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Afghanistan Meant Nothing: A Veteran Reflects on 20 Wasted Years
- thepangolino 5y agoAfghanistan was going alright till about 2020. Then everything changed. My naive reading is that it might be the pandemic or the new US administration.
- hellopluto 5y agoThe lab-generated pandemic is being used as the blame for everything.
- hellopluto 5y agoNone of this would have happened under Trump. He almost got peace with NK. He got rid of ISIS. He laid out a plan for conditional withdrawal from Afghanistan, which was ignored by Biden Admin (look where we are now). HN is not going to like this comment, because (almost) everyone thinks they are smart, called Trump stupid in 2016, and now can't admit they are wrong because their egos ride on a self-perception of being smart.
- Eldt 5y agoTrump is an idiotic and morally corrupt leader, it likely would have gone worse
- hellopluto 5y agoRadicalism terrorism grew under Bush, Obama and Biden and fell drastically under Trump.
- tekknik 5y agoStop watching CNN
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- pjc50 5y agoTrump initiated the withdrawal: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-afghanistan-war-withdrawal/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-afghanistan-war-wi...
- jacob2484 5y agoHe would have done in a more controlled manner, and slow down if necessary - not let it get to this point where it's a total takeover by the Taliban while Biden is vacationing. He was also the first president in 40 years to NOT start a war.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ModernMech 5y agoWars in the last 40 years include: - Lebanon, 1983 (Reagan) - Persian Gulf, 1991 (Bush I) - Afghanistan/Iraq, 2001/2003 (Bush II) Then in the past 40 years, wars were not started under Clinton, Obama, and Trump.
- partizanos 5y agoAdd Yugoslavia too in the 90s which started by Clinton, Syria intervention which started during Obama
- ModernMech 5y agoIn the US, wars are started by Congress, not the President. The conflicts I listed are the only wars authorized by Congress over the last 40 years. We can bring other conflicts into the discussion, but that’s a different standard than “war”.
- Darmody 5y agoIt actually started with Obama.
- danielschonfeld 5y agoIt never means a damn thing. It’s always the same story book for the US. And each time you have a fresh batch of recruits from the poorest neighborhoods of every major city ready to “fight for our freedom” and be discarded after like we discarded the Afghans, the Vietnamese etc… All for the sake of lining the pockets of some billionaires, companies and politicians. Politicians who stays there for 40 years and tell us they’re fighting for us and this time will be different.
- inglor_cz 5y agoMuch like the British and even the Russians did, Americans will stop stomaching further losses and will reduce their empire to a more manageable extent. I am practically sure of that. Hillary Clinton lost election partly on account of being a "warmonger" and there is little appetite left in the American electorate to go elsewhere for an armored vacation. What that is going to mean for the rest of the world, I don't know. Vacuum of power never lasted too long, and will last even shorter with 8 billion people competing for resources, water and arable land. I think we will see more conflict in the future, but with fewer American dead. Perhaps the U.S. will end up where Germany and Sweden currently are: an ostensibly peace-loving nation that just really likes to sell hi-tech weapons, ehm.
- danielschonfeld 5y agoOne can only hope. But first we need to fix ourselves from that PTSD that 9/11 left us with, though I am not sure we can stomach that. I wonder if the Germans ever came to terms with their WWII shame? Hard to tell. From my encounters with them, it always seems like a burden carried in perpetuity, generation to generation. Who knows.
- yostrovs 5y agoIn my experience, the Germans believe they have done a terrible thing, but were the ones to learn the most from it. They have since studied their doings and reflected on them heavily. So much so that they are moral leaders of the world and others should learn from them of how to have a pure heart.
- Causality1 5y agoThis was obvious from the outset. Afghanistan has been the graveyard of empires for hundreds of years. You can't save a people from themselves.
- dougmwne 5y agoIt was clear even to a child. I was 14 when we invaded Afghanistan and it was blatantly obvious to me that it was a terrible idea and that Iraq was an even more terrible idea. It continued to be a terrible idea for ever one of the last 20 years. The scars we left will stay for another hundred. Actions have consequences.
- hirako2000 5y agoWas there really anything good to expect from the intervention anyway? Invade a country, throw bombs, and try to control the population, all you get is a bigger mess than they were in to begin with. All these countries have nothing to do in there, they aren't welcome and only trigger more hate towards the west at large. Congress approved a lengthy occupation costing over 2 trillion dollars on tax payers money, all to feed an industry that murders and benefits a small number of crooks. Democracy at its best.
- smhost 5y agoHave you noticed how quickly Americans discovered that they in fact care so deeply about Muslim lives and Filippino fishermen that they're willing to risk nuclear war and total destruction of its west coast? Ridiculous.
