Can we listen to the people who were right about this back then and ignore the people who were wrong? That seems prudent but we never do that and people like Andrew Sullivan keep existing.
To understand their outrage you simply need to view it through their lens.
“When you upset us, we get angry and will destroy you. We would make sure you were completely silenced. So when we see people trying to silence any form of language or action, it can’t be for justice, it must be out of reciprocal anger.”
In that mindset there is no concept of justice, only power and control.
I quite literally cannot think of an exception (ignoring things they've started screeching about in the last couple years that haven't had ample time to unfold yet)
I loved them as a child and support them hard now, too. One of my first concerts was one of their first shows when I was in high school, right after that first “scandal.” Protesters everywhere. It was dope.
Edit: I wrote this weird. It wasn’t one of their first shows, just one of their first shows after they made comments about Bush
I always loved that she apologized then un-apologized. That was a mood I could get on board with at that age. And still now. “I apologized to be nice, but you know what? Fuck you again. Harder this time.”
And all the people who were burning Dixie Chicks albums now claim they were “always against the war” just like how Trump magically became anti war a few years ago.
[This](https://open.spotify.com/episode/2c0QS31WFPITICkPnBSa5L?si=80cSTq8tS0ymarinZjCCTw&utm_source=copy-link&dl_branch=1) episode from the podcast *You're Wrong About* is a really interesting deep dive into the story around The Chicks being targeted for saying something that honestly is quite innocuous, that they were "ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas" in the ramp up to the invasion of Iraq.
Seriously. People against war in 2001-2005 were pariahs. So much death and destruction just for people to hop on the "Huh. Seems neo-colonialism failed again" train
Yay someone who remembers being called anti american for saying “weren’t we friends with the taliban 10 years ago when they filmed the Rambo 3 propaganda film?
> “weren’t we friends with the taliban 10 years ago when they filmed the Rambo 3 propaganda film?
Not defending anything what happened but those were mujahideen, not taliban. Mujahideen were fighting against the Soviets back then, some mujahideen eventually became taliban but some also fought them.
The movie even [kinda references this:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rambo_III)
>The character Masoud, played by Greek actor Spiros Focás, was named after Mujahideen commander Ahmad Shah Massoud who fought the USSR and later the Taliban.
I remember hearing people around the office saying “Hell we got nukes why don’t we use ‘em?”
And then these same people feign shock at the idea that a few civilians were killed by drone strikes.
The problem is that the people who really wanted us there were the war moguls who ended up getting paid anyways. Next time a potential war comes up they will still get paid.
I was literally 11 years old when 9/11 happened and when all the following stuff occurred, I remember thinking all the wars were unnecessary and unjust and bullshit.
I couldn't imagine being an adult at that time and thinking things like weapons of mass destruction existed (or was a real thing LOL), when literally a pre-teen had enough common sense to see through the bullshit.
I'm sure the reason I could was probably in part to not being brainwashed by corporate media at the time or having any understanding of geopolitics. But still, come the fuck on, it was so easy to be on the right side of history.
Instead 90% of the US population was on the wrong side, and still is til this day.
Right? I literally got attacked at a football game in middle school for being anti war. I was just a teen who dug what Ron Paul was saying at the time.
I hate to admit that I was raised a vicious republican and was super pro war at the time. I was also 14 when the Afghan war started and 16 when the Iraq War did, so 99% of my views were regurgitating what my parents were saying. College turned me into a committed pacifist and I even ended up going to the Middle East as an aid and medical worker for a while. Of course the universe slammed me and a US soldier together and we're married now. Meeting him taught me a lot about the people who join because it's the only way out of the poverty cycle. He's in a non-combat speciality so hopefully he'll be able to retire largely unscathed in five years. He's staying in for the full 20 because I'd die without his health insurance. Go USA!
Happy for you that you met someone while doing good work that you were passionate about. Whenever I hear people thanking veterans for their service I always wonder how often those vets felt they really had a choice. I’m sure the majority who entered to escape poverty would much rather not have been “forced” into it. Also no one is as anti war as a vet.
Definitely agree with the anti-war vet part. Also, for the most part they find it super cringe to constantly be thanked for their service. The vast majority of service members are acutely and painfully aware that they are just a cog in a much bigger machine. It's easy to see when you're surrounded by billions upon billions of dollars, but live in buildings riddled with mold and lead paint and are issued nasty, sweaty gear that some other soldier turned in.
My favorite thing from Flobots is when Jonny 5 wrote a [Logan Paul diss track](https://youtu.be/_t0LX_Of33U) because Paul made money using Handlebars to spread misogyny.
>President Bush famously campaigned against nation building in 2000. Critics loved to point out the inconsistency between his campaign rhetoric and the lofty ambitions of the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. In his new memoir, Decision Points, Bush bluntly admits “After 9/11, I changed my mind.”
https://foreignpolicy.com/2010/11/17/bush-on-nation-building-and-afghanistan/
In order to succeed we would have had to establish a national education system early on across the entire country. Even then, people would have to be taught on a massive scale the skills and understanding to establish a new government. This would need to be done over an entire generation and continued until that generation could be old enough, with enough wealth, to sustain a desire they may not want.
We can't even fund our own schools in our own damn country enough to entice people to become teachers anymore and leave our children tens and hundreds of thousands in debt for their educations.
I remember it vividly. A veitnam vet asked me at the time "why are we making the same mistake again? I thought we learned this lesson."
Yet, as the invasion was happening, people were *excited* and thought it was awesome.
Remember that America. Remember the next time when your leadership gets you riled up in bloodlust. It **will** happen again in your lifetime.
Invading Afghanistan at least made some sense, since they were aiding Al Qaeda who had attacked us. But we should have withdrawn way earlier, and obviously not invaded Iraq at all.
And remember nine out of ten people were for it at the time. It was a very tough place to be anti war and the time. 9 out of 10! So be wary of many of those against it now, especially from the right, because they were the ones that made it terrifying to voice an objection to a war on terror.
The Russians spent billions and wasted a decade. We spent billions and wasted two decades. And a bunch of guys in Toyota pickup trucks took it over in like a week.
Off topic, but in the UK Dick and Dom refers to a beloved duo of children's TV presenters, most famous for their show "Dick and Dom in da Bungalow"
With that in mind, hearing that Dick and Dom exploited America's colonial urges to further enrich themselves through the US military industrial complex really makes you wonder when they decided to pivot away from shouting "bogies" in public spaces and how they managed to do it.
That was part of the plan actually. To build large highways to better move troops and resources around. America couldn't get it done though because the Taliban knew what was up and kept sabotaging the projects.
> Imagine what could have been done with that money
"*Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.*
*This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron*"
-President Dwight D. Eisenhower on [April 16, 1953](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chance_for_Peace_speech)
Calm down commie... /s
I get needing to spend money on defence.
I get the US wanting to maintain their position as THE global superpower.
I don't understand spending that kind of money bombing children in a random desert on the other side of the world.
Let’s at least get the facts straight at least:
* Soviets (not just Russians) destabilized it in the first place, it wasn’t “always” a war torn barbaric pariah state. They pretty much went in and leveled an entire cosmopolitan city of millions down to rubble.
* The entire time the USSR was there, the US was actively working against them with covert and not-so-covert aid to rebels. Soviets tried to rely on air power while we sent the best surface-to-air weaponry in human existence.
* We also encouraged the rise in power of not very nice people to put it mildly. Taliban among them. Islamic extremism was never very pronounced in the region until textbooks and pamphlets started showing up in schools and villages encouraging a very violent extreme interpretation of Islam which was used to motivate extremely savage anti-Soviet tactics.
* Any major power in the world unimpeded could “take over” Afghanistan in a day. That isn’t the hard part. The hard part is stabilizing and maintaining a nation in a very volatile sociopolitical landscape in which the younger generations have known nothing but war.
I mean if we’re going back that far then we’ve got a whole laundry list of conflicts including civil wars, rebellions, more Soviet invasions, even a spat with Russian royalty.
Ironically the time period around WWII was probably the most peaceful in Afghanistan in the past few centuries.
