Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

In my day, never was longer.

Bark louder, little dog.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

You cannot shame the shameless.

All your base are belong to Tunch.

We still have time to mess this up!

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

The revolution will be supervised.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Consistently wrong since 2002

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread: Biden Live on Afghanistan

Reader Interactions

128Comments

  2. 2.

    Martin

    Fuck Guam. Bring them to CA. We’ve got a bunch of Afghan communities here. We’re talking what, 10,000 of them? Pff. We’ve added 10,000 people in a day before. Hell, we knock out 2,000 babies a day.

    Guam isn’t a bad option, and kudos to the governor there for the offer, but CA is a better one.

  4. 4.

    TaMara (HFG)

    @Martin: My understanding is, Homeland Security is gunking up the works. Even though those who worked with the US were vetted already, DHS is saying they have to jump through a bunch of hoops before they can come ashore.

  5. 5.

    geg6

    I haven’t had a chance to see what Biden is saying about this.  I’m sure he’s going to do the right thing about our Afghan allies though.

    I’m just glad this is not another comment thread like the morning one I just finished about two of the most disgusting things in the world, grits and diner food.  Blech.  I will never understand either.  Put me off my lunch, that thread did.

  6. 6.

    Mike in DC

    @Martin: Weirdly, Guam is also the US state or territory most likely to come under attack, in the event of, say, an American showdown with the PRC over Taiwan/SCS/et al.

  9. 9.

    Just Chuck

    Boy, nothing a refugee from a desert like Afghanistan is gonna love more than the climate in Guam.  I had a friend from Guam, he said the motto there was “In God We Trust, In Guam We Rust”

  11. 11.

    Martin

    @TaMara (HFG): Eh, they work for Biden. Look, we’ve got about 2.5 million undocumented in the state as it is – and almost none of them were hired by the DOD before arriving. Give them refugee status and let them hang out with everyone else here. It’s cool.

  13. 13.

    Feathers

    I remember the end of the Vietnam War. I lived in Northern Virginia. We had Vietnamese kids arriving in my school every week. Just about every church was sponsoring a family. I had friends who had a refugee Vietnamese widow and children living with them until they learned enough English to live on their own in an apartment. The house I grew up in had the garage turned into a bedroom and a bathroom with a shower in the basement because it was built to the specifications of a military family coming home. Turns out his interpreter had been killed. He hired the widow as a family nanny because it was easiest to bring a live-in servant back to America. Two kids lived in what became my mom’s home office. There was a boy who sat next to me in elementary school who I can now understand was suffering from severe trauma. He was just sort of stunned and never talked. I always just let him copy off my exams and notes, until we graduated high school. He just would sit next to me all those years. Apparently he now owns a restaurant.

    We did this before, we can do it again.

    This is also a sign of how deeply captured Homeland Security and other agencies are by the right wing. So much nonsense about Obama and deportations, all I could think was that Obama knew they were a lawless organization, but didn’t want to admit it.

    ETA: clarity and typos

  15. 15.

    TaMara (HFG)

    @Feathers: I love this story of you and your classmate.

    My dad tried, and failed, to bring home a young orphan from Vietnam, during his service there. There is still a photo of him in my dad’s “dresser box” (where he keeps his watch, rings, etc, at night).

  18. 18.

    WhatsMyNym

    When I became a US citizen, most of the employees at the local Immigration office were Vietnamese. I had lived here longer than they had.

    @NotMax:  I’ll pass.

  19. 19.

    Steve in the ATL

    @geg6: 
    1. Real grits, not instant
    2. Cook with half and half or heavy cream, not water and milk
    3. Season with salt, pepper, and butter, not syrup
    4. Add cheese if you swing that way
    5. Better yet, add red and green peppers and shrimp

    All that said, grits remain the least nutritious part of corn, which is why they are so popular down here

  20. 20.

    geg6

    @raven: ​
     
    Not my favorite, but polenta is NOT the same as grits. First, it’s got flavor, usually from Parmagiana Reggiano. And second, it’s served with delicious Italian foods. Grits are tasteless and usually served with disgusting things like red-eye gravy (vomit) or sausage gravy (vomit again) or shrimp that have been ruined by being associated with it. ;-) I am not a fan of the South (as we all know) and Southern cooking is one style of food I avoid most of the time. Too much fried or cooked within an inch of its life food. I like barbecue, but I can make that myself or get it at one of the approximately ten thousand barbecue places around here and never cross the Mason-Dixon.

