Well in NZ you don’t have learn a new language.
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Also legitimate questions. We spend a lot of money on a very broad Intel apparatus, some really big fails in there. Hope whatever in the chain broke that kept the more positive analysis pushed forward while the pessimistic projections were squashed is being looked at.
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He did. I can’t bring the image over on my phone
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Thanks. Think that the sad end of the war would be worth a headline on TPM?
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OT but ineffably sad.
.
Bennie Hargrove, 13, tried to de-escalate a violent situation between classmates at his Albuquerque middle school and was shot six times by a 13-year-old classmate.
— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) August 15, 2021
Only the child shooter, who brought his father’s gun to school, has been arrested. #nmleg https://t.co/FIWd7cL3l2
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Sure, the only other effective choice would have been to take over direct administration of all aspects of the Afghan government to prevent corruption and mismanagement.
That’s not something the Afghans, or the people of just about anywhere else in the modern world, would have taken to.
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Afghanistan is a huge sink hole for any country, the country is mired in violence and has been for as long as I remember. There is no “win” in Afghanistan, there is get out by the skin of your teeth or sink a kings ransom into the country then get out by the skin of your teeth. We did the later.
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It won’t be long before Donnie was trying to set up another surge.
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Firmly disagree. After 9/11, Afghanistan was a Just War, and anything less after such a horrific attack on our soil would have been wrong.
Now what missteps we made after can be debated.
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Welp, thar ya go Dubya. They brought it on.
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Stephen Tanner (Afghanistan, revised edition, 2002) makes a case that Dubya had a chance to forge an effective Afghan policy after 9/11 and failed when he turned to Iraq.
(pages 323-324)
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I think there a couple things going on here. Most importantly, the delta variant is no joke. It’s much more aggressive and infectious than the earlier version of Covid, even against our children, who still cannot be vaccinated. Biden is morally correct in fighting for them and demanding Florida protect its most vulnerable.
But, also, he’s sees this as a political winner. And it clearly is as we see De Santis already climbing back from his reckless, absurdist, bordering on crimes against humanity perch that he, ironically, thinks is a political winner for himself. And, sad to say, he’s probably not wrong with about 30% of the population. The 30% most vulnerable to dying from Covid. So it’s sort of a catch 22. But regardless, he’s shown weakness here, and that’s never a good thing politically.
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Alexander the Great took the lands that now compromise Afghanistan, it was some of the fiercest battles against the Persians. But even the Greeks could hold on to it in the end.
There have been 8 previous invasion of Afghanistan before us. None of them have worked out.
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This. We spent 20 years, trillions of dollars, and thousands of US dead and injured to bring “peace and prosperity and stability and democracy” to Afghanistan and it was all for naught. President McCain was willing to stay there for a hundred years, a more rational administration saw it for what it is.
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“Unbalanced mentally” is not evoked as often as it should for DeSantis.
He may not be a textbook case…and maybe it’s just this:
A man who has consciously chosen sociopathy because of his selfish political ambitions, joining others such as Cruz, Abbott and others.
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In a nation of rugged individuals why would the father be responsible for his child’s free will? /s
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Biden commended Cartwright for her “leadership and courage to do the right thing for the health and well-being of their students, teachers, and schools,” which goes against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R) order, according to a summary of a call provided to the Herald by the White House.
The Herald reported that the President affirmed to Cartwright and Geston in separate calls that his administration “stands ready to support their school districts and communities to get back to safe, full-time, in-person learning.”
The President’s calls to the school superintendents were made the same day his administration offered to pay salaries of Florida school board members who lose state funds over defying DeSantis’ ban on school mask mandates.
This is how a President uses the bully pulpit without looking like using the bully pulpit. Well played Biden.
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Only point to disagree with on here was that it was the cards on the table when Biden came into office that made this inevitable. Trump’s moves to slash presence, negotiate with the Taliban without the afghan government and so undermined any authority the afghans had and made it clear that control was between us and the Taliban. So Biden came in with only two real choices-- throw another few tens of thousands of troops in, or set a date and leave.
Sad place to be in because there’s going to be a massive humanitarian crisis.
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If in 2001 you urged an swift exit after degrading al Qaeda, opposed the Bush and Obama surges, opposed the Trump early deadline, opposed the Biden execution of that deadline congratulations, you got it right. Otherwise join the parade of people who got it seriously wrong
— Jennifer 'pro-voting' Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) August 15, 2021
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Water seeks its own level. This happens everywhere.
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