Please Think Back on When and Why We Went to Afghanistan

[MineralMan]

Please do that before blaming Joe Biden for pulling the US military out of that country. We are not abandoning Afghanistan. We never had any business being there in the first place. Is it a nice place, full of democracy-loving people? No. It is not. It never was. It is a country ruled by hardcore Islamic conservatives. It was before we went there, and it still is.

We did not go there to "liberate" the Afghani people. We did not go here to establish the rights of Afghani women. Think back to the time when we invaded that country on the pretext of finding and punishing Osama Bin-Laden. And he wasn't even there. We killed him in Pakistan.

Who sent troops to Afghanistan in the first place? Try to remember that.

What of value did we accomplish there? The answer is simple: Nothing. Not a damned thing.

We had no business going there in the first place. Our motives for doing so had nothing to do with helping the Afghani people.

Now, we are leaving. We should have left long ago. In fact, we should not have gone there in the first place.

[WomanWhoRoars]

1. That....

....and we can't stay there forever and police other countries. I hate that people have to live in places like that ( especially women ) but at some point it's the people of that country that have to say ENOUGH. Let's get those out that we can but there is only so much we can do.

[Budi]

2. K & R Thank You!

"Is it a nice place, full of democracy-loving people? No. It is not. It never was. It is a country ruled by hardcore Islamic conservatives. It was before we went there, and it still is."

Truth is, It is a country ruled by hardcore Islamic conservatives.
It is not a Democracy.

FYI: Value our Democracy like the fragile exception it is.

[MineralMan]

3. Thanks!

I am prepared to take flak from this.

[Traildogbob]

14. Spot on

Mineral. As I watched streets lined with Afghans cheering the Taliban truck caravans, 40 people per truck, CHEERING their arrival, I just thought fuck it. Those same caravans are coming to a city near each of us here in MurKKKa. Proudly flying their version of national flag. Can’t fit as many fat bubbaBAN in even larger MUrKKKan made trucks, but they will just bring more trucks.
God bless……the United Staaaaaash.
Take care of our own terrorists. The threat of bullets and bombs to me right here is far more eminent than any Taliban.

[demigoddess]

83. AGREE TOTALLY

[musclecar6]

122. I also

Totally agree. We have in our country the same crowd of right wing SOBs that want to operate just like the Taliban. All out for themselves and fuck everybody else and women are treated like property. We are so saintly in this country with all of our good intentions because although there are plenty of us that think that way we also have an element of assholes who wanna roll back the clock and we go back to the way things were with slaves and women with no rights or votes etc.

Fortunately in the last election we had enough votes to vote out the Hitler wanna be and his merry band of insurrectionists, like thinkers etc, and hopefully will continue to make progress in the future. It will be a never ending struggle good versus evil the same for us as it is for all the other countries of the world.

[Traildogbob]

123. Perfect!

[WomanWhoRoars]

35. I agree

No flak from me - I agree with what you said.

[Firestorm49]

4. All true, but my heart goes out to all of the service men and women who died for a

misguided belief - again.

[NH Ethylene]

7. Indeed. Again and again and again.

I thought we had learned after Vietnam.

[treestar]

34. I recall from the First Gulf War

Some vile Republicans celebrating that we had "kicked the Vietnam syndrome" or something to that effect, when the nation was cheering on that war. But they had not really, because the forces are now volunteer. They didn't dare set up a draft for it, so it worked to that extent, at least.

[NH Ethylene]

50. I'm sure they considered it a great breakthrough,

That the American people were finally ready to engage in wars again.

Likely in their minds, the 'draft' bridge would be crossed when it became necessary.

[Caliman73]

136. We had been in harms way since after Vietnam.

That was the reason that 200 American Marines were killed or wounded in Beirut. We never stopped interfering around the world. Remember Grenada? Panama? the First Gulf War? We learned that we could go in against weak opposition, blow crap up, then leave. Then when we had a terrorist situation on our soil, that took significant lives, they were all too happy to go into places we shouldn't have been in. We stayed for over a decade in Iraq and 20 years of Afghanistan and have nothing to show for the effort.

Unfortunately, it will not be the end of it.

[Claire Oh Nette]

71. GOP fights the last war over.

They lost in Vietnam, and those guys never got over it. They were the straight laced, good kids, non-hippies in the 60s. The guys who were drafted vs the guys who used daddy's connections to get out of service. They were the hawks, and they viewed the liberals as the doves--weak. As adults, that same lefty-hippy vs. crew cut all American still raged.

The GOP learned zero from Vietnam, but the military industrial complex made money hand over fist.

The GOP looks down on the individual volunteers who make up our military--TFG even said he viewed them as losers. They cream themselves about the Military, but could give twoshits about any soldier or sailor. Since the volunteers make up such a small percentage of Americans, the media doesn't even bother to show us what's happening because ratings.

[MineralMan]

28. Yes, of course. How many of those who are

clamoring for us to stay there would be willing to go there, I wonder?

The reality is that our troops were not there to preserve the rights of individual Afghani people. That wasn't their mission. What their mission was, though, was never very clear in the first place.