  21. 21.

    CaseyL

    I do like how neither the President nor his Press Secretary gave the gotcha questions any legitimacy.  It won’t stop the Usual Suspects from making the gotcha questions the centerpiece of their commentary, but refusing to concede their premise was nicely done.

  23. 23.

    Martin

    @geg6: And barbecue is from all over. CA has its own barbecue styles independent of the ones that developed in the south. You can come sit by us.

  25. 25.

    WhatsMyNym

    @Steve in the ATL:

    grits remain the least nutritious part of corn

    Are you referring to “quick” grits, which have the germ and hull removed?  Otherwise is just cornmeal.

  29. 29.

    James E Powell

    @TaMara (HFG):

    Even though those who worked with the US were vetted already, DHS is saying they have to jump through a bunch of hoops before they can come ashore.

    Consider that if one of them gets into a car accident, FOX will explode.

  30. 30.

    Betty Cracker

    I’m sad for the Afghan people who will suffer under Taliban rule (pretty much everyone but the fanatics and/or warlords, I guess), but Biden is doing the right thing.

  31. 31.

    Cameron

    @James E Powell: That’s one of the things that’s so exhausting about wingnut media.  Everyday occurrences, for good or ill, get magnified (MAGAfied?) into existential crises and dumped on the public 24/7 for a few weeks until the next OUTRAGE comes along.

  33. 33.

    Old School

    @WaterGirl: That’s correct.  The Final will be played on Sunday

    Edit: Brazil vs. Argentina will be Saturday, but there haven’t been threads for Copa America.

  34. 34.

    germy

    BIDEN: "When I announced our drawdown in April, I said we would be out by September, and we are on track to meet that target. Our military mission in Afghanistan will conclude on August 31."

    — Ryan Struyk (@ryanstruyk) July 8, 2021

    CBS and NBC reporters are filing endless stories about Afghanistan falling apart once we exit. It’s almost like they’ll miss the excitement of reporting from a war zone.

  36. 36.

    schrodingers_cat

    Tangentially related to Afghanistan.

    I am still mourning Dilip Kumar born Yusuf Khan whose family was originally from Peshawar. He who ruled the silver screen since my parents were children in the 1960.

    Madhuban me Radhika nache re (Radhika dances in the honey garden..  is a tour-de-force from Kohinoor, I have not seen the movie but heard this song innumerable times. Almost every performer here on and off the camera is a Muslim and they are celebrating Radha and Krishna.

    Film : Kohinoor (1960) Music : Naushad Ali Vocals : Mohammed Rafi and Niyaz Ahmed Khan Lyrics : Shakeel Badayuni Sitar : Ustad Abdul Halim Jaffer Khan Perfomers : Dilip Kumar, Kumkum and Mukri Cinematography : Faredoon A. Iran

    From this morning’s thread.

    Dilip Kumar’s passing has hit me hard. He belonged to an era, when your identity as an Indian was not solely defined by your religion. When one didn’t obsess about the religious identities of leading men on screen. Rest well, uncrowned king of Hindi cinema.

  37. 37.

    MattF

    OT. Toyota backs down. I’m not a huge fan of the Lincoln Project, but getting a big carmaker to see the light is an accomplishment.

  38. 38.

    germy

    Imagine if we had spent the last 20 years fighting global warming instead of in Afghanistan.

    — NoelCaslerComedy (@CaslerNoel) July 8, 2021

  40. 40.

    germy

    “The mission was accomplished in that we got Osama bin Laden and terrorism is not emanating from that area of the world.” — Biden just now, on Afghanistan

    — Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) July 8, 2021

  44. 44.

