Afghanistan sucess or failure?

[daredo222]

Taliban enter Kabul, await '''peaceful transfer''' of power

 

[Trboatworks]

Failure

The US took it as their prerogative to make a change to the society which would render them less amenable to hosting non state actors in their prosecution of acts against our interests.

We are right where we started- what happens there is totally outside of our control.

 

[woodchuckNJ]

our original mission was to find osama bin laden and the al quacka group.

we did fail though. We then set about freeing them. The problem is the people themselves don't seem to want to fight for freedom. watching the army just lay down their weapons without a fight is staggering. they don't care. freedom has to be fought for. violent or not, it must be something you want.

edit: the biggest problem I have, is that they are riding around in humvees, have all our weapons... just like we gave them the weapons.. I feel bad for the translators. we did them wrong.

 

[Trboatworks]

President Ashraf Ghani has fled the country.
Taliban fighters are now in Kabul and our personal are still there.

 

[moonlight machine]

President Ashraf Ghani has fled the country.
Taliban fighters are now in Kabul and our personal are still there.

Vietnam all over again. Dems cut and run then and now. Everyone that believed in us and helped us is screwed. We never should have been there to start with and this damn sure is not the way to leave.

 

[daredo222]

For NATO, US, UK, et al, it's over, for women and girls in Afghanistan it's just starting.
Taliban marrying teenage girls forcibly to the militants of the group - Al Arabiya Post

 

[woodchuckNJ]

Vietnam all over again. Dems cut and run then and now. Everyone that believed in us and helped us is screwed. We never should have been there to start with and this damn sure is not the way to leave.

Dems?

Your head is in the sand again.
trump cut and ran. biden just continued the withdrawl that trump initiated.
So if we don't point fingers, can we say this was a joint withdrawl.

it appears that russia, and the USA failed. while our goal was never turn the country around, it was get osama bin laden, it turned into a lost cause early. we really had no stated goal. it was to support the big war machine companies. if we did have a goal, we would have done a Japan type re-investment... we didn't. we didn't see a goal.

I am not a war monger, but keeping the war over there kept them from bringing it back here. As long as we were in place, they had more problems mobilizing to bring their terrorists here.

As thought back in 2001, they will wait us out, we have short memories and no desire to be in a LONG war. this was our longest war, but lets not forget, that the middle east is known for generational wars.

 

[gustafson]

We then set about freeing them. The problem is the people themselves don't seem to want to fight for freedom.

I don't think it feels much like freedom to the Afghans, if a bunch of foreigners came into your country shooting everything up and bombing, would you feel 'free'?

The reason for being there ended 20 years ago when Osama fled to Pakistan.

Afghans at large never wanted us there, at all, no matter the reason.

Compare that to France, etc in WWII, we were ridding them of a menace, and while 'we' view the taliban as a menace, 'they' do not.

Russians are laughing today

This is not about trumpski, or Biden or anyone other than Bush Jr listening to his go go war hawks, shock and awe and getting us into something we could not win.

The leaving is not the failure, it was the going there in the first place.

 

[MichaelP]

Russians are laughing today

They will soon start crying.

 

[woodchuckNJ]

I don't think it feels much like freedom to the Afghans, if a bunch of foreigners came into your country shooting everything up and bombing, would you feel 'free'?

The reason for being there ended 20 years ago when Osama fled to Pakistan.

Afghans at large never wanted us there, at all, no matter the reason.

Compare that to France, etc in WWII, we were ridding them of a menace, and while 'we' view the taliban as a menace, 'they' do not.

Russians are laughing today

This is not about trumpski, or Biden or anyone other than Bush Jr listening to his go go war hawks, shock and awe and getting us into something we could not win.

The leaving is not the failure, it was the going there in the first place.

it was not going there that was a failure. That's where bin laden was supposedly. Going to Iraq was a failure.. there was no reason to go to IRAQ!!!

if you see interviews with people , especially with women in Kabul, they like the freedom that we brought. they like going to school. But that was not our goal..

true many afghans didn't want us, some did as in my previous sentence.

the military there is just laying their weapons down... They will die no matter what, better to die fighting, than to be beheaded or shot to death for nothing.

 

[DavidScott]

To better understand today's events we need to look at Afghanistan's history. Especially the last 50 years or so and all aspects of our proxy war with the Soviets there.

 

[gustafson]

it was not going there that was a failure. That's where bin laden was supposedly. Going to Iraq was a failure.. there was no reason to go to IRAQ!!!

if you see interviews with people , especially with women in Kabul, they like the freedom that we brought. they like going to school. But that was not our goal..

true many afghans didn't want us, some did as in my previous sentence.

the military there is just laying their weapons down... They will die no matter what, better to die fighting, than to be beheaded or shot to death for nothing.

