I guess we lost the Afghanistan War

[Michchamp]

From an Australian news source (Sydney Herald):

Bagram: The US left Afghanistan?s Bagram Airfield after nearly 20 years by shutting off the electricity and slipping away in the night without notifying the base?s new Afghan commander.

Afghan military officials say they discovered the Americans? departure more than two hours after they left.​

looters immediately took it over:

Before the Afghan army could take control of the airfield about an hour?s drive from the capital Kabul, it was invaded by a small army of looters, who ransacked barrack after barrack and rummaged through giant storage tents before being evicted, according to Afghan military officials.

?At first we thought maybe they were Taliban,? said Abdul Raouf, a soldier of 10 years. He said the US called from the Kabul airport and said ?we are here at the airport in Kabul?.​

The Taliban are still there and resurgent (20 years later...):

The Taliban?s latest surge comes as the last US and NATO forces pull out of the country. As of last week, most NATO soldiers had already quietly left. The last US soldiers are likely to remain until an agreement to protect the Kabul Hamid Karzai International Airport is completed.

Meanwhile, in northern Afghanistan, district after district has fallen to the Taliban. In just the last two days hundreds of Afghan soldiers fled across the border into Tajikistan rather than fight the insurgents.​

Nothing says "success" like slinking away in the middle of the night without telling anyone

 

[byco42]

It?s a cost-cutting move.

 

[tomdalton22]

Biden is such a pussy

 

[Gulo Blue]

from wikipedia: According to the Costs of War project at Brown University, as of April 2021, the war has killed 171,000 to 174,000 people in Afghanistan; 47,245 Afghan civilians, 66,000 to 69,000 Afghan military and police and at least 51,000 opposition fighters.

115 civilians, military, and police per 51 opposition fighters?

 

[zyxt9]

Soviet Union invasion resulted in guestimated 500,000 to 2,000,000 Afghans killed. Their invasion was not provoked by anything remotely like 9/11.

I highly doubt the accuracy of those Brown University numbers. Looking around the internet, those numbers seem on the low end in every category.

Regardless, how things progress from here remains to be seen. There is likely little good to the US withdrawal based on the reports I'm seeing. The Taliban are returning to power it appears. Will the US be forced to return in some capacity, whether under the NATO or UN umbrella or in other capacities?

 

[Michchamp]

Soviet Union invasion resulted in guestimated 500,000 to 2,000,000 Afghans killed. Their invasion was not provoked by anything remotely like 9/11.

I highly doubt the accuracy of those Brown University numbers. Looking around the internet, those numbers seem on the low end in every category.

Regardless, how things progress from here remains to be seen. There is likely little good to the US withdrawal based on the reports I'm seeing. The Taliban are returning to power it appears. Will the US be forced to return in some capacity, whether under the NATO or UN umbrella or in other capacities?

You get a strikingly different story on what happened, and what will happen between ABC/NBC/CNN/Fox/MSNBC on one side, and the narrative if you read non-US media on the topic.

I think - the twenty years we've been there have proven we're the problem. our presence is preventing stability there.

regardless... if we couldn't beat the Taliban and stabilize the country in 20 years what makes you think we could go back and do it in the future?

 

[Michchamp]

from wikipedia: According to the Costs of War project at Brown University, as of April 2021, the war has killed 171,000 to 174,000 people in Afghanistan; 47,245 Afghan civilians, 66,000 to 69,000 Afghan military and police and at least 51,000 opposition fighters.

115 civilians, military, and police per 51 opposition fighters?

not only that, but the lines between all those categories of people are blurry.

 

[zyxt9]

not only that, but the lines between all those categories of people are blurry.

VERY blurry indeed.

 

[zyxt9]

You get a strikingly different story on what happened, and what will happen between ABC/NBC/CNN/Fox/MSNBC on one side, and the narrative if you read non-US media on the topic.

I think - the twenty years we've been there have proven we're the problem. our presence is preventing stability there.

regardless... if we couldn't beat the Taliban and stabilize the country in 20 years what makes you think we could go back and do it in the future?

Stability is a relative thing. Over the past year+, many would consider the US to lack stability.

Pretty sure the women and girls who are about to be killed/tortured/maimed appreciated the relative stability the US presence provided. Too bad the UN cares nothing about that, but these days the UN is influenced more and more by Muslim Extremist beliefs and values...so that is no surprise.