[Random Boomer]

130. The fallacy of sunk costs

It doesn't get any better just because you stay longer.

[paleotn]

48. "This time it's different!!!"

George W. Bush administration, Fall of 2001. I remember it well.

[TomSlick]

80. Understood but Army staff schooling impressed on me the principle of sunk costs.

Resources that have been expended in the past on a project are irrelevant in deciding whether to continue with a project. The only relevant issues are whether from this point going forward the mission can be accomplished, at what cost, and whether the cost going forward can be justified.

I am not convinced that any amount of future investment in blood and money would cause the outcome to be different.

[dalton99a]

5. The nation-building scam made some people immensely wealthy

Untold billions were siphoned off into Swiss bank accounts and foreign investments, while their troops had to buy food and clothes

[Traildogbob]

20. As our new

BFF GOP lady Cheney said this Morning it’s all Biden’s fought and some of trumps. Can we see DICKS tax returns before and after he sent troops there. Yes HE, Bush was leading nothing. Black water and Devos boy made a few bucks. Cheney bring a Cheney.
Just wait until McCarthy and Rump get to spewing their thoughts, neither of which served in war time or any of their spawn. Don’t get me started on Chucker and Hannity vile shit coming. Again, never served a second, but love others to die.

[peppertree]

74. +1

"Sometimes, what we did bothers me this much." "That much, huh?"

[Evolve Dammit]

82. A reprersentative photo of the "nation builders" themselves; the "unitary executive" branch.

[bdamomma]

126. Yes indeed.

nt

[NH Ethylene]

6. Sad though I am for the women, I'm glad we are getting out.

The original mission was to go after Al Qaeda and Bin Laden. It morphed considerably over time.

We have been propping up a weak state which goes against strong currents of religious extremism. We need to let them find their own equilibrium, for better or worse.

[sanatanadharma]

8. Remembering then...

Osama Bin-Laden was the face of the public reasons given fo "WAR", however the PNAC people were long focused on Iraq.
Invading Afghanistan set the PNAC project in motion, creating so-called legal justifications, public compliance, and multi-national buy-in.

Everything that has happened was the direct result of the hubris of PNAC egos populating GWB's administration.
The entirety of today's karmic predicament of Afghanistan is rooted in government lies.

We can state names, we can establish blame, but we can't step out of the frame to avoid the karmic results of our Nation's sins.

[Klaralven]

9. Bin Laden was in Afghanistan when we invaded

Bin Laden was believed to be hiding in the White Mountains (Spin Ghar) in Afghanistan's east, near the Pakistani border. According to The Washington Post, the U.S. government concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the Battle of Tora Bora, Afghanistan in late 2001, and according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge, failure by the United States to commit enough U.S. ground troops to hunt him led to his escape and was the gravest failure by the United States in the war against al-Qaeda. Intelligence officials assembled what they believed to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the Battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden#Pursuit_by_the_United_States

[IL Dem]

23. I believe it was right for us to go after Bin Laden.

When we failed to catch him in Afghanistan and realized he was no longer there, we should have left there at that time instead of staying and trying to bring democracy to the country. Our efforts should have remained focused on capturing him and nothing else.

As MM said, it was a country ruled by Islamic conservatives and was unlikely to change. We also had the advantage of knowing what happened to the USSR when they tried to conquer it. That should have been a lesson to us.

[Ramsey Barner]

10. Tora Bora who?

Bush, Cheney, et al. could have put enough troops around Tora Bora caves to make it impossible for bin Laden to escape. Instead, they went off on their Axis-of-Evil fantasy, invaded Iraq, and tried to rebuild the world in their image. And here we are, finally, with a president who recognizes reality, but gets blamed for it.

[jalan48]

11. What I remember are groups of people wearing camo and standing at stop lights waving flags and

signs saying honk if you support our troops! There was no room for dissent. Where was the debate in Congress? How many voted against Bush's Middle East wars?

[mcar]

12. We should have left long ago - so true

We should have declared victory and left when we got Bin Laden.

[Sapient Donkey]

124. I'm sure part of why we were there so long is because everyone knew it would look like this

and no one wants this be on their legacy. I wonder if Biden would have done this if the hand wasn't forced by Trump's claims he planned on doing it. It seems like most the American people were ready to get out of there, and were expecting it to happen.

[Jake2413]

13. Thank you

100% how I feel and what I believe.

[onetexan]

16. Ditto

[Tomconroy]

15. We had a very good reason for going in,

Just not one for staying there for 20 years

[uponit7771]

110. +1,

[former9thward]

17. Yes, we should have gone there.

bin Laden and crew were in Afghanistan and were being openly sheltered there by the Taliban. If we had not gone there you would have seen a hundred 9/11s. The Congress unanimously agreed and voted to approve the Authorization for Military Force Resolution. After the Taliban were ousted and we had destroyed terrorist bases we should have left.