You see, but this was never going to be different. From the beginning we did not have the actual support of the actual Afghan people. The Taliban are not insurgents
They are the people, as sad as that is to say. Bush thought we were smarter than the Russians, but it turns out we are not.

How are you going to 'bring freedom' to people who marry their 10 year old girls off to old men, and behead those who teach women to read?
Not with helicopter gunships.

Ever

 

[standardparts]

One bungled mess after another for decades now and what's amazing that no one holds those in the Senate or Congress to account for all the fuck ups.

Dems and Republicans and their families grow wealthy while demeaning Americans and working to restrict their Constitutional rights. They send our bravest and brightest to engage in war that no one intends to win.

We spend billions and billions to enrich corporations and foreign interests but can't figure out how to secure our Southern border and off legal immigration with dignity.

When there is a success politicians pose for the cameras and profess admiration for our fighting forces.

When we lose, in this case a loss of epic proportions, the President, Commander-In-Chief, takes a vacation and goes into hiding. WTF---How flawed does someone have to be to do that?

Never trust the Gov't and never ever trust the U.S. Military.

 

[Scottl]

Success at spending lots of taxpayer money and providing a distraction.

Total failure at "fixing Afghanistan" because as anyone who studies history knows it is "the graveyard of empires". Long list that goes back over a millennia with Britain Russia, and now us as taking turns trying to crack this un-crackable nut.

Just before "we" went in, an Afghan born coworker explained to me exactly how and why we would fail and every prediction came true.

 

[cmccull166]

Britain, Russia and the US Should take turns lobbing an occasional missile into that
cesspool..

 

[AndyF]

This was a complete and total success for the Military Contractors and their enablers in the military. They enjoyed huge increases in their budgets and incredible profits as the contractors played both sides of the conflict thru taking money from the US and passing it on to the Taliban in the form of bribes to ensure that their employees and materials would in the short term have safe passage and that most of the material would make it to the destination and longer term would have the resources to continue the fight. It was also a success for the local warlords who have maintained their place, power and wealth in a chaotic society. For the US as a country, unfortunately it cements our place as an empire in the midst of terminal decline.

 

[dalmatiangirl61]

The day the Shrub decided to invade Afghanistan I said we would never change the place unless we were willing to kill every man, woman, and child over the age of 5, that would be the only way to erase the religious ideology. We watched the USSR go bankrupt there, yet somehow thought we could do better, anyone else remember how the war was going to fund itself with oil?

I think its high time we get out of there, if the people want freedom they can fight for it, if not, oh well. If I was in charge, it would be nuked, scorched earth.

 

[Mechanola]

Why not liberate the miserable inhabitants of North Korea for a change? Vaporise Kim and the rest of the nomenclature there

Near to middle East is nothing but a hole. An Israeli whom I asked once whether it’s impossible for a Semite to see the world simply, answered to me: yes. These people can only think ambiguously, there is an ulterior motive to everything.

 

[Scottl]

Britain, Russia and the US Should take turns lobbing an occasional missile into that
cesspool..

Really? Why, just to be vindictive?

They never wanted us or anyone else over there telling them how to live. It's an ancient land with very old ways and a basic culture that long predates even Islam. They are not our ways but they've worked for them for thousands of years.

In his post, gustafson described the situation pretty accurately. The Taliban enjoys broad support among the people and us going in to remove them was never widely received.

What many don't know or have forgotten is that one of the first things the Taliban did on taking power was ban the growing of opium poppies. That this pissed off some very powerful people in the west should be obvious. Shortly after we invaded they started growing poppies again.

Is living under the Taliban tough for some? Hell yes! I saw a film years ago that was produced in the local language with English subtitles later added. It told the story of a young girl whose father was killed fighting the Russians. Over her objection her mother dressed her as a boy so she could go out and work to feed the family. The girl knew that if she were discovered she might be put to death by the Taliban.

Eventually she did get found out and while the religious leaders were waiting to try her case she witnessed a woman stoned to death for adultery. They buried the woman up to her shoulders, covered her head with a cloth bag and surrounded her with handfuls of stones. At the command they all pummeled her head with stones. Shockingly brutal but at least it was relatively quick.

A proposition was made to the girl that if she married one of the religious leaders, an old man, her life would be spared. Having little choice she agreed and the film ended with her crying over her fate in his household.

Not at all our way but it has worked for them for many centuries and even many women welcome the stability brought by the system. If the American people ever learn anything it should be to stay the hell out of places where we are not wanted.

 

[cmccull166]

Really? Why, just to be vindictive?

YES