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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAfghanistan: "No more pretending it meant anything. It didn't - It didn't mean a fucking thing"
from a post by: Laura Jedeed
Boy howdy am I having a lot of feelings about Afghanistan today
I deployed there twice--once in 2008 and once in 2009-10
It was already obvious that the Taliban would sweep through the very instant we left
And here we are today
I know how bad the Taliban is. I know what they do to women and little boys. I know what they're going to do to the interpreters and the people who cooperated with us, it's awful, it's bad, but we are leaving, and all I feel is grim relief
Afghanistan is a dusty beige nightmare of a place full of proud, brave people who did not fucking want us there
We called them Hajjis and worse and they were better than we were, braver and stronger and smarter
I remember going through the phones of the people we detained and finding clip after clip of Bollywood musicals, women singing in fields of flowers
Rarely did I find anything incriminating
I remember finding propaganda footage cut together from the Soviet invasion and our own Operation Enduring Whatever
And laughing about how stupid the Afghans were to not know we aren't the Russians
And then eventually realizing I was the stupid one
I remember how every year the US would have to decide how to deal with the opium fields
You could let them alone, and then the Taliban would shake the farmers down and use the money to buy weapons
Or you could carpet bomb the fields and then the farmers would join the Taliban
Or you could give the farmers fertilizer as an incentive to grow wheat instead of opium poppy, and the farmers would sell the fertilizer to the Taliban, who used it to make explosives for IEDs that could destroy a million dollar MRAP and maim everyone inside
I remember we weren't allowed to throw batteries away because people who worked on base would go through the trash and collect hundreds of dead batteries, wire them together so they had just enough juice for one charge, and use that charge to detonate an IED
I remember the look on my roommate's face after she got back from cutting the dead bodies of two soldiers out of an HMMWV that got blown up by an IED that I have always imagined was made with fertilizer from an opium farmer and detonated with a hundred thrown-out batteries
I remember an Afghan kid who worked in the DFAC (cafeteria) who we called Cowboy, always wore this cowboy hat and an "I'm with stupid" t-shirt someone had given him, always with a big smile, high school age
Cowboy was a good student and he wanted to go to college in America, but there weren't colleges that took Afghans, the education system was too shit. No program to help kids like him. I looked
I wonder if he's dead now, for serving us food and dreaming of something different
But if Cowboy is dead then he died a long time ago, and if Cowboy is dead it's our fault for going there in the first place, giving his family the option of trusting us when we are the least trustworthy people on the planet
We use people up and throw them away like it's nothing
And now we are leaving and the predictable thing is happening, the Taliban is surging in and taking it all back
They have what you can't buy or train, they have patience and a bloody-mindedness that warrants more respect than we ever gave them
I am Team Get The Fuck Out Of Afghanistan which, as a friend pointed out to me today, has always been Team Taliban
It's Team Taliban or Team Stay Forever, there is no third team
So I'm sitting here reading these sad fucking tweets about the suffering in Afghanistan and the horror of the encroaching Taliban and how awful it is that this is happening but I can't stop feeling this grim happiness, like, finally, you fuckers, finally you have to see it too
No more blown up soldiers. No more Bollywood videos on phones whose owners are getting shipped god knows where. No more hypocrisy
No more pretending it meant anything. It didn't
It didn't mean a fucking thing
FROM:
Link to tweet
?s=20
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1426689324284841987.html
JohnSJ
(92,109 posts)threat.
When that was accomplished the mission was over.
Voltaire2
(12,977 posts)bin Laden was in Islamabad when he was executed.
al Qaeda survived our invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.
JohnSJ
(92,109 posts)The Taliban were openly providing sanctuary to bin laden and AQ
AQ planned 9/11 in Afghanistan
They missed him in Tora Bora, which was when he fled to Pakistan, but others from AQ remained
azureblue
(2,146 posts)actually it was the excuse Cheney used to get troops over their to divert to Iraq to advance the interests of the US oil companies in the middle east. Post 9/11, BL was in AFgh, but as soon as the troops landed there, Cheney diverted them to Iraq. And no one stopped him. And by doing so, it gave BL room to regroup. All in the name of Republican politics.
