Majority of Democrats, Supermajority of Americans Say Afghanistan Withdrawal Handled 'Badly'
By: Isaac Schorr (MSN)
kINDA GOES WITHOUT SAYING DONTCHA THINK?
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Sixty-eight percent of Americans and 55 percent of Democrats believe that the Biden administration's evacuation of U.S. troops, civilians, and allies from Afghanistan has been handled "badly" according to a new YouGov poll.
© Leah Millis/Reuters President Joe Biden gives a statement about the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., August 24, 2021.
Seventy-five percent of veterans, 76 percent of independents, and 84 percent of Republicans concur with the majority of Democrats and supermajority of Americans who disapprove of way the U.S. has withdrawn after nearly 20 years of military involvement there. A mere 16 percent of Americans would go so far as to say that it has been executed "very or somewhat well."
Of those who disapprove, 69 percent of Americans and 76 percent of independents say President Joe Biden bears responsibility for the chaos in Afghanistan. Despite the president's efforts to pin blame for the confusion and escalating violence on the ground on the former Afghan government, only 37 percent of Americans have adopted this view.
The poll was conducted between August 21 and 24, prior to the attacks outside of Hamid Karzai International Airport on Thursday. Those bombings and the subsequent firefights claimed the lives of a number of Afghan civilians as well as at least four U.S. Marines — exact figures are still forthcoming — and reportedly have moved up the administration's timeline for leaving. Canada has already announced that it will end its evacuation operation in the wake of the attacks.
Americans are also increasingly concerned about the longer term implications of the withdrawal. Fifty-three percent of Americans believe it to be "somewhat or very likely" that a terrorist attack is committed on U.S. soil in the next twelve months. That's up from 49 percent the week prior.
White House chief of staff Ron Klain has compared the U.S. evacuation to the Berlin Airlift — which saw U.S. planes dropping supplies into the Soviet-controlled German capital — and Press Secretary Jen Psaki said she wouldn't call it "anything but a success."
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55% of Democrats? Well at least that many are honest.
Better than the last poll; but still far too many Democrats out there with blinders on. Corresponds directly to those with the most rampant TDS.
We could use some mean tweets, a President and Commander-in-Chief about now…
Donald Trump is a criminal, a maniac, and the most divisive public figure in American history.
You are trying to destroy America Vic, because it is changing in ways that dont suit you.
And yet a 4 year investigation to find something, ANYTHING failed to reap anything.
Opinion = assholes.
Who wanted Dystopia?
The resident hypocritical deniers are hanging tough.
Somebody thinks we did a good job???
… without acknowledging that there is no good way and never will be. Gee, how meaningful.
What they are missing, is comparing the way Democrats and Republicans handle mistakes.
Democrats acknowledge mistakes, which go towards that mistake not happening again because they have "learned" from it.
Republicans deny the mistake was made and put all their efforts into rewriting history to cover up their mistakes.
BANG!!! Got it in one.
Yeah like they did when pursuing impeaching a certain President when they knew there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell it would remove him from office.
Really, when did Biden acknowledge his mistakes regarding the withdrawal in Afghanistan? He said he would do it the same way again.
Deflection aside, that wasn't a mistake at all.
Democrats only acknowledge others' mistakes; never there own. Sans Biden blaming everyone but himself. He may have ended his speech with "The buck stops here"; but what he really said his whole speech was "Shit rolls down hill, and I am at the bottom of a very deep valley".
History strongly disagrees with you. Otherwise there wouldn't have been two impeachment attempts by the Democrats on Trump. Democrats would have learned from Harry Reid's mistake on changing Senate rules; by taking judicial nominees nuclear. Seems Democrats like pain; because they want to desperately do away with the filibuster. Midterms will remind them the folly of their ways; when they are again the minority party- and will need every Senate rule (including the filibuster) to try and stop Republicans. How many countries did Obama destabilize? Libya, Yemen, Ukraine, and Syria. Think would have learned after the first one that destabilizing a country is bad for their neighbors, and bad for world in general. I am sure Europe is looking forward to Biden's Afghan refugee surge; after forcing their neighbors to shut down their borders to stop Obama's middle east refugee surge.
