• ignirtoq@fedia.io
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    115
    ·
    2 months ago

    He and his allies have made the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan a central focus of their criticisms of the Biden administration’s handling of national security and foreign policy.

    What I consistently don’t see brought up is the fact that the “chaotic withdrawal” was directly set up by Trump. He signed the agreement with Afghanistan that put a fixed date on the withdrawal squarely in the next President’s term. This gave enemies a clear timetable of US actions beforehand, which gave them a significant advantage. So Biden was left with the choice of either fulfilling the US promise, despite it being in every way a bad construct, and executing an extremely difficult withdrawal, or harming the US image on the global stage by reneging on an already agreed upon deal.

    I would go so far as to say this, like the expiration of the middle class portion of the Trump tax cuts, was specifically designed to make the next administration, which was always very likely to be Democrat, look bad regardless of the cost or collateral damage.

    • barsquid@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      46
      ·
      2 months ago

      You don’t see it brought up because all media is either journalistically bankrupt or far-right propaganda.

      • CleoTheWizard@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        12
        ·
        2 months ago

        Wild how the news bias is explained by its owners, 90% of whom are right wing billionaires or their companies. People wondering why CNN is “suddenly” airing Trump propaganda are in the dark

    • dudinax@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      14
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      2 months ago

      I don’t think it would have hurt US image more to re-invade. The Taliban aren’t much loved.

      What irks me is everyone buying into the “botched withdrawal” yeah it was chaotic. It inevitably would be chaotic, but it was well executed given the circumstances.

      Most of the suggestions on how it could have been better amounted to staying indefinitely, or a re-invasion, or even attacking the Afghan government.