Turning on Biden
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(shamelessly stolen from Glenn Reynolds)
"Past performance is no guarantee of future results"
● Shot: The Atlantic in rare endorsement urges voting for Biden: ‘Vote for the decent man.’
—The Hill, October 22nd, 2020.
● Chaser:
Biden’s Long Trail of Betrayals. Why is the president so consistently wrong on major foreign-policy matters?—The Atlantic, today.
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I saw a Rasmussen poll today that 10% of Democrats said they would have voted for Trump had they known...
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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It”s too early to determine that the decision to pull out of Afghanistan is “wrong.” The execution may be lousy, but the strategic decision may still be a good one.
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For anti-Democratic or pro-Republican poll numbers, one should curb ones enthusiasm until one sees confirmation by other polling outfits other than Rasmussen’s.
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It”s too early to determine that the decision to pull out of Afghanistan is “wrong.” The execution may be lousy, but the strategic decision may still be a good one.
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For anti-Democratic or pro-Republican poll numbers, one should curb ones enthusiasm until one sees confirmation by other polling outfits other than Rasmussen’s.
@axtremus said in Turning on Biden:
- It”s too early to determine that the decision to pull out of Afghanistan is “wrong.” The execution may be lousy, but the strategic decision may still be a good one.
I think everyone here will agrees with that. All of the articles I've posted say that. Also, as I've said, no one has offered a reasonable alternative.
- For anti-Democratic or pro-Republican poll numbers, one should curb ones enthusiasm until one sees confirmation by other polling outfits other than Rasmussen’s.
Agreed as well. I've not seen polls like this on other sites. I await them, but I won't hold my breath.
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I saw a Rasmussen poll today that 10% of Democrats said they would have voted for Trump had they known...
@george-k said in Turning on Biden:
I saw a Rasmussen poll today that 10% of Democrats said they would have voted for Trump had they known...
Yeah, but I'd guess only for about 5 days. People who say stuff like that in opinion polls are idiots.
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@george-k said in Turning on Biden:
I saw a Rasmussen poll today that 10% of Democrats said they would have voted for Trump had they known...
Yeah, but I'd guess only for about 5 days. People who say stuff like that in opinion polls are idiots.
@doctor-phibes said in Turning on Biden:
People who say stuff like that in opinion polls are idiots.
Democrats are idiots? Is that what you're saying?
(LOL)
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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Also, you can bet that the image of a helicopter over the US embassy will be part of the GOP strategy in 2022, and especially in 2024 when Harris runs.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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@doctor-phibes said in Turning on Biden:
People who say stuff like that in opinion polls are idiots.
Democrats are idiots? Is that what you're saying?
(LOL)
@george-k said in Turning on Biden:
@doctor-phibes said in Turning on Biden:
People who say stuff like that in opinion polls are idiots.
Democrats are idiots? Is that what you're saying?
(LOL)
Maybe I'm biased. I've never really understood why people belong to political parties. I knew a few activists when I was younger, and found them to be fine to talk to until they started talking politics, at which point they became incredibly tedious.
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@george-k said in Turning on Biden:
@doctor-phibes said in Turning on Biden:
People who say stuff like that in opinion polls are idiots.
Democrats are idiots? Is that what you're saying?
(LOL)
Maybe I'm biased. I've never really understood why people belong to political parties. I knew a few activists when I was younger, and found them to be fine to talk to until they started talking politics, at which point they became incredibly tedious.
@doctor-phibes said in Turning on Biden:
I've never really understood why people belong to political parties.
Jobs
Well paid, union jobs
And no need to actually work very much
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It”s too early to determine that the decision to pull out of Afghanistan is “wrong.” The execution may be lousy, but the strategic decision may still be a good one.
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For anti-Democratic or pro-Republican poll numbers, one should curb ones enthusiasm until one sees confirmation by other polling outfits other than Rasmussen’s.
@axtremus said in Turning on Biden:
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It”s too early to determine that the decision to pull out of Afghanistan is “wrong.” The execution may be lousy, but the strategic decision may still be a good one.
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For anti-Democratic or pro-Republican poll numbers, one should curb ones enthusiasm until one sees confirmation by other polling outfits other than Rasmussen’s.
No one is saying pulling out was wrong. What was wrong was the way it was done,. The way it was done is so inept, so dumb, so damaging that the question of whether or not we should have pulled out is not even important.
You can try to polishnyhis turd all you want, but the fact remain that Biden has messed up royally.
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It”s too early to determine that the decision to pull out of Afghanistan is “wrong.” The execution may be lousy, but the strategic decision may still be a good one.
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For anti-Democratic or pro-Republican poll numbers, one should curb ones enthusiasm until one sees confirmation by other polling outfits other than Rasmussen’s.
@axtremus said in Turning on Biden:
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It”s too early to determine that the decision to pull out of Afghanistan is “wrong.” The execution may be lousy, but the strategic decision may still be a good one.
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For anti-Democratic or pro-Republican poll numbers, one should curb ones enthusiasm until one sees confirmation by other polling outfits other than Rasmussen’s.
Biden’s decline is the same on all the polls. Check out five thirty eight. Sure Rasmussen has a different base line but all the trends are consistent.