What you fail to ask is, why was the US unable to build stronger, positive relationships with the non-extremists? The answer is they still feared the retaliation of the Taliban. Now that fear is becoming realized...so...congrats!

 

[Michchamp]

Stability is a relative thing. Over the past year+, many would consider the US to lack stability.

Pretty sure the women and girls who are about to be killed/tortured/maimed appreciated the relative stability the US presence provided. Too bad the UN cares nothing about that, but these days the UN is influenced more and more by Muslim Extremist beliefs and values...so that is no surprise.

What you fail to ask is, why was the US unable to build stronger, positive relationships with the non-extremists? The answer is they still feared the retaliation of the Taliban. Now that fear is becoming realized...so...congrats!

Back in '09 or '10 there was a documentary made with live footage from a crew embedded with an American company in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan. It's called Restrepo. You should watch it.


I actually saw it in the theatre and it blew my mind what a clusterfuck it was. The word quagmire can't even begin to describe it. It kinda drives home how pointless an endeavor this all was.


That same thing was apparently confirmed in these papers:

The Afghanistan Papers are a set of internal documents from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) obtained by The Washington Post through a Freedom of Information Act request that document the US war in Afghanistan.[1][2][3] The documents reveal that high-ranking officials were generally of the opinion that the war was unwinnable, but kept this hidden from the public.[1][4][5][6] Due to the difficulty of creating metrics to objectively demonstrate success, they had been manipulated for the duration of the conflict.[7] NPR host Lulu Garcia-Navarro said that the "new Pentagon Papers describe explicit and sustained efforts by the US government to deliberately mislead the public.?
​

Vietnam (as revealed in the Pentagon Papers we were just discussing in the Mike Gravel thread) was the same story.

 

[Spartanmack]

I wonder how many Afghan women would trade stability for the right to show their face in public or get an education without being murdered for it. It's amazing how some people talk about how fundamentally flawed the US is based on an utter lack of evidence and then in the next breath talk about the stability provided by an actually horribly repressive regime who murders people for daring to gain things like gender equality - and how horrible the US is for disrupting that stability.

 

[Michchamp]

I wonder how many Afghan women would trade stability for the right to show their face in public or get an education without being murdered for it. It's amazing how some people talk about how fundamentally flawed the US is based on an utter lack of evidence and then in the next breath talk about the stability provided by an actually horribly repressive regime who murders people for daring to gain things like gender equality - and how horrible the US is for disrupting that stability.

so do you think we should remain in Afghanistan through 2040, and spend another $3 trillion to protect women's rights to get educations and not wear headresses there?

 

[Spartanmack]

so do you think we should remain in Afghanistan through 2040, and spend another $3 trillion to protect women's rights to get educations and not wear headresses there?

I don't know how long we should or should have stayed there but I do think you should stop pretending to care about equality and human rights and making up stories about how minorities are oppressed in the United States, especially when you make arguments in favor of the Taliban and the "stability" they provided, which didn't actually exist. And it's not just about education and burkas. They also, probably in the name of stability, force little girls to marry grown men and again for stability, they stone to death women who said they were raped if they didn't have 3 eyewitnesses to corroborate their story. And it's not just women - in order to achieve the stability you're so fond of but didn't actually exist, they kill people for believing in a different god or the same God in a different way, for being gay, for leaving the religion, etc, etc. Hopefully, their police don't shoot armed suspects violently resisting arrest or attempting to stab them or others - we all know that's apparently where you draw the line.

I know you won't stop but I think you probably should.

 

[Michchamp]

I don't know how long we should or should have stayed there but I do think you should stop pretending to care about equality and human rights and making up stories about how minorities are oppressed in the United States, especially when you make arguments in favor of the Taliban and the "stability" they provided, which didn't actually exist. And it's not just about education and burkas. They also, probably in the name of stability, force little girls to marry grown men and again for stability, they stone to death women who said they were raped if they didn't have 3 eyewitnesses to corroborate their story. And it's not just women - in order to achieve the stability you're so fond of but didn't actually exist, they kill people for believing in a different god or the same God in a different way, for being gay, for leaving the religion, etc, etc. Hopefully, their police don't shoot armed suspects violently resisting arrest or attempting to stab them or others - we all know that's apparently where you draw the line.