People forget that the US created the Taliban when we decided to supply and support Afgh freedom fighters resisting a soviet invasion. Yeah, THAT Rambo movie..
The US is responsible for quite a bit of damage throughout the world, especially to those who don't bow down and obey.
JohnSJ
(92,109 posts)and AQ were in Afghanistan is ignoring history. There were a few reporters who actually had interviews in Afghanistan with bin laden prior to 9/11
In fact the 9/11 attacks were planned by AQ in Afghanistan
Your analysis was correct that the bush administration used 9/11 as an excuse to go into Iraq, based on a lie.
They didnt take all the troops out, and left a good portion there
Texin
(2,594 posts)But they moved out of Afghanistan subsequently. And no one can tell me that between the military and intelligence forces that they didn't realize that or even where Bin Laden was. Frankly, I think they always had a very strong sense that he'd set himself up in Pakistan.
yardwork
(61,585 posts)Locrian
(4,522 posts)yardwork
(61,585 posts)That's how those crime families make their money.
panader0
(25,816 posts)They made billions of taxpayer dollars. Hopefully the people of the US will see what really happened.
yardwork
(61,585 posts)Instead, Biden is blamed.
Magoo48
(4,700 posts)fear is the tool; foreign resources are the long con.
littlemissmartypants
(22,628 posts)It's the cold hard truth many need to hear.
secondwind
(16,903 posts)greenjar_01
(6,477 posts)And so correct.
Treefrog
(4,170 posts)What a waste of money, lives, and time.
usaf-vet
(6,178 posts)zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)And yet one of "our own" kept pouring in the money and blood to prop up this disaster, despite his VP telling him not to. None the less he is the "best president" of something. But Progressives are still the problem.
walkingman
(7,591 posts)RVN VET71
(2,690 posts)He lived them, no doubt about it. But I dont recall him saying it so bluntly. Gordon Gekko said Greed -- for want of a better word -- is good, and Ivan Boesky, before he was tried and imprisoned for financial crimes, told the graduating class at Berkelys school of business that Greed is alright, by the way.
But I dont think even a conservative politician would expose him or herself by saying so cogently what they all believe and live by.
colorado_ufo
(5,731 posts)So much loss.
FM123
(10,053 posts)Wounded Bear
(58,618 posts)Jon King
(1,910 posts)All of this is true, but the huge question is who was giving Biden the intel he used when he said on July 9th that the Taliban would not take over the entire country.
This war is over but we need to know how our intelligence is failing our decision makers.
dianaredwing
(406 posts)as those who receive it and interpret or misinterpret it (sometimes on purpose). I know I didn't get any direct messages from anyone. All information that the public receives comes through the government and sometimes the press but in any case, it is nearly always second, third, forth hand information.
Martin Eden
(12,858 posts)But he couldn't say we're pulling out knowing the government and their military we worked so hard to prop up would soon fall apart, resulting Taliban total control of Afghanistan.
Not only because of the domestic political consequences, but because such an expression of zero confidence in our Afghan allies would have hastened their disintegration.
7wo7rees
(5,128 posts)I've/we've been having tough time dealing with all of this unfolding and for how it is affecting our vets, their families, everyone in Afghanistan. How the media is shifting blame.
But this vet just nails all of it. So very sorry.
Ms 7wo7rees (on behalf of us both)
(Personal note, we were opposed from the very beginning and we knew about PNAC and the MIC, you know, read "War is Racket", by General Smedly Butler.)
burrowowl
(17,636 posts)7wo7rees
(5,128 posts)Way back some 40 years ago or so, to graduate from high school one had to have x # of credit hours in "civics". Study how government works......
"War is a Racket" should be required reading to graduate from high school.