    Amir Khalid

    @WaterGirl:

    Colombia and Peru play for third place in the Copa America on Friday. That’s the only football match before the Euros and Copa America finals, which are both on Sunday.

  45. 45.

    Immanentize

    @WhatsMyNym: Just to make you jealous, I made buttermilk biscuits and sausage gravy Monday and had a nice plate of it with a scrambled egg on the side this morning.  Mmmmm heaven.

  46. 46.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @Feathers: I read a book a few years ago – Stealing Buddha’s Dinner – written by a Vietnamese woman who was brought to the US in 1975 as an 8 month old. They settled in my home town of Grand Rapids, MI. It was an eye opening first person account of what it was like to be an ethnic outsider in my home town.

  48. 48.

    mrmoshpotato

    @MattF:

    That “at this time” is one weasely, weasely motherfucker.

    Also (via Soledad O’Brien)

    Last week @Toyota tweeted about a sale, hoping people had forgotten about their donations to 38 insurrectionist members of Congress. People hadn’t. They deleted that tweet–then tweeted about the sale again yesterday.They’re REALLY hoping this will blow over. Don’t let it.— Citizens for Ethics (@CREWcrew) July 6, 2021

    And I’m still waiting for Steve, Rick, etal to go after the people who made careers out of smear campaigns. Oh haha! I’m talking about Steve, Rick, etal themselves!

  50. 50.

    Just One More Canuck

    @WaterGirl: The Copa America final between Messi and Neymar (Argentina and Brazil) is Saturday (8pm eastern) – far more interesting than Italy and England, at least in this house

  51. 51.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @Martin: Not to mention Hawaii has been doing a form of barbecue since forever too.

  52. 52.

    trollhattan

    @MattF:

    Good. They have plants strewn across the Confederacy, as well as in Confederate-curious states, and were trying to have things both ways, supporting those traitors while saying the right things. Corporations seem to become dumber the larger they get.

  53. 53.

    Frank Wilhoit

    @MattF: This is not an excuse, but Toyota had no idea which landmine they had stepped on.  They had only one concern: union busting; and no awareness of any other factors or nuances.

  55. 55.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @surfk9: My last two vehicles have been Toyota. My next one probably would have been but now? It won’t be.

  56. 56.

    jonas

    @Betty Cracker: The fact that the Afghan military, whom we’ve spent 20 years and untold billions training and equipping, is folding like Superman on laundry day just confirms for me that we needed to leave. Like you, I feel sorry for the Afghan civilians who now have to face the Taliban on their own, but there was no fixing that place.

  57. 57.

    trollhattan

    Meanwhile

    The California state Capitol has reinstated its mask mandate for all legislators and staff regardless of vaccination status after an outbreak of nine new COVID-19 cases was reported among employees last week.

    Effective immediately, masks will have to be worn in the Capitol, Legislative Office Building and district offices, Secretary of the Senate Erika Contreras and Assembly Chief Administrative Officer Debra Gravert wrote in Tuesday memos.

    Unvaccinated members and employees will also be required to get tested for the virus twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays, beginning July 8. The rapid antigen testing will be conducted in the Capitol from 7 to 9 a.m.

    Vaccinated members are also encouraged to get tested if they want. Four of the nine recent cases were among those who’ve been fully vaccinated.

    The Senate has a fully vaccinated rate of 85% among all its employees, according to Contreras. The Assembly has reported an 84% rate, Gravert said. Members and staff had previously been asked to submit their vaccination status to Capitol Health Services.

  59. 59.

    Martin

    @mrmoshpotato: Toyota made $55K * 38 = $2M in donations. You don’t need to lose that many car sales for this to wind up a losing effort. It’s not like the 38 are in any position to advance any Toyota preferred legislation.

  60. 60.

    Martin

    @trollhattan: Yep. I’m starting to question whether unis will reopen after all. Delta can spread even with a 70% vaccination rate and seems to be able to bypass natural covid immunity, so even those who recovered aren’t protected. Vaccines still protect but at a diminished rate (est around 65%).

  62. 62.

    Martin

    @germy: The Afghan govt wanted us to leave. There’s a basic lesson about consent here that still seems completely lost on most of the US.

