Posted on 12/22/2019 4:02:37 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Al Villanueva was 12 when the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center prompted the U.S. to invade Afghanistan in 2001. Eighteen years, three tours of duty and five NFL seasons later, the war continues.
Mr. Villanueva, the Steelers’ left tackle and locally perhaps the most well-known veteran of the war in Afghanistan, belongs to a large Pittsburgh community of post-9/11 veterans, a portion of the nearly 800,000 who have deployed to Afghanistan with the initial mission of hunting down Osama bin Laden and the Taliban who protected him. Bin Laden is dead, but the Taliban, once nearly vanquished, continue to replenish their forces.
The U.S. reached a peace agreement in principle with the Taliban in September before President Donald Trump called it off. Mr. Trump announced a resumption in negotiations during a surprise Thanksgiving visit to troops in Afghanistan, but last week, after Taliban suicide bombers attacked Bagram Air Base, the talks paused. Those talks still do not include the Afghan government.
“The reality is that just like it happened in Vietnam, nobody will care, we will not learn any lessons, and we will continue to make the same mistakes,” said Mr. Villanueva, a former Army Ranger. “The unfortunate part is that for many families and service members, including myself, the questions regarding what we did, why we did it, and who we lost, is always going to haunt us.”
No good solution exists for ending the conflict. Leave, and risk a complete Taliban takeover, lost ground in civil liberties for women and the re-spawning of terrorist cells; stay, and pour millions more into the longest war in U.S. history while adding to the roughly 2,300 U.S. soldiers killed there.
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
PING!
“Bin Laden is dead, but the Taliban, once nearly vanquished, continue to replenish their forces.”
Of course the Pittsburgh Post Gaz6ette doesn’t care who ran foreign policy between 2009 & 2016. Nope. Can’t do that.
I understand that originally we wanted the guy that brought down the towers, but what are we trying to do now.
If our geniuses can't figure it out after 20 years, it's time to nuke'm and call it a day for 10,000 years until the glass cools and the radioactivity is passed.
We should leave Afganistan but make sure that everyone has a sat. cellphone. Our intel could monitor all calls. Anyone would be able to call in the location of Taliban leaders in real time. We could then assassinate them one by one.
I don't give a rat's ass about what happens to Afghanistan. If they want freedom and democracy, let them figure out how to get it.
Not our circus; not our monkeys.
I don't give a rat's ass about what happens to Afghanistan. If they want freedom and democracy, let them figure out how to get it.
Not our circus; not our monkeys.
“Bin Laden is dead, but the Taliban, once nearly vanquished, continue to replenish their forces.”
Of course the Pittsburgh Post Gaz6ette doesn’t care who ran foreign policy between 2009 & 2016. Nope. Can’t do that.
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It would be interesting if The One’s foreign policy was regularly criticized by this paper. I highly doubt it. Regardless, who is more anti-interventionist? Trump or Obummer?
WE are the losers.
AMEN to everything you wrote!
> Of course the Pittsburgh Post Gaz6ette doesn’t care who ran foreign policy between 2009 & 2016. <
I don’t think that matters all that much. Consider Vietnam. Who should be blamed for that terrible tragedy? Nixon? Ford? I would say neither of them. LBJ owns the Vietnam debacle, entirely.
The same goes for Afghanistan (and Iraq as well). It’s all on George W. Bush. Obama just played the bad hand that was dealt him. And that’s also true for Trump today.
When something akin to 9/11, or maybe a Pearl Harbo(non nuclear)happens, we go in and do a number on them. Total war; I don’t care about collateral damage, I don’t care about so called “innocent” civilians. If they aren’t in open rebellion against something like Bin Laden or the Taliban, then I see them as complicit. Tear the country apart, bomb it into the Stone Age, then LEAVE. When we have accomplished what we went in for, pure and simple retribution we leave. We don’t rebuild, we don’t nation build, we leave. If Russia, China, or some European country wants to spend money to rebuild, fine they can do it. If the people stay the same and can’t learn from the first mistake and attack us again, we do it all over. And leave again. There isn’t a damn thing in Afghanistan that I care for or worry about. Let them fear us and what we will do. Respect? Hell, they can’t even respect themselves, so who cares if they respect us. Just fear us and what we will do in retribution.
We can’t fix Afghanistan without also fixing the pest-hole next door - Pakistan. And we can’t fix Pakistan, either. The US can’t fix all the problems of the world. We got Bin Laden, and we can tell Pakistan that if they don’t stop sponsoring the Taliban they can forget about sucking on Uncle Sam’s teat. That’s the best we can do - we can’t go on wasting more American blood and money. Bring the troops home and the hell with Afghanistan.
Honestly, I have wondered for years ... what is our end goal in Afghanistan? Is the plan just to stay indefinitely, fighting a war of attrition, and keeping the Taliban from returning to power? If so, say so. Otherwise, the only alternative I see is to start at one end of the country and work to the other, killing everything in between.
P.S. Ali Villanueva graduated The Academy two years ahead of Rummyfan Jr. He played wide receiver while at West Point.
I agree.
Yes, Pakistan is a basket case too. Thank you Mr Jinnah!
What is common to these countries? Hmmm....
We can’t get a “do-over” when it comes to “war” (for which we never declared since WWII). 9/11 “War on Terror” is a complete waste. Islam has won. Imagine Nazi in the same result as a result of WWII.
oops I double tapped!
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