Democrat revisionist history is already underway trying to cast the blame on Trump for Biden's Afghan fuck up on the withdrawal and evacuation. CRT ring any bells? Democrats never try to rewrite history to cover up their mistakes. /S
A deflection at this point is placing all of the blame on the last bull to leave the china shop and fantasizing that the previous bull would have left the shop unscathed ... a preposterous supposition born from a seemingly rabid partisanship.
Benghazi? Bergdahl/Taliban 5 swap? Russia, Russia, Russia "collusion"? Pee tapes? Covington? Justice Kavanaugh? Good thing nobody has been holding their breath waiting and hoping for Democrats to acknowledge those mistakes!
Sorry that dog won't hunt. From your article.
Fail number 1
The only architecture was the agreement with the Taliban. Biden and his administration's method, timeline, and planned steps were NOT of Trump's doing and totally backward in intelligent execution. Period
Fail number 2
And number three isn't going to be pretty.
A lot of things are not pretty Jim and one of them is what is called transference be it partisan or psychological... it's a self-set partisan trap that in the end will trap the trapper. Just as 2001-2008 and 2009-2015 were not Black Holes, neither were 2016-2020 and nor will be 2021-202(whatever).
You're being very kind. Biden has shown a train of thought that is very often incoherent and ignorant. He again proved it yesterday, by getting Old Testament "religious" and erroneously comparing Isaiah 6 to our military. His handlers should have known better and done some research. They made him look even more foolish and ignorant with that blunder.
I don't view that as a good place to be, it generally means something has calcified into a Damoclean 'truism'.
Cuomo and Cosby walk into a bar…
Democrats have blamed everyone back to Jesus accept Biden and Obama for the clusterfuck and deadly evacuation in Afghanistan. All Presidents inherit what would be considered messes and any decisions made by prior Presidents. How Presidents chooses to move forward is what he can fairly be judged on. Blaming others, Trump, American citizens, Afghan soldiers, etc reflects the lack of character to take responsibility for decisions made. Using escape goats to cover your own ass are not admirable qualities of a President.
Biden is the commander now. He is responsible for the outcome of the decisions made by him. What he has shown us is that he is not capable of handling the pressures and demands of the Presidential Office. What I see is a tired and defeated man only 7 months into his Presidency.
You seem confused on how the American government works. The House doesn't remove a President, the Senate does. The House's job is the impeachment.
Your statement is equivalent to asking why detectives investigate when there is such a small chance of finding the suspect.
The answer, is, BECAUSE THAT IS THEIR JOB.
Just because Trump was too cowardly to withdraw from Afghanistan because of the mess it would make, doesn't mean Biden was wrong because of that same mess.
Attempts? You just proved my point of republicans rewriting history. They were not "attempts", they were full on successful impeachments.
I don't they think they understand the impeachment process
He was not fully impeached; only in the House. The same way Clinton was.
Democrats screwed the pooch on both of them. They conducted an investigation looking for a crime. First one they forgot that Trump can remove any ambassador, for any reason, at any time during his presidency. Especially one that was critical of Trump in front of the of the Ukraine politicians. The second impeachment the FBI investigation proved wrong. There was no advanced planning between Trump, or his allies, and the rioters. In fact, outside of a few alt right groups there was no organizing at all. It was a riot; one that the Democrats are desperately trying to rewrite history to make into a coup attempt.
You have created a fantasy land in your head in order to justify Donald Trump. There was more than enough evidence in both impeachments to force Trump out. He was saved by boot licking Republicans in the Senate.
Whatever that means to you, it was not the brunt of the case against him in Ukraine. He tried to bribe and or extort the president of Ukraine into announcing that they were going to conduct an investigation into Joe Biden. This was proven by the impeachment managers and has been all but confirmed and reinforced by John Bolton, the one who was "in the room".
The second impeachment was proved by Trump's own words while he conducted his insane "stop the steal" campaign. He incited his cult followers to come to Washington and disrupt the national legislature in order to "stop the steal".
Even Mitch McConnell said that Trump was personally responsible for the Jan 6th riot, and the only thing that should save Trump was the fact that he was already out of office.
[Deleted] But you are going to lose because you are on the wrong side of history. Its just a question of when.
[Deleted]
Trump praised Lindell like this AFTER Lindell's symposium where he was supposed to produce proof of election theft blew up in his face and was completely ridiculed even by Lindell's own supporters.
And you think Trump should be president. [Deleted]
He tried to bribe and or extort the president of Ukraine
Oh, you mean when Joe told him that he would make sure Ukraine would not get the $1B unless they fired the prosecutor?? That bribe???