- carrolldunham 5y agoThere's always a stated reason for these middle east US wars, and then there's a real reason. I can work out Iraq but what is the real reason for the Afghanistan war?
- biesnecker 5y agoIf it had turned into a friendly, America-loving democracy that would tolerate our bases, then it’s an unsinkable aircraft carrier bordering Russia and China. Pretty good real estate.
- handrous 5y agoIt'd have to be very America-friendly for that motivation to make sense, to make up for being situated such that keeping it supplied relies on the cooperation of one or more potential adversaries.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago"Install a tin pot who owes us" is a more likely route to a military base. Supplies are an issue, hence why you don't see the military doing much complaining about letting Bagram go.
- fuoqi 5y agoYou mean "democracy"? Let's be honest, US (and to a lesser extent EU) can tolerate just about any atrocity performed by a "friendly" regime if there is enough to gain from it. There are countless examples past and present across the globe.
- yardie 5y agoThe last time the US installed bases in a nation bordering Russia, Russia parked a nuclear missile battery 90 miles off the Florida coast. China is exerting soft power now by buying up properties and ports in the Caribbean and Latam. Make no mistake, if a real US base had been activated in Afghanistan China, or Russia, would have planted one in Venezuela.
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- roenxi 5y agoThe gut-wrenching horror here is the people involved in the decision making from the start probably foresaw this outcome, and everyone involved after about 5 years must have known what was going on. Honestly, this should be enough to soft-ban anyone who was in the US Congress in the last 20 years from running again. It is quite hard to describe the scale of this disaster without seeming wild-eyed.
- ReptileMan 5y agoNothing was doomed. The US had enough resources to succeed. If only they has actually a definite goal and were willing to apply enough power to get it done. But nobody knew what they wanted Afghanistan to be and allowed themselves to be engaged in a war of attrition.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoExactly. Next time, if there is a next time, we'll probably go straight to installing some despot because at least that gives us a defined goal to work toward.
- cm2187 5y agoNot sure the war against the talibans was winnable without engaging Pakistan.
- weimerica 5y ago> If only they has actually a definite goal We did have a goal. The building of the nation of Afghanistan into a functioning liberal democracy. Of course Afghanistan barely qualifies as a nation and many (most?) have no desire to live in anything resembling a Western nation-state. Short of a truly brutal, imperialist takeover or the installing of a strongman puppet to do the dirty work for the next 50 years, there's no real chance of transitioning the peoples and their cultures over to our way of things. Americans likely have no stomach for such things, and the state of realpolitik is such that this would be truly untenable on the world stage.
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- INTPenis 5y agoSo how do we remember this time? And make sure it doesn't repeat itself. In the age of information, what can we do?
- sneak 5y agoThe thing that amazes me is how frequently the US engages in foreign wars, when the vast majority of the US population, even those who vote, do not want war. There was a decent (but one I still disagree with) argument made once for bringing back the draft, as a way to make the actual bloody practical cost of perpetual war felt by the average person, perhaps in the hopes that they would become less frequent. Slavery is slavery though and it's only a thought experiment. Say no to war, and say it loudly. Don't work for or with people who support or supply wars. Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
- jacob2484 5y agoI was more than fine with the steps taken in Afghanistan after 9/11. Iraq, not so much. How quickly a generation forgets the horrors of 9/11.
- sneak 5y agoThe real horror of 9/11 was not the few thousand deaths in the western hemisphere, but the few hundred thousand unnecessary ones executed in retaliation in the eastern hemisphere (none of which reduces the likelihood of a recurrence). All we learned from the whole thing is that if you want to attack the USA, terrorism is the most effective way. A tiny investment will cause the entity to respond by working hard to abandon its own principles destroying itself, destroying thousands of others, and wasting unfathomable amounts of money. This is as true now as ever.
- sofixa 5y ago> The real horror of 9/11 was not the few thousand deaths in the western hemisphere, but the few hundred thousand unnecessary ones executed in retaliation in the eastern hemisphere (none of which reduces the likelihood of a recurrence). Not to mention the tens of thousands of illegally detained, usually on fake or wrong pretenses, and the many of them tortured. Every one of them, and everyone that knows them, has every reason to hate the guts of everything remotely American.
- trasz 5y ago
- bsenftner 5y agoDefense contractors got paid, that's all that matters in the United States. The military support industry owns the entire country. We will never see a Pentagon audit, nor any meaningful scrutiny of the U.S's military spending, ever. It sounds so conspiracy and implausible, but the United States is completely owned by it's military contractors, to the degree they insure their dominance is never mentioned in public without "that source is a crank" labeling.