[rockfordfile]

97. It's been 20 years. It was throwing lives and money down a rabbit hole

[BumRushDaShow]

118. "Congress unanimously agreed and voted to approve the Authorization for Military Force Resolution"

The House was not "unanimous" as Barbara Lee will tell you to this day.

https://clerk.house.gov/evs/2001/roll342.xml

H J RES 64 YEA-AND-NAY 14-Sep-2001 11:17 PM
QUESTION: On Passage
BILL TITLE: To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States.

Yeas | Nays | PRES | NV

Republican ..........214........................... 5
Democratic ..........204........ 1................ 5
Independent ...........2
TOTALS ..............420........ 1.............. 10

---- NAYS 1 ---

Lee

[former9thward]

129. Well since she is a Fidel Castro fan I didn't count her.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/11/26/congresswoman-barbara-lee-castro-should-be-mourned/

[BumRushDaShow]

134. It doesn't preclude the fact that

your statement about the vote being "unanimous", was incorrect.

[former9thward]

135. It was unanimous among Democrats that I am interested in.

Either you are some sort of stalker or you are trying to hang your hat on one vote in opposition to Afghanistan. Either way it is weird. Democrats supported the Use of Force Resolution.

[BumRushDaShow]

137. Stalker?

You seem to like calling out people.

Many people supported Barbara Lee's principle on avoiding more wars since we had already gone through a fiasco in Iraq 10 years earlier with "turkey shoots" and whatnot, and regardless of the goal in Afghanistan, which was summarily ignored, many knew that the neocons were going to parlay that into invading Iraq again (which they did).

The House passed the repeal of the AUMF this past June -https://clerk.house.gov/evs/2021/roll172.xml where every "Democrat" voted to repeal it except one (Elaine G. Luria, VA-2).

So here we are 20 years later.

Back in 2009, Sen. Robert Byrd did his thing about where we were then -

[KG]

18. lots of people still believe an operation as complex 9-11 was conceieved & controlled

from a cave in the hills of the most backward country on the planet? coz the bush admin said so?

I was sposed to just believe the bush admin about anything concerning 9-11? or anything that followed?

[FoxNewsSucks]

22. Well, bin Laden's cave apparently had an electrical outlet

and he only needed one plug of the outlet for that dialysis machine. The other plug kept his laptop running so he could make and spread videos and issue marching orders. Fortunately for him, that the cave had great internet and phone service. . .

[maxsolomon]

65. There weren't IN caves when then conceived and executed that plan.

Tora Bora was their "mountain stronghold". And it worked; Bin Laden escaped.

Be a 9/11 skeptic, fine. Just get a damn vaccine.

[cilla4progress]

19. This misses the point of the criticism

and is a crude oversimplification.

It's not simply stay or leave. It's about exit STRATEGY. And there is widespread agreement that sufficient planning did not go into this - mostly about having security sufficiently positioned to provide for a hasty retreat - with Taliban forces bearing down much faster than anticipated. Watch Biden's speech of early July announcing the withdrawal and listen to his assurances.

This is why Biden is meeting with his security a
team all weekend at Camp David.

[MineralMan]

33. That's interesting. What strategy would you suggest?

I suggest that there is no exit strategy that would accomplish the goals of ensuring the safety and freedom of the Afghani people. We could not accomplish that while we were there, and that wasn't really our strategy there in the first place. The only exit strategy is to exit, and to do so promptly. There is no available exit strategy that does not involve staying there with enough troops to preserve the peace in Afghanistan. So, in essence, there is no workable exit strategy except to leave ASAP.

We should have done so long, long ago.

[cilla4progress]

42. 1. Slow the roll

2. Apply humanitarian measures
3. Increase and hasten asylum applications.

See Trudeau/Canada, for one.

It's too late to have taken the preventive measures I've seen experienced, knowledgeable others such as Ben Rhodes suggest. This was not adequately planned or executed.

Here's a tweet of his, for example.

Link to tweet

?s=20

[MineralMan]

44. That is not a feasible strategy.

We've been there for what, 20 years? If we did not accomplish those goals in that time, what chance is there to do so on our way out the door. Nope. Once we announced our withdrawal, we needed to make that our goal. We failed at the other goals long ago, and didn't really try that hard to accomplish them in any case.

[cilla4progress]

55. Thanks, but,

I think I'll go with the experience of Rhodes and the foresight of Trudeau.

[MineralMan]

58. OK.

[BumRushDaShow]

69. "See Trudeau/Canada, for one."

So how many ships and/or planes has Canada sent there since they apparently barely had something to evacuate their own embassy and managed to grab a "couple planeloads" of refugees, but are otherwise "monitoring" the situation.

August 13, 20216:18 PM EDT Last Updated 2 days ago
Asia Pacific
In desperation, U.S. scours for countries willing to house Afghan refugees

By Idrees Ali and Humeyra Pamuk, Jonathan Landay


WASHINGTON, Aug 13 (Reuters) - President Joe Biden's administration has been holding secret talks with more countries than previously known in a desperate attempt to secure deals to temporarily house at-risk Afghans who worked for the U.S. government, four U.S. officials told Reuters.