As should be the words of this vet as well!
My heart is just broken.
PatrickforB
(14,566 posts)"It don't mean nothin'."
ashredux
(2,603 posts)ashredux
(2,603 posts)CrispyQ
(36,437 posts)
I remember how every year the US would have to decide how to deal with the opium fields
You could let them alone, and then the Taliban would shake the farmers down and use the money to buy weapons
Or you could carpet bomb the fields and then the farmers would join the Taliban
Or you could give the farmers fertilizer as an incentive to grow wheat instead of opium poppy, and the farmers would sell the fertilizer to the Taliban, who used it to make explosives for IEDs that could destroy a million dollar MRAP and maim everyone inside.
marble falls
(57,055 posts)The Jungle 1
(4,552 posts)How it can be that we spent a trillion dollars and twenty years building the Afghan military only to have it collapse in ONE WEEK.
Did we stay because we knew the army would collapse? Catch 22 all over again.
Thank you Joe
Moostache
(9,895 posts)USA trained "armies" have a very piss poor record against committed partisans fighting for control of their countries...
The Viet Cong and NVA showed the playbook in the 60's and 70's.
The Iraqis sucked up American dollars at a stunning rate (kick backs were certainly part of those disappearing dollars too).
The Iraqi Army was a joke without Americans doing the heavy lifting, much like the South Vietnamese Army.
The Afghans already had decades (centuries?) of experience in the same thing before we got there.
An army that is structured around mass destruction and enormous invasions and holding cities cannot defeat an insurgency.
That same army can train troops in soldiering until the cows come home...but they cannot give them courage or conviction or a cause to fight for and die for.
Counter-insurgency is NOT a military operation, it is a political one. With no allies worth a squirt of piss in the government, there is no hope of ever quelling an insurgency. This was always the way things would go as soon as we decided to leave. All the other arm chair quarterbacking is white noise.
The Jungle 1
(4,552 posts)The question is how do we as American citizens make sure this does not happen again????
Vietnam was not very long ago. How could we have forgotten everyone of the lessons?
brush
(53,758 posts)How many times do we listen to the war profiteers/MIC who want to make profits while enabling colonels who want to make general.
greenjar_01
(6,477 posts)The Afghan Army has been a paper force for a decade. The Taliban has been in control of much of the country at least that long, and began this offensive in earnest a year ago, with the major gains coming over the last several months. But these are non-linear dynamics: it just hit a tipping point where everyone went the same way at the same time, finito.
Obama should have ordered the complete withdrawal on the day immediately following his re-election.
The Jungle 1
(4,552 posts)I bet a whole bunch of American corporations also got rich.
greenjar_01
(6,477 posts)And many more made their money and salaries for decades.
A good deal of the US economy is just government hand-outs repackaged as military spending. Probably 90% of it is completely pointless and exists only to juice the economy. We have a trillion dollar welfare program that goes under the name of the Pentagon budget.
marble falls
(57,055 posts)... this time. Dicl Cheney's Brown and Root were one of the biggest contractors. We could go down the list of anyone associated with GWB or his administration.
The only reason 45 wanted the war stopped was because he couldn't step up to the trough himself.
All he wanted was the rights to Trump Tower Kabul, so he cut 5000 Taliban leaders loose, including the current President of Afghanistan.
uponit7771
(90,323 posts)ismnotwasm
(41,971 posts)I remember her telling me the Taliban were all over the place.
bdamomma
(63,810 posts)never abandoned their country after endless encounters of Russians and Americans who were stationed out there, but what are they going to accomplish? a terror state??? I agree with the some of comments here, we had no business there in the first place. A number of rich bastards got richer from it, and we lost 24,000 Americans. Just really unfortunate.
ismnotwasm
(41,971 posts)electric_blue68
(14,845 posts)ismnotwasm
(41,971 posts)One of my grandsons is severely autistic, and that inspired her, thank you.
electric_blue68
(14,845 posts)marble falls
(57,055 posts)Mr. Evil
(2,828 posts)of the real reason religion exists. Only 2 words: power, control. Created BMFM (by men, for men).