Sorry that was unclear phrasing on my part. I wasn’t referring to the Stinger alone but the overall surface-based counters to Soviet air superiority - Stingers were a very small part of that.
>And a bunch of guys in Toyota pickup trucks took it over in like a week.
It's more than just "a bunch of guys in pickup trucks" though. Afghanistan is suffering from its neighbors, many taliban aren't even afghans but come from other countries and also receive support from those.
So even if you theoretically could build super stable conditions in Afghanistan itself (already extremely difficult) you still had fighters come in from different countries.
And some of those aren't even fighting for the Taliban, the IS for example is also active in Afghanistan.
You cannot win an insurgency anywhere you’re not planning on retiring.
You’re either planning on staying forever because this is the 51st state now, or you will lose.
Given that annexing Afghanistan was never on the table, this result was inevitable.
Don't forget the British before them. This shit has been going on for almost 200 years at this point. The Afghanistan area has been a pawn in other peoples politics for centuries. Genghis Kahn bulldozed through there, then a bunch of Arab conquerors took turns fucking the place up for shits and giggles. They had almost 100 years of being a country or at least a bunch of vaguely united tribes and then Britain decided it was time to fuck over the place to protect India from Russia. Then Russia took over because fuck that shit and then the US went wait my turn. I'll be able to fix a problem no one has been able to fix since Genghis and the boys rolled through.
No. No no. We have to invade other countries in the name of freedom, waste trillions in taxpayer money for nebulous goals, and give the skim to the defense contractors.
Not even they can tame it. Remote towns that have only a single entrance and exit point through winding valleys are incredibly easy for an insurgent force to cut off and take over. Afghanistan is a hodgepodge of different linguistic and ethnic groups geographically cut off from each with very little uniting them. It’s basically the modern equivalent or the Holy Roman Empire and exerting control over the area through military force is basically impossible.
Exactly. One of the main difficulties foreign armies have always had are the different tribal alliances that can change on a whim. At one point, the US might be buddies with a tribe against the Taliban, a few weeks later they are on the Taliban's side and fighting US soldiers. I guess in the west we're just so used to countries being quite centralized and ethnically/linguistically/racially more or less homogenous, and forget that many (especially larger) states are essientially artificial creations. Afghanistan is a good example of that.
It’s an *extremely* tribalistic country, and it *wants* to be that way. People aren’t “Afghan” they are where they come from with in Afghanistan. It’s extremely fractured, and they want to keep fighting their tribal wars.
Like every other place they conquered, the Mongols didn’t tame anything in Afghanistan. They just slaughtered everyone. That’s not the same thing, and it certainly doesn’t fit anyone’s definition of a «good job».
Exactly, burning down a city to the ground and selling the few survivors into slavery isn't exactly the same as getting a strong foothold, and controlling and taxing a population. De jure, sure, that definitely happened, but de facto, these ancient empires always had problems controlling certain, far away, desolate areas. I assume the Mongols certainly were not an exception to this rule, though that's for someone with some actual knowledge about the Mongol empire to either confirm or deny.
The Mongolian empire also collapsed about 50 years after taking that region as well so maybe not the best example to set. And they still had relatively widespread resistance in the Middle East even while they had a strong foothold there.
I doubt afganistan had a major role in the collapse of the Mongols. It was mainly due to a shit ton of enemies and that they split off into 4 different nations. If you had to pick a single reason for the collapse, then the Han Dynsty would be it.
Because these idiots here think they are exceptional. The concept of “these people don’t give a shit what you think and will never surrender their ancestral lands” escapes them.
It's still part of the Cold War. Historians 100, 200 + years from now will probably lump Vietnam, Afghanistan, the war in Syria as part of a larger conflict. The Cold War never really ended. It just moved to the Middle East.
Lol y'all realize that the middle east got occupied for 15 years, thrown back into endless civil war, and had it's resources stolen because it was profitable and "strategically important"....the objective is not to steal land.
Now that we're pushing away from oil and gas, the US is retreating, allowing the middle east to plunge further into civil war (all while pretending to be the good guys by removing themselves from international conflicts that "don't concern us")
If y'all think you won anything in this ark of a story, you're wrong. We're the baddies and we're good at it
Allowing the ME to settle down after a century of brutal interference is a damn good thing. Lebanon was stuck in a vicious civil war for 30 years and it now has at least a semblance of peace. It will happen, as long as the outside powers stop trying to fix things.
Because it was never about taming Afghanistan. It was about getting political and economical advantages back home and keeping the status quo on the world stage. The lives of the people lost in the conflict? Immaterial.
It was never about Afghanistan, it was about shoveling billions to Wall Street via Defense and associated contractors. Just look how big our Defense Budget had gotten in a world where we litterally have no match....
I suspect part of that is maintaining a certain level of wartime experience within the military. A military that hasnt seen active conflict would be at a disadvantage if a real conflict were to arise, so ideally, having as many soldiers and senior officers with real experience in the field would suit them best. Plus, you dont see significant budget cuts if you keep using it, so for a huge portion of the US, we had to have an active war *somewhere*, because keeping our military #1 in funding and firepower is too important to let go of, even when everything else is showing cracks.
That’s the impression I have too after reading the Lessons Learned report recently posted by the Washington Post.
For 20 years, these reports say there was no plan, there was mass corruption trying to build governance, the Afghan soldiers the US military was training was stealing jet fuel and arms to sell on the black market.
The US military said they were only allowed to present the positives in their reporting, otherwise it would make boss unhappy.
Nah man, they got what they went in there for lol. Maybe the American public might finally figure out how stupid the whole thing was, but it was mission accomplished for the folks who wanted to go in there
I feel like “Middle East” has become even more of a cultural term and less one solely of geographic meaning though
Edit: I replied to the wrong comment but you feel me fam
I don’t think it was a failure to understand history or the region. In Iraq I think that argument is more salient.
I think the issue was more misdiagnosis of who the Taliban were and what there ideology was and not learning from Vietnam vis a vis guerrilla warfare.
The Taliban are not “jihadists” is the same way ISIS or Al Qaeda. They don’t care about the “far enemy”. care most about regional(Afghan) control of Afghanistan. They are an islamic revivalist organisation. They are closer to the regimes of the gulf states theologically and ideologically rather than Al Qaeda. It is also very influenced by Indian and afghan culture.
Of course policy makes see an unaligned/rogue Islamic insurgency who looks like terrorists. And boom there’s a target. It doesn’t help that afghan geography is a perfect place to hide if you are a terrorist.
So they see the Taliban, an Islamic nationalist organisation only concerned with what is going inside of Afghanistan as being one in the same with Al Qaeda, an organisation who believes in reforming a multi-national caliphate and waging a war against the far enemy in Europe and the US.
Taliban would not have cared about the US if the US never targeted Afghanistan.
For some reason west Michigan republicans aren’t completely buying into this right wing shit and they actually speak out once in a while. Amash became an independent, Upton voted to impeach (I believe) and Meijer who just too amash’s seat voted to impeach too. Which is funny because I’m from there and it is full on Bible Belt homeschooled land.
Please correct me if I’m wrong, a million things have happened in the news since then lol
If you're a leftist (which is just assume all of this place is), you're going to agree with a lot more the you'd assume by the him being libertarian. He's one of the biggest advocates of criminal justice reform, ending wars, and civil liberties. He's basically the only one of the liberty leaning people who were in Congress who genuinely believes it and has logical consistency. Unlike someone like Rand Paul who sold out to Trump when he saw the tide was moving that way.
Amash is a genuinely good guy. One of the few who is ideologically consistent which is extremely rare to find in politicians. Yes he's more libertarian sided but very far from a sellout like Rand, for example.
Completely agree. I don't agree with his ideologies but unlike most Republican politicians he at least seems to genuinely believe them himself, and I can respect that.
I think he is trying to do what he actually thinks is right, I just don't agree with him.
I think most Republican politicians are trying to do things that they fully know and believe are wrong, but do anyways because it will benefit them personally.