The previously unreported discussions with such countries as Kosovo and Albania underscore the administration's desire to protect U.S.-affiliated Afghans from Taliban reprisals while safely completing the process of approving their U.S. visas.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/desperation-us-scours-countries-willing-house-afghan-refugees-2021-08-13/

I am hearing the same sort of nonsensical arguments that were hurled against Obama when he was trying to move people out of Gitmo and getting someone to take them in, because no one wanted them "here" in the U.S., and Congress refused to fund what it would take to actually "logistically and legally close" the facility, and house the prisoners (those who were deemed truly "terrorists" ) here. In fact they even explicitly wrote legislation that stripped out the funding for him to do it.

I.e., it's like deja vu -

Funds to Close Guantánamo Denied

By David M. Herszenhorn

May 20, 2009

WASHINGTON - The Senate voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to cut from a war spending bill the $80 million requested by President Obama to close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and to bar the transfer of detainees to the United States and its territories. The vote, which complicates Mr. Obama’s efforts to shutter the prison by his deadline of Jan. 22, 2010, was 90 to 6. Republicans voted unanimously in favor of cutting the money.

“The American people don’t want these men walking the streets of America’s neighborhoods,” said Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota. “The American people don’t want these detainees held at a military base or federal prison in their back yard, either.” The six Democrats who voted against the measure include some of their party’s most prominent voices on military affairs and criminal justice issues. Among them were Senators Carl Levin of Michigan, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee; Jack Reed of Rhode Island, a West Point graduate and former Army Ranger, and Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

Senators Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the majority whip; Tom Harkin of Iowa and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island were the others voting against the measure. The vote was on an amendment to a $91.3 billion military spending bill that will finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as some other national security programs, including preparations for pandemic flu, through Sept. 30.

The abrupt decision by Senate Democratic leaders to strip out the money for closing the Guantánamo detention center amounted to a strong rebuke of the Obama White House, which lawmakers in both parties have criticized for not providing a more detailed plan for what will be done with the 240 detainees currently held in the prison.

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/us/politics/21detain.html

[Nasruddin]

77. It was a sham

I was with you (& these others) on this, but events on the ground in the past week have demonstrated to my satisfaction that this Afghan client state we were running was nothing more than a sham. The Taliban probably could've walked over it anytime in the past year.

I can only hope that enough backroom bargaining has been done to close out our business with minimal casualties. There's nothing more that can be done with these methods in this place.

The decision making and self-delusion in Washington DC & NATO in the past 15 years needs to be subject to some very critical review - hopefully including boiling in oil.

[cilla4progress]

81. Agreed.

And US is leaving behind a very pissed off Afghan population!

[rockfordfile]

99. No

"And there is widespread agreement" that's the kind of bs that caused all of this to begin with.
That's just right-wing BS.

[FoxNewsSucks]

21. You are exactly right.

Those blaming Biden are wrong.

Look who started that, for example. Liz Cheney. I hope that wakes a few up, who seem to think that she's our "friend". She is NOT.

The Fox "news" Sewer hasn't covered it much yet. They're still figuring out how to blame Biden. Once they do, it's up to the rest of us to remind everyone that BushCheneyCo invaded, let bin Laden escape, then started a two-decade occupation along with an invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Every one of them should have stood trial for war crimes.

[crickets]

96. Thank you.

There are political and media folks already trying to set the frame on this. Pushback must be loud and unrelenting.

[LudwigPastorius]

24. Our Pakistani (sometimes) allies made it...

impossible for us to complete the mission of destroying al Qaeda and the taliban.

Those forces have been cooling their heels in Pakistan for 20 years just waiting for us to leave.

Their recapture of Afghanistan was inevitable regardless of when we withdrew.

[DinahMoeHum]

25. After we got bin Laden, we should have pulled out.

We should have just declared victory, then leave.

Problem is, when Bush expanded things beyond sending a small elite force to get bin Laden, I thought: fuck, that part of the world ain't no place for a regular army.

[Trueblue Texan]

117. EXACTLY! nt

[Paladin]

26. A recent poll shows 77% approval from the American public for this withdrawal.

I've turned off all the Sunday news shows, because I don't want want to hear about it anymore. I support Biden's wise decision---end of story.

[XanaDUer2]

128. I had to turn off the news

it was literally kicking me into an agitated state.

Between this, Haiti, covid, tropical storms, wildfires, etc.

[FifthColumn]

27. Accomplishment Number One!

Sorry to disagree with you, Man, but we had a major accomplishment that few credit us for. Before 9/11, George W had to send a huge check to the Afgan government, for their eradication of the opium fields. Today they produce about 82% of the world's supply. Wonder who's gotten rich off that?

[honest.abe]

29. According to most reports Bin laden was still there when we invaded.

He escaped later to Pakistan. One could argue flushing him out gave us better chance of finding him and ultimately being killed.

[Warpy]

30. I remember when; why is a little tougher

since we could have gone into bin Laden's camp and obliterated it without trying to conquer the country. Anf knovkinh iy foen rbrty yimr hr ytirf yo trnuilf iy would have been doable.