Don't think for a moment that the evangelicals want any less here. They own the republicans. Without them the republicans would only receive a fraction of the votes they legitimately get and the republicans know this. Never turn your back on them.
Martin Eden
(12,858 posts)The US has no shortage of religious fundamentalists and Dominionists who want theocratic rule in America.
And YES, religious faith has always been manipulated and exploited as a means of control.
I can understand how people would cling to their religion in a place like Afghanistan; after decades of grief and suffering and brutal poverty, what else do they have?
But what's the excuse for the American Taliban?
Warpy
(111,222 posts)We knew that while he was still alive, he'd just go back and rebuild his infrastructure. He'd married a few times and was related to a lot of Afghanistan because of it, they'd never have kept him out.
Will there be another hate crazed oil money guy from the Middle East who will take up the cause? Probably. We'll have to deal with him when he pops up.
marie999
(3,334 posts)We would have found him even if we had not attacked Afghanistan. Even if he had stayed in Afghanistan or wherever he decided to go.
Warpy
(111,222 posts)We kept him out of the most hospitable place he found for training his thugs. If I'm not mistaken both Afghan and Pakistani informants contributed to finding him. Once he and his money were gone, the organization largely fell apart and that's when we should have gotten out. We couldn't have done any of that had we not been there.
jaxexpat
(6,813 posts)It's good to do that from time to time. But it's more important to identify the underlying causes of our international errors. For this case I blame the electoral college. The evil entity that gave us the minority elected(?) moron in chief. He came complete with his cadre of neo-con guided idealogues without whom this Afghanistan horror show couldn't have happened.
cilla4progress
(24,723 posts)to flex muscle.
"Oh, Russia couldn't beat you into submission? Hold my beer."
LaMouffette
(2,020 posts)veteran of the Afghanistan war. Every American should hear or read these words.
Boomerproud
(7,949 posts)Everyone needs to hear this. So Powerful !
CaptainTruth
(6,582 posts)And they will never be held responsible for it.
Evolve Dammit
(16,719 posts)cstanleytech
(26,273 posts)well as a way to siphon hundreds of billions of dollars of tax payer money on increased military spending and thus into their own pockets in varies ways.
Lonestarblue
(9,958 posts)for decades, but when the most dangerous ideologyfascismis growing by leaps and bounds in our own country, they do nothing. From the era of Joe McCarthy to today, Republicans have made many decisions based on fighting communism. Vietnam was all about communism and weakening Russian power. It was our own CIA that helped the Taliban during the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, perhaps not foreseeing that they would become terrorists and harbor Islamic terrorists or so focused on fighting communism that future problems were ignored.
We need both a new military philosophy and we need to start dighting our real problems like climate warming. We have never been successful at nation building (look at the disasters in Central America). We need a new approach.
calimary
(81,179 posts)From Joe McCarthy to Kevin McCarthy.
Good grief. Theyve learned NOTHING. The question then becomes have we?
Lonestarblue
(9,958 posts)Mopar151
(9,976 posts)"The Devil's Chessboard" is a biography of Allen Dulles, founder of the CIA, and "The man who betrayed 5 presidents". His philosophy was, in brief, that exploitation of other countries by American (business) interests WAS our national interest. Democracies were a threat to the abilities of United Fruit, Standard Oil, and The Morgan Bank to pillage and loot local economies.
Often, the plan revolved around toppling a struggling democracy, and installation of a puppet state, led by an ethnic or religious minority who considered their "side" to be the "rightful" rulers.
calimary
(81,179 posts)DENVERPOPS
(8,802 posts)I think this is the best post EVER on DU. Period
And also the best comments..........
The MIC, the comments about Cheney, the reference to PNAC, all of it.......
My thinking about the last forty plus years would be:
While The Nation Slept .....................