  63. 63.

    Cameron

    @Martin: I got 2 Pfizers, but I’m going to continue to wear a mask on the bus and in stores for a while.  Maybe until the end of the year (flu season, 3rd-wave covid).

  65. 65.

    Soprano2

    @germy:CBS and NBC reporters are filing endless stories about Afghanistan falling apart once we exit. It’s almost like they’ll miss the excitement of reporting from a war zone.

    What’s sad is that they’re probably right, it will fall apart once we leave; perhaps a small place that’s more forward-looking will remain there. I mourn for what’s going to happen to the Afghan people, especially women and girls, because I don’t for a minute believe those Taliban fuckers have moderated themselves one bit. I think mostly they’ve been pretending to moderate their stances. They might let girls go to some kind of school, but it’ll be pro forma and mostly dedicated to religious education. I’d be happy to be wrong about that, but men with attitudes as backwards as theirs towards women don’t just change after a few years of occupation.

  67. 67.

    Mike in NC

    @germy: CBS and NBC reporters are filing endless stories about Afghanistan falling apart once we exit. It’s almost like they’ll miss the excitement of reporting from a war zone.

    Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bush brought us this fiasco but the media wants people to forget.

    There’s a chapter in “A Very Stable Genius” where the Orange Clown assembled senior military and civilian leaders at the Pentagon in order to give him a “win” in Afghanistan. Since Trump has shit for brains and the attention span of a gnat, he was unhappy that they couldn’t wrap up the war and give him a nice reelection present. That was the time he stormed out, calling them “dopes and babies”, and Rex Tillerson dismissed Trump as a “fucking moron”.

  69. 69.

    Old School

    @raven: I’ll be watching the NBA Finals, but I’m not sure there is a demand at B-J for its own thread.

  71. 71.

    germy

    @Martin:

    No severe illness & no deaths among the recent cases in Israel. Some of the cases were in vaccinated people, but the vaccines worked—they did NOT get sick. Vaccines reduce your risk of getting infected & if you do get infected, you’re unlikely to get sickhttps://t.co/kPH7XK7U85— Prof. Gavin Yamey MD MPH (@GYamey) July 3, 2021

  72. 72.

    WaterGirl

    @mrmoshpotato: Thank you!  I’m sure Anne Laurie will be on top of that one!  I have just been watching to make sure the scheduled ones post when they are supposed to, and I thought there would be one this afternoon.  I was, not for the first time, wrong.

  73. 73.

    Nelle

    @Feathers:

    • My parents sponsored two families, one Vietnamese and one Cambodian (sequentially, not simultaneously).  Each family lived with them in their small Kansas home until they got oriented enough to get their own home.  Lots of driving them for school (kids), language classes, medical appointments.  Dad distinctly remembered the Canadian families that took them in when they arrived in the 1920’s as refugees from Russia.  It is an obligation to pass it on.
  74. 74.

    germy

    The good news is that vaccines are holding strong against the Delta variant in strongly vaccinated UK & Israel. A lot of mild or asymptomatic cases (dead Delta virus in your nostrils!) with very little increase in hospitalization & death. Let's get those vax numbers up here! https://t.co/PmD4xHVw4i— Zack Stentz (@MuseZack) July 1, 2021

  75. 75.

    Booger

    @Mike in DC: Yeah, I don’t understand why we can’t up anchor there and move it somewhere else, before it tips over or whatever it was that congresscritter was so worried about.

  76. 76.

    raven

    @Old School: If you follow the games and read bj at the same time there are usually a few people talking about whatever is on. If you look at the soccer threads it’s generally just a few people talking about the game and MaryG stopping in to say hi.

  77. 77.

    germy

    Delta variant watch in the UK and Israel

    UK—99% Delta, significant spike in cases, relatively small increase in hospitalizations/deaths

    Israel—45% Delta, small spike in cases by absolute N,

    Today: no change (290), 0 deaths again; little rise in hospitalizations, none in deaths pic.twitter.com/ZxQajmX3HR

    — Eric Topol (@EricTopol) June 30, 2021

  79. 79.