The truth is that we needed to hit back after 9/11, and Saudi Arabia should have been the target but wasn't because we're still on the oil tit. They're the ones exporting the most intolerant and poisonous brand of Islam worldwide.

So Afghanistan was in the crosshairs because of the training camp there.

But having gone in, why did we stay? The country is a mess by our standards, but it's NOT OUR COUNTRY. There is no way to fix it since most of the people there think it's not broken. The longest we should have stayed is until bin Laden got whacked across the border in Pakistan. After that, there was no justification except presidents not wanting the ensuing mess pinned on them.

The fact that the mess has always been inevitable isn't going to make it easier to watch.

[treestar]

31. I recall not being all that much for it

even then, but most Americans supported it. Somebody had to pay for 911. The First Gulf War established a precedent that we had to deal with bad actors there. The excuse that Al Qaeda had been allowed to train there was all there was; if Al Qaeda is not still there training for new terror attacks, we are finished even with the plan. I suspect the real reason was to enrich Halliburton and the like, and we are as done with that as can be.

[MineralMan]

37. We ignored Saudi Arabia's role in all of it.

We picked fights where we had no business picking fights. We ignored the fights we should have fought.

I'm sorry but our policy in that region has done nothing to improve anything in the region. We wasted years and billions in a futile effort. There is no option but to "di di mau." Again, we should have done so long ago. No alternative path exists.

[treestar]

39. I don't think we intended to improve anything there

that was a selling point. Cynical Republicans could get the libs on board by the idea of saving people from dictatorship and women from Islamic extremism. But they knew they just wanted the MIC to make $$.

[Evolve Dammit]

85. "We ignored Saudi Arabia's role in all of it." Spot on

[rockfordfile]

100. I agree

[Blue_playwright]

32. Oil and money for the war machine.

That’s why. If you have no moral ground, you cannot win. That’s why we are here. 🤷🏻‍♀️

[Jon King]

36. If we delude ourselves that Biden will not get blamed, we will wrong.

All of this is true but the swing voter will not know any of that. They will see videos for the next years of girls being persecuted who were promised by America that if they rose up we would help them get educated, etc.

If we do not realize that the Repugs will latch onto this like a leech we are going to get hammered in 2022 and 2024.

This is a moral and PR nightmare for Dems going forward.

[MineralMan]

38. Perhaps we could help by not attacking Joe Biden from

our side of the political spectrum. Consider that.

[Jon King]

47. True, but to protect Joe we have to see what is coming.

Democrats is tough races will have to distance themselves form this. Politics is what it is.

[rockfordfile]

101. Majority of Americans support the President on this.

[Dopers_Greed]

108. We're not attacking Biden

Just warning about the reality of the situation.

[notinkansas]

40. It would not have mattered if we had stayed there

20 or 40 or 100 more years. The end result would be the same. As others have said - we should have left a long time ago. Biden did the right thing.

I wish, however, that he had gotten the translators out of the country before announcing the withdrawal.

[MineralMan]

45. Exactly.

As for the translators, we should have helped them leave all along. We did not. Now, it will be too late for many of them. We are not very good at this fake occupation business. Not very good at all.

[Historic NY]

41. We should have pull the pin long ago...

nice we left behind all kinds of shit for the Taliban. And Pakistan is not our friend, it is time to cut off any funds or military aid going into the country.

The experiment of Westernizing Afghans failed, failed with their King. The thing they did learn is how corruption gets them power. What we criticized the Soviets adventure in there, we did, staying 20yrs.

The US should have demo everything..

[kellytore]

43. Excellent post!

[secondwind]

46. Excellent assessment!

[andym]

49. Secretary of State Blinken and Speaker Pelosi seem to disagree with you

Secretary of State Blinken just called our mission in Afghanistan a "success."

and Speaker Pelosi yesterday mentions another specific success "One of the successes of U.S.- NATO cooperation in Afghanistan was the progress made by women and girls. We must all continue to work together to ensure that is not eroded. "

[MineralMan]

52. They're Talking Nonsense.

[Jon King]

54. Thats why there has to be Congressional investigations.

As of yesterday, even Speaker Pelosi thought Kabul would remain a beacon of hope for women and girls. They built modern universities and women were in government.

If the Speaker's intelligence briefings were this wrong and the Taliban entered Kabul the next day, then what the heck is going on.

We need to find out why US intelligence was this horrific.

[Evolve Dammit]

87. She must know that as of now, that progress is over. Back to the dark ages for all still there.

[paleotn]

51. I thank Biden for seeing it for what it is....

and not fooling themselves that they can make it something it's not by sheer will and American arrogance. Biden stopped throwing good billions after bad, is getting us the hell out and letting what's inevitable happen....if anything, because it was inevitable.

[Bear Creek]

53. Actually it has been

The president was assassinated. The country was thrown into a civil war. After Nixon found out there is several hundred years of oil under it. Oh then he became chummy with China.