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)that can be known now. They're not just a lot more sophisticated and aware of what the 21st century offers now than in 1999, many have been carrying smartphones -- living "smartphone lives" for much or most of that time. Population has been exploding in that period, and urbanization has come to people who can remember when there was no large city in the entire nation. Their expectations have changed. What a Taliban version of Islamic government will do with this somewhat changed Islamic population, and vice versa,...?
Evolve Dammit
(16,719 posts)Mopar151
(9,976 posts)Hekate
(90,616 posts)Some of what she says from experience confirms my observations over the years: That we use people and abandon them. That America has forgotten what it means to keep our word not with guns and bombs, but by protecting the people who helped us at risk of themselves and their families lives.
It is bitter to read it laid out like this. It is important that as many people as possible read it.
Stay safe, Ms Jedeed, and truly, thank you for your service and for speaking the truth.
To recap a once-popular postscript at DU: F**k George Bush and Dick Cheney.
ancianita
(36,009 posts)thucythucy
(8,043 posts)So true, and oh so sad.
rockfordfile
(8,700 posts)crickets
(25,959 posts)rumleyfips
(27 posts)Nothing changes : I've flogged you and I've flayed you but by the living god that made you , youre a better man than I an Gunga Din.
Alice Kramden
(2,166 posts)So terrible and so true
MOMFUDSKI
(5,474 posts)all I have to say, again, is "What if they gave a war and nobody came?". War is a racket that makes certain people rich. And those folks don't give a rat's ass about you young men/women. You'll always be cannon fodder so maybe just don't show up next time. I am just disgusted and ANGRY today. That is all.
milan755803
(16 posts)I am reminded of the saying that "old men make wars, young men fight them". we now have to include "young women" as well.
Martin68
(22,776 posts)idealism override the lessons of history. We thought we could "save" Afghanistan by giving democracy a chance to take root - against the advice of every single historian who has any knowledge of the country's history. Now we are suffering the consequences of our hubris. It did indeed have meaning: it meant the road to hell is paved with the good intentions of those who have no clue about the reality in a country like Afghanistan. Or Vietnam. Or Iran. Or El Salvador. Or Chile. Or....
Moebym
(989 posts)Last edited Mon Aug 16, 2021, 11:47 PM - Edit history (2)
Some people in the West live in some fantasy world in which we can swoop in to any nation on Earth, magically grant oppressed people Western-style democracy and values - because we're morally superior and all - and have them embrace us with tears of joy in their eyes.
That's straight out of a comic book. We, however, live in the real world, where our presence (military, especially) in a foreign country is NOT always welcome and indeed can make an already terrible situation worse. Let's not even go into how our own sordid history of racism and our fragile democracy are not exactly setting a great example for the rest of the world.
As I said in a comment on Daily Kos, people who think like that are engaging in White Savior Syndrome, which is hardly any better than the Taliban's ideology, and might even be worse because it's just another form of imperialism cloaked in the guise of good intentions.
To borrow a Biden-ism, "This is not who we are. We are better than this."
peppertree
(21,614 posts)Many an oceanfront mansion must have been built or bought with Afghan War loot, contractor-related and otherwise.
Aussie105
(5,366 posts)Does it sink in yet?
Sending troops overseas based on abstract ideological foundations never works?
Foreigners will always see the presence of American soldiers in their country as an invasion, and react accordingly?
Those who cooperated did so for their own reasons, be it money or power, not because they wanted the same thing for their country as America. They didn't, they don't.
But Afghanistan . . . more a collection of tribal lands rather than a unified country.
The presence of foreign boots on the ground gave them a reason to unite against a common foe.
Will they now fragment back into tribal conflict?
Will the country as a whole regress even further, stone age perhaps?
But if you want to be callous - Afghanistan is the concern of Afghanis, not Americans. Let them sort it out themselves.
Or was Afghanistan and all the other overseas wars just a 'Look! Squirrel!' thing to take heat off domestic problems?