    Lyrebird

    @Feathers: Wow, I bet your kindness made a big difference!

    I gotta believe the Guam stop would be temporary, to make for fewer obstacles to the GET THEM OUT OF THERE NOW plan.  I mean out of the war zone.

  80. 80.

    germy

    @MattF:

    I had a friend call me, nervous that she’d catch covid even though she’d had two moderna shots, because she’d read the “only 65% effective” news…

    The vaccines are powerfully effective.  I think people are worrying needlessly.

    The people who should be worrying are the ones who refuse to be vaccinated.  But they’re the ones inventing all sorts of reasons why they’re safe.

  83. 83.

    Matt McIrvin

    @germy: There seems to be a big difference between COVID in your nose and COVID deep in your respiratory system–that was noticed pretty early on.

    The vaccines aren’t great at keeping you from harboring detectable levels of variant Delta in your nose (and that could be important for transmissibility, so that’s worth watching). They seem to do really well at preventing those deep systemic infections.

  84. 84.

    Lyrebird

    @raven: I spent four hours sitting on the runway there on my way home while they sent a 141 to pick us up. Sucked

    Sounds like some long hours…

    Holding out hope that if they have to stop there, maybe the families can go to muggy NoVA or firey CA and say, hey, at least it’s drier than Guam!

    Or something.

  85. 85.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @germy: Yeah and those same people look at 65% effective and feel like it validates their decision not to get vaccinated because “you could still get it”. One can explain that yeah, but it’s 100% going to be a mild case if you’re vaccinated and you still have a 2 in 3 chance of not getting it vs. a 3 in 3 chance of getting it if you aren’t vaccinated and a non-trivial chance that it’ll turn severe.

    These are the same people that, despite being way down over the long run, are convinced that they come out ahead on the lottery because they hit on that scratch off that one time for a few hundred bucks.

  86. 86.

    NotMax

    @raven

    Dunno if it was your thing or not, but thought of you when I happened upon it while staggering about the web.

  88. 88.

    MisterForkbeard

    @germy: I would honestly feel a lot better about all this if I didn’t have young kids that CAN’T be vaccinated yet.

    Can’t wait until that authorization comes in. >_<

  90. 90.

    James E Powell

    @geg6:

    I’m just glad this is not another comment thread like the morning one I just finished about two of the most disgusting things in the world, grits and diner food.

    I love that stuff. My brother in law is a Georgia born & bred chef. I’ve had grits made more ways that I can recall.

    All taste is taste. We’ll get you a great sandwich.

  92. 92.

    James E Powell

    @CaseyL:

    I do like how neither the President nor his Press Secretary gave the gotcha questions any legitimacy.

    Some day, and I hope that day comes soon, everyone on our side is going to agree that we have the right people in the White House for this time.

  94. 94.

    James E Powell

    @Martin:

    And barbecue is from all over. CA has its own barbecue styles independent of the ones that developed in the south. You can come sit by us.

    I haven’t met anyone outside of CA who knows what tri-tip is, but in LA you can get it at carwashes.

  99. 99.

    Ruckus

    @germy:

    I’ve wondered if Covid actually cares about their reasons for not getting vaccinated or if the concept is even on Covid’s radar.

    BTW I don’t think Covid has radar or actual reasoning as part of it’s makeup. Really it’s all about do I care what their stupid reasons are, and the answer is no, I don’t care at all. Because if they are that stupid that they ignore all scientific evidence and think their politics protects them from getting Covid there isn’t any saving them.

  100. 100.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @James E Powell: I’m from Michigan/now Maryland. I’ve heard of tri-tip but have no idea what it is. We had BBQ joints in MI when I was growing – mostly in the black parts of town – but I only ever had ribs at the restaurants that did those. It has exploded since and now we have a bunch of places that do everything from chickens to pulled pork to brisket. I think the reason it’s somewhat less common north of the Mason Dixon line is that we could slow roast indoors for most of the year and the advantage was it helped heat your living space. Down south slow roasting indoors would be super uncomfortable most of the year because the problem was not too cold, but too hot. So they did it outdoors and hence didn’t have to worry so much about smoking up the place.