[littlemissmartypants]

56. There was a point in the history of Afghanistan when Buddhist temples were the norm.

There's more to the history than what is frequently represented here, on DU, but I get your point.

[druidity33]

104. That... was a long time ago. nt.

[BeckyDem]

57. Biden should be commended for ending it.

Any other position is nonsensical.

[Jon King]

59. Fine, but secure the airfield and get all US and foreign nationals out.

If the Taliban get a hold of US citizens and foreign nationals, that is all that will matter for many voters. Biden needs to assemble every top advisor and get on top of the immediate situation. The longer debate is for another time.

The airport must be secured and every US and allied person evacuated safely or this will be an utter disaster.

[dchill]

60. Exactly right, and well-said.

[Hortensis]

61. Well, whatever, remind RWers that tRump's withdrawal date was May 1.

We're been wanting to get out for most of the last 20 years. Obama stepped down our troops but didn't manage to get out before his administration ended.

Trump promised to get out from the beginning, a show of 0 commitment and military weakness that encouraged the Taliban to step up aggression. Over time they gained control of up to 65% of the country, in the first couple of years, also displacing hundreds of thousands of Afghanis. tRump got the Taliban to agree to step down its aggression in return for more time to withdraw completely.

With the Taliban poised to restart full takeover, the Biden admin pushed tRump's May 1 date ahead a bit because tRump preparation was inadequate.

[Sancho]

62. Yes MineralMan...the US should never have been there...

...and some of us would argue the same for Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq.

Too many grifters make money from wars.

[MineralMan]

63. I can't disagree with that.

War is about economics, mainly.

[The Wizard]

64. al Qaeda, bin Laden

Where are they now?

[marie999]

131. Al-Qaeda is still there and killing bin Laden was for revenge, it did not destroy al-Qaeda.

We would have found bin Laden eventually without invading Afghanistan.

[The Wizard]

142. Maybe this should have been prosecuted as a crime.

al Qaeda is protected by the Taliban. Saddam Hussein was a necessary strongman for the region. He saw al Qaeda as a threat to his power and he was harsh when it came to challenging his power.

[crud]

66. At the time we went in, as I remember

we were supporting the Northern tribes and they were doing most of the fighting and taking territory from the Taliban. There were reports that many towns would just switch sides as they saw the tide turning. It was like they really didn't have a moral stake in anything and it was a transactional decision, as in who would promise the local warlords more in money and power. And also at the time, that it was pretty much their way of doing things. I remember thinking at the time that it was pretty cool that we were able to sweep in and take over so quickly and at the same time realizing that their switched loyalties could be reversed very quickly. I think it was not a total mistake to invade but there was no reason to stay. I was also thinking at the time, nation building would take an incredible amount of effort and time that America wasn't willing to do.

[maxsolomon]

67. I'm not blaming Biden.

Trump made the deal. Biden honored the agreement, the way Presidents are supposed to.

[kentuck]

68. Republicans are happy to have a Democrat to blame for their blunder.

Let's not talk about Bush, Cheney, or Rumsfeld or all their lies.

Let's talk about how Biden lost Afghanistan.

[MarcA]

70. Follow the Money and who is trying to bring down Biden's Administration.

Same ones and successors who could have but didn't get Bin Laden when the opportunity was there, sold the nation on false war hysteria and later on nation building. Now they are electorally embolden to continue their War on the American People to transfer wealth from the very many to the very few and change our Democracy into an Oligarchy.

[Ferrets are Cool]

72. K and R

[Texin]

73. We were no closer to a resolution there than we were in 2002.

The former Soviet Union tried for about 35 years to establish control there and they had to finally vacate their fighting there and pull out after their economy began to collapse. They had, however, a strategic reason to be there which involved routing oil through the Black Sea. We never had any reason whatsoever to be there in the first place. This was Cheney's and Rumsfeld's boondoggle and it was a pretext to invade Iraq that had absolutely zero to do with 9-11. All of the highjackers were Saudis and the W Bush administration allowed their diplomatic staff and others who were in the United States at the time to leave on chartered flights -- the only people allowed to fly out of the country following the grounding of our commerical air travel.

[elleng]

106. YES.

[CaptainTruth]

75. And think back to when the PNAC advocated an "imperial America" with an "imperial President"...

...that would "transform the Middle East" by invading country after country, overthrowing their governments, & enforcing a "pax Americana" on the region at gunpoint.

And remember how the GOP embraced the PNAC agenda & GW Bush filled his administration with their members, & used 9/11 as an excuse to move forward with their agenda. And remember how, to this very day, the GOP has never denounced their vision & agenda. You can draw a straight line from the PNAC "imperial president" who has more power than the other branches of government & can ignore them at will, to Donald Trump telling Executive branch members to ignore Congressional subpoenas. It's a long-term GOP goal, & one that applies only to Republican presidents, obviously.

[wiggs]

76. 'There aren't any good targets in Afghanistan'. Paraphrasing Rumseld when he was

asked by staffer why the W administration was looking to Iraq after 9/11.

