In Afghanistan, Trump unconditionally surrendered to the Taliban, but left Biden to complete the withdrawal. Before that, Iraq was either a loss or a stalemate, depending on what the poorly articulated objectives actually were.
Every $10 increase in crude translates to roughly 24 cents per gallon at the pump. So we’re looking at 25 to 45 cents per gallon — baked in, structural, not going away when the war ends, not going away when the headlines fade, not going away ever.
Can we stop with this narrative that this is somehow a bad thing?
The price of oil has been too low. calculate the cost if externalities, and the price should be close to infinity.
Just stop oil.
While somehow Biden get’s blamed for the fiasco, Trump did order the full withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, essentially a surrender to the Taliban, though he did keep their US bank account held treasury.
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No one wins when people start shooting at each other. There are only different degrees of losing. There is no glory in war, only suffering of the poor for the rich.
Nixon had the decency to resign, Trump will drive us all 6ft under without any hesitation.
Nixon was not decent. The difference was that a Senator (Goldwater) told Nixon point blank that he was getting impeached and the senate had the votes to convict and remove.
Like most government officials “retirement” is getting fired.
They also didn’t have Faux “News”, hate radio, or the Internet back then, either.
What’s so fucked up is that POS of a FCC chairman just celebrated making it even worse than it already was for truth.
Fox was started precisely because the moneybags never wanted a Republican president held to account again.
I’m pretty sure Trump would give the order to launch the nukes and kill us all in that situation.
That’s why he’s firing the top military people. They won’t follow illegal (and reprehensible) orders, so he knows they won’t bomb blue states.
absurd claim even as a die-hard cynic.
He won’t nuke his top money makers, California and NY pay for half of the US military already
Trump 100% does not think that way.
Man bankrupted casinos, he has failed upwards most of his life and I don’t doubt he’d try some shit on CA and NY if he thought he could get away with it. It’s not their economies stopping him, its knowledge he might have to face consrquences if he did something too excessive, and as his brain liquifies I find myself wondering how long before he thinks the odds are okay.
I have to hope the people with access would refuse to obey these illegal orders.
By that point, if Americans STILL think they can vote and avoid violence then the American public really us beyond hope.
I genuinely think he’s by far the most likely president in this country’s history to launch ICBMs if he knows he is fucked. Which was a conclusion myself and any non-moron also came to in 2015.
He is really old now. A good cold, covid, a peanut or even a strong fart could do him in.
Piece is quite brutal against US. Worth read.
I think this article forgets how Trump effectively surrendered Afghanistan to the Taliban the last time around.
Most people seem to have decided that one is on Biden for some reason, including Biden.
Trump set it up to look that way.
Which is really weird considering wasn’t he literally following the timeline Trump set out? A timeline that was almost certainly concocted to screw over the Democrat if Trump lost and that Trump wouldn’t have actually stuck to if he won?
Trump wouldn’t have actually stuck to if he won?
Funny how you say that…
It is on Biden, he didn’t have to stick to Trump’s controversial deal with the Taliban, he could have had a spine and given a statement about how he supports bringing the troops home but that leaving Afghanistan in the hands of the Taliban will only put them at more risk in the future and how Trump made a fool of us by dealing with them. But no, every liberal has to treat Biden like he has no agency, like he didn’t continue negotiating with the Taliban and eventually gave the final withdrawl orders leaving locals who helped the US to fend for themselves.
he didn’t have to stick to Trump’s controversial deal with the Taliban
Trump had already given away anything that would given Biden bargaining power. It was a deliberate setup.
It was a no-win situation. If he stayed, the Republicans who pretended to care about war being a bad thing would have raked him over the coals about throwing out future FIFA peace prize recipient Donald Trump’s flawless exit strategy.
And we see that when he went through with it anyway what a fucking mess it was, and they blamed him for it imploding anyway.
I’m of the firm opinion that we could have occupied Afghanistan for a century and the result upon exiting would have resulted in the exact same outcome. There were perhaps better ways to do a drawdown that wouldn’t result in leaving billions of dollars worth of military hardware, vehicles and munitions behind for the Taliban to sieze and use for themselves, but it still eventually had to happen and we got what we got.
Democracy can’t be given to someone else. It must be hard fought for and won by the people themselves, or it’s value will never become apparent to them.
Don’t mention any decency from Biden. It’ll ruin the narrative.
Also, calling Iraq a win is really stretching things.