    In the Baltimore area they have something called Pit Beef that I’m going to try now that the pandemic is winding down. It’s not true low and slow BBQ but is BBQ adjacent – at least that’s how it has been described in what I’ve read about it. To me it sounds like maybe an open-flame-cooked version of the Chicago Italian beef.

  101. 101.

    James E Powell

    @Geminid:

    Did the Afghan government want us to leave? It did not seem that way to me.

    I don’t think the opinion of whoever currently claims to be the Afghan government is that important. The only question is whether it is a good idea for US forces to say.

    And as long as US forces are the only reason the Afghan government stays afloat, that governing group will have no legitimacy.

    No one objecting to the withdrawal has a definition of “success” let alone a plan for achieving it sometime in the next 10 years.

  103. 103.

    pat

    I wish we had stayed longer and really tried to get all the translators out.  It seems this rushed process is not going to help.  And DHS, WTF?

  104. 104.

    raven

    @NotMax: Really great! Tank antenna’s looked awesome. A friend knows the owner of the Orvis store in Beaufort, SC and I stopped in last month. He has fly rods and reel that go for $1500 and up. I’ve got to lighter tackle with braid line and it can make catching reds in the surf a real challenge.

  107. 107.

    JoyceH

    @jonas: ​
     

    The fact that the Afghan military, whom we’ve spent 20 years and untold billions training and equipping, is folding like Superman on laundry day just confirms for me that we needed to leave. Like you, I feel sorry for the Afghan civilians who now have to face the Taliban on their own, but there was no fixing that place.

    It always seems to go that way. We train and train and train the host military, leave them all the best equipment, and once we leave, they fold like a defective lawn chair.

    I wish someone would listen to me, and invest some of our defense funds in the people who would lose the most in a Taliban takeover. I wish we’d just – Arm The Women.

    Gather a bunch of volunteers in their 30s, women who remember what Afghanistan was like under Taliban rule, give them some weapons and training, and I think you’d find the most committed little warriors you’ve ever seen.

    Oh, I know it will never happen, because, y’know – women, right? But dang, don’t you wish when a paramilitary comes roaring in to shoot up a girls’ school, just ONCE wouldn’t you like to see the girls shoot back?

  109. 109.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @pat: How much longer?  Leaving Afghanistan was going to create at a shit show of some proportion since at least early 2003.  Once the Bush admin diverted major efforts to their glorious Iraq project, any chance for Afghanistan to end well and truly fucked.  It is well past time to leave.

  110. 110.

    Dan B

    @Just Chuck: An acquaintance got three offers when he graduated with a degree in accounting.  His personality was immediately off putting so: Dutch Harbor, Alaska.  Guam. Fayetteville, Arkansas.  I strongly recommended Fayettevillle.  He decided on beautiful sandy beaches on a tropical island paradise.

     

    He audited a Korean construction firm whose managers ate Kim Chee across the table and belched with great enthusiasm.  After the typhoon – where everyone hid in the caves – the solidly constructed houses (insert sarcastic voice) there was nothing to audit.

     

    He didn’t like the thorny scrub or the coral rock “beaches”.

  112. 112.

    pat

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I could be wrong, but it seems bringing out the translators is kind of an afterthought.  Seems it could have been better planned.. They are just now talking about Guam?

  114. 114.

    pat

    @raven:

    So there is likely a plan to rescue several thousand translators and their families and so far they are keeping it a deep dark secret.

    OK, i certainly hope that is the case.

  116. 116.

    Betty

    @TaMara (HFG): That breaks my heart. I had a cousin who tried to get permission to marry his Vietnamese girlfriend with no luck. Difficult times for many folks with personal attachments to Vietnamese.

  117. 117.

    WaterGirl

    @pat: I have been hearing about Guam (without a lot of details) for weeks.  So they didn’t just come up with Guam yesterday, if that’s is what you are concerned about.

    I imagine they did not expect slow-walking or stonewalling from DHS.  I wonder if it’s filled with Trump trash.