- hn8788 5y agoWorst part is, it didn't have to be a waste of time. The Bush administration half-assed it because they actually wanted to go to Iraq, and the Obama administration half-assed it because "bringing the troops home" was easy political points. So many lives and so much money wasted because politicians from decades ago turned Afghan society to shit because they only cared about stopping the Soviets.
- igammarays 5y ago> I know how bad the Taliban is. I know what they do to women and little boys. Someone who was on the ground there should know better than to confuse the Taliban with irreligious tribal warlords. The Taliban completely banned the old Afghan practice of "bucha bazi" or pedophilia. They hang pedophiles, they do not "do things to little boys". Of course, things may have happened in the fog of war, but the official Taliban policy - and they do have a policy - they are organized and disciplined, as the author admitted - is to punish pedophilia. > We called them Hajjis and worse and they were better than we were, braver and stronger and smarter. That is why they won. They are a strong and proud and incredibly resilient people that represent the Afghan majority and deserve to have sovereignty over their own country.
- yostrovs 5y agoBucha bazi is illegal by the Taliban because it consists of music, dancing, and sodomy, which are three things that are in themselves unacceptable.
- endymi0n 5y agoI'm not sure whether OP referred to pedophilia at all. I understood this much more in the spirit of subjecting young boys to weapons and explosive training in camps.
- ridiculous_leke 5y ago> That is why they won. They are a strong and proud and incredibly resilient people that represent the Afghan majority and deserve to have sovereignty over their own country It comes at the cost of stoning women, tagging minorities(if they even exist) and taking the country back to medieval age. And having a rulebook and following it are two different things.
- minikites 5y agoWe somehow don't have the money or resources to provide basic necessities like food and shelter for people, but there's always money for destructive and pointless wars. We could easily choose to improve the lives of others, but instead we choose to bomb and slaughter people around the globe.
- sneak 5y agoEven outside of wartime the US military burns an entire Bezos net worth of cash every 90 days or so. Uber's entire market cap would run the US military for just over a month. The amount of money that is being wasted here is so far beyond the scale of anything we're familiar with in even the highest echelons of private wealth.
- retSava 5y agoI love this interview with a Vietnam veteran regarding his experiences deploying to Vietnam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tixOyiR8B-8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tixOyiR8B-8
- trasz 5y agoPoliticians responsible for the war should be put on trial and then executed. (I’m against capital punishment, but the usual rules of law don’t really apply to this kind of crime.) Sadly, the US is extremely loyal to its war criminals, so this can never happen.
- Darmody 5y agoWhich politicians? The ones that sent the troops over there to take the country from the Taliban or the ones that wanted the troops back?
- trasz 5y agoThe ones who initiated it, or cooperated in any way. It’s not particularly hard, you just need to stop pretending it’s any different from, say, Mussolini.
- Darmody 5y agoAnd which ones initiated it? The ones that sent the troops, the ones that armed the Afghans to fight against the soviets decades ago? Or the foreign officials that helped the Taliban with money and logistics? All the NATO officials? It's particularly hard when you want executions but the only one you can name is Mussolini.
- trasz 5y agoWe’re are talking about one particular war - arming Taliban decades ago is a separate issue. It’s trivially easy to name the main perpetrators, starting with the USA president who made that decision. Sure, the further down the chain of command you go, the more diluted it is, so you need to stop somewhere - but it’s not any different from the fascist Italy case, or any other organized case of crimes against humanity.
- throwawaylinux 5y agoWhat point are you trying to make with all these rhetorical questions? The purpose of investigations and prosecutions is to uncover these criminals and warmongers and bring them to justice. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_trials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_trials Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, etc. These wars and genocides and destabilizing and destroying these countries didn't just organically come about through nobody's fault. There are warmongers and war profiteers and traitors involved, and they need to be brought to justice.
- hendry 5y agoI was naive enough to visit the region in 2004 and I wrote to my MP back in 2006 not to get involved https://natalian.org/2006/08/01/british-forces-in-afghanistan/ https://natalian.org/2006/08/01/british-forces-in-afghanista... Entirely predictable and I wanted to say that the Taliban misogyny is bit unfair. Offer free quality education for their sons and daughters and you'll see real change, I promise you. Not like this https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-58219114 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-58219114
- handrous 5y agoMichael Flynn's (yes, that Flynn) interview in the Afghanistan Papers is one of the more interesting accounts I've read of the war. https://archive.org/details/theafghanistanpapers_202001 https://archive.org/details/theafghanistanpapers_202001 That appears to be audio—I've only read the transcript, personally—but the text is hard to find a direct link to. A search can probably dredge up pages that'll eventually lead to the text.