I am quite sure you know next to nothing about the facts of that incident.
Try one of the fact checker sources.
Two years after leaving office, Joe Biden couldn’t resist the temptation last year to brag to an audience of foreign policy specialists about the time as vice president that he strong-armed Ukraine into firing its top prosecutor.
In his own words, with video cameras rolling, Biden described how he threatened Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in March 2016 that the Obama administration would pull $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees, sending the former Soviet republic toward insolvency, if it didn’t immediately fire Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.
“I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion.’ I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,’” Biden recalled telling Poroshenko.
“Well, son of a bitch, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time,” Biden told the Council on Foreign Relations event, insisting that President Obama was in on the threat.
I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. (Laughter.) He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.
Well, there’s still—so they made some genuine substantial changes institutionally and with people. But one of the three institutions, there’s now some backsliding.
This is from your own fricking link.
Fact check: Joe Biden leveraged Ukraine aid to oust corrupt prosecutor (usatoday.com)
----------------------------------------------
Are you ok today?
Are you saying that Mr. Biden lied when he told that story to make himself look like a tough guy? What was the purposed of the story I wonder?
Do you really?
That's what the House does, impeachment. Any other opinion just reflects a lack of knowledge on American government.
Yes. Wonder why he told the story if he was lying as the fact check indicates it never happened
They are now going out of their way to try and change the subject over to Biden....
So yes, you believe things from right wing media...
There IS video of him telling it. Start at 1:10
So what?
You are another one who does not know the facts. ("They're everywhere")
That is all you have? Weak...
So you are saying that conservative media is mainstream?
His own words are weak?????
What do you think his words say?
Since Biden is the subject of the seeded article, it's a pretty good idea!
My comment has nothing to do with Hunter - so, the comment you just posted is correct.
HOWEVER, Biden told Ukraine he was going to withhold $1B UNLESS the prosecutor was fired. That is a bribe/threat coming from the VP of the U.S regardless of the reason.
Believe it or not, the prosecutor was actually going to try to expose Hunter - as a side note. But, he got fired, through bribery, before he could get to that task.
Yeah - doing OK. Just getting frustrated with all the COVID variants playing hell with our normal, everyday lives.
How're you doing?
Hard to believe that some still deny Biden's quid pro quo admission on live TV.
unfortunately 1st, you dont know what you are talking about. Your beliefs about this have been completely debunked, years ago.
[deleted]
Only by the radical/leftist Dems/Libs.
You can only see if your eyes are open - as with your ears.
Unfortunately you dont pay as much attention to facts as you should. You repeat conspiracy theories.
monday morning or arm chair quarterbacking will ALWAYS find a way to better do things .
What do i think would have been a better way with how things shaped ?
the cue would have taken place in april with the stated date of departure . from that time on , us citizens and allies such as those that worked for the military would have been encouraged to get out of dodge asap and not wait to the last min .
the use of all available resourses still on the ground to expidite the removal of people should have been prioritized , as the military presence in outlaying areas closed , the people should have been right in front of them for evac .
the closing of bagram before an evac of civilians and allies i feel was a mistake of monumental proportions since it was the best avenue to base evacuations or rescues from that were truely secure. that does not preclude it wouldnt come under attack or that actions would not be opposed .
I am also keeping in mind even under the best of conditions an evac such as this and what we are now seeing , is at best a SNAFU, what we actually have is a SNAFU that has turned into a major clusterfuck that is and has turned into a monumental international embarrasment .
just a 2 cent opinion.....and they all vary.
I'll give you a dollar for your opinion...it's that good
thanx , that would get me a cup of coffee and and leave a tip.
most opinions are a dime a dozen .
They were warned every 3 weeks since March. No one was listening.
Ross Wilson says Taliban will allow Americans to leave after military withdrawal
Because of outsourcing, Bagram had about 1,500 combat troops and 10,000 contractors all of whom were extracted in July.
It just takes too many people to keep open.
There just isn't a perfect scenario.
Just my 2 cents
I hope he is right but I'm not sure we can really trust them. After the military is gone? I guess it's a wait and see thing then.
The Taliban want what Vietnam has.
A good trading partner ship with the USA.
War makes for strange bedfellows. Just ask the Germans and Japanese.
What are they going to trade? Rocks and poppies?
