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I'm not certain there's nothing to show for it. For starters... any group thinking about attacking the US on it's homeland will have to contemplate a 20+ year

by Alupis 5y ago

I'm not certain there's nothing to show for it. For starters... any group thinking about attacking the US on it's homeland will have to contemplate a 20+ year conflict afterwards. We also did educate a lot of people there, many of which are leaving the country right now for obvious reasons - but still, we did help a lot of people there. Lastly, the way we're throwing money around these days, $2 Trillion is practically nothing when spread out over a 20 year period anyway. Maybe I'm just searching for the silver lining...

zardo 5y ago
> We also did educate a lot of people there We also "canoed" a lot people there.
BitwiseFool 5y ago
>"any group thinking about attacking the US on it's homeland will have to contemplate a 20+ year conflict afterwards." I don't know how true this is, but I heard that Bin Laden's goal was to get the US mired in an extremely expensive and prolonged war of attrition. It's the same strategy that helped bring down the Soviet Union. It makes sense, at face value, to get a vastly more powerful adversary bogged down in such a war. >"Maybe I'm just searching for the silver lining..." I feel you. It's pretty disheartening.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  And as sad as it is, bin Laden completely won in that regard. The US and practically everyone else got so side tracked by Afghanistan that neither noticed the growing threat of Russia and China, plus local right wing people and parties were emboldened by an Islamophobic mindset in general (thus, in turn, leading Muslim communities into isolation instead of integration).
  - randompwd 5y ago
    > local right wing people and parties were emboldened by an Islamophobic mindset in general (thus, in turn, leading Muslim communities into isolation instead of integration). A phobia is an irrational fear. I don't quite think it's right to describe any criticisms of the Islamic religion/culture as de-factor irrational. Also, integration happened. Assimilation didn't - which is where the issue is. People in the "West" created enclaves and didn't leave behind the worst of their culture & traditions and instead allowed it to breathe in societies where have been trying for decades to rid themselves of patriarchy, misogyny and homophobia.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > The US and practically everyone else got so side tracked by Afghanistan The US only momentarily devoted its attention to Afghanistan, until the Administration was able to redirect its energy to the preconceived war on Iraq it initially wanted to use the 9/11 attack to justify but was thwarted by the evidence leading elsewhere too clearly. That's a big part of the reason the long occupation on Afghanistan was such a failure. > plus local right wing people and parties were emboldened by an Islamophobic mindset in general Uh, for the point of view of the right-wing party in America that launched that war and the next, that wasn't an unfortunate unintended consequence, its part of the reason many of the people in that Administration had been trying to get a war against Iraq off the ground since shortly after the previous one ended.
- austhrow743 5y ago
  Really? I’ve read that seeing the US lose its shit and pull out of Somalia after losing a couple helicopters and a dozen or so troops gave him the idea that it culturally couldn’t handle losses. That he thought scaling up the losses would increase the scale of the withdrawal and that he could get the US to pull out of the Islamic world completely. They seem like mutually incompatible motivations.
asah 5y ago
Over those 20 years, the total US GDP was $300T [1], so $2T = 0.67% to move a war off our soil. [1] source: St Louis Fed: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDP https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDP
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
heavyset_go 5y ago
> For starters... any group thinking about attacking the US on it's homeland will have to contemplate a 20+ year conflict afterwards. The US didn't invade Saudi Arabia.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  KSA hasn't attacked us. That's like saying the US attacked the UK because some Americans financially and materially supported the IRA.
  - bcrosby95 5y ago
    Afghanistan didn't attack us either. Neither did the Taliban.
    - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      The Taliban's big mistake was actively refusing to turn over OBL. The US's big mistake was not trying to make a back room deal with them to the tune of "we'll make you more secure than any south American tin-pot dictator so long as you make the kind of example out of Al-Qaeda that we can't make" If either of those things had went through it would have saved both parties 20yr of money, blood and associated bullshit.
      - austhrow743 5y ago
        I’d be really interested in reading an in-depth breakdown of Taliban and US decision making during that time. Supposedly the Taliban didn’t refuse to turn him over full stop but rather refused without evidence. I don’t know if that was them never planning to turn him over and just trying to buy time with a soft no, them -as a very young government with little international recognition- trying to demonstrate sovereignty with the intent to hand him over after an extradition trial, them genuinely not knowing he did it and really wanting evidence. Or given that organisations don’t make decisions but that individuals do, was it a combination of the above plus various other personal interests and biases. Same with the US side. Did they suspect or know the Taliban wasn’t ever going to hand him over? Not willing to give them the political recognition and legitimacy that cooperating diplomatically would have? Was the resistance that the Taliban was fighting and that the US backed believed to be stronger and the Taliban weaker than in reality? Was Bush just getting information from his campaign team that if he didn’t retaliate militarily quickly then the electorate would see him as weak but if he did then they would rally behind him?
nxmnxm99 5y ago
UBL planned to draw the US into a multi-decade war of attrition because he knew that was the only way to beat a power that strong. For all the people we "helped", a thousand more grew up to the sound of US drones shelling their extended family members. The "War on Terror" dwarves Vietnam as the US's greatest military failure, and is singularly responsible for it's crippling presence on the world stage today.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
otikik 5y ago
> any group thinking about attacking the US on it's homeland will have to contemplate a 20+ year conflict afterwards. Several groups attacked the US Capitol 8 months ago and they got away with it with only 500 carged with federal crimes. Which isn't nothing, but is a far cry from 20+ year conflict.

by Alupis 5y ago

zardo 5y ago

> We also did educate a lot of people there We also "canoed" a lot people there.

