McConnell demands Biden commit to sending more troops back to Afghanistan

[left-of-center2012]

Source: The Hill

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is urging President Biden to commit to sending more troops back into Afghanistan past the Aug. 31 deadline the administration imposed on withdrawing troops.

McConnell called Biden’s Afghanistan policy “reckless” and said that if the administration does not move to send additional troops to back up Afghanistan forces, the U.S. embassy in Kabul could fall to insurgent groups.

“Here’s what should happen now. President Biden should immediately commit to providing more support to Afghan forces, starting with close air support beyond August 31st. Without it, al Qaeda and the Taliban may celebrate the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks by burning down our Embassy in Kabul,” McConnell said in a statement Thursday.

“Unless President Biden adjusts course quickly, the Taliban is on track to secure a significant military victory. The latest news of a further drawdown at our Embassy and a hasty deployment of military forces seem like preparations for the fall of Kabul. President Biden’s decisions have us hurtling toward an even worse sequel to the humiliating fall of Saigon in 1975,” McConnell said.



Read more: https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/567681-mcconnell-demands-biden-recommit-to-adding-more-troops-back-to

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President Biden is fulfilling the agreement negotiated by Trump for the withdrawal.
Apparently it was OK with McConnel when Trump was President.

[greenjar_01]

1. The war's over, Mitch

Pack up the band. Put up the plaques.

Play taps and go.

[zanana1]

22. Agreed.

We can't stay there forever. You can't "talk" people out of religious extremism.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

2. Sounds like a perfect opportunity to humiliate Turtle as a total hypocrite

Anyone believe Biden will take advantage of this moment?

[dalton99a]

3. .

[thesquanderer]

31. Biden should have said this...

He should have announced the withdrawal this way:

"As you know, the previous administration announced their intention to pull our troops out of Afghanistan. This is a difficult situation, with no great solution. There being no option that is clearly better, despite my differences with the previous administration, I have decided to take a bipartisan approach, and will abide by their decision regarding Afghanistan and proceed accoringly."

We KNEW this was not going to be good, the question was only what degree of BAD there would be, we only had bad options to choose from. That being the case, considering this is what Trump wanted, we could have pre-emptively been sure to share the blame for the consequences, which were always going to be bad.

[Mr. Evil]

4. I hate republicans.

Fuck you, Mitch!

[elleng]

5. 'Demands?'

I don't want to hear a word about foreign policy from mcconnell.

and wasn't this 'exit' agreed to and 'planned' by trmp some time ago?

[area51]

11. +1 n/t

[Bengus81]

29. Yep...just like the Bush withdraw from Iraq that Obama finished

To the howls of Republicans THEN.

[underthematrix]

6. Uh huh

Link to tweet

[keithbvadu2]

7. Moscow Mitch, tell us your/Dotard's winning strategy.

Moscow Mitch, tell us your/Dotard's winning strategy.

[Warpy]

8. McConnell can go fuck himself

20 years there is 15 too many. What is happening there is inevitable, if we stayed for another 50 years, we'd just waste lives and money and the same thing would happen.

The Taliban are the only group with sufficient organization to unite the country, or most of it, in a period of de-westernization. This is what is always going to happen when an invading force finally pulls out. We could only delay it, we could never stop it. We can, however, make it worse, which is what the idiot Mitch is suggesting.

He cares so much about it, let him hop on a plane and try to talk them out of the inevitable.

I don't know if our embassy will remain open but I suspect not, not for some years.

(I hope the Taliban have moderated over the last 20 years. Interviews with Afghan women have shown there is a lot of fear that they have not, plus suggestions that Afghan women won't be nearly so submissive to their bullshit this time)

[Jon King]

9. Afghanistan has always been unwinnable.

Russia learned it, America learned it, thousands of years of history have proven it. Outsiders never can understand the dynamics of the different tribes and beliefs.

[atreides1]

23. Indeed

Alexander the Great and the British Empire, also learned that lesson!

[sarge43]

28. Don't forget the Soviet Union

Afghanistan, where armies and empires go to die.

[BlueIdaho]

37. That's why Afghanistan is called the graveyard of nations.

No one has ever been able to stabilize the warring factions that make up that country.

[TexasTowelie]

10. Hey Mitch,

There are consequences for your side losing the election and one of those consequences is that you don't get to make demands from President Biden.

[peppertree]

12. Then saddle up, Mitch

Why, they won't even ask you why you got kicked of the Army in '67.

Times, after all, have changed.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

20. He wasn't "kicked out." He received a medical discharge.

If only there some way we could look this up. Oh, wait:

Early life and education (1942–1967)

{snip}

In 1944, at the age of two, McConnell's upper left leg was paralyzed by a polio attack. He received treatment at the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation. The treatment potentially saved him from being disabled for the rest of his life. McConnell said his family "almost went broke" because of costs related to his illness.

