121–130 of 225 posts
What a failure of the US armed forces here. 20 damn years staying in the country with the only 2 goal - to help Afghans build an army and help defend themselves and to eradicate the Taliban. They failed miserably in both. Trillions spent and many lost lives. Why would we ever pour money into such a terrible, incompetent system? Of course, the cycle keeps repeating itself and we keep growing the military.
What a failure of the US armed forces here. 20 damn years staying in the country with the only 2 goal - to help Afghans build an army and help defend themselves and to eradicate the Taliban. They failed miserably in both. Trillions spent and many lost lives. Why would we ever pour money into such a terrible, incompetent system? Of course, the cycle keeps repeating itself and we keep growing the military.
In my view there's always arrogance in thinking that GIs can literally fall from the sky and "save" the locals...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US played a pivotal role in saving our asses over in Europe, and we are eternally grateful, but ever since, the US has been bad at war. It's not the firepower, it's not the soldiers, and it's not the organization. These are top notch. It's the **ing politicians dragging young men and women into wars not worth fighting.
This is a very ironic comment considering that the soviets, not the US liberated Europe from Germany. They fought the hardest battles, lost the most soldiers, fought for the longer time and were first in Berlin. The public just believes otherwise because of 70 years of US propaganda [1]. The only thing US soldiers left us europeans with are a massive influx of refugees of which we have to take care of and for which w…
Don't forget the military bases and the half-secret spy networks linked to terrorist attacks.
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> multi-decade delaying action to stymie Chinese expansion for as long as possible? That wasn't in the original brief, and I've never heard it before in the 20 years? Frankly if it's an expensive unpacifiable area, let China have it. They can sink effort into an unwinnable war instead. Also, having consulted a map, how do you expect China to physically get there?
China, at least, is not limited by public perception, and will have no qualms about doing war crimes, and they will call it conquering. On the other hand, it seems a lot of Afghan soldiers deserted to the other side. They see no upside to the new Afghan regime.
"China, at least, is not limited by public perception, and will have no qualms about doing war crimes, and they will call it conquering."
But, really, China is pretty peaceful compared to US thuggery. I prefer China. At least they are rational.
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It's almost as though the American leadership doesn't really understand Afghanistan.
Of course they do. But is a nice playing ground for the army and the military industrial complex makes good profits. The lifes of milions do not matter for them.
(I of course don't at all doubt that the big military contractors have been making a ton of money from the wars, but I'm specifically referring to their corporate influence being the primary/secondary/tertiary/etc. force behind why we were still in Afghanistan after two decades.)
My own uninformed Occam's razor assumption would've been that it's primarily a matter of tangled geopolitics rather than a military-industrial complex scheme from day one to today. That is, that the State Department and top-level strategists and policy advisors are mostly the people to blame.
Maybe it's all of the above or some complex mixture. But what I want to know is the actual individuals responsible, or at least where they're contained. Not just an opaque storm cloud labeled "the military-industrial complex" or "the Deep State". For example, it could potentially be the case that this narrative might actually unintentionally help to shield the people who are truly culpable.
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US forces abandoned the country 'overnight' - leaving behind all of the military equipment the Taliban would need for their reconquest: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210814-weapon-seizur... Why wasn't all this equipment repatriated or destroyed? Why were the bases just abandoned without proper transition to Afghan Control, so that in some cases they were even looted by civilians? Possible explanations: 1. E…
You are too hard on US. Afgan Army had 300 thousand soldiers trained and well equiped. If Afgans do not want to fight Taliban themselves what US can do?
> Q Mr. President, some Vietnamese veterans see echoes of their experience in this withdrawal in Afghanistan. Do you see any parallels between this withdrawal and what happened in Vietnam, with some people feeling —
> THE PRESIDENT: None whatsoever. Zero. What you had is — you had entire brigades breaking through the gates of our embassy — six, if I’m not mistaken.
> The Taliban is not the south — the North Vietnamese army. They’re not — they’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of a embassy in the — of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/20...
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Yes. Seriously yes. I would have liked to see a withdrawal that did not turn back the clock 20 years to where we were in August 2001, squandering all the blood and treasure that has been expended in 2 decades. "Explainers" are why this is happening - weak minded people who prefer marketing (appearance of performance) over results. Surprising to me considering the heated replies to the other thread on the front page a…
> […] squandering all the blood and treasure that has been expended in 2 decades. The Sunk Cost Fallacy. So much resources have already been spent, that stopping now means those would have been wasted. The problem is that no amount of extra resources will lead to a different outcome, and the resources are already lost, so stopping outright is the only sensible move. Current events (a somewhat peaceful transfer of pow…
> The Sunk Cost Fallacy. So much resources have already been spent, that stopping now means those would have been wasted.
The lifes of people have been wasted.
> The problem is that no amount of extra resources will lead to a different outcome, and the resources are already lost, so stopping outright is the only sensible move. Current events (a somewhat peaceful transfer of power seeming imminent rather than years of (more) war) support this.
Pouring money in wars means more wars.
> It would be different if some other outcome was possible; it doesn't look like anyone involved in the decision found this likely.
There is no other outcome. Wars are fought to loot and to kill people.
> (Note that this outcome sucks for many Afghans, it just sucks less than the alternatives.)
Are you sure ? It will suck for american collaborators just as it sucked for talliban collaborators. For the rest of people it will be the same. Americans and their NATO allies ( why is NATO involved in every american aggression war ? it:s suppose to be a defensive organization ) were not guardian angels. As the russian said in world war 2: they preffer the evil that speaks their language.
Afghanistan's tragic contemporary conflicts has many winners and losers that switch places every so often but there's been one constant loser: its civilians.
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You are too hard on US. Afgan Army had 300 thousand soldiers trained and well equiped. If Afgans do not want to fight Taliban themselves what US can do?
Biden would disagree: > Q Mr. President, some Vietnamese veterans see echoes of their experience in this withdrawal in Afghanistan. Do you see any parallels between this withdrawal and what happened in Vietnam, with some people feeling — > THE PRESIDENT: None whatsoever. Zero. What you had is — you had entire brigades breaking through the gates of our embassy — six, if I’m not mistaken. > The Taliban is not the south…
That did not age very well. https://www.npr.org/2021/08/15/1027806863/the-taliban-seize-...
What a failure of the US armed forces here. 20 damn years staying in the country with the only 2 goal - to help Afghans build an army and help defend themselves and to eradicate the Taliban. They failed miserably in both. Trillions spent and many lost lives. Why would we ever pour money into such a terrible, incompetent system? Of course, the cycle keeps repeating itself and we keep growing the military.
There's a sobering assessment of US performance in Afghanistan, What we got wrong in Afghanistan [1], in The Atlantic from a few days ago. It was written by a retired veteran: Mike Jason retired in 2019 as a U.S. Army colonel, after 24 years on active duty. He commanded combat units in Germany, Kosovo, Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan. It pulls no punches and, in my opinion, is worth reading. [1] https://www.theatlantic…
I read a book a while ago that was well researched and gave the impression that Afganistan would always belong to the Taliban. It was called "No Good Men Among the Living".
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17454723-no-good-men-amo...