The Afghan War is over

[sayla0079]

Maybe someone on here that is/was in the military can answer this for me; why were we still over there
after no WMDs were found and Binladen was killed?

I was military. But I was in the Navy so all I did was ride a giant boat in the middle of the Persian Gulf doing donuts in the sea.

But to answer your question, it really does comes down to politics. The US didn't want to leave the country without some sort of semblance of we did something good. Like set up a stable democratic government.

You talk to the people who actually served in Iraq or Afghanistan and you will usually get the answer that nothing we were doing was working.

Thank you for clearing that up I was trying to get a different perspective since I never served in the military branches.

[McAvoy]

You have to talk to the veterans who actually served there during that time. Older vets who wasn't there have their own opinions about it.

Usually, 'Trump woukd have done better, enforced it by sheer will or something'. By that point party lines gets involved and no need to talk to them about it. Afterall, they were spectators by that point.

Talking to the vets like my brother can tell you that it was never going to end well. My brother for example, was part of a group for thd Army that build/rebuilt a bank and two weeks after he left Iraq for home, the bank was bombed. Just an example.

[Madner Kami]

Usually, 'Trump woukd have done better, enforced it by sheer will or something'. By that point party lines gets involved and no need to talk to them about it. Afterall, they were spectators by that point.

Point out to them that:

A) The deal with the Taliban to leave Afghanistan was made by Trump, in February of 2020.
B) If the US had stuck to the plan laid out by Trump's deal, they'd have left in May of 2021 with even less planning and foresight.
C) A key-point of the deal with the Taliban was, that they'd take care of Al Qaeda and similar groups to not attack the US again, so the Taliban take-over was actually implicitly planned for and expected, by the Trump Administration.

[Jonathan101]

Maybe someone on here that is/was in the military can answer this for me; why were we still over there
after no WMDs were found and Binladen was killed?

Afghanistan was never about WMDs; that was Iraq (you know, allegedly).

As for bin Laden, he was only the leader and face of Al-Qaeda; his number 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri (who was co-founder of Al-Qaeda and arguably the brains of the operation) was never caught, is still at large and is still in charge, as were several other AQ leaders. The Taliban and AQ are still working together and AQ and their affiliates are still responsible for terrorist attacks around the world, just not as much in the West...for the moment.

By the time bin Laden was killed he was practically a non-entity in the organisation, forced to live indoors in Pakistan with little outside contact. He could and did send and receive messages, but he was pretty out of the loop as he was in hiding. He was really more the money behind the organisation more than anything else.

The USA and it's allies were still in Afghanistan because the Taliban and AQ were still a threat, but they were a threat they seemed unable to get rid of, particularly since they threw away their legitimacy with the invasion of Iraq which became a money pit and a headache in it's own right, and the nation building was often half-hearted and poorly executed.

Damned if they do, damned if the don't. Afghanistan WILL go back to being a haven and training ground for Al-Qaeda and it's allies, and there WILL be more terrorist attacks on the West in the future- that is pretty much inevitable. The only questions left are how, when and where.

Al-Qaeda wants the US to collapse the same way the Soviet Union did, and ideally take the world economy with it. That is their long-term goal.

[BBally81]

Regardless that the Trump administration made that negotiation or how Biden handled it, why the Hell would you make such a deal with the FREAKING TALIBAN?

[Jonathan101]

Regardless that the Trump administration made that negotiation or how Biden handled it, why the Hell would you make such a deal with the FREAKING TALIBAN?

Because the average American voter regards Afghanistan as a massive waste of time and money that they should have left years ago or never gotten involved with from the start, and is doing nothing but wracking up colossal debt.

To many, it looked like a choice between doing a deal with the Taliban or never leaving ever.

[McAvoy]

Usually, 'Trump woukd have done better, enforced it by sheer will or something'. By that point party lines gets involved and no need to talk to them about it. Afterall, they were spectators by that point.

Point out to them that:

A) The deal with the Taliban to leave Afghanistan was made by Trump, in February of 2020.
B) If the US had stuck to the plan laid out by Trump's deal, they'd have left in May of 2021 with even less planning and foresight.
C) A key-point of the deal with the Taliban was, that they'd take care of Al Qaeda and similar groups to not attack the US again, so the Taliban take-over was actually implicitly planned for and expected, by the Trump Administration.

They know and don't care. Or they don't know and still don't care. Basically it was Biden who did this now. Which they are correct.

[Beastro]

Clearspira's British.

Fair enough.

Regarding America as the world's biggest superpower: it doesn't matter. Because wars against superpowers are no longer going to be fought with guns. That is 20th century tech that you employ against 20th century armies.

.... ok.

Nothing changes boots on the ground., even in a modern total war. Other aspects will play a part in cultural combat as you describe, but that is distinct from when the balloon goes up.

No one is ever going to use nukes. No one. Its endgame for the entire human race.

It's funny, it's almost as if people want to believe this to wish it were real, so they never would be used. Kinda like how the apocalypse spell in Ultima ends the game.

Sorry, nukes will end the world as we know it, but mankind will survive. They are not as powerful as people suppose nor are their effects, especially when used in a nuclear exchange.

And you better not get into nuclear winter bullshit territory before you scan over Sagan's acts of fraud over that.

PS, very soon outer space is probably going to heat up. Who gets to decide what parts of Mars is owned by what country? No thinks about it but that is a very relevant question in the next couple of decades. And space is away from all of those lovely aircraft carriers and jets; in fact it'll take very little to ground a SpaceX carrying parts to build one. Mars is going to be an interesting equaliser.

Oh, it very much will. The treaty in place right now exists because no one has the means of doing anything with it of value. Same with the one over Antarctica. Once that changes people will drop the act.

What I mean is ''we entered the 20th century with single-shot muskets and left it with tanks, fighter jets, destroyers and atom bombs''.

..... ok, again.

Do you know what you're talking about? You're not helping yourself here.

Muskets ceased to be used around the 1860s when America was about the last user of them in the early Civil War. Single shot Minet rifles took over before then and by the dawn of the 20th Century bolt action rifles were what were abundant, which are not muskets. Even then they were the most common, but machine guns and modern artillery were the dominant forces of the battlefield.

Even here, this discounts the massive change in army size that happened between the Franco-Prussian War and WWI which was THE major change in modern warfare.

All we've been doing since then is tweaking them. ''Wow! this gun can now fire a 1000 rounds a minute instead of 900. So amazing''.

It's not what a weapon does but how you use it. Same with the difference between tactics and strategy/logistics.

Regardless that the Trump administration made that negotiation or how Biden handled it, why the Hell would you make such a deal with the FREAKING TALIBAN?

"Nations don't have friends or enemies, only interests and rivals."

It's the same thing as Qaddafi. He played ball and bowed to pressure so he was left be despite being a piece of shit. Then that agreement was betrayed to allow factions unable to maintain power to take over allowing Islamists with the ruthlessness to do so to sweep them away.

Now there's slave markets along the North African coast again.

Considering the USSR collapsed not long after, it would have been largely a moot point.

You ignore that the war in Afghanistan gave it a nice, good push. Still think they shouldn't of done it? Well, sorry, no one was a crystal ball to know when things like that will happen. The focus was to get the Soviet Union hit hard on all fronts because we didn't know how hard it would take to fall. The shocking thing was how easy it was by the 80s.

[clearspira]

Usually, 'Trump woukd have done better, enforced it by sheer will or something'. By that point party lines gets involved and no need to talk to them about it. Afterall, they were spectators by that point.

Point out to them that:

A) The deal with the Taliban to leave Afghanistan was made by Trump, in February of 2020.
B) If the US had stuck to the plan laid out by Trump's deal, they'd have left in May of 2021 with even less planning and foresight.
C) A key-point of the deal with the Taliban was, that they'd take care of Al Qaeda and similar groups to not attack the US again, so the Taliban take-over was actually implicitly planned for and expected, by the Trump Administration.

Although in fairness, ''Trump decided it'' isn't much of an excuse considering just how much of Trump's administration Biden overruled within his very first week.
But yeah. If the Taliban are smart - and I think they are smarter than people give them credit for - they will be fully aware of what got them taken out of power the first time around. Another 9/11 isn't in their interest. And I doubt that their new masters in China would want that either.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

So do you have any desire to say what your actual beef with Biden's operation is?