My guess is, after Trump's tweeted withdrawal dates were ignored by the Pentagon, Biden asked the Pentagon to set up a reasonable withdrawal timeline that he could announce. And Biden announced it and said "make it so" and all hell broke loose. Of course we'll have to wait for an investigation to confirm or deny it, but that's they way guys like Biden work - go thu channels, get buy-in, reach consensus, etc. It was an institutional failure, not any individual failure.
The only interesting thing about Biden's handling of the withdrawal is that he didn't immediately point fingers at the military planners, leak paperwork that covers his butt, etc. I'm not saying that makes Biden a hero; just remarking that he didn't take the easy way out.
@ClemT "The Trump administration agreed to an initial reduction from 13,000 to 8,600 troops by July 2020, followed by a full withdrawal by 1 May 2021 if the Taliban kept its commitments.[7] The Biden administration, however, said the US would not begin withdrawing until 1 May and would complete the withdrawal before 11 September.[8][9] On 8 July, Biden specified a US withdrawal deadline of 31 August.[
In February 2020, President Trump and NATO allies agreed to formulate a deal with the Taliban, allowing for a formal withdrawal of US combat forces from Afghanistan. Under the terms of the agreement, the Taliban promised "not to allow al-Qaeda or any other extremist group to operate in the areas they control". The deal, titled the "Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan", saw US and NATO forces withdrawing in earnest and set the deadline for a complete withdrawal of US forces by 1 May 2021.[31][32] Trump left open the possibility of a renewed war effort if the Taliban were to violate the terms of the agreement, promising that, if terms were broken, "we'll go back with a force like no-one's ever seen"
@ClemT Sure, it's fun to throw mud you can at your political opponents, but in all honesty, don't think that shitshow is an institutional failure that belongs to the Pentagon and its planners? Or is Biden expected to second-guess them?
"we'll go back with a force like no-one's ever seen"
Empty talk. Statements like that shouldn't be made if there's no contingency plan for it. The world had already seen Trump's empty threats against North Korea and Iran. You won't hold Biden to Trump's withdrawal dates, but you will hold him to Trump's empty threats??
@ElwoodBlues LOL, empty threats my ass. slo joe comes in, suddenly the norks are throwing missiles around like fireworks. Makes one wonder why they quit throwing them around when President Trump was in office. And you seen this raghead terrorist wandering around lately?
@sunsporter1649 Trump stopped mentioning Kim and the "love letters" after Kim made a fool of Trump by launching more missile tests. In 2019, North Korea launched missiles on May 4 & 9, July 25 & 31, August 2 & 24, Sept 10, Oct 2 & 31, and Nov 28. Some of those days had two launches. I'm surprised you didn't know about any of those launches!