Mission Accomplished, babyyyyyyyy!!!
Also Afghanistan. Also Vietnam.
The headline said “since Nixon.” The US lost the Vietnam war while Tricky Dick was president.
Unless you consider how beneficial these wars were for the Israel first politicians and lobbies
Winning a battle is easy, winning an occupation is close to impossible.
He’s never been anything but a silver spoon total loser. He’s not even a skilled criminal. Fucking bush league in every measure.
Nah, even the bushes were better at this than him
He expected to lose the first election. He wanted to be able to use it as proof that the system was against him, to fire up the Fox News rubes and jumpstart his new TV network. He basically wanted to lose, and instead he won.
It’s amazing. He’s such a failure he failed at failing.
This is a very dark replay of the plot of The Producers.
That’s an insult to Bushes and shrubbery.
Name one we have won since WWII?
That really comes down to what you mean by “war” and “won”.
We won the Korean war by achieving our strategic objectives- we bombed NK back to the stone age, and effectively isolated them from the rest of the world.
Our wars in Central America achieved their objectives- US trained death squads raped and murdered the local populations into submission; US corporations have been free to dominate ever since.
On the list of 80+ countries we have invaded since WWII, I would say well over half of these misadventures have achieved their strategic objectives.
When you leave with the same kind of people in charge as there were when you arrived then you lost. The ‘strategic objectives’ started to revolve around how much money you could fleece from the US government and it made every conflict a loss.
Desert Storm, but outside of that they’ve all been unsuccessful.
Did we really win? We went in there and killed a bunch of people but even today the country hates us. The truth is the US hasn’t won a war since WWII. In order to really win you have to make peace with the population after you take over. The US doesn’t do that anymore. We just kill and create more enemies.
If the goal of Desert Storm was to get Iraq to withdraw out of Kuwait, then it could be considered a success. There was no intent to make friends with the Iraqi people or remove Saddam from power. That was the second Bush’s mess.
Yeah, that was the objective of Desert Storm: to force Iraq back to within its own borders.
Bush Jr thought that was too narrow a goal and when he found a convenient though irrational excuse in 9/11, killed half a million Iraqi civilians in a pointless bloodbath. By comparison, the homicidal maniac Saddam and his regime killed a few thousand Iraqi civilians during his entire time in power (not counting the war of aggression against Iran, which led to about half a million casualties on each side).
I think the ones making the wars would consider it a win if they make a lot of money.
In almost every war, the US extracted a lot of money/resources, not to mention the killings made by military industries
Winning a war means a enemy is no longer a enemy. Its that simple.
That’s all very idealistic, but in real life, containment is often a legitimate war aim. And if you’re invaded, ending the invasion is often victory. Wars are not fought to make people stop being your enemy, and there are only a few rare cases of post-war reconstruction where that has been achieved.
a) This headline forgets W losing Afghanistan
b) Fuck Nixon, but Eisenhower deserves the blame for Vietnam (admittedly one of the reasons he did that was because he thought it would give him political cover to shut McCarthyism down, but still)
Nixon continuing horrible foreign policy doesn’t absolve him. Also he conspired with Hanoi to sabotage LBJ which is straight up treason and extended the war another five years
Also Trump losing Afghanistan
admittedly one of the reasons he did that was because he thought it would give him political cover to shut McCarthyism down
I want to learn more about that. Got a recommendation?
Has America actually ever won a war since Gulf War 1?
I would amend that to “since WWII”, and the answer would still be no.
The “global war on terror” ended with a rather dramatic raid that killed bin laden. And the war part of Gulf war 2 was an obvious victory.
But winning a peace is a fuckton harder. And we haven’t done that since Vietnam.
The “global war on terror” ended with a rather dramatic raid that killed bin laden.
No, they executed an accused without a trial or prosecution. In India, they had a multiyear fair trial before the terrorist was executed. Difference between democracy and not a democracy.
Like on their own? If so, then not even Gulf War 1 counts, b/c they were part of the UN coalition. I think maybe the invasion of Panama?
What else happened to Nixon?
He got to resign with a presidential pension/benefits and enjoy a full pardon for all his crimes. Personally, I don’t think “retiring early and people generally don’t think highly of you” is an appropriate amount of justice to be served.
Wait. We pay pensions to presidents?
They’re all war criminals! How much do they continue to burden tax payers?!?
Does Iraq count as a W?
It certainly counts as a Dubbya. I wouldn’t call it a win.
