Afghanistan exit strategy

Can you provide any evidence though that military intervention in the Middle East is actually helping?

Has ever helped?

Can you, in fact, demonstrate a case that said interventions have ever done anything other than make matters worse?

Personally I'm inclined to go further and suggest that the long view would suggest the "interventions" started before the cyclical violence and look distinctly like being the cause, not the solution.

It's unfair when you think you have set up a nice post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy that no one will see through, and then someone else brings up hard facts that make the whole thing irrelevant.

True

False.

You get 50% on your quiz. In most schools, that's an F.

What has trump done to drive them out? I have not heasrd of many efforts he made to stop ISIS. Maybe I missed it under all the other noise.

Probably a 3 Wood.

I guess Biden wants to have all US troops out of Afghanistan by 9/11/2021.

Is it time? Good idea? Bad idea?

The chosen date is genius. Whether it's a good idea is dubious.

Still, lots of other fires need attention.

We should stay there forever and keep spending billions of dollars propping up the industrial military complex. I'm not serious since some of y'all are never able to tell if I'm joking or not.

Are the Taliban still openly promising to attack and overthrow the current government once the US leaves?

They’ve had 20 years to get their shit together. Not that I understand all the politics or strategies. Emphasis on politics. But it would seem if they were serious, they’d have figured out a way to stand on their own by now.

Oh and there's this.

The chosen date is genius for the Taliban/Al-Qaeda. That gives them a few months to resupply and fix any holes in their game until 12 September 2021 and begin their rape & pillage hilarity tour.
I'd sure hate to be a female there after that point!

Oh yeah and there's also this.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...al-us-public-were-misled-about-unwinnable-war

Let's also not forget that Trump had us leaving in May of this year.

Let's also not forget that the Pentagon lost 21 trillion dollars.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlik...cant-account-for-21-trillion/?sh=685f7dda7644

The war in Afghanistan is not "unwinnable." It's just that the things that would need to be done in order to "win" are things that no civilized person would do.

damn....21 trillion here, 21 trillion there, and next thing ya know you're talking about a good chuck of change!
I read this or a similar article before - it's mind boggling but not surprising. I saw this kind of thing in Iraq when I was there. Bosnia too but to a lesser extent.
And what's really pathetic is the military wants you the individual soldier to account for nearly every - single - shred of equipment/supplies down to the penny even if it costs them thousands in resources to accomplish this. But they literally can't even begin to control the incredibly complicated, corrupt and generally ineffective & wasteful systems that allow 21 trillion to float away into the ether.

Everybody has a side hustle and is wetting their beaks and the longer we are there, the harder it gets to the bottom of who is involved and to what degree. Factor in by the time anybody who gives a shit about it starts to get wise to what's up the people involved are long gone/retired/dead etc. and that money they siphoned off has been spent or invested in untraceable locations.
Seriously, it was like The Sopranos or something in the sandbox.

Although they are indeed a "civilized" nation, I'm guessing if you cut Israel loose over there they would have things wrapped up with a quickness.

I doubt even the Israelis would be willing to go house to house exterminating every living person. They've something similar in their history that they might remember.

This video in a nutshell:

• The government there is corrupt as fuck
• We've been spending a fuck ton of blood and treasure on trying to prop them up.
• The US has spent 100 billion dollars trying to fix the National security forces.
• The Taliban controls more territory than they ever have.
• We've told the government to get their shit together and work out something with the Taliban and they still haven't done it.
• Any type of peace means their wallet dries up along with moneyed interests in DC.
• You're going to see (and we already have) news stories from the Left and Right trying to convince us not to withdraw.
• The left will talk about women's rights, the right will talk about "the next 9/11" being eminent.
• Do not fall for it. We've spent a ton of money on women's rights in Afghanistan. They need to figure it out, not us.

How the fuck do you "work out something with the Taliban" in a way that doesn't result in half the country being actively oppressed? Which human rights should they compromise on? Go ahead, walk me through the process.

Then explain to me why it's okay for the US to remain in Germany and Korea forever as a stabilizing force, but Afghanistan can go fuck itself.

They may have to share control with the Taliban.

Call it dumb all you want, but that's the reality we're facing and that's the likely outcome we're going to get if Biden truly goes through with this because this withdrawal is not conditions based. Don't believe me? Here's a leaked letter from Blinkin saying as much.
https://tolonews.com/pdf/02.pdf

https://www.npr.org/2021/03/08/9748...-forces-by-may-1-if-peace-talks-do-not-progre

It's foxes sharing the chicken coop. It just won't work. That said, addressing the Germany/Korea situation: it could be (guessing here) that the U.S. knows that Russia (attack Germany) and North Korea (attack South Korea) have insane amounts of powerful weaponry that would kill millions within hours if not minutes if the balloon goes up. The Afghans won't be killed by the millions because the Taliban has weaponry (no shit) but nowhere near the devastating capability of North Korea or Russia for example. So perhaps "the lesser of two evils" is the Afghans being oppressed and subjugated and live an even shittier life than they are used to. It's not right or fair, but that could be the harsh reality of the situation there. Again, just a theory.

Exactly. Besides, how many Vietnam’s do we have to go through before we learn our lesson? It is entirely up to the Afghanistan Government to get their shit together and do something about the Taliban.

Hmmm.....while I'm not accusing the official Afghan government of systemic corruption, could there be a significant percentage of their members secretly enabling and encouraging the Taliban?
In other words maybe it's a cultural thing (strict adherence to traditional islamic values) with enough of the government officials that explains the lack of any urgency in solving the Taliban "problem". And I'm sure we've all heard of Afghan soldiers turning on and killing their U.S. military trainers & advisors. Nothing is on "the up and up" when dealing with vastly differing cultures sometimes.

Define fuckton.

For comparison more Americans died on April 27 & 28 1944 during REHEARSALS for D-Day than have died in the last DECADE in Afghanistan.

I assume -- or rather, I hope -- that no longer having troops in Afghanistan doesn't mean we will no longer exert influence or support the Afghan government.

Turning military stuff into political advertising is never any good.

Although this is no "Mission Accomplished" level bullshit.