{snip}

Early career (1967–1984)

In March 1967, shortly before the expiration of his educational draft deferment upon graduation from law school, McConnell enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve as a private at Louisville, Kentucky. This was a coveted position because the Reserve units were mostly kept out of combat during the Vietnam War. His first day of training at Fort Knox, Kentucky, was July 9, 1967, two days after taking the bar exam, and his last day was August 15, 1967. Shortly after his arrival, he was diagnosed with optic neuritis and was deemed medically unfit for military service. After five weeks at Fort Knox, he was honorably discharged. His brief time in service has repeatedly been put at issue by his political opponents during his electoral campaigns.

{snip}

[Historic NY]

13. Fuck Mitch, Biden is completing what the Trump

agreed to withdraw forces by May 2021. Trumpublican's screamed at Obama when he finished the agreement of the Bush, Iraq withdrawal deadline In 20yrs we have not accomplished much except fill hospital wards & cemeteries. The military should have been able to thin the heard, the hearts and minds bullshit got more killed and all the training of an army did nothing. The Afghan people wanted the US to fight their proxy war. The mission to get bin Laded went astray.

[Crowman2009]

14. Guess his defense contractor donors need more of our tax dollars.

[monkeyman1]

15. clean up after republican bull-shit !

McConnell had to beg a senator to get out the draft & avoid V.N. . Just like TFG got his daddy to pay off a doctor to get his lard ass out of the draft . In V.N. we called draft dodger's " yell'a streak coward's " . moscow mitch need's to let the grown up's take care of this mess & stfu .

[DenaliDemocrat]

17. Mitch is damaged from polio. How could he

Have been drafted?

[left-of-center2012]

18. Good point

[mahatmakanejeeves]

21. See post #20.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142784524#post20

[sarge43]

30. Depended upon how serious the damage was.

A lot of late Silent Generation and early Boomers who had polio but minor disabilities were drafted or signed up. I dated another airman who had polio and slight limp. This former Personnel puke in-processed a young man who had two fingers of his left hand partially missing. He was assigned as a clerk typist.

Nam Era: When it wasn't a tragedy or horror, it was a farce.

[Old Crank]

16. Round up all

the war mongering GOP leaders and ship them over there. They can show us how it is done....

[Sapient Donkey]

19. And if Biden didn't withdraw the troops they would be demanding he do so

They were doing that before it was official he would withdraw them

[Ford_Prefect]

24. Do not ask for whom the Chickenhawk squawks, It's his paycheck he's making noises about.

Attack Biden for less than patriotic fervor. It's a no-risk plan for McChicken and his Chinese backers.

[left-of-center2012]

25. Didn't Republicans call our withdrawal from Iraq ...

"Cut and run" ?

[paleotn]

26. Unless we're going to make it the 51st state.....

it's over. Over. We flushed TWO TRILLION DOLLARS down the drain and accomplished nothing. Absolutely nothing. Seems every American generation has to learn this same damn lesson.

And Mitch...forget it. That's a loser even among your knuckle dragging caucus.

[Bengus81]

27. Mitch was all for getting out before he was against it...........

[The Unmitigated Gall]

32. This is on YOU, turtle-boy.

[Bayard]

33. Best start evacuating the Embassy

Asking the Taliban to leave them alone is useless. That dog ain't gonna hunt.

[Devil Child]

34. Air drop Mitch behind Taliban lines, he can lead the charge of the turtle-brigade

[bucolic_frolic]

35. Let Turtle go float his belch in the Senate

so they can expose its partisan political intent

[praxEs]

36. McConnell is more than lying when...

he fails to remind us that it was a guy from his side who was in charge when the Vietnam evacuation occurred -- the guy who was widely believed at the time to have played football too long without a helmet, Gerald Ford.

[Carlitos Brigante]

38. I demand that McYurtle go eat a bag of assholes!! See? Anyone can play. nt

[monkeyman1]

39. Patriots my ass !

did they yell & scream when Russia put a fucking bounty on U.S. TROOP'S . media print's shit for ratings ! TFG said it was fake news . the fake here was a fake fucking president .

[MurrayDelph]

40. Republican playbook

Republican president negotiates timetable for leaving occupied country:
Republicans: Yay! Leadership!

Democratic president implements Republican-negotiated timetable for leaving occupied country:
Republicans: Boo! Cut and Run!

Democratic president eases on timetable due to Republican pressure:
Republicans: Boo! Flip-flopper!

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

41. The key words are "Senate MINORITY leader."

The Capitol custodian has more power than Mitch.

It must suck to have lost all your power. Now if we can do the same thing to TFG and get the MSM to stop covering his every vomit as if it were an edict from God.