Can anyