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Ignoring morality entirely for a moment, it is rather remarkable that the US watched the Russian experience in Afghanistan and said, "yes, we'd like that for us
by hiddencost 5y ago
Ignoring morality entirely for a moment, it is rather remarkable that the US watched the Russian experience in Afghanistan and said, "yes, we'd like that for us."1
- khuey 5y agoAmericans were acting like morons after 9/11. I don't see an analogous motivating event here for Russia.
- ajsnigrutin 5y agoRussians are playing the kosovo playbook. Minority in a larger country, minority wants to separate into its own country, the main country won't let them, some conflicts and shooting, shelling, killing, and an "outside player" steps in and starts destroying the main country.
- ajsnigrutin 5y agoWell, atleast the americans left them vehicles and weapons, so the talibans didn't have such a rough re-start there.
- nkingsy 5y agoI was a freshman in college at the time and we discussed it in a geography class. We all agreed that a nation state based approach to the problem of terrorism was absurd, but there was no way any US president would do anything less. Remembering the phrase "a wartime president has never not been re-elected" turns my stomach. Iraq of course was another matter, but Afghanistan was more of a greek tragedy.
- vl 5y agoOne of the pillars of supporting dollar as world reserve currency (and thus having endless credit) is showing that it’s backed by strong security force. Thus it necessitates periodic demonstrations and actual training of said security force. Thus constant deployment to some far countries to “fight for piece”.
- mst 5y agoGo back far enough and you'll find the british empire thought Afghanistan would be a fun place to invade quite a long time before that. It worked out just as badly for us as it did for the USSR and the US later. I'm not sure why Afghanistan is catnip for overconfident empires, but it seems to be a repeating pattern.