  118. 118.

    CaseyL

    @pat:

    I don’t want to say anything is a sure thing, and certainly nothing connected with the forever damned Excellent Mid-East Adventure (in all of its permutations), but we have competent, honest, dedicated people in charge now.

    Also, Psaki made a point at a recent presser that the Administration isn’t releasing specific details about getting the translators, etc., out before the last US troops leave is *exactly* for security reasons.

  120. 120.

    Bob7094

    @Dan B:

    I was on Guam three times in the 1980s, for  two or three weeks each time.  There are nice beaches  at Tumon Bay, where most of the nice hotels were then, and elsewhere.  The Hilton was nice, and even nicer after it was rebuilt after the Typhoon.

    The only time I found the heat oppressive was when a coworker and I went for a hike and foolishly didn’t carry water.

  121. 121.

    Geminid

    @James E Powell: I am not objecting to our withdrawal. But I thought the assertion that there was a question of consent, that the current government had asked us to leave, was inaccurate.

    As to “claiming” to represent the Afghan people, the current government came to power through an election. It may have been a badly flawed election, but a lot of Afghans still came out and voted.That will be the last chance they get if and when the Taliban take over.

  122. 122.

    Gvg

    @pat: Biden was inaugurated in February. It was already determined that we were withdrawing but Trump had incompetent people in charge who didn’t want any immigration. Had he won again, all those translators would be dead soon. The military was probably trying to plan this right since last year, but immigration was always something they couldn’t control.Anyway I don’t think there has been time to really do this right. Biden will probably manage to not have a total shit show, but even that low bar will be hard. There is just so much to do in something like this.

  124. 124.

    J R in WV

    @WaterGirl: 

    I imagine they did not expect slow-walking or stonewalling from DHS. I wonder if it’s filled with Trump trash.

    I think “Homeland Security” has been a nest of right-wing fascists since the days after the Twin Towers fiasco, and may have gotten worse over the last 4 years.

    So, yes, Trump Trash on top of plain old RWNJ fascists from the days of Bush Shrub.

  125. 125.

    Kathleen

    @CaseyL: Rachel Maddow concerned that we hadn’t heard details about plans to rescue American allies. Since she used her “urgent” voice I heard subtext that Biden didn’t have a plan and he didn’t have much time left to devise one. She didn’t use “those words” but I sensed she was trying to create drama.

  126. 126.

    Geminid

    @Gvg: I think trump and the Taliban agreed on a deadline for U.S. withdrawal of May 1. The Taliban agreed to decrease their violence while they and the government reached a settlement. But theTaliban correctly judged that trump cared about nobody but himself, and they had no problem making an agreement they did not intend to keep.

    My view is that Joe Biden chose what he believes was the best of bad options, and I’m not going to second guess his decision. But I can’t help but sympathize with the Afghan people. They deserved better than they’ve gotten from this government, and better than they’ll get from the Taliban.

  127. 127.

    Geminid

    @Kathleen: People are rightfully concerned about bringing Afghan translators out of harm’s way. But I keep in mind that for every translator that we can bring out, there will still be a hundred Afgans at risk for retribution by the Taliban. That includes 4 million Shiite Hazaras, who have been a particular target of the Taliban’s animus and cruelty.

  128. 128.

    The Moar You Know

    Afghanistan is just a thing that needs to be contained. It can’t be fixed, whatever “fixed” means.

    The British Empire, possibly the most militarily powerful nation that ever existed, tried and got slaughtered. The Nation Formerly Known As The Soviet Union tried and got their asses handed to them so badly that it was one of the leading causes of the collapse of the nation. Now the United States, the wealthiest nation that has ever existed on the planet, has finally had to admit that with well over a trillion dollars thrown down the hole, we couldn’t get it done either. At least the number of our own dead was the lowest of the three superpowers that tried to remake the nation. Is that meaningful? I doubt it very much. I recommend you all read this:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Brydon

    We never had a chance. Nor did the Soviets or the Brits or anyone else who tried to intervene in that hellhole.

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