If Afghanis can’t get to the airport watch the polls continue the slide. I don’t see how the Taliban are going to open the checkpoints beyond American citizens. I think that is dreaming.
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The Afghanis are one thing. What about the thousands of Americans that can't get there?
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Also, you can bet that the image of a helicopter over the US embassy will be part of the GOP strategy in 2022, and especially in 2024 when Harris runs.
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@jolly said in Turning on Biden:
The Afghanis are one thing. What about the thousands of Americans that can't get there?
We go back.
Are there thousands?
@catseye3 said in Turning on Biden:
@jolly said in Turning on Biden:
The Afghanis are one thing. What about the thousands of Americans that can't get there?
We go back.
Are there thousands?
The State Department is not sure. As of about ten days ago, the number was about 11,000.
That does not count other nationalities, of course. I do believe Merkel made a statement today. Don't know about the Brits.
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Seems like the Brits are doing what the Americans won't...
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It was a horribly botched pull out. But, does it matter? Are a lot of Americans stranded?
Do Americans really care about Afghans? Seems like everyone got over the Kurds pretty fast.
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The Atlantic: Biden’s Long Trail of Betrayals
“I’m getting sick and tired of hearing about morality, our moral obligation,” Joe Biden said in 1975. “There’s a point where you are incapable of meeting moral obligations that exist worldwide.” At the time, he was arguing against U.S. aid to Cambodia. But he could just as easily have said the same about his decision this year to end the American presence in Afghanistan, a catastrophic mistake that has led to a Taliban takeover, undermined our national interest, and morally stained Biden’s presidency.
It is the latest blunder in a foreign-policy record filled with them.
- In 1975, Biden opposed giving aid to the South Vietnamese government during its war against the North, ensuring the victory of a brutal regime and causing a mass exodus of refugees.
- In 1991, Biden opposed the Gulf War, one of the most successful military campaigns in American history. Not only did he later regret his congressional vote, but in 1998, he criticized George H. W. Bush for not deposing Saddam Hussein, calling that decision a “fundamental mistake.”
- In 2003, Biden supported the Iraq War—another congressional vote he later regretted.
- In 2007, he opposed President George W. Bush’s new counterinsurgency strategy and surge in troops in Iraq, calling it a “tragic mistake.” In fact, the surge led to stunning progress, including dramatic drops in civilian deaths and sectarian violence.
- In December 2011, President Barack Obama and Vice President Biden withdrew America’s much-scaled-down troop presence in Iraq; the former had declared Iraq to be “sovereign, stable, and self-reliant,” and the latter had predicted that Iraq “could be one of the great achievements of this administration.” Their decision sent Iraq spiraling into sectarian violence and civil war, allowing Iran to expand its influence and opening the way for the rise of the jihadist group ISIS.
- According to Obama’s memoir A Promised Land, Biden had advised the former president to take more time before launching the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
- Ten years ago, Biden said in an interview that “the Taliban per se is not our enemy.” He added, “If, in fact, the Taliban is able to collapse the existing government, which is cooperating with us in keeping the bad guys from being able to do damage to us, then that becomes a problem for us.” Indeed.
In his 2014 memoir, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, Robert Gates, who served as the secretary of defense under George W. Bush and Obama, said that Biden “has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”
So is there a unifying theory of why Biden is so consistently wrong on major foreign-policy matters? Does he misunderstand something about the world, or possess some set of instincts that don’t serve him well?
Perhaps the place to begin is by recognizing that Biden has never been an impressive strategic thinker. When talking about his strengths, those close to Biden stress his people skills: his ability to read foreign leaders, to know when to push and when to yield, when to socialize and when to turn to business. But that’s very different from having a strategic vision and a sophisticated understanding of historical events and forces.
What the Biden foreign-policy record shows, I think, is a man who behaves as if he knows much more than he does, who has far too much confidence in his own judgment in the face of contrary advice from experts. (My hunch is he’s overcompensating for an intellectual inferiority complex, which has manifested itself in his history of plagiarism, lying about his academic achievements, and other embellishments.)
On national-security matters, President Biden lacks some of the most important qualities needed in those who govern—discernment, wisdom, and prudence; the ability to anticipate unfolding events; the capacity to make the right decision based on incomplete information; and the willingness to adjust one’s analysis in light of changing circumstances.
To put it in simple terms, Joe Biden has bad judgment...
According to my colleague George Packer’s biography of Richard Holbrooke, Obama’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Biden has argued that the United States does not have an obligation to Afghans who trusted the United States.
“We don’t have to worry about that. We did it in Vietnam. Nixon and Kissinger got away with it,” Biden told Holbrooke. Biden also “reportedly pushed back on the argument that America had a moral obligation to women in Afghanistan,” according to The Washington Post.
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@xenon said in Turning on Biden:
It was a horribly botched pull out. But, does it matter? Are a lot of Americans stranded?
Do Americans really care about Afghans? Seems like everyone got over the Kurds pretty fast.
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Yes, a lot of Americans are stranded. Thousands. Possibly as many as eleven thousand and as “few” as two thousand.
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There will always be a distinct difference with Afghanistan and the Taliban due to their harboring and protecting Al Qaeda.
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The promises and investments (in money and blood) into Afghanistan stretched over 3 different administrations and 16 years.
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Can’t stomach gross incompetence…
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