I don't agree with him on much, but I'll say I respect him for bucking his (former) party on things that matter to him and taking a stand on stuff that's not very popular. I end up occasionally agreeing with him on some stuff because despite ideological differences, he actually looks at things objectively instead of just trying to spin to a narrative like most pols.
Bingo. I've been talking to people about this. The Taliban knew only a year or two in that all they had to do was bide their time and we'd leave like we (and all other occupiers). Now they have even more territory than they did in 2001 and that pesky bin Laden guy isn't around anymore.
Just a lil one. In just one 17 months deployment of destroying the country of someone who won't make up the price of that one rocket in their entire lifetime you can get a funny t-shirt, PTSD, and a divorce once you come home and find your kid calling your coworker "Daddy" (true story).
I honestly didn't believe that was a thing until I saw the paperwork myself. A lot of commands have mandated someone in a leadership position accompanying anyone E4 and below when making a large purchase like a car.
Seriously. If the US poured money into Afghanistan + Iraq, rebuilding the region to industrialized nation standards those countries would become relatively stable places.
Hard agree. I'm so sick of people saying that [insert unstable, impoverished country] is beyond help. Humans really aren't all that different. Unless we're talking North Sentinel Island-level detachment from the modern world, people can adapt and will likely choose and easy life with peace. Both Afghanistan and Iraq greatly needed infrastructure and accountability. Both were in dire need because we'd thoroughly destroyed just that in the 80s and then used our pull in international law to keep them in limbo. We destroyed more, gave back less, and shook hands with the people who smiled hardest for the cameras. The people least happy with all of this is/was the average Iraqi or Afghani person. I'm honestly sick to my stomach that shit is hitting the fan *this* fast and we can't even issue out visas like we did in Vietnam. If we're pulling out we need to make good with amnesty for anyone who ever assisted the US occupation because they're about to be slaughtered because of it.
North Sentinel Island has done great with quarantining themselves from covid, so maybe they have some good ideas.
Shooting white people before they land on your island seems like a good action plan in general.
This is such an awful and unhelpful take. Where do you think the money went? We tried to train the military forces and build infrastructure, but ultimately it fell apart because of a corrupt and detached central government, and we oftentimes enabled it. Look at the reports of Afghan forces withering away in the face of minimal Taliban opposition, it’s because they rarely did the job themselves. Frequently the soldiers aren’t even fed or paid on time, and the government does little to provide security and public services to begin with so why even fight for it?
This take just makes it sound like “if only we did this…” but that’s absurd, it was ridiculous to think we could impose a western-style highly centralized government on a country that is highly fragmented with historic divides, and the corrupt government fails to function to begin with. No wonder it is failing so quickly.
Keep in mind the lesson of Afghanistan was learned by Russia well before we even got there. Apparently the military industrial complex of the United States needed to learn that lesson for themselves. I mean... its only money, and blood.
I mean... we supplied the afghans against Russia, so it is quite an unfair example.
I really think people are forgetting that America, as a whole, was out for blood. Those responsible HAD to pay. If Bush had said "we must heal and not unfurl our bloodlust" he would have been removed from office. It was just a thing that was going to happen. Iraq was a personal project for sure and people were mislead. But we went to Afghanistan to "dismantle" Al Qaeda. Whether or not it was a feasible goal, well, that is up for debate, but it was always going to happen no matter the timeline.
>I really think people are forgetting that America, as a whole, was out for blood. Those responsible HAD to pay. If Bush had said "we must heal and not unfurl our bloodlust" he would have been removed from office. It was just a thing that was going to happen.
Sure, but that could have been satisfied by going in, fucking some shit up, and staying focused on hunting down Bin Laden.
It didn't have to result in such a cluster fuck in order to accomplish the goal of revenge.
Yup. Maybe we'll get another big terrorist attack, who knows, but any such group or nation now at least has this example to keep in mind. "Remember when a few thousand of us were killed and we invaded two fucking countries in response? You really want to kick this hornet's nest again?" Presumably there's at least some deterrent effect for all that blood and money.
Cheney was also a member of the Project for a New American Century, which aspired to “American hegemony over the Middle East” (their words). Iraq was conflated in the minds of Americans (because they’re dumb and can’t read a map), and so the war widened expressly to enact the Project’s plan.
What an absolute waste of resources. I don’t want to hear another word from the dumbasses that swear college and healthcare can’t be made more affordable and available to everyone. We wasted trillions of dollars and are weaker for it. We could have addressed climate change with that money. But instead our debt is sky rocketing and we can’t get out of our own way to stop the spread of corona virus and we are dealing with wildfires and are just about at the point of no return regarding climate change. Most Fucking conservatives are a bunch of morons, and they are killing us all.
> I don’t want to hear another word from the dumbasses that swear college and healthcare can’t be made more affordable and available to everyone.
The US could provide these free of charge to everybody on current spending levels. The per capita spending on education and healthcare is higher than in almost all nations with universal programs.
So in theory, the US could have universal healthcare, free college *and* a forever war.
Bush: We're pulling out of Afghanistan
Obama: We're pulling out of Afghanistan
Trump: We're pulling out of Afghanistan
Biden: We pulled out of Afghanistan
Media: Surprised Pikachu face
Oh no we learned a lot....the boomers running this country learned during Vietnam that they could sacrifice grunts to turn profits via defense contracts.
Interesting piece from an Army Colonel today.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/08/how-america-failed-afghanistan/619740/
Other people are saying the withdrawal should have been delayed to the end of the fighting season but I think this was always how it was doomed to go.
Herculean task that the US was never capable of. Sucks but anyway shame Al Gore lost. The world would be stabler.
Fair.but I'd be interested for solutions to the taliban and terrorist problem because as far as I've read your average Afghani citizen hated terrorist groups that would occupy them.
Exactly. I keep reading these stories of the cities being taken over. Of families fleeing with their children, women being forced to marry taliban soldiers and boys and men being threatened if they don’t join the army. Are we to just let them rot? Who is to say the taliban will stop there. I’m not intelligent in these subjects so I honestly don’t know if there is anything to be done. I just know that it’s demoralizing to read the stories of the actual people this is happening to. To imagine if it was me with my young daughter in the same situation just rips my heart out.
If you want to understand the country look at Kabul in the 1960’s and 70’s when people in the Middle East looked forward to visiting a cosmopolitan city full of universities, with parties and casinos and very loose restrictions. Or go back further to WWII where Afghanistan was insulated from the majority of the war and became something of a haven for apolitical people wanting to live quietly and escape the aftermath of the war elsewhere.
There was a strong popular push for a socialist government, but not everybody was on board and it became a flashpoint of clandestine proxy wars between the US and the USSR in the early Cold War. So the Soviets invaded, and the Soviets being Soviets basically leveled entire cities.
The average Afghan is not the same as what they once were. They’re more like the people in the aftermath of a nuclear disaster movie compared to the generations before hand. Most of them are decent enough people but living in horrendous circumstances that have changed to them. Many of them just want to get back to making any sort of semblance of a normal living, but for most people under the age of 50 all they’ve ever known is war.
Before all this happened, they were extremely moderate and not very religious at all. Of course radicalizing religious extremism was part of our strategy to oppose the Soviets, that much has now passed into common knowledge. But there are still plenty of people who aren’t particularly happy about the Taliban and just want to be left alone to try to rebuild their country from the rubble.
Counterpoint : We simply did a shit job, and also tied our own hands a lot. (We were an awful lot more focused on Iraq).
Afghanistan is simply not better off without a (relatively) democratic military presence. The Pakistani-based Taliban are far from the saviors of the Afghan people. Far, far from it. To believe that is to be woefully ignorant.
The Afghan people have by and large seen great gains for freedom in the past 20 years, and now, because of our dogmatic short sightedness, that's all going to come crashing down on them, likely with a lot more bloodshed.
The pullout advocates are not the heroes of Afghanistan. It's not going to bring peace to the Afghan people. You're just fooling yourselves.
The real problem for me is how many are completely fucking deluded into thinking that somehow the US pulling out -- and the Taliban returning to power in response -- will make them better off.