[Hekate]

90. May Rumsfeld be in Hell as we speak

[cayugafalls]

78. Agreed on all points. However, we could have done better on the withdrawal.

We are leaving hastily for some reason, and perhaps that is why we did not 'do better'.

My thought is that there was a calculation done that said, move now, or dig in as the Taliban is embarking on escalated war.

We could have gotten Bin Laden early on, for some reason we pulled back and let him escape. (I say this sarcastically)

Oh yea, War is a Racket.

[Hekate]

79. Damn straight. nt

[IronLionZion]

84. Reagan was giving them weapons to fight the Soviets before I was even born

and the youngest soldiers there were born after 9/11. 20 years is enough. We can't fix all their problems. If their government falls so quickly, then staying a few months longer is not going to do much to help.

Trump established the very bad withdrawal treaty with the Taliban. If we don't leave now, they're going to shoot down aircraft evacuating civilians.

[Marthe48]

86. I was against it then

I'm glad that the U.S. is leaving, but we need to take all of the Afghani allies, so they aren't murdered. Many won't make it out of the country, so cheney/bush have more blood on their hands. Had anyone bothered to read the history of the area, they would have known the British failed to conquer the people live there, and so did the Russians.

While I didn't support the U.S. invading Afghanistan, I am grateful for the members of the military who fought (and were injured maimed, or died) there, and other places.

I spend a lot of my time wondering how people in positions of power got there, and how they convinced their subjects to fight others. All through history. It's like that is the best humans can expect.

[Hekate]

88. Something else to think on, & you inspired my OP...

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100215741648

[MineralMan]

89. +100

Many DUers are old enough not only to remember the beginnings of the Afghanistan misadventure, but the Vietnam misadventure, as well, which was another nonsensical incursion into territory we neither understood nor were capable of controlling.

We've made such mistakes again and again. I wish we would stop doing that.

The USA cannot impose its system of government on others. That's especially true if we do not even follow that system ourselves. We claim to support equality and fair representation of our citizenry, but we do not do that here, either. Look at our own treatment of people of color and of women in the United States. We could lead by example, if we followed our own principles, but we do not even bother to do that right here. So, we have no position from which to lead.

No wonder we are not trusted elsewhere.

[Random Boomer]

132. This. So much this.

Can you imagine if another country invaded us to "save American democracy"? It's definitely shaky and I'm not convinced that we'll manage to keep it, but invasion by a foreign military force would be disastrous.

That we think we have the right to do this to other countries is frankly monstrous.

[brooklynite]

91. I have every confidence that President Gore would have sent troops in as well...

With better planning to be sure, but any US President would have.

[KelleyKramer]

115. No, president Gore would not have sent troops

President Gore would not have ignored the intelligence reports and 911 would have never happened to begin with

[mzmolly]

92. Who sent troops to Afghanistan in the first place? ... Those who said we'd be out in a few

months. That's who.

[Sunsky]

93. Exactly

My goodness, it's almost 20 years. We now have adults who were born after we went in.

[mzmolly]

94. Amazing

isn't it?

[Sunsky]

95. Unbelievable

I guess some think the US and coalition forces should have a permanent presence in Afghanistan.

[mzmolly]

103. Apparently

so.

[DenaliDemocrat]

98. FFS, literally EVERYTHING you just wrote is wrong

At least read a damned Wikipedia page before you post this gibberish

Afghanistan was a modern country with modern offices and women wearing modern dresses. It has not always been ruled by hardcore Islamic clerics and was in fact, a socialist state at one time

[masmdu]

113. This∆! ...the OP is WRONG!

[DenaliDemocrat]

119. Yes, Fundamentally wrong but still headed

To the Greatest Page. Back in the old days this bullshit would not fly on DU

[EX500rider]

139. Not really...Kabul had some modern offices and women wearing modern dresses...

The rest of the country was no different then it is now, stuck in the dark ages.

[manicdem]

102. Mission in Afghanistan was not complete, Al Qaeda will be back

Our mission in Afghanistan was to stop Al Qaeda, and this was on going. We needed to be there for multiple generations to get the Afghans ready all the while holding off Al Qaeda attacks. It seems past administrations, Democrat and Republican, were on the wrong track in doing that, changing the attitudes and lives of the Afghans.

We did not eliminate Al Qaeda, we pummeled them and sent them into hiding which stopped their attacks. They will come out of hiding now under the Taliban and start preparing for attacks on America.

[Heartstrings]

105. Blaming Joe Biden for Afghanistan is like blaming him for Covid-19.

It’s a disaster he inherited, and to get us out of it was always going to be difficult and heartbreaking. Critics will point fingers over mistakes made in that process, but we should remember how it all started.

[soldierant]

107. Yo'Momms Bin Loggiin has a couple of pertinent posts up

but let me encourage looking at this one -So glad I didn't have to put it up since it will get more views this way:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1017674534

[orangecrush]

109. It was the right decision to leave

My heart still breaks for the women there who just watched their last glimmer of hope go out.

The young girls who had started working to become something in their lives.

No more education.

