Ian Kenway @iankenway@social.cleverlibre.org

Pharmacist faces 120 years in prison for selling vaccination cards on eBay https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/pharmacist-faces-120-years-in-prison-for-selling-vaccination-cards-on-ebay/ #news #Security

@freemo @swiley Well it was his peace talks that set up the problem, right?

> Washington under then-president Donald Trump signed a deal with the Taliban in February 2020 that limited direct military action against the insurgents. That allowed the fighters to gather strength and move quickly to seize key areas when President Joe Biden announced his plans to withdraw all American forces by the end of this month.[[1]](https://cbc.ca/1.6141568)

> If the Taliban meet their commitments, all U.S. troops would leave in 14 months [from February 2020]. U.S. troops are to be withdrawn to 8,600 from about 13,000 in the weeks following Saturday's signing.[[2]](https://cbc.ca/1.5481070)

If the government agrees not to engage in direct action against you and to withdraw its military, you no longer need to take it on at all, with or without F-15s or nukes.

The Democrats criticised Trump for reneging on the nuclear deal with Iran that Obama entered into, so now that Biden was faced with a deal with the Taliban that Trump entered into, they had backed themselves into a corner politically. Had they not made such a big deal that Trump was setting a *bad* precedent, Biden could have followed the precedent without coming off as overtly hypocritical.

I think the broader point, that a force comprising solely small arms is almost certainly incapable of defeating the US military, still stands. If the Taliban had retaken the country while the US forces were still actively trying to hold it, you'd have a much better counterexample.

@swiley