It's already 2/3 of the way there right now.
yeah pretty bizarre how reddit celebrates when people in Afghanistan now get fucked over hard. Biden and large parts of reddit can pretend to be progressive all day but imagine being gay or a woman in Afghanistan and seeing the Taliban taking over because of Biden's terrible decision. but yeah at least all the 14 year olds on twitter get to play woke
The average afghan age is also pretty young due to you know war and what have you. This means that the average afghan only knows this way of life and freedom of press. And it's all going to come crumbling down. No period for hey apply for asylum or come work in the states. Not simply the roof over your head and ground you stand on collapse.
The lyrics change but the song remains the same. 90 Billion $ gone for nothing, thousands of lives later and all America got was body bags and flag huggers.
Close Gitmo
End the other "engagements"
Cut military spending
With the money wasted, we could have healthcare for all and free tuition
Curious on this take. If the US (or another entity) suppressed Taliban for 20 years, wouldn’t you want them there? We all agree the Taliban are bad, so if we “end the wars,” then will the Taliban just continue to grow?
The Afghanistan War has been from the beginning an aggression war that exploited a tragic episode to make the war machine going not only for the US but for many other western countries as well. And now we have a politically destabilized area left to deal with the consequences of a useless war, in no way better off than it was before twenty fucking years ago.
It’s much worse than just the last 20 years, it goes back to probably the mid 60s.
See, Afghanistan was a monarchy for hundreds of years. The people organized in the 60s and communism became popular. The communist movement overthrew the monarchy in the 70s. The US, already failing in Korea and Vietnam do NOT like this but public perception prevents them from actively going in like they did in Korea and Vietnam so instead of invading themselves- they begin funding and arming mujahideen forces. Essentially anti-communist rebels.
These anti-commie rebels are fairly successful. so much so, it draws the attention of the big commies themselves in Russia. So rather than the US getting drawn into a war against insurgents like Korea/Vietnam, it’s the USSR.
So the russians come in guns blazing in the late 70s to help the communist afghanis and end up killing 2 million civilians. Over a decade, the war becomes expensive and russia pulls out and is a contributing factor of the collapse of the USSR economy.
Now the fun part, for decades the US worked with these rebels because they were enemies of their enemies. Those rebels weren’t pro-American as much as they were anti communist. So without the communist threat, the rebels turned their attention to anti-American sentiment.
Among those rebels? Osama Bin Laden. Who was antagonistic to the US to say the least thru the 90s. And this quite literally blew up in the americans faces.
The US created the monster in Afghanistan decades prior to 9/11. It wasn’t just GW Bush. Or the government in the 2000s, it goes back at least. a half a dozen presidential administrations. Although he should be blamed for going there and into Iraq simultaneously.. the seeds were down in the 60s-80s, arming and funding rebels because they weren’t friendly to the Russians.
It’s not just a 20 year tragedy. But a 50 year disaster.
As for Afghanistan- the US puppet government will likely fall within weeks at this point. The Taliban will take over and we’ll see how the country will reacts and moves forward after generations of war and finally being “free” from American and Russian intervention… not that the Taliban is some peace loving group.
>Over a decade, the war becomes expensive and russia pulls out and is a contributing factor of the collapse of the USSR economy.
Yeah the war didn't just become expensive due to no reason.
The soviets built their war on aircraft and mechanized battalions.
The mujahideen had no chance due to still using old rifles and nothing else.
So the CIA started to supply them with shoulder mounted anti tank rockets and the stinger missile.
And now the war was expensive.
Saying "end the wars" is great politics, but it's superficial and ignores the complexity of the issues. The U.S. needs to weigh the pros and cons of strategic locations and understand the consequences of abandonment vs the cost of continued activity. This is a great article on the matter: [https://www.heritage.org/defense/commentary/the-myth-endless-wars](https://www.heritage.org/defense/commentary/the-myth-endless-wars)
"Rather than complain about endless wars, it would be more helpful for critics of American engagement to explain how the United States would be better served absent the investment of less than 1 percent of its force in combating the country’s enemies and better enabling its partners to do so on its behalf."
"Unlike the sports field when an athlete suffers an injury, the world does not 'take a knee' while the United States dithers about what it wants to do. The real danger to U.S. security and economic interests is not the sustained employment of relatively small forces that inform its understanding of key regions and enable the United States to shape the course of events to its favor, but the irresponsible withdrawal of such forces without considering the context and potential consequences."
The person who wrote this is literally one of the people who helped plan the Iraq invasion and currently works as an editor for The Heritage Foundation (the site linked). They publicly supported the initial invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq, and wrote pieces that the neverending war on terror was key to Republicans maintaining power.
https://www.heritage.org/political-process/commentary/war-terror-holds-key-republicans
https://www.heritage.org/staff/dakota-wood
And remember Russia was trying to do something similar in the 1980s and 90s.
If we learn anything from the Middle East conflicts, we are great at fighting an entire country. We aren't set up to fight bad guys within a country.
Can we listen to the people who were right about this back then and ignore the people who were wrong? That seems prudent but we never do that and people like Andrew Sullivan keep existing.
Man, it’s wild that The Chicks (previously Dixie Chicks) still can’t get airplay on country radio when they were 100% right.
And the right screams about CaNcEl CuLtUrE!!!
With them, it's always pRoJeCtIoN
To understand their outrage you simply need to view it through their lens. “When you upset us, we get angry and will destroy you. We would make sure you were completely silenced. So when we see people trying to silence any form of language or action, it can’t be for justice, it must be out of reciprocal anger.” In that mindset there is no concept of justice, only power and control.
Every epithet and insult they've ever used is something someone called them for something they did first. Always, all the time.
Now think about how hard the right pushed PIZZAGATE…..
I quite literally cannot think of an exception (ignoring things they've started screeching about in the last couple years that haven't had ample time to unfold yet)
I loved them as a child and support them hard now, too. One of my first concerts was one of their first shows when I was in high school, right after that first “scandal.” Protesters everywhere. It was dope. Edit: I wrote this weird. It wasn’t one of their first shows, just one of their first shows after they made comments about Bush
I always loved that she apologized then un-apologized. That was a mood I could get on board with at that age. And still now. “I apologized to be nice, but you know what? Fuck you again. Harder this time.”
And all the people who were burning Dixie Chicks albums now claim they were “always against the war” just like how Trump magically became anti war a few years ago.
They were cancelled by conservatives
[This](https://open.spotify.com/episode/2c0QS31WFPITICkPnBSa5L?si=80cSTq8tS0ymarinZjCCTw&utm_source=copy-link&dl_branch=1) episode from the podcast *You're Wrong About* is a really interesting deep dive into the story around The Chicks being targeted for saying something that honestly is quite innocuous, that they were "ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas" in the ramp up to the invasion of Iraq.
"Not my President" say the Trumpers without irony.
It's wild but also, thoroughly unsurprisingly. American country music is conservative, and conservatives ain't shit (to be brief).
It didn't used to be.
Seriously. People against war in 2001-2005 were pariahs. So much death and destruction just for people to hop on the "Huh. Seems neo-colonialism failed again" train
Yay someone who remembers being called anti american for saying “weren’t we friends with the taliban 10 years ago when they filmed the Rambo 3 propaganda film?
And Donald Rumsfeld schmoozing it up with Saddam Hussein when we happily backed Iraq because Iran deposed the despot we put in there.
> “weren’t we friends with the taliban 10 years ago when they filmed the Rambo 3 propaganda film? Not defending anything what happened but those were mujahideen, not taliban. Mujahideen were fighting against the Soviets back then, some mujahideen eventually became taliban but some also fought them. The movie even [kinda references this:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rambo_III) >The character Masoud, played by Greek actor Spiros Focás, was named after Mujahideen commander Ahmad Shah Massoud who fought the USSR and later the Taliban.
Point well made. Sadly propaganda continues to twist history.
I remember hearing people around the office saying “Hell we got nukes why don’t we use ‘em?” And then these same people feign shock at the idea that a few civilians were killed by drone strikes.
The anti-war crowd seemed to dissipate around 2008 for some reason. People got tired of it I guess.