No more art.

No more music.

No more dance.

Just living the rest of your life in a fucking sack, keeping your mouth shut and toeing the line to avoid a beating or worse.

I feel sick.

[krkaufman]

111. bin Laden

“Think back to the time when we invaded that country on the pretext of finding and punishing Osama Bin-Laden. And he wasn't even there.”

He *was* in Afghanistan when we invaded. And he was *still* in Afghanistan on Nov. 21sr, 2001, the day that Bush ordered Rumsfeld to develop plans for the invasion of Iraq. Then we let him slip out of Tora Bora, and the years of war began…

[TomCADem]

112. THIS

I supported the original invasion because the Taliban had provided sanctuary to Osama bin Ladin and he was hiding out there. However, once he was killed, then what is the point of remaining in Afghanistan. The US built schools and infrastructure. After that, what is the point of occupying a foreign country?

[AngryOldDem]

114. Totally agree.

I have to admit the longer I watch the talking heads, I’m getting angrier at the Biden bashing. Biden made a decision that his predecessors knew had to be made, but couldn’t. Sometimes such decisions have tragic consequences for innocent people. That’s exactly WHY we need to know our reasons for going into a country, what our purposes are, and what our endgame is. Bin Laden, lets’s face it, was just a convenient excuse in 2011. We got him. Yet, we still stayed, to fight the Taliban and Al Queda, nation-build, whatever. This became land-office business, though, for the insatiable war trade.

It was the very definition of insanity — keep on doing the same thing and expecting a different result. What hubris to think we could effect change in Afghanistan when so many would-be conquerors over the centuries have failed.

Afghanistan was doomed to fail from the start. There was going to be no good, tidy end to this, and enough blood has been spilled. Enough.

I commend Biden for having the courage to end it.

[Trueblue Texan]

116. Completely agree!

I knew it would end up this way all those years ago. It was stupid, reckless plan. But I'm sure it made a lot of people very rich.

[LittleGirl]

120. I agree MM

I was sitting at work eating lunch with a Vietnam vet while the initial surge was going into Afghanistan. My colleague was gun Ho about killing Bin Laden. I asked him what purpose this revenge mission was? Would it bring back those that died on 9/11? (The pile was still smothering even then).

No, he said, but we have to respond.
I never agreed to war. I didn’t get a vote or a say to invade that country even after 9/11.

I still believe a women’s revolution needs to happen over there. 20 years of educating the women hopefully makes them rise up and take over but those religious fanatics are cowards.

[Snackshack]

121. For Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld

Iraq was always the end game after 9/11. Afghanistan was the road to it.


If what I have read in the last couple days is correct what we are seeing was always going to happen no matter when we actually left. Trump/Pompeo did not even include the Afghan government in the negotiations in Doha with the Taliban. Trump arranged for 5000 Taliban prisoners to be released one of which is now going to be president there. Over the last few months Karazi has been working with the Taliban and they have been going from village to village to village paying of any government agencies or military there to stand down surrender when we leave.

This was always going to happen like this. I don’t blame Biden at all for deciding to pull the remaining ~2500 troops out instead of “surging” 25-50,000 in order to stay and maintain….what?

As the op said we should have never gone there. Russia was there for 10yrs and couldn’t stabilize anything, thanks in large part to the CIA. Afghanistan has 2000+yr history of religious conflict it has never wanted Democracy so there is no way to make that happen unless we are willing to stay there for generations running the place. President Biden did what Bush wouldn’t do, Obama didn’t do and Trump disastrously agreed to and IMO consciously set as a time bomb for Biden if he lost the election. Most of President Biden’s team had only had 3 months on the job by May 2021. Because of Trumps petulance there was no transition that took place in DOD or State Department or any department for that matter.

This disaster rest solely on the shoulders of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Trump/Pompeo and history needs to reflect that accordingly.

[bdamomma]

125. MineralMan

I totally agree with your post, and it was a Republican administration who put us there. The freaking Russians even left they could not expel the Taliban. WTF!

This is not on Biden not at all.

[The Jungle 1]

127. I am not a republican and do not support them

H.W. Bush handled Iraq the right way.
He completed a defined mission and got OUT.
This country spent a trillion dollars building a military in Afghanistan only to have it stand down in one week.
Just think what we could have done for this country with that trillion. We could all have healthcare.
Thank you Joe for getting us out.

[marie999]

133. There wasn't any reason to attack Iraq unless you want to invade every country

run by a dictator.

[EX500rider]

140. It was a UN sanctioned mission to expel Iraq from Kuwait.

On 29 November 1990, the Security Council passed Resolution 678, which gave Iraq until 15 January 1991 to withdraw from Kuwait, and empowered states to use "all necessary means" to force Iraq out of Kuwait after the deadline.
The war was waged by coalition forces from 35 nations.

[Mosby]

138. Afghan girl.

Link to tweet

[The Jungle 1]

141. The girls and boys of this sexually perverse culture.

The culture of the Afghan dancing boys is truly sick.

The culture of the Afghan people is unfixable.