I know you won't stop but I think you probably should.

I'm not sure what point your trying to make, other than the American government treats women better than the Taliban might, which... is probably true but requires you to turn a blind eye to the whole "killing and bombing and destabilizing all Afghanistan"... and also seems like a tacked on bullshit since other Muslim countries treat women poorly, like Saudi Arabia, and we not only support them politically, but we sell them arms by the hundreds of billions.

I think you're just pissy because you don't like that I pointed out we lost another war, and Bush's military adventurism has proven to be a complete disaster for everyone except American defense contractors... (the ones that own the companies, not the ones that actually go fight)

 

[Spartanmack]

I'm not sure what point your trying to make, other than the American government treats women better than the Taliban might, which... is probably true but requires you to turn a blind eye to the whole "killing and bombing and destabilizing all Afghanistan"... and also seems like a tacked on bullshit since other Muslim countries treat women poorly, like Saudi Arabia, and we not only support them politically, but we sell them arms by the hundreds of billions.

yeah, you're clearly not getting the point which may explain the straw man arguments - of course it could just be due to your fondness for straw man arguments.

I think you're just pissy because you don't like that I pointed out we lost another war, and Bush's military adventurism has proven to be a complete disaster for everyone except American defense contractors... (the ones that own the companies, not the ones that actually go fight)

Still missing the point (unsurprising) as I've said nothing about the outcome of the war or given any opinions on it. Go back and read the posts a few more times and maybe it will sink in.

 

[tinselwolverine]

I thought I had heard Trump had been planning to close up shop in Afghanistan relatively shortly also.

 

[Gulo Blue]

I thought I had heard Trump had been planning to close up shop in Afghanistan relatively shortly also.

We've seen this before when people argued over drawdowns in Iraq under Obama that were exactly what was scheduled to happen under Bush. It's almost like the Pentagon has a plan and Presidents rarely push back.

 

[Michchamp]

We've seen this before when people argued over drawdowns in Iraq under Obama that were exactly what was scheduled to happen under Bush. It's almost like the Pentagon has a plan and Presidents rarely push back.

Trump was pretty consistent in criticizing this one (and the generals) going back to the beginning of his 2016 campaign, no?

I'm not sure why we finally left Afghanistan this year (assuming we stay away), and why we left Iraq in 2009, although we're still somewhat there. I asssume it's a combination of multiple factors.



It's odd that if we're willing to invade a country, we suddenly decide to abide by their decision and leave, even if they are a puppet we installed, and in theory an "ally" now.

 

[Gulo Blue]

Trump was pretty consistent in criticizing this one (and the generals) going back to the beginning of his 2016 campaign, no?

I'm not sure why we finally left Afghanistan this year (assuming we stay away), and why we left Iraq in 2009, although we're still somewhat there. I asssume it's a combination of multiple factors.



It's odd that if we're willing to invade a country, we suddenly decide to abide by their decision and leave, even if they are a puppet we installed, and in theory an "ally" now.

There's a good troop levels chart on page 9 (page 6 by the document numbering) of this pdf: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R44116.pdf

Beyond 2017 it is projection and it's doesn't cover what's going on right now, but I think it's valuable to the discussion.

 

[zyxt9]

And here is proof of the Taliban's plans.

In June they executed Afghan forces who were surrendering and unarmed. There is video of the execution should one care to look for it and at it.

How many more executions will the Taliban commit?

But by all means, let us praise them for their methods that bring about stability in the region! Yea Taliban!!! You use methods that if the US deployed them there would be worldwide condemnation and trials, likely resulting in those responsible for these actions being executed in accordance with UCMJ, but you Taliban...to you we will say, "Thank you! Can we have another!!!"

All because we cannot get the rest of the world to join in condemning such actions because for Muslims...and to be clear, not all Muslims but also not limited to only Muslim Extremists or even Orthodox...around the world have enough power and influence that these actions will not result in something along the lines of even UN Sanctions...likely not even a statement of concern is likely from the UN.

So kill at will, Taliban...kill at will, all in the name of "Peace and Stability in Afghanistan!!!" Hooray! Huzzah!!! Allah is Great!!!...oops, I didn't say it in Arabic! No please don't shoot me! I didn't mean........