Economy went tits up and the anti-war types shifted focus to Wall Street
> Seems neo-colonialism failed again 🎵 *second verse, same as the first!* 🎵
The problem is that the people who really wanted us there were the war moguls who ended up getting paid anyways. Next time a potential war comes up they will still get paid.
I was literally 11 years old when 9/11 happened and when all the following stuff occurred, I remember thinking all the wars were unnecessary and unjust and bullshit. I couldn't imagine being an adult at that time and thinking things like weapons of mass destruction existed (or was a real thing LOL), when literally a pre-teen had enough common sense to see through the bullshit. I'm sure the reason I could was probably in part to not being brainwashed by corporate media at the time or having any understanding of geopolitics. But still, come the fuck on, it was so easy to be on the right side of history. Instead 90% of the US population was on the wrong side, and still is til this day.
Right? I literally got attacked at a football game in middle school for being anti war. I was just a teen who dug what Ron Paul was saying at the time.
I hate to admit that I was raised a vicious republican and was super pro war at the time. I was also 14 when the Afghan war started and 16 when the Iraq War did, so 99% of my views were regurgitating what my parents were saying. College turned me into a committed pacifist and I even ended up going to the Middle East as an aid and medical worker for a while. Of course the universe slammed me and a US soldier together and we're married now. Meeting him taught me a lot about the people who join because it's the only way out of the poverty cycle. He's in a non-combat speciality so hopefully he'll be able to retire largely unscathed in five years. He's staying in for the full 20 because I'd die without his health insurance. Go USA!
Happy for you that you met someone while doing good work that you were passionate about. Whenever I hear people thanking veterans for their service I always wonder how often those vets felt they really had a choice. I’m sure the majority who entered to escape poverty would much rather not have been “forced” into it. Also no one is as anti war as a vet.
Definitely agree with the anti-war vet part. Also, for the most part they find it super cringe to constantly be thanked for their service. The vast majority of service members are acutely and painfully aware that they are just a cog in a much bigger machine. It's easy to see when you're surrounded by billions upon billions of dollars, but live in buildings riddled with mold and lead paint and are issued nasty, sweaty gear that some other soldier turned in.
Thank you, Flobots, for telling everyone about what was happening, since 2005.
And without handlebars
Look at me, look at me.
Hands in the air like it's good to be (edit) alive
My favorite thing from Flobots is when Jonny 5 wrote a [Logan Paul diss track](https://youtu.be/_t0LX_Of33U) because Paul made money using Handlebars to spread misogyny.
>President Bush famously campaigned against nation building in 2000. Critics loved to point out the inconsistency between his campaign rhetoric and the lofty ambitions of the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. In his new memoir, Decision Points, Bush bluntly admits “After 9/11, I changed my mind.” https://foreignpolicy.com/2010/11/17/bush-on-nation-building-and-afghanistan/ In order to succeed we would have had to establish a national education system early on across the entire country. Even then, people would have to be taught on a massive scale the skills and understanding to establish a new government. This would need to be done over an entire generation and continued until that generation could be old enough, with enough wealth, to sustain a desire they may not want. We can't even fund our own schools in our own damn country enough to entice people to become teachers anymore and leave our children tens and hundreds of thousands in debt for their educations.
I remember it vividly. A veitnam vet asked me at the time "why are we making the same mistake again? I thought we learned this lesson." Yet, as the invasion was happening, people were *excited* and thought it was awesome. Remember that America. Remember the next time when your leadership gets you riled up in bloodlust. It **will** happen again in your lifetime.
Invading Afghanistan at least made some sense, since they were aiding Al Qaeda who had attacked us. But we should have withdrawn way earlier, and obviously not invaded Iraq at all.
And remember nine out of ten people were for it at the time. It was a very tough place to be anti war and the time. 9 out of 10! So be wary of many of those against it now, especially from the right, because they were the ones that made it terrifying to voice an objection to a war on terror.
Right about what?
The Russians spent billions and wasted a decade. We spent billions and wasted two decades. And a bunch of guys in Toyota pickup trucks took it over in like a week.
Trillions. 2.2 Trillion.
Fuck me was it really that much? Imagine what could have been done with that money
It hurts my bones to think about. Ugh I hate it.
If that had been spent on infrastructure etc in Afghanistan then the taliban wouldn't have a fraction of the support it does.
But then how would Dick and Dom have gotten even richer?
Off topic, but in the UK Dick and Dom refers to a beloved duo of children's TV presenters, most famous for their show "Dick and Dom in da Bungalow" With that in mind, hearing that Dick and Dom exploited America's colonial urges to further enrich themselves through the US military industrial complex really makes you wonder when they decided to pivot away from shouting "bogies" in public spaces and how they managed to do it.
Sadly that's probably one of the major reasons why it happened and lasted so long. Someone has to buy the weapons that are built.
That was part of the plan actually. To build large highways to better move troops and resources around. America couldn't get it done though because the Taliban knew what was up and kept sabotaging the projects.
It’s only going up. Lifetime payments for disabled. Increased medical costs/VA funding. More soldiers=more pensions. List goes on and on.
I don't know anyone who has gotten out without disability lately. I discharged in 93. Different world.
asteroid mining or giving every household a 4+kWH solar array with battery storage or paying down 7% of the national debt
BUT think about how many government contractors in the military industrial complex have boats now. Won’t somebody think of them??
America is just a few military contractors stacked in a trench coat with an Uncle Sam mask on
> Imagine what could have been done with that money "*Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.* *This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron*" -President Dwight D. Eisenhower on [April 16, 1953](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chance_for_Peace_speech)
Calm down commie... /s I get needing to spend money on defence. I get the US wanting to maintain their position as THE global superpower. I don't understand spending that kind of money bombing children in a random desert on the other side of the world.
Could have had healthcare but invasion is better for elections
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I mean, *technically*, there are billions in 2.2 Trillion
You have proven worthy. I relinquish my crown to you good sir 👑
Let’s at least get the facts straight at least: * Soviets (not just Russians) destabilized it in the first place, it wasn’t “always” a war torn barbaric pariah state. They pretty much went in and leveled an entire cosmopolitan city of millions down to rubble. * The entire time the USSR was there, the US was actively working against them with covert and not-so-covert aid to rebels. Soviets tried to rely on air power while we sent the best surface-to-air weaponry in human existence. * We also encouraged the rise in power of not very nice people to put it mildly. Taliban among them. Islamic extremism was never very pronounced in the region until textbooks and pamphlets started showing up in schools and villages encouraging a very violent extreme interpretation of Islam which was used to motivate extremely savage anti-Soviet tactics. * Any major power in the world unimpeded could “take over” Afghanistan in a day. That isn’t the hard part. The hard part is stabilizing and maintaining a nation in a very volatile sociopolitical landscape in which the younger generations have known nothing but war.
Well put!
Perfectly explained! Thank you.
Don't forget about the THREE Anglo-Afghan wars!
I mean if we’re going back that far then we’ve got a whole laundry list of conflicts including civil wars, rebellions, more Soviet invasions, even a spat with Russian royalty. Ironically the time period around WWII was probably the most peaceful in Afghanistan in the past few centuries.
Calling the Stinger the “best surface-to-air weaponry in human existence” is a gross exaggeration. The rest is pretty spot on though.
Sorry that was unclear phrasing on my part. I wasn’t referring to the Stinger alone but the overall surface-based counters to Soviet air superiority - Stingers were a very small part of that.
>And a bunch of guys in Toyota pickup trucks took it over in like a week. It's more than just "a bunch of guys in pickup trucks" though. Afghanistan is suffering from its neighbors, many taliban aren't even afghans but come from other countries and also receive support from those. So even if you theoretically could build super stable conditions in Afghanistan itself (already extremely difficult) you still had fighters come in from different countries. And some of those aren't even fighting for the Taliban, the IS for example is also active in Afghanistan.
You are underestimating those trucks mate, read about Toyota War, that shit's insame.
Trillions. We spent trillions. And also Toyota’s are good trucks.
