Listening to BBC radio last night-- they estimate 2 months until Taliban...

[TreasonousBastard]

completely take over Afghanistan.

Why are there so often no good answers?

[SoonerPride]

1. The Afghan army was made out of tissue paper.

We poured trillions into arming and training them and they melt away.

That's their problem.

I feel badly for the women and girls and innocents who will be brutalized.

But the Afghans need to want it more than we want it for them.

It is obvious that they do not.

[TheRealNorth]

6. This is how I feel too.

[JoanofArgh]

11. +1

[crickets]

12. Grim but realistic take on the situation. nt

[SoCalDavidS]

2. I'm Taking Afghanistan Off My List Of Places To Visit After Pandemic Is Over

So we spent 20 years trying to defeat the Taliban, and wipe them out of existence.

But the second we leave, they start taking over everything, as if the last 20 years meant nothing.

So are we supposed to just stay there for another 20 years, and be in the same position?

I'm not sure we can save the Afghan people from the Taliban any more than we can save Florida residents from DeSatan.

[irisblue]

3. I want to cry when Lyse Doucet of the BBC talks about the way Afghanistan is changing

She is worth listening to.

[Shermann]

4. The writing has been on the wall for a while

The US played the role of Hodor during that time and surely allowed many to escape the oncoming horde.

[Jilly_in_VA]

5. I firmly believe

that if we'd stayed out of Afghanistan it would not be in the straits it is now. Every time we go in and try to "fix" something (either covertly or full tilt) it ends up in worse shape than it started out in.

The ones I can remember in my lifetime (this is an off the cuff list, feel free to join in):
Iran
Vietnam
Lebanon
Iraq
El Salvador (and just about anyplace else in Central America!)
Afghanistan
anyplace in Africa where we're sticking our noses
Feel free to add.

I was born in 1943 so I remember all the way back to the US screwing around with Iran and toppling their democratically elected president Mossadegh and installing Shah Reza Pahlevi, which led eventually to the revolution and the current regime. We have only ourselves to blame for that one. (My parents made us listen to Edward R. Murrow and sometimes quizzed us afterwards!)

[Hoyt]

7. +1. We've done way too much of that type crud. Think Russia learned about election

interference from us.

[JoanofArgh]

10. Yep. Good point.

[JoanofArgh]

8. I suggest the Afghan army get busy and try to take their country back. We're done.

[Tommy Carcetti]

9. Kobiyashi Maru.

Our 20 year presence in the country was just a prolonged stop-gap.

Yes, we could have stayed longer, but that wouldn't really have changed anything.

Sad to be so fatalistic, but this was a war we could not win on a permanent basis.

We did get Bin Laden and that's as much as we can say about it.