7 ms·

then let it be another Saigon, what alternative did the US have than pull out? If you know anybody in the military they all say it's worse than it was years ago

then let it be another Saigon, what alternative did the US have than pull out? If you know anybody in the military they all say it's worse than it was years ago and only continuing to get worse so the only option was pull out or continue with the sunk cost fallacy of thinking we can somehow fix Afghanistan by doubling down with another troop surge. I'm glad we are finally admitting it was a failure

nxmnxm99 5y ago
Another in a long line of US military failures since WW2. I suspect when history looks back at the fall of the US/rise of the East, a common theme will be how much of a lead the US blew as a result of multiple, unnecessary and excruciatingly resource-intensive wars of attrition
- spfzero 5y ago
  The peak of the US "lead" would seem to be the fall of the Soviet Union. Vietnam etc. was long over by then. Not saying Iraq and Afghanistan weren't unnecessary and expensive. The U.S. and the world would have been better off without them, probably. Saddam and the Taliban, Isis, Al Qaida don't look so dangerous in retrospect. But Islamic "extremism" was the big perceived threat back then, and you could argue that it is less of a threat today, so someones' version of a problem solved.
- spaetzleesser 5y ago
  The only reason WW2 was a success because it was a real war aiming at total defeat and destruction of the enemy including civilian population. "Liberation" wars where the population is supposed to be saved from oppressive governments always fail. Failed in Vietnam, Iraq and now Afghanistan. Military can't distinguish between "good" and "bad" and a big, confusing mess gets created. WW2 would also have failed if the military had tried to avoid civilian deaths. You simply can't win a war that way,
  - dogman144 5y ago
    Military is pretty goodat that distinction. Government is not. Example: The government never bothered to renew the authorization for the global war on terror given in 2001 until like last year. Mil works best with a clear mission - nation building is not a clear mission.
    - spaetzleesser 5y ago
      Don't forget that military and government are the same. The US military is as guilty of stupid wars as everybody else in leadership.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
    I think the key difference is that the enemy in WW2 was centrally led conventional army while the Taliban wage Guerilla warfare, with entrenched structures and decades of experience.
    - spaetzleesser 5y ago
      The Taliban could easily be defeated if the occupying military didn't care about civilians and accepted destruction of the country. What doesn't work is fighting while also trying to build up a country, After WW2 Germany and Japan only worked because there was basically no resistance and the occupying powers could focus completely on rebuilding civilian society. What makes it even worse in countries like Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq is that the occupiers have no understanding of these societies and are trying to impose Western values on them.
      - nxmnxm99 5y ago
        Your latter points are exactly the problem with the US and western foreign policy in general. This belief that everyone just desperately wants the freedom to do a liberal arts degree and wear short shorts. The average Afghan has never looked at US society and culture aspirationally. They admire our wealth - that's it.
      - 5y ago
wpasc 5y ago
Potentially unpopular opinion, but here goes. Would an acceptable level of presence have been just to keep Bagram? It was a pretty key base for so many operations in the Middle East and could have been a huge force multiplier. Moreover, it could have a deterrent effect. For precedent, the US has a variety of bases across the world in Europe and Asia and many of those bases are not political nightmares. To just maintain Bagram could seemingly be done without really risking many personnel and serve as an air support base with faster response times to Afghan military requests for aid. Bagram could also be a strong piece in preventing this unrelenting push of the Taliban. Right now we are sending 3000 troops in for evacuations, and I don't think this is the last time we'll have troops in there. If the Taliban completes a significant enough takeover of Afghanistan then (in my opinion) it's just a matter of time before some action prompts US or some coalition of forces to return.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  > It was a pretty key base for so many operations in the Middle East To what end? The security threat has been mitigated. The energy dynamic has changed with Aramco’s listing, fracking and bona fide renewable energy. We are, first and foremost, a naval power. Afghanistan is a shitty buffer state. Our ports and coastal bases more than suffice for the foreseeable future in that region.
  - wpasc 5y ago
    Historically, a bunch of really important (to the war/counter terrorism efforts; you can say the war effort was not important and that's a fair argument but Bagram was at least helpful in the war). For starters, the raid to kill Bin Laden originated in Bagram [1]. If quick response times were needed based on intel with limited usefulness (the location of a specific terrorist leader) or the Afghani military needs air support, then Bagram couldve helped cut down response times in those important circumstances. The distances from the nearest carrier locations are real in terms of response time. I'm just guessing here and I'm no expert but it just seems like maintaining the base would cost not much when compared to its usefulness in even just counter terror operations (not in the broad sense where innocents are hurt but like actual raids on specific leaders, baghdadi, bin laden, etc [though i dont think the baghdadi raid originated from bagram]) [1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Osama_bin_Laden#Operation_Neptune_Spear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Osama_bin_Laden#Ope...
colechristensen 5y ago
Unpopular suggestion: Actual imperial rule for a couple of generations. Tax enough to pay for the effort but not for a "profit". Build infrastructure by bringing outside expertise to train and build local business. Take control of schools, make them safe and required for all children. Respect the local culture but smash hard some cultural practices. Would it be incredibly hard to do without abuse? Absolutely. Is it questionably moral? Absolutely. Could it even be done at all? Questionable. We keep acting that the outcome of every military conflict is going to be like the liberation of France in WWII, kill the "bad guys" and then champagne and croissant parades with the locals. The repeated failed attempts at just handing self-government to nations after we depose their governments shows that you can't just win wars and fix problems with force alone. War is awful, it should happen as infrequently as possible, but if you're going to do it, you better have a plan for winning the peace. Corrupt, half-assed nation building doesn't cut it.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Respect the local culture but smash hard some cultural practices. These are not merely in tension, but actually completely incompatible. We can respect local culture or try to impose one that we like better, but you can't do the first and also the second. > Would it be incredibly hard to do without abuse? No, it would be abuse. > Is it questionably moral? No, again, it is unquestionably immoral. > War is awful, it should happen as infrequently as possible, but if you're going to do it, you better have a plan for winning the peace. Sometimes, you just need to accept winning the war. Disrupting al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and providing a deterrent for the Taliban letting a similar group base out of there in the future was a win. The fantasy of then forcibly-but-on-the-cheap implanting a pro-Western liberal democratic regime and society in Afghanistan was...insane. Unrealistic fantasies about “winning the peace” we could do with fewer of.
  - lostlogin 5y ago
    > Unrealistic fantasies about “winning the peace” we could do with fewer of Japan and the Marshall plan are not a million miles from being an example of the change being proposed. A lot of differences though. Edit: it used to say Martial plan. Sort of a funny error.
jdhn 5y ago
Please don't take my objection to how it's being handled as support for a forever war. I'm glad we're getting out, but as I said earlier, Afghanis that worked with us aren't receiving as much support as they should be.
- rufus_foreman 5y ago
  >> Afghanis that worked with us Look at it from the perspective of someone who has had their country invaded by a foreign power. In what way aren't those people traitors?
  - jdhn 5y ago
    I agree with you. That's why, IMO, we should be expediting their status as refugees, but also having a planned withdrawal so that an utter collapse doesn't happen, unlike now where it sure looks like there's a collapse coming.
ikerdanzel 5y ago
USA could have done what Chines and Rome did for centuries. Wipe the Taliban populations of their males. Reeducation camps would do wonders. Instead, they throw cash, watch locals do obscene things with goats and children and brandishing and losing American weapons. This outcome of getting beaten by goat-f*kers is expected. It was widely known a decade ago, not if but when. Guess 2021 is the final answer.