- octopoc 5y agoPublic service announcement: stop voting for presidents who start wars. Here's the pattern since Johnson in 1964: - Lyndon B. Johnson escalated the Vietnam War throughout 1964 and the Gulf of Tonkin resolution was passed just before his re-election in November 1964. There's a book, Dereliction of Duty, about how Johnson did this for the popularity it would earn him. - Nixon didn't start any wars and he was re-elected. - Jimmy Carter didn't start any wars, and the Iran hostage crisis had the opposite affect: it made him appear weak. He only served one term. - Ronald Reagan got involved in Grenada and Lebanon in 1983. Both conflicts were relatively small and the U.S. withdrew pretty soon afterwards. His re-election was in November 1984. - Bush Sr. started the Gulf War in January 1991. His re-election would have been in November 1992. - Clinton got heavily involved in Bosnia in 1995. His re-election would have been in November 1996. - Bush Jr. started the Iraq War in 2003. His re-election was in November 2004. - Obama started the Libyan War in 2011. His re-election would have been in November 2012. - Trump didn't start any wars. He wasn't re-elected, but we can be sure that he didn't start any wars to increase his popularity, like every other two-term president since 1964 except Nixon.
- zozbot234 5y agoThere's something to this, since starting a war is one of the easiest to measure ways in which a president can affect the world. There are of course other ways presidents can affect policies, but the effects are far weaker.
- pmorici 5y agoI’m going to leave this link because it seems like people are unaware of the events of the past several years. This is basically the outcome that was negotiated with the Taliban unilaterally without the involvement of the Afghan government. https://www.npr.org/2021/03/04/973604904/trumps-deal-to-end-war-in-afghanistan-leaves-biden-with-a-terrible-situation https://www.npr.org/2021/03/04/973604904/trumps-deal-to-end-...
- throwawaycities 5y agoReading these comments it is wild how few people understand the US political and military objectives in Afghanistan. Few understand that the Taliban while mostly all the things we associate with a terror group, it was also a successful political party that began taking power through democratic elections, this was actually in the Clinton years (Taliban founded in 1994). Since then the military wanted to intervene, but Clinton ignored it because the embarrassing failure in Mogadishu (the Black Hawk Down incident in 1993) and reluctance to suffer another failed military campaign in his first term. When Bush took office he was surprisingly intent on use of force in Afghanistan against the Taliban, but it was politically and legally non-viable…then 9/11 happened and the administration had the pretext it needed, it just had to move quick before anyone could question the relationship between Taliban and 9/11. But in either case the US intelligence was always ready and willing to say that OBL was operating remotely from the Hindu Kush in Afghanistan as a legal justification to use armed force in Afghanistan against a non state actor because the state was failing to bring him to justice. Whether you are for or against the US spreading democracy around the world and their willingness to use armed force to achieve its ends…Afghanistan was not about spreading democracy, rather Afghanistan was about the US not approving of a particular democratically elected party. Of course there is a much deeper history of US funding/training of groups to fight soviets in the 70’s in Afghanistan and these groups ultimately lead to the foundation of Taliban, but for the most part it has little to do with the US use of military force in Afghanistan post 9/11.
- chmod775 5y ago> then 9/11 happened and the administration had the pretext it needed, it just had to move quick before anyone could question the relationship between Taliban and 9/11 I believe pretty much everyone stopped buying that by the time this happened: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.terrorism5 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.te... Let's also not forget that Saudi Arabia was never bombed or invaded in retaliation.
- hack-news 5y agoAnd they protected the guy who sent $130,000 to the hijackers days before, who assisted the Bush admin in planning the attacks.
- sys_64738 5y agoWasn't the whole reason for invasion to get bin Laden?
- rich_sasha 5y agoPossibly this was knowable ahead of time; I recommend the book “88 days to Kandahar”. Written by an ex-CIA guy, so a broker in lies and mirages (as well as, perhaps, a decent and well-meaning guy). The general feel of the book is that a long-drawn war is unwinnable, that as soon as Americans quit, Taliban will be back. But this, and hindsight, aside, is there another take on this? That there was a hope in the US political circles that, although the war perhaps should not have been started, or that post 9/11 there was no choice but to start one, but once it was going there was a hope for a better, new Afghanistan? That yea, it’s a slog, many will die and much money will be spent, but the end looks better than the start? Maybe I’m naive but I’d like to think it was naive idealism that propelled the war (maybe not started) rather than outright cynical Machiavellism. From today’s perspective, clearly we know the war was an expensive failure. But hindsight is everything. And the lucid impressions of a soldier on the ground may not be a complete picture.