Ending a war that by 2020 was incredibly unpopular and most Americans made that obvious doesn't somehow make Democrats "anti-war". By this logic because Trump wanted to end the war then republicans are anti-war which is nonsensical to think. I mean the democrats literally worked with republicans to put in place mechanisms to prevent Trump from ending the war, that's why it got delayed until Biden took over.

The facade that Democrats are anti-war was dropped with Syria and Libya.

Political opinion inevitably shapes what politicians do, so there's never going to be a world where the war is popular and a president ends it. The war was unpopular long before it was ended, and a Democrat ended it. That's an obvious bullet point in the "anti-war" column.

You can just look at Trump's history about what he said about the wars at what time. He, along with many, was more supportive when the American people were, and when they weren't, he was against. Trying to explain away the fact that a Democrat ended the war doesn't make a lot of sense. And it's also a separate question whether the Democrats are sufficiently anti-war.

It's not when literally the "anti-war" party put in place mechanisms to prevent an opposition president from ending a war. It's not when for damn near a decade of being in charge the anti-war party made no effort to end deeply unpopular wars instead Clinton destroyed Libya which to this day is a failed state with warring parties and completely destabilized the region.

If the democrats were truly anti-war they could of went along with Trump and literally ended Afghanistan occupation years before we actually pulled out. Instead they didn't want to give orange man any wins so literally worked with hawk republicans to strip him of the ability to end it. Crazy to see the mental gymnastics you're going through to somehow evade this truth and frame them as "anti-war" because they did it eventually when Trump wanted to do 2 years before.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Oct 14 2022 06:43pm

I'm not the one doing mental gymnastics. The power to control the armed forces is among the most concrete for a president, so if Trump wanted to end the war in his 4 year term, he could have. Democrats voted(in July of 2020, lol) to put strings on money related to a drawdown of troops, something that could easily be overcome, especially by a president who diverted DoD funds to build a fucking wall on the border, lol. You're tapdancing in an attempt to absolve Trump of any responsibility for not ending the war. Sure, Democrats doing this, in July of 2020, would be a bullet point in the "war" column. But we're still faced with a Democratic president in 2021 ending the longest war in American history. And that's a pretty large bullet point in the "anti-war" column, my brother.

>Trump runs on a platform of ending the war in Afghanistan
>Trump gets into office and tries to this, for years he's being stalled by hawks and the military for various 'security reasons'
>Towards the end of his term he basically says fuck it and tries to push it through
>Democrats and hawk republicans get together to literally legislatively tie his hands from doing this

I don't need to tap dance around anything, i can literally look at sources reporting on what happened. You can't end a war and bring troop homes if there's literally a bill that says you can't lower troop numbers.



Why did they do this? Read below:



https://theintercept.com/2020/07/02/house-democrats-working-with-liz-cheney-restrict-trumps-planned-withdrawal-of-troops-from-afghanistan-and-germany/

Yeah, you're just repeating something I've acknowledged, which is that Democrats and Republicans put strings on the money to reduce troop levels(in July of 2020, lol). And we can circle back to my reply.

This post was edited by IceMage on Oct 14 2022 07:20pm

We can also note how the "totally not pro-Trump" crowd(including void, Greenwald, maybe Tulsi?) looks at a legislative effort in July of 2020 by Democrats and Republicans, and concludes that Trump was totally powerless to end the war in 4 years, even though he has complete control over troop movements constitutionally.

I wonder if there's anyone who was anti-war in 2015 who still has credibility left.

This post was edited by IceMage on Oct 14 2022 07:24pm

The strings make the drawdown of troops impossible. There wasn't some magic carpet other way for Trump to bring down the troops. If you can't bring troops home you can't end the war can you? I keep repeating because you're dense enough to believe that somehow almighty Trump could have magically circumvented this while labeling the party that literally put in place these hurdles anti-war. Clown world take.

Okay, I'll repeat myself. Trump was president, he has authority over troop movements. He earlier in his administration diverted DoD funds to build a wall on the southern border. He had the power to bring the troops from Afghanistan home. If he didn't, why would he have tried to order the troops home after he lost the election, as the Jan. 6th committee showed recently?

You're out of arguments man.

It's like talking to a wall. I explained the sequence of what happened and why it happened the way it did. Early on Trump listened to the military who advised him not to pull out quickly and stalled him, towards the end he had enough and wanted to bring the troops home at which point the republican hawks+democrats stonewalled him through this bill. But my point is not about Trump it's that the Democratic party is no longer the anti-war party which is objectively true when looking at the not just one data point but a string spanning over a decade+. Biden bringing the troops home even though a republican 3 years before already negotiated and laid the ground work for a pullout doesn't somehow make the dem party anti-war.

There's 8 years of a democratic president not ending wars, there's Libya, there's Syria, there's Yemen, there's the stonewalling of Trump bringing troops home. That is the bigger and more accurate picture.