nxmnxm99 5y ago

Another in a long line of US military failures since WW2. I suspect when history looks back at the fall of the US/rise of the East, a common theme will be how much of a lead the US blew as a result of multiple, unnecessary and excruciatingly resource-intensive wars of attrition

spfzero 5y ago
The peak of the US "lead" would seem to be the fall of the Soviet Union. Vietnam etc. was long over by then. Not saying Iraq and Afghanistan weren't unnecessary and expensive. The U.S. and the world would have been better off without them, probably. Saddam and the Taliban, Isis, Al Qaida don't look so dangerous in retrospect. But Islamic "extremism" was the big perceived threat back then, and you could argue that it is less of a threat today, so someones' version of a problem solved.
spaetzleesser 5y ago
The only reason WW2 was a success because it was a real war aiming at total defeat and destruction of the enemy including civilian population. "Liberation" wars where the population is supposed to be saved from oppressive governments always fail. Failed in Vietnam, Iraq and now Afghanistan. Military can't distinguish between "good" and "bad" and a big, confusing mess gets created. WW2 would also have failed if the military had tried to avoid civilian deaths. You simply can't win a war that way,
- dogman144 5y ago
  Military is pretty goodat that distinction. Government is not. Example: The government never bothered to renew the authorization for the global war on terror given in 2001 until like last year. Mil works best with a clear mission - nation building is not a clear mission.
  - spaetzleesser 5y ago
    Don't forget that military and government are the same. The US military is as guilty of stupid wars as everybody else in leadership.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
  I think the key difference is that the enemy in WW2 was centrally led conventional army while the Taliban wage Guerilla warfare, with entrenched structures and decades of experience.
  - spaetzleesser 5y ago
    The Taliban could easily be defeated if the occupying military didn't care about civilians and accepted destruction of the country. What doesn't work is fighting while also trying to build up a country, After WW2 Germany and Japan only worked because there was basically no resistance and the occupying powers could focus completely on rebuilding civilian society. What makes it even worse in countries like Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq is that the occupiers have no understanding of these societies and are trying to impose Western values on them.
    - nxmnxm99 5y ago
      Your latter points are exactly the problem with the US and western foreign policy in general. This belief that everyone just desperately wants the freedom to do a liberal arts degree and wear short shorts. The average Afghan has never looked at US society and culture aspirationally. They admire our wealth - that's it.
    - 5y ago

