[Hoot Gibson]

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/ser...00389.html

I served in Afghanistan as a US Marine, twice. Here’s the truth in two sentences.

One: For 20 years, politicians, elites and D.C. military leaders lied to us about Afghanistan.

Two: What happened last week was inevitable, and anyone saying differently is still lying to you.

led a team of Marines training Iraqi security forces to defend their country. When I arrived I received a “stoplight” chart on their supposed capabilities in dozens of missions and responsibilities. Green meant they were good. Yellow was needed improvement; red said they couldn’t do it at all.

I was delighted to see how far along they were on paper — until I actually began working with them. I attempted to adjust the charts to reflect reality and was quickly shut down. The ratings could not go down. That was the deal. It was the kind of lie that kept the war going.

So when people ask me if we made the right call getting out of Afghanistan in 2021, I answer truthfully: Absolutely not. The right call was getting out in 2002. 2003. Every year we didn’t get out was another year the Taliban used to refine their skills and tactics against us — the best fighting force in the world. After two decades, $2 trillion and nearly 2,500 American lives lost, 2021 was way too late to make the right call.

I agree with much of what you said above but the chaotic way in which we are exiting Afghanistan was not inevitable. We have extracted American civilians from war zones before and in modern American history, the extraction was never as poorly planned and executed as this one has been. That was entirely avoidable. Joe Biden has a long history of lying to make himself look good. When multiple members of his own cabinet and military contradict him in public, I tend to believe that Biden is lying again.

When have we exited successfully?   

Iraq was a mess, Vietnam was a mess...

Good Lord... a guy who believed Trump is calling somebody a liar. 

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Hooter, I've read several conservatives have their hair on fire now there is a threat of Afghan refugees being accepted here.  Where do you stand? 

I know where you stood? 

Are you with Ducey, Hutchinson, Hogan, McMaster, Cox, Reynolds, Stitt, Scott, or are you with the right-wing pundits who whining about refugees?

You are dead wrong and you are lying again. Never have so many American civilians been in as much peril when we exited a war as there are now in Afghanistan. The exit from Saigon was anything but smooth but the people on rooftops trying to grasp helicopters were South Vietnamese citizens who had worked with our military, not Americans. We owe those who worked to support our military a rescue too, but American civilians should always be the priority for the American government.

That being said, Afghanis should be thoroughly vetted already before being granted access to this country and that goes for any refugees moving to the U.S. Otherwise, we risk granting refuge to al Qaeda operatives, who are already free to cross our southern border thanks to Joe Biden.

Do you know what the meaning of lying is?  You seem to throw that in there is if  you have bizarre case of typing tourettes. 

so you agree every time we leave an extended military/nation-building engagement we have a mess on our hands.

Calling the current situation a mess is an insult to messes. The current situation is unprecedented. Never has extraction of American citizens been botched as badly as Biden has botched this one. The Iran hostage incident was a mess and Carter undermined the Iranian government but the number of hostages was dwarfed by the Americans who currently have no safe path home in Afghanistan.

Arguing this point is one of the more idiotic things that you have done. Even the mainstream media and many Democrat politicians are heavily criticizing Biden's handling of the withdrawal. Yet you act as if the criticism is part of some right-wing conspiracy. The potential violence against unarmed American civilians in Afghanistan is unprecedented. Even if Biden manages to pull a rabbit out of his hat, there really is no denying that he has screwed up big time. But please, continue to make a fool of yourself. Maybe you will be Biden's last defender when his party tells him that it is time for one last trip to Delaware.