afghans had to do was occasionally show up and not shit the bed.
No, the problem is that in 2017 (or was it 2019?), the US discovered that 120,000 troops of the 300,000 troop Afghan Military didn't actually exist. You want to talk about purging voter roles, imagine finding out if 40% of the Democrats who voted last year were either dead or didn't exist. That is the level of scandal that the Afghan military had several years ago.
And in 2019, a news report indicated that there was suspected to be more than just the 40% being ghost troops. And that brings in another form of corruption. Because this whole situation doesn't make any sense. The Taliban taking territory is one thing. The Taliban winning is one thing. The Taliban overrunning the Afghan army is an entirely different matter. How is the Afghan military losing so badly when they have US hardware, US training, US intelligence support, US logistic support, US air support, and twice the numbers as the Taliban?
Or maybe we need to ask ourselves some rather uncomfortable questions about this 180,000 man army. Because most Middle Eastern cultures are clannish. Meaning they live in extended families. Shame being brought upon your clan is in some cases, a crime worse than death. And supporting and empowering your clan is not just a good thing, but probably a moral obligation. So you may have a shitty cousin or brother who are worth less than the shit that comes out the ass, but your family needs him to be gainfully employed in a respectable job and you don't want to keep lending him cash. So you get him a job as one of your soldiers.
Sure, he failed basic training, hadn't you blackmailed the guy in charge. Sure, he shows up for his shift once or twice a week, leaves early, and can only reliable located with the local whore--but at least you can put a brave face on it. And you know that he's never going to show up to fight, but who cares? You're not paying for it, your father isn't paying for it, no one in your family is paying for it, and in fact, the US tax payers are paying for it. And the US tax payers aren't going to withdraw troops until they defeat the Taliban.
So what are the chances that 40,000 or 60,000 or even 120,000 of the troops on paper are anything more than assholes who are just using the Afghan army as welfare? What are the chances that most of them don't show up to fight? What are the chances that if they do, they surrender, flee, or join the enemy when things go sour? And what does that mean for the rest of the troops who do the right thing? The ones who DON'T get paid for up to several months? The ones who DON'T have much food to eat? The ones who DON'T have family in high places?
But as far as I can tell, this is the general sum of Afghan military capability:
Them, fleeing in droves.
Now, I don't know what orders they were given or how desperate their flight was, so I can't say for certain. And certainly it is best to withdraw to a better defensible position to regroup than to make a brave stand that ends in disaster. But I ask you, HOW likely do you think it is that the US would have a caravan of armored vehicles running with their tail between their legs if a US city was under assault from a domestic militant group with that was half their size?
I am no expert on the military, I dare say I lack even a passing knowledge of how the military actually works. So maybe some of our members here who have served can tell me, just how fucking bad it has to be that the army is running away from key cities. Because it would strike me that even if they were losing, these troops should be trying to hold the enemy back until reinforcements arrive. The most straightforward explanation in my mind is that either these men are cowards or they know that there will be no reinforcements and are fleeing a hopeless situation.
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Unless given the order, you would hold until you die, given the order to leave, or are reinforced. if it was an American city, it would depend on the defensibility of it, but most definitely hold until you feasibly cant.