wpasc 5y ago

Potentially unpopular opinion, but here goes. Would an acceptable level of presence have been just to keep Bagram? It was a pretty key base for so many operations in the Middle East and could have been a huge force multiplier. Moreover, it could have a deterrent effect. For precedent, the US has a variety of bases across the world in Europe and Asia and many of those bases are not political nightmares. To just maintain Bagram could seemingly be done without really risking many personnel and serve as an air support base with faster response times to Afghan military requests for aid. Bagram could also be a strong piece in preventing this unrelenting push of the Taliban. Right now we are sending 3000 troops in for evacuations, and I don't think this is the last time we'll have troops in there. If the Taliban completes a significant enough takeover of Afghanistan then (in my opinion) it's just a matter of time before some action prompts US or some coalition of forces to return.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> It was a pretty key base for so many operations in the Middle East To what end? The security threat has been mitigated. The energy dynamic has changed with Aramco’s listing, fracking and bona fide renewable energy. We are, first and foremost, a naval power. Afghanistan is a shitty buffer state. Our ports and coastal bases more than suffice for the foreseeable future in that region.
- wpasc 5y ago
  Historically, a bunch of really important (to the war/counter terrorism efforts; you can say the war effort was not important and that's a fair argument but Bagram was at least helpful in the war). For starters, the raid to kill Bin Laden originated in Bagram [1]. If quick response times were needed based on intel with limited usefulness (the location of a specific terrorist leader) or the Afghani military needs air support, then Bagram couldve helped cut down response times in those important circumstances. The distances from the nearest carrier locations are real in terms of response time. I'm just guessing here and I'm no expert but it just seems like maintaining the base would cost not much when compared to its usefulness in even just counter terror operations (not in the broad sense where innocents are hurt but like actual raids on specific leaders, baghdadi, bin laden, etc [though i dont think the baghdadi raid originated from bagram]) [1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Osama_bin_Laden#Operation_Neptune_Spear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Osama_bin_Laden#Ope...

colechristensen 5y ago

Unpopular suggestion: Actual imperial rule for a couple of generations. Tax enough to pay for the effort but not for a "profit". Build infrastructure by bringing outside expertise to train and build local business. Take control of schools, make them safe and required for all children. Respect the local culture but smash hard some cultural practices. Would it be incredibly hard to do without abuse? Absolutely. Is it questionably moral? Absolutely. Could it even be done at all? Questionable. We keep acting that the outcome of every military conflict is going to be like the liberation of France in WWII, kill the "bad guys" and then champagne and croissant parades with the locals. The repeated failed attempts at just handing self-government to nations after we depose their governments shows that you can't just win wars and fix problems with force alone. War is awful, it should happen as infrequently as possible, but if you're going to do it, you better have a plan for winning the peace. Corrupt, half-assed nation building doesn't cut it.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> Respect the local culture but smash hard some cultural practices. These are not merely in tension, but actually completely incompatible. We can respect local culture or try to impose one that we like better, but you can't do the first and also the second. > Would it be incredibly hard to do without abuse? No, it would be abuse. > Is it questionably moral? No, again, it is unquestionably immoral. > War is awful, it should happen as infrequently as possible, but if you're going to do it, you better have a plan for winning the peace. Sometimes, you just need to accept winning the war. Disrupting al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and providing a deterrent for the Taliban letting a similar group base out of there in the future was a win. The fantasy of then forcibly-but-on-the-cheap implanting a pro-Western liberal democratic regime and society in Afghanistan was...insane. Unrealistic fantasies about “winning the peace” we could do with fewer of.
- lostlogin 5y ago
  > Unrealistic fantasies about “winning the peace” we could do with fewer of Japan and the Marshall plan are not a million miles from being an example of the change being proposed. A lot of differences though. Edit: it used to say Martial plan. Sort of a funny error.

jdhn 5y ago

Please don't take my objection to how it's being handled as support for a forever war. I'm glad we're getting out, but as I said earlier, Afghanis that worked with us aren't receiving as much support as they should be.

rufus_foreman 5y ago
>> Afghanis that worked with us Look at it from the perspective of someone who has had their country invaded by a foreign power. In what way aren't those people traitors?
- jdhn 5y ago
  I agree with you. That's why, IMO, we should be expediting their status as refugees, but also having a planned withdrawal so that an utter collapse doesn't happen, unlike now where it sure looks like there's a collapse coming.

ikerdanzel 5y ago

USA could have done what Chines and Rome did for centuries. Wipe the Taliban populations of their males. Reeducation camps would do wonders. Instead, they throw cash, watch locals do obscene things with goats and children and brandishing and losing American weapons. This outcome of getting beaten by goat-f*kers is expected. It was widely known a decade ago, not if but when. Guess 2021 is the final answer.