Indirectly already doing the poppies LOL
Rare earth minerals, coal, copper and oil that the Chinese haven't bought yet.
The poppies will probably remain a problem until the country becomes modern or profitable.
Anyone dumb enough to trust the Taliban deserves what they get. The Taliban do not control all of Afghanistan. They will go back to their forever civil war. Al Qaeda, ISIS/ISIL, and ISIS-K (I am sure more factions will spring up) are all in Afghanistan again. I am sure they will be willing to conduct terror attacks; and grab hostages of whatever country or corporation is stupid enough to try and set up shop in Afghanistan.
President Joe Biden, speaking with reporters outside the White House on June 24. “Those who helped us are not going to be left behind.”
Whoops
Of course, if Joe Biden hadn't forced a premature evacuation of Bagram Air force base because of his decision to implement an arbitrary cap on troops, this might have been possible.
I cant help feeling that at some place and time , someone said oh we havea contingency plan for that , but the problem was once it was needed ,the plan folder was pulled out and the dust blown off of it because no one thought to look at and update it for 20 years .
best laid plans of mice and men....
thats why a woman should run it and men should not be allowed to even look , just by looking they can FUBAR the whole thing up......
Sonny, you need to get informed. Except at the height of the surge, troop level limits cause an increase in reliance on
contractors which in my opinion are the scourge of the current armed forces.
Prior to withdrawing from Bagram, by January the Trump Administration had 2,500 combat troops,
1,500 authorized security forces (armed contractors) and 18,000 other contractors (unarmed).
Troop levels are down, but US says over 18,000 contractors remain in Afghanistan | Stars and Stripes
BY June any airframe of value had left the country.
Defending a base the size of Bagram required 3 shifts of 7,000 and was routinely under rocket attack.
Remaining was untenable after Trump & Pompeo unofficially recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government.
btw there is no arbitrary cap on troop levels, it was promised to the Taliban by Trump and Pompeo
note the date of the article
US troop numbers in Afghanistan drop to lowest level since 2001 | Stars and Stripes
Biden has ended all but one of Trump's EO's/EA's. Why did he leave this one in place?
If Biden didn't like what Trump negotiated he could have renegotiated with the Taliban. He didn't.
He could have decided to listened to our NATO allies and remain in Afghanistan. He didn't.
He could have developed a withdrawal and evacuation plan. He obviously didn't because just 6 short weeks ago he was still talking about how strong the Afghan military was; and that there was no guarantee that the Afghan government would fall. He didn't change his tune until Kabul fell; and acted shocked at the outcome. Unfortunately many listened to him and stayed put; they won't make the same mistake of trusting Biden again.
Biden did unilaterally extend the withdrawal deadline to 8/31; but pulled out US forces early. That is all on Biden no amount of "But Trruuummmmppppp!!!!!" will ever change that.
He could have retaken Kabul. Instead he chose to trust the Taliban for security for the US forces; and trusted them to allow US citizens and those that aided us through their checkpoints and to reach the airport. We all know how well that worked out.
He could have sent US troops beyond the parameter to get out US civilians and those that aided us like our NATO allies did. He didn't.
He could have extended the deadline until every last US citizen was out. Instead he has the US military turning tail and fleeing against a much weaker opponent; abandoning thousands of US citizens and those that aided us.
It isn't Trump our NATO allies our censoring in their chambers of Parliament; it is Biden. Even they realize who is to blame for this debacle. They won't make the same mistake twice either.
Bottom line is Biden royally fucked up the withdrawal and evacuation, and not all of the TDS driven "But Trruuummmmppppp!!!!!!"s in the world are going to change it.
You'd think that would stop the "Biden had no choice" whining, but it won't.
It's this bizarre alternate reality where Biden deserves all the credit for brining the troops home, but can't be criticized because Trump forced him to bring the troops home.
Like Trump cancelling the Paris Agreement, the Iran deal and the landmark Intermediate-Range nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia?
America's reputation isn't built layer by layer, decade after decade
by new POTUSs coming in and tearing down everything done before them.
Neither the Congress or the office of the POTUS should be run that way.
Our allies should be able to depend on us keeping our word.
Trump shattered norms.
It's time to go back to honoring our commitments no matter how distasteful that is to one party.
We really need to get back to pre Newt Gingrich hatefulness and anything goes politics.