Posted on 11/13/2018 12:09:58 AM PST by McGruff
When U.S. forces and their Afghan allies rode into Kabul in November 2001 they were greeted as liberators. But after 17 years of war, the Taliban have retaken half the country, security is worse than it’s ever been, and many Afghans place the blame squarely on the Americans.
The United States has lost more than 2,400 soldiers in its longest war, and has spent more than $900 billion on everything from military operations to the construction of roads, bridges and power plants. Three U.S. presidents have pledged to bring peace to Afghanistan, either by adding or withdrawing troops, by engaging the Taliban or shunning them. Last year, the U.S. dropped the “mother of all bombs” on a cave complex.
None of it has worked. After years of frustration, Afghanistan is rife with conspiracy theories, including the idea that Americans didn’t stumble into a forever war, but planned one all along.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Obama unnecessarily prolonged it.
After 8 years of Obama suddenly the Afghan war is an issue again.
I’m reluctant to care what the Afghans think.
Lets be kinda honest...the ‘17 year’ thing mentioned....is not when the real war started. You need to go back to 1979 when the Russians invaded and created the environment rich in thug-ism. You can go back to the 1960s and 1970s to see a lot going on....western capital showing up in Kabul...and even some tourism starting to show up. Next year will be forty freaking years of an unending war. They are right to be frustrated, but there’s a ton of blame to throw around.
Bush unnecessarily prolonged it. We should have been gone within 2 years, and never gotten into the so-called nation-build phase. Punitive expedition and out.
The problem is that we’re fighting this the American way. If we had fought this the Afghan way, the war would have been over a couple of years after 9/11. Of course, a few million Afghans (with a 1 to 10 or lower Taliban to Taliban civilian supporter ratio) would also be lying in mass graves. Unfortunately, to defeat an enemy that has been defeated conventionally, but won’t surrender, you cannot apply the Geneva Conventions to them.
The problem is not that we can’t defeat them, but that we won’t take measures that have worked in the past, continue to work in the present, but are now interpreted as cruelty for the sake of cruelty. They are not. We have devoted hundreds of billions of dollars towards fighting the Taliban our way. It can’t be done at a reasonable cost in American and friendly Afghan lives, never mind money. The Taliban and their civilian supporters must be slaughtered root and branch.
You are correct: Back in the 60’s and until 1978, Afghanistan was a poor country, but civilized for the most part, and moving generally forward. But, the Socialists / Communists were plotting, overthrew the Gov’t, and it all went to hell from there on out.
The hard truth, isn’t it...
IIRC Bush wanted to leave after Bora Bora but the Brits convinced him to do some National Building...
Fine, let’s get out.
After 17 years of occupation it should be
What American ‘ freedoms” are our troops dying for on Afghanistan’s plains?
We can plan a mission to Mars but we cant eradicate the poppy fields? The labs the Taliban and ISIS are competing to control? Making the Taliban look like the lesser of evils.
Count the Anericans dying from heroin as collateral damage of a failure of honesty about our strategic policies
Good.
+1
Blair/Brown, the gift that keeps on giving... (Tora Bora, btw.)
Yeah. Thanks.
Of course. Many if not most Afghans or more importantly the muslims who live in Afghanistan, are the enemy of the United States and did not mind bin laden attacking us.
They would prefer peace on their soil while living sharia law and war on our soil.
Of course, we are making the war against islam an away game as much as we can.
JoMa
We are not in Afghanistan as benevolent heros, we are there because the country is full of rare minerals.
But girls can go to school.
That’s worth American treasure.
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