BitwiseFool 5y ago

>"any group thinking about attacking the US on it's homeland will have to contemplate a 20+ year conflict afterwards." I don't know how true this is, but I heard that Bin Laden's goal was to get the US mired in an extremely expensive and prolonged war of attrition. It's the same strategy that helped bring down the Soviet Union. It makes sense, at face value, to get a vastly more powerful adversary bogged down in such a war. >"Maybe I'm just searching for the silver lining..." I feel you. It's pretty disheartening.

mschuster91 5y ago
And as sad as it is, bin Laden completely won in that regard. The US and practically everyone else got so side tracked by Afghanistan that neither noticed the growing threat of Russia and China, plus local right wing people and parties were emboldened by an Islamophobic mindset in general (thus, in turn, leading Muslim communities into isolation instead of integration).
- randompwd 5y ago
  > local right wing people and parties were emboldened by an Islamophobic mindset in general (thus, in turn, leading Muslim communities into isolation instead of integration). A phobia is an irrational fear. I don't quite think it's right to describe any criticisms of the Islamic religion/culture as de-factor irrational. Also, integration happened. Assimilation didn't - which is where the issue is. People in the "West" created enclaves and didn't leave behind the worst of their culture & traditions and instead allowed it to breathe in societies where have been trying for decades to rid themselves of patriarchy, misogyny and homophobia.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > The US and practically everyone else got so side tracked by Afghanistan The US only momentarily devoted its attention to Afghanistan, until the Administration was able to redirect its energy to the preconceived war on Iraq it initially wanted to use the 9/11 attack to justify but was thwarted by the evidence leading elsewhere too clearly. That's a big part of the reason the long occupation on Afghanistan was such a failure. > plus local right wing people and parties were emboldened by an Islamophobic mindset in general Uh, for the point of view of the right-wing party in America that launched that war and the next, that wasn't an unfortunate unintended consequence, its part of the reason many of the people in that Administration had been trying to get a war against Iraq off the ground since shortly after the previous one ended.
austhrow743 5y ago
Really? I’ve read that seeing the US lose its shit and pull out of Somalia after losing a couple helicopters and a dozen or so troops gave him the idea that it culturally couldn’t handle losses. That he thought scaling up the losses would increase the scale of the withdrawal and that he could get the US to pull out of the Islamic world completely. They seem like mutually incompatible motivations.

asah 5y ago

Over those 20 years, the total US GDP was $300T [1], so $2T = 0.67% to move a war off our soil. [1] source: St Louis Fed: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDP https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDP

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

heavyset_go 5y ago

> For starters... any group thinking about attacking the US on it's homeland will have to contemplate a 20+ year conflict afterwards. The US didn't invade Saudi Arabia.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
KSA hasn't attacked us. That's like saying the US attacked the UK because some Americans financially and materially supported the IRA.
- bcrosby95 5y ago
  Afghanistan didn't attack us either. Neither did the Taliban.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    The Taliban's big mistake was actively refusing to turn over OBL. The US's big mistake was not trying to make a back room deal with them to the tune of "we'll make you more secure than any south American tin-pot dictator so long as you make the kind of example out of Al-Qaeda that we can't make" If either of those things had went through it would have saved both parties 20yr of money, blood and associated bullshit.
    - austhrow743 5y ago
      I’d be really interested in reading an in-depth breakdown of Taliban and US decision making during that time. Supposedly the Taliban didn’t refuse to turn him over full stop but rather refused without evidence. I don’t know if that was them never planning to turn him over and just trying to buy time with a soft no, them -as a very young government with little international recognition- trying to demonstrate sovereignty with the intent to hand him over after an extradition trial, them genuinely not knowing he did it and really wanting evidence. Or given that organisations don’t make decisions but that individuals do, was it a combination of the above plus various other personal interests and biases. Same with the US side. Did they suspect or know the Taliban wasn’t ever going to hand him over? Not willing to give them the political recognition and legitimacy that cooperating diplomatically would have? Was the resistance that the Taliban was fighting and that the US backed believed to be stronger and the Taliban weaker than in reality? Was Bush just getting information from his campaign team that if he didn’t retaliate militarily quickly then the electorate would see him as weak but if he did then they would rally behind him?

nxmnxm99 5y ago

UBL planned to draw the US into a multi-decade war of attrition because he knew that was the only way to beat a power that strong. For all the people we "helped", a thousand more grew up to the sound of US drones shelling their extended family members. The "War on Terror" dwarves Vietnam as the US's greatest military failure, and is singularly responsible for it's crippling presence on the world stage today.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

otikik 5y ago

> any group thinking about attacking the US on it's homeland will have to contemplate a 20+ year conflict afterwards. Several groups attacked the US Capitol 8 months ago and they got away with it with only 500 carged with federal crimes. Which isn't nothing, but is a far cry from 20+ year conflict.