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You know the worst thing about this, and everything else that's happened in Afghanistan in the past 20 years? The Taliban unconditionally surrendered in 2001:

You know the worst thing about this, and everything else that's happened in Afghanistan in the past 20 years? The Taliban unconditionally surrendered in 2001: https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/08/18/taliban-surrendered-2001 https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/08/18/taliban-surren... Talk about a waste: of lives, of money, of time, of effort that could have gone to far more productive purposes.

dayofthedaleks 5y ago
According to today's NYTimes, the proffered surrender wasnt quite unconditional - the Taliban requested amnesty in exchange for disarming. Rumsfeld turned them down on the pretense of demanding unconditional surrender. My suspicion is America's persisting collective rage and the firehose of defense spending were beyond anyone's control at that point.
bzbarsky 5y ago
Per https://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/07/news/rumsfeld-rejects-planto-allow-mullah-omar-to-live-in-dignity-taliban.html https://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/07/news/rumsfeld-rejects-pla... which I think is describing the same incident it was not an "unconditional surrender", though it was somewhat close: the conditions were about immunity from prosecution or punishment for Mullah Mohammed Omar (Taliban's leader at the time).