No matter how many people you get out, there will always be other people you leave behind, and you will be criticized for leaving them behind when something happens to them. That’s ultimately the argument for not leaving at all.
Looks like some toplines on the senate gang deal for infrastructure.
RichVR
2983
Is it? I don’t think permanently occupying a foreign country is a solution.
Neither do I. I’m saying that, once one decides to leave, one will always be blamed for what happens afterward. That’s not a reason to stay; it’s an acknowledgment that it isn’t possible to take everyone with you. Some of those people on that famous picture from Saigon didn’t make it on to a helicopter, and many more people didn’t make it onto that ladder.
Not many details but apparently funded with fees. I thought Biden already rejected that approach.
Menzo
2990
The “Gang of 10” is a group of people with no power over either the Democratic or Republican caucuses. This deal will not advance.
I’m pretty confident that the 5 Republicans in the room wouldn’t vote for anything decided in the room.
the question is will the moderate and the loon dare torpedo the budget over the infrastructure stuff being added in via reconciliation- and all of it can be added that way, since it’s all expenditures.
Yeah. I’ve been kind of ignoring Sinema, figuring she’ll do whatever Manchin does but now I’m not so sure. Apologies in advance for the Politico link but here’s a profile they did on her form 2019. She voted to confirm Interior secretary Bernhardt and opposed attempts to roll back the Trump administration’s coal deregulation regime. (Calling her a loon isn’t far off the mark.)
As an aside, a little story from 2005.
(Longish but worth the read; here’s an unrolled version who’d rather read the sentences all together:
ShivaX
2996
Though unlike Vietnam, we have a lot more control over how we withdraw.
It’s not like Taliban tanks will be rolling into Kabul as we desperately try to save people.
On paper, we should be able to keep most of our allies safe without much issue. There will be incidents beyond our control given the scale of it, but it’s very doable logistically. The issue is a will to make it happen from the top brass or the White House. I’d like to think that will is there, but I’m also jaded as fuck.
Maybe, but there will always be people who thought we should have taken them with us — we won’t take everyone in the country! — and those people will suffer and someone will point to us as having abandoned them. If we take thousand people, it will happen. If we take a million people, it will happen.
The answer, I think, is don’t occupy other countries. And yes, I know that doesn’t really help those Afghanis now.
Or before we occupied Afghanistan either.
The sad thing is, we probably did make a difference. We probably did save a lot of lives, and helped a lot of people.
I guess, unlike Korea, Japan, Germany, The Netherlands, England, Italy, and Belgium, Afghanistan is…? I guess dangerous? I am at a loss.
“[Afghanis]… They are not the cowering wretches we were promised. They stand. They are unruly, and therefore cannot be ruled. To challenge them is to court death.”
That’s a strange list. We didn’t occupy the The Netherlands, Belgium or South Korea against their will. We never occupied England. Germany and Japan and Italy the allies largely destroyed, to the extent that we broke the will of the people to resist further before occupying. None of those examples seem to apply to Afghanistan (or Iraq).