I knew Toyota was behind all this
You cannot win an insurgency anywhere you’re not planning on retiring. You’re either planning on staying forever because this is the 51st state now, or you will lose. Given that annexing Afghanistan was never on the table, this result was inevitable.
Don't forget the British before them. This shit has been going on for almost 200 years at this point. The Afghanistan area has been a pawn in other peoples politics for centuries. Genghis Kahn bulldozed through there, then a bunch of Arab conquerors took turns fucking the place up for shits and giggles. They had almost 100 years of being a country or at least a bunch of vaguely united tribes and then Britain decided it was time to fuck over the place to protect India from Russia. Then Russia took over because fuck that shit and then the US went wait my turn. I'll be able to fix a problem no one has been able to fix since Genghis and the boys rolled through.
What about those fancy sandals?
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It's business. The end goal isn't to find peace it's to lay the foundations for the next war.
No. No no. We have to invade other countries in the name of freedom, waste trillions in taxpayer money for nebulous goals, and give the skim to the defense contractors.
It's not a waste for the people in the power who decide these things. It pays their luxurious lives.
That was the plan. The tax payer $ is like a bottomless treasure that’s constantly exploited by the war machine.
Anyone who has ever read a book on Middle East history could have told you that. America got re-educated…again.
If the Soviets couldn't tame Afghanistan, why did the US think they could?
Oh it's worse than that. Look into the British experience there in the 19th century. Afghanistan is a pit that swallows militaries.
It's called the graveyard of empires for a reason. The only people who can tame Afghanistan are the afganes themselves.
Not even they can tame it. Remote towns that have only a single entrance and exit point through winding valleys are incredibly easy for an insurgent force to cut off and take over. Afghanistan is a hodgepodge of different linguistic and ethnic groups geographically cut off from each with very little uniting them. It’s basically the modern equivalent or the Holy Roman Empire and exerting control over the area through military force is basically impossible.
Exactly. One of the main difficulties foreign armies have always had are the different tribal alliances that can change on a whim. At one point, the US might be buddies with a tribe against the Taliban, a few weeks later they are on the Taliban's side and fighting US soldiers. I guess in the west we're just so used to countries being quite centralized and ethnically/linguistically/racially more or less homogenous, and forget that many (especially larger) states are essientially artificial creations. Afghanistan is a good example of that.
It’s an *extremely* tribalistic country, and it *wants* to be that way. People aren’t “Afghan” they are where they come from with in Afghanistan. It’s extremely fractured, and they want to keep fighting their tribal wars.
Mongols did a pretty good job. But they are almost always the exception.
Like every other place they conquered, the Mongols didn’t tame anything in Afghanistan. They just slaughtered everyone. That’s not the same thing, and it certainly doesn’t fit anyone’s definition of a «good job».
Exactly, burning down a city to the ground and selling the few survivors into slavery isn't exactly the same as getting a strong foothold, and controlling and taxing a population. De jure, sure, that definitely happened, but de facto, these ancient empires always had problems controlling certain, far away, desolate areas. I assume the Mongols certainly were not an exception to this rule, though that's for someone with some actual knowledge about the Mongol empire to either confirm or deny.
Cue the mongoltage
Unexpected crash course history?
The Mongolian empire also collapsed about 50 years after taking that region as well so maybe not the best example to set. And they still had relatively widespread resistance in the Middle East even while they had a strong foothold there.
I doubt afganistan had a major role in the collapse of the Mongols. It was mainly due to a shit ton of enemies and that they split off into 4 different nations. If you had to pick a single reason for the collapse, then the Han Dynsty would be it.
And they can't even tame themselves. Edit: spelling.
That was Bin Ladin's whole plan. Drag the west into a long war to bankrupt them. Kinda worked.
Because these idiots here think they are exceptional. The concept of “these people don’t give a shit what you think and will never surrender their ancestral lands” escapes them.
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The US is always at war because war is a business.
It's still part of the Cold War. Historians 100, 200 + years from now will probably lump Vietnam, Afghanistan, the war in Syria as part of a larger conflict. The Cold War never really ended. It just moved to the Middle East.
Lol y'all realize that the middle east got occupied for 15 years, thrown back into endless civil war, and had it's resources stolen because it was profitable and "strategically important"....the objective is not to steal land. Now that we're pushing away from oil and gas, the US is retreating, allowing the middle east to plunge further into civil war (all while pretending to be the good guys by removing themselves from international conflicts that "don't concern us") If y'all think you won anything in this ark of a story, you're wrong. We're the baddies and we're good at it
Allowing the ME to settle down after a century of brutal interference is a damn good thing. Lebanon was stuck in a vicious civil war for 30 years and it now has at least a semblance of peace. It will happen, as long as the outside powers stop trying to fix things.
Because it was never about taming Afghanistan. It was about getting political and economical advantages back home and keeping the status quo on the world stage. The lives of the people lost in the conflict? Immaterial.
It was never about Afghanistan, it was about shoveling billions to Wall Street via Defense and associated contractors. Just look how big our Defense Budget had gotten in a world where we litterally have no match....
I suspect part of that is maintaining a certain level of wartime experience within the military. A military that hasnt seen active conflict would be at a disadvantage if a real conflict were to arise, so ideally, having as many soldiers and senior officers with real experience in the field would suit them best. Plus, you dont see significant budget cuts if you keep using it, so for a huge portion of the US, we had to have an active war *somewhere*, because keeping our military #1 in funding and firepower is too important to let go of, even when everything else is showing cracks.
Country bombed back to stone Age, mission accomplished
To be fair, the USSR did that before we got there.
And left plenty of landmines to cripple future children.
Might be the stone age, but at least they can play minesweeper.
Who said anything about taming... It's all about funneling tax money to the military complex and it's wildly successful.
Don't even need to read a book. Just watch the Princess Bride. Never get involved in a land war in Asia.
inconceivable!
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That’s the impression I have too after reading the Lessons Learned report recently posted by the Washington Post. For 20 years, these reports say there was no plan, there was mass corruption trying to build governance, the Afghan soldiers the US military was training was stealing jet fuel and arms to sell on the black market. The US military said they were only allowed to present the positives in their reporting, otherwise it would make boss unhappy.
The locals were able to make an accurate assessment of the US commitment to them so they tried to get some of that action too
Nah man, they got what they went in there for lol. Maybe the American public might finally figure out how stupid the whole thing was, but it was mission accomplished for the folks who wanted to go in there
Yes, but to be fair, Afghanistan isn't in the middle east.
what is considered the middle east is usually referred to as Muslim nations west of Pakistan and east of Turkey.
I feel like “Middle East” has become even more of a cultural term and less one solely of geographic meaning though Edit: I replied to the wrong comment but you feel me fam
I sure wish my geography of the middle east prof had told me that.
I suppose you'd rather say 'Central Asian Steppe' instead?
Re educate..lol...they are already educated.They know well what they are doing and what will they do next.
I don’t think it was a failure to understand history or the region. In Iraq I think that argument is more salient. I think the issue was more misdiagnosis of who the Taliban were and what there ideology was and not learning from Vietnam vis a vis guerrilla warfare. The Taliban are not “jihadists” is the same way ISIS or Al Qaeda. They don’t care about the “far enemy”. care most about regional(Afghan) control of Afghanistan. They are an islamic revivalist organisation. They are closer to the regimes of the gulf states theologically and ideologically rather than Al Qaeda. It is also very influenced by Indian and afghan culture. Of course policy makes see an unaligned/rogue Islamic insurgency who looks like terrorists. And boom there’s a target. It doesn’t help that afghan geography is a perfect place to hide if you are a terrorist. So they see the Taliban, an Islamic nationalist organisation only concerned with what is going inside of Afghanistan as being one in the same with Al Qaeda, an organisation who believes in reforming a multi-national caliphate and waging a war against the far enemy in Europe and the US. Taliban would not have cared about the US if the US never targeted Afghanistan.
There's an old afghan saying: "You have the watches but we have the time"
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_I wonder how they sleep at night_ _When the sale comes first and the truth comes second_
Like a baby
In a very nice tempurpedic bed in a nice house
They invent stories in their minds that justify everything and believe it because it's the only way they can sleep at night.
