It could be argued that the deregulation of financial institutions, including gray market, led to the collapse and crisis. Incentives were all on volume, not credit. Yes, the wars also contributed to the juicing of the economy (which the Admin wanted) as did Greenspan's perspective on risk in the economy, all tragically overdone. Much of what was done, from deregulation to community investment and home ownership boosting lending mandates may have had positive intentions, but as things heated up and up and up, as we now know, it became a house of cards.Farfromgeneva wrote: ↑Wed Sep 08, 2021 7:09 amWhat did Bush specifically do the wreck the economy? Wouldn’t be the wars. Is it leaving Greenspan in charge? Ethanol mandate? Or did you throw that in just cause? Tax code changes and profit repatriation (as well as ethanol mandate) required congressional approval and had fairly broad appeal (reducing cap gains was a huge mistake IMO but that’s not Bush that’s all of congress including Pelosi and Biden).DocBarrister wrote: ↑Tue Sep 07, 2021 11:33 pmThe “monumental failure” occurred back in 2003 when George W. Bush failed to finish the job in Afghanistan and diverted massive resources to Iraq.old salt wrote: ↑Tue Sep 07, 2021 10:21 pmA decision this significant had to go all the way to the President.cradleandshoot wrote: ↑Tue Sep 07, 2021 5:54 pmWhy did the US bugout of Bagram with no notice and who would have made such a stupid decision? This stinks to me like a decision made by someone very high up in DC. I'm also wondering where the leaks are in the Biden administration when we really need them?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-09/ ... /100277452
I remain mystified why we felt the need to get down to just 650 troops nearly 2 mos before we had to.
We demonstrated we have the ability to extract 6,000 troops in a few days, if we have to.
We obviously expected to be able to keep the Embassy & HKIA open after the troops were gone.
All the planning was based on the Ghani govt remaining in power & the ASF staying in the field & able to defend Kabul.
The plan provided no contingency to respond to the govt falling & the ASF collapsing.
Airlift was our only way out, so we needed to hold every air base as along as we could.
How would we get people to Bagram ? In those 7 Embassy Air helos we left for the Taliban & all the military helos we airlifted out last.
We could have airlifted directly out of other air bases or shuttled evacuees to Bagram via C-130's.
It violates all the precepts of an orderly retreat from a position of strength. It was a self-inflicted rout.
We'll get answers. Books will be written. This will be studied in War Colleges & Service Academies forever, ...as a monumental failure.
Bush left his successor with two major mismanaged wars (never mind the wrecked economy as frosting on his cake).
President Biden finally ended the nation-building folly that George W. initiated. You cannot deny that nation-building was a major rationale for Bush’s two wars.
Both W and Trump completely screwed up. President Obama should have take Biden’s advice and withdrawn from Afghanistan a decade ago.
Nothing the United States could have done short of a permanent substantial deployment would have “saved” the Afghan government. W’s failed experiment in nation building and Trump’s reckless agreement with the Taliban were both doomed to fail from their initiation.
And you blame Biden for the failure?
If so, you haven’t learned a thing in the past two decades.
DocBarrister
I'm not big on assessing 'blame' to a President when they're doing their honest best to muddle through hard choices, often without fully realizing the downsides, but there's no question that the crisis was built during the Bush years and Obama inherited its aftermath.
I'm more ok with 'blame' when those hard choices are being made solely for personal, political gain rather than because they were simply mistaken in their recognition of the problems.