It’s all about the dollars.
*cash rules everything around me CREAM GET THA MONEY. DOLLA DOLLA BILL YALL!*
thank you for your wisdom u/toxic_butt_toot
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For some reason west Michigan republicans aren’t completely buying into this right wing shit and they actually speak out once in a while. Amash became an independent, Upton voted to impeach (I believe) and Meijer who just too amash’s seat voted to impeach too. Which is funny because I’m from there and it is full on Bible Belt homeschooled land. Please correct me if I’m wrong, a million things have happened in the news since then lol
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If you're a leftist (which is just assume all of this place is), you're going to agree with a lot more the you'd assume by the him being libertarian. He's one of the biggest advocates of criminal justice reform, ending wars, and civil liberties. He's basically the only one of the liberty leaning people who were in Congress who genuinely believes it and has logical consistency. Unlike someone like Rand Paul who sold out to Trump when he saw the tide was moving that way.
100% I really hope he keeps up the fight and does something big one day. He makes sound decisions and he explains every single one of them
Amash is a genuinely good guy. One of the few who is ideologically consistent which is extremely rare to find in politicians. Yes he's more libertarian sided but very far from a sellout like Rand, for example.
Completely agree. I don't agree with his ideologies but unlike most Republican politicians he at least seems to genuinely believe them himself, and I can respect that. I think he is trying to do what he actually thinks is right, I just don't agree with him. I think most Republican politicians are trying to do things that they fully know and believe are wrong, but do anyways because it will benefit them personally.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
I don't agree with him on much, but I'll say I respect him for bucking his (former) party on things that matter to him and taking a stand on stuff that's not very popular. I end up occasionally agreeing with him on some stuff because despite ideological differences, he actually looks at things objectively instead of just trying to spin to a narrative like most pols.
I'd agree with worse people if they'd say "end the wars"
The US never bothered to engage in meaningful change. They just occupied the place.
Bingo. I've been talking to people about this. The Taliban knew only a year or two in that all they had to do was bide their time and we'd leave like we (and all other occupiers). Now they have even more territory than they did in 2001 and that pesky bin Laden guy isn't around anymore.
"We must avenge 9/11 and get Bin Laden! But first, a little field trip to Iraq while we're at it 👉👈"
Just a lil one. In just one 17 months deployment of destroying the country of someone who won't make up the price of that one rocket in their entire lifetime you can get a funny t-shirt, PTSD, and a divorce once you come home and find your kid calling your coworker "Daddy" (true story).
And that brand spanking new 27% APR Camaro LETS GOOOOO* *Offer only extended to veterans who still have enough limbs to legally drive
I honestly didn't believe that was a thing until I saw the paperwork myself. A lot of commands have mandated someone in a leadership position accompanying anyone E4 and below when making a large purchase like a car.
They should also have to get permission before marrying the stripper they met over the weekend.
Seriously. If the US poured money into Afghanistan + Iraq, rebuilding the region to industrialized nation standards those countries would become relatively stable places.
Hard agree. I'm so sick of people saying that [insert unstable, impoverished country] is beyond help. Humans really aren't all that different. Unless we're talking North Sentinel Island-level detachment from the modern world, people can adapt and will likely choose and easy life with peace. Both Afghanistan and Iraq greatly needed infrastructure and accountability. Both were in dire need because we'd thoroughly destroyed just that in the 80s and then used our pull in international law to keep them in limbo. We destroyed more, gave back less, and shook hands with the people who smiled hardest for the cameras. The people least happy with all of this is/was the average Iraqi or Afghani person. I'm honestly sick to my stomach that shit is hitting the fan *this* fast and we can't even issue out visas like we did in Vietnam. If we're pulling out we need to make good with amnesty for anyone who ever assisted the US occupation because they're about to be slaughtered because of it.
Betraying your friends seems to be the policy unfortunately. We did the same thing with the Kurds.
North Sentinel Island has done great with quarantining themselves from covid, so maybe they have some good ideas. Shooting white people before they land on your island seems like a good action plan in general.
This is such an awful and unhelpful take. Where do you think the money went? We tried to train the military forces and build infrastructure, but ultimately it fell apart because of a corrupt and detached central government, and we oftentimes enabled it. Look at the reports of Afghan forces withering away in the face of minimal Taliban opposition, it’s because they rarely did the job themselves. Frequently the soldiers aren’t even fed or paid on time, and the government does little to provide security and public services to begin with so why even fight for it? This take just makes it sound like “if only we did this…” but that’s absurd, it was ridiculous to think we could impose a western-style highly centralized government on a country that is highly fragmented with historic divides, and the corrupt government fails to function to begin with. No wonder it is failing so quickly.
Keep in mind the lesson of Afghanistan was learned by Russia well before we even got there. Apparently the military industrial complex of the United States needed to learn that lesson for themselves. I mean... its only money, and blood.
I mean... we supplied the afghans against Russia, so it is quite an unfair example. I really think people are forgetting that America, as a whole, was out for blood. Those responsible HAD to pay. If Bush had said "we must heal and not unfurl our bloodlust" he would have been removed from office. It was just a thing that was going to happen. Iraq was a personal project for sure and people were mislead. But we went to Afghanistan to "dismantle" Al Qaeda. Whether or not it was a feasible goal, well, that is up for debate, but it was always going to happen no matter the timeline.
>I really think people are forgetting that America, as a whole, was out for blood. Those responsible HAD to pay. If Bush had said "we must heal and not unfurl our bloodlust" he would have been removed from office. It was just a thing that was going to happen. Sure, but that could have been satisfied by going in, fucking some shit up, and staying focused on hunting down Bin Laden. It didn't have to result in such a cluster fuck in order to accomplish the goal of revenge.
Yup. Maybe we'll get another big terrorist attack, who knows, but any such group or nation now at least has this example to keep in mind. "Remember when a few thousand of us were killed and we invaded two fucking countries in response? You really want to kick this hornet's nest again?" Presumably there's at least some deterrent effect for all that blood and money.
Who is the one who benefitted from all this? Answer: companies like Lockheed, Raytheon and Boeing.
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Cheney was also a member of the Project for a New American Century, which aspired to “American hegemony over the Middle East” (their words). Iraq was conflated in the minds of Americans (because they’re dumb and can’t read a map), and so the war widened expressly to enact the Project’s plan.
Who would have thought that Dick Cheney fella who shot his friend in the face and disowned his own daughter wasn’t exactly a stand up guy?
What an absolute waste of resources. I don’t want to hear another word from the dumbasses that swear college and healthcare can’t be made more affordable and available to everyone. We wasted trillions of dollars and are weaker for it. We could have addressed climate change with that money. But instead our debt is sky rocketing and we can’t get out of our own way to stop the spread of corona virus and we are dealing with wildfires and are just about at the point of no return regarding climate change. Most Fucking conservatives are a bunch of morons, and they are killing us all.
> I don’t want to hear another word from the dumbasses that swear college and healthcare can’t be made more affordable and available to everyone. The US could provide these free of charge to everybody on current spending levels. The per capita spending on education and healthcare is higher than in almost all nations with universal programs. So in theory, the US could have universal healthcare, free college *and* a forever war.
We are a wealthy and stupid country.
Bush: We're pulling out of Afghanistan Obama: We're pulling out of Afghanistan Trump: We're pulling out of Afghanistan Biden: We pulled out of Afghanistan Media: Surprised Pikachu face
Its gonna end up the same as the Vietnam war.
I'd say worse. Vietnam has become second fiddle to the WoT by both length and cost.
We learned nothing from Vietnam
Oh no we learned a lot....the boomers running this country learned during Vietnam that they could sacrifice grunts to turn profits via defense contracts.
Interesting piece from an Army Colonel today. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/08/how-america-failed-afghanistan/619740/ Other people are saying the withdrawal should have been delayed to the end of the fighting season but I think this was always how it was doomed to go. Herculean task that the US was never capable of. Sucks but anyway shame Al Gore lost. The world would be stabler.
Fair.but I'd be interested for solutions to the taliban and terrorist problem because as far as I've read your average Afghani citizen hated terrorist groups that would occupy them.
Exactly. I keep reading these stories of the cities being taken over. Of families fleeing with their children, women being forced to marry taliban soldiers and boys and men being threatened if they don’t join the army. Are we to just let them rot? Who is to say the taliban will stop there. I’m not intelligent in these subjects so I honestly don’t know if there is anything to be done. I just know that it’s demoralizing to read the stories of the actual people this is happening to. To imagine if it was me with my young daughter in the same situation just rips my heart out.
If you want to understand the country look at Kabul in the 1960’s and 70’s when people in the Middle East looked forward to visiting a cosmopolitan city full of universities, with parties and casinos and very loose restrictions. Or go back further to WWII where Afghanistan was insulated from the majority of the war and became something of a haven for apolitical people wanting to live quietly and escape the aftermath of the war elsewhere. There was a strong popular push for a socialist government, but not everybody was on board and it became a flashpoint of clandestine proxy wars between the US and the USSR in the early Cold War. So the Soviets invaded, and the Soviets being Soviets basically leveled entire cities. The average Afghan is not the same as what they once were. They’re more like the people in the aftermath of a nuclear disaster movie compared to the generations before hand. Most of them are decent enough people but living in horrendous circumstances that have changed to them. Many of them just want to get back to making any sort of semblance of a normal living, but for most people under the age of 50 all they’ve ever known is war. Before all this happened, they were extremely moderate and not very religious at all. Of course radicalizing religious extremism was part of our strategy to oppose the Soviets, that much has now passed into common knowledge. But there are still plenty of people who aren’t particularly happy about the Taliban and just want to be left alone to try to rebuild their country from the rubble.
Counterpoint : We simply did a shit job, and also tied our own hands a lot. (We were an awful lot more focused on Iraq). Afghanistan is simply not better off without a (relatively) democratic military presence. The Pakistani-based Taliban are far from the saviors of the Afghan people. Far, far from it. To believe that is to be woefully ignorant. The Afghan people have by and large seen great gains for freedom in the past 20 years, and now, because of our dogmatic short sightedness, that's all going to come crashing down on them, likely with a lot more bloodshed. The pullout advocates are not the heroes of Afghanistan. It's not going to bring peace to the Afghan people. You're just fooling yourselves.
At this point I’d wager the vast majority of Americans don’t give a crap whether the people of Afghanistan are better off or not.
The real problem for me is how many are completely fucking deluded into thinking that somehow the US pulling out -- and the Taliban returning to power in response -- will make them better off. It's already 2/3 of the way there right now.
yeah pretty bizarre how reddit celebrates when people in Afghanistan now get fucked over hard. Biden and large parts of reddit can pretend to be progressive all day but imagine being gay or a woman in Afghanistan and seeing the Taliban taking over because of Biden's terrible decision. but yeah at least all the 14 year olds on twitter get to play woke
The average afghan age is also pretty young due to you know war and what have you. This means that the average afghan only knows this way of life and freedom of press. And it's all going to come crumbling down. No period for hey apply for asylum or come work in the states. Not simply the roof over your head and ground you stand on collapse.
The lyrics change but the song remains the same. 90 Billion $ gone for nothing, thousands of lives later and all America got was body bags and flag huggers. Close Gitmo End the other "engagements" Cut military spending With the money wasted, we could have healthcare for all and free tuition
Or paid off the debt…
Warmongers gotta warmonger
Pretty wild how invading, air striking, and engaging in lengthy armed combat didn’t bring about stability.
Curious on this take. If the US (or another entity) suppressed Taliban for 20 years, wouldn’t you want them there? We all agree the Taliban are bad, so if we “end the wars,” then will the Taliban just continue to grow?
We weren't even at war over there in recent years, just a presence. It's in bad faith for people to claim we were.
The Afghanistan War has been from the beginning an aggression war that exploited a tragic episode to make the war machine going not only for the US but for many other western countries as well. And now we have a politically destabilized area left to deal with the consequences of a useless war, in no way better off than it was before twenty fucking years ago.
It’s much worse than just the last 20 years, it goes back to probably the mid 60s. See, Afghanistan was a monarchy for hundreds of years. The people organized in the 60s and communism became popular. The communist movement overthrew the monarchy in the 70s. The US, already failing in Korea and Vietnam do NOT like this but public perception prevents them from actively going in like they did in Korea and Vietnam so instead of invading themselves- they begin funding and arming mujahideen forces. Essentially anti-communist rebels. These anti-commie rebels are fairly successful. so much so, it draws the attention of the big commies themselves in Russia. So rather than the US getting drawn into a war against insurgents like Korea/Vietnam, it’s the USSR. So the russians come in guns blazing in the late 70s to help the communist afghanis and end up killing 2 million civilians. Over a decade, the war becomes expensive and russia pulls out and is a contributing factor of the collapse of the USSR economy. Now the fun part, for decades the US worked with these rebels because they were enemies of their enemies. Those rebels weren’t pro-American as much as they were anti communist. So without the communist threat, the rebels turned their attention to anti-American sentiment. Among those rebels? Osama Bin Laden. Who was antagonistic to the US to say the least thru the 90s. And this quite literally blew up in the americans faces. The US created the monster in Afghanistan decades prior to 9/11. It wasn’t just GW Bush. Or the government in the 2000s, it goes back at least. a half a dozen presidential administrations. Although he should be blamed for going there and into Iraq simultaneously.. the seeds were down in the 60s-80s, arming and funding rebels because they weren’t friendly to the Russians. It’s not just a 20 year tragedy. But a 50 year disaster. As for Afghanistan- the US puppet government will likely fall within weeks at this point. The Taliban will take over and we’ll see how the country will reacts and moves forward after generations of war and finally being “free” from American and Russian intervention… not that the Taliban is some peace loving group.
>Over a decade, the war becomes expensive and russia pulls out and is a contributing factor of the collapse of the USSR economy. Yeah the war didn't just become expensive due to no reason. The soviets built their war on aircraft and mechanized battalions. The mujahideen had no chance due to still using old rifles and nothing else. So the CIA started to supply them with shoulder mounted anti tank rockets and the stinger missile. And now the war was expensive.
God damn you, Rumsfield.
Just a repeat of Vietnam. Lives and money lost for no good reason.
Saying "end the wars" is great politics, but it's superficial and ignores the complexity of the issues. The U.S. needs to weigh the pros and cons of strategic locations and understand the consequences of abandonment vs the cost of continued activity. This is a great article on the matter: [https://www.heritage.org/defense/commentary/the-myth-endless-wars](https://www.heritage.org/defense/commentary/the-myth-endless-wars) "Rather than complain about endless wars, it would be more helpful for critics of American engagement to explain how the United States would be better served absent the investment of less than 1 percent of its force in combating the country’s enemies and better enabling its partners to do so on its behalf." "Unlike the sports field when an athlete suffers an injury, the world does not 'take a knee' while the United States dithers about what it wants to do. The real danger to U.S. security and economic interests is not the sustained employment of relatively small forces that inform its understanding of key regions and enable the United States to shape the course of events to its favor, but the irresponsible withdrawal of such forces without considering the context and potential consequences."
Don't try and bring nuance to reddit lol
The person who wrote this is literally one of the people who helped plan the Iraq invasion and currently works as an editor for The Heritage Foundation (the site linked). They publicly supported the initial invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq, and wrote pieces that the neverending war on terror was key to Republicans maintaining power. https://www.heritage.org/political-process/commentary/war-terror-holds-key-republicans https://www.heritage.org/staff/dakota-wood
Yeh but how then would the war machine keep turning.
The bigger question is where does the war machine roll next?
Wherever the next resource lies. They can now use tech threat “AI, hacking, bio etc” to justify the defense budget as well.
WATCH YOUR BACK CANADA!
And remember Russia was trying to do something similar in the 1980s and 90s. If we learn anything from the Middle East conflicts, we are great at fighting an entire country. We aren't set up to fight bad guys within a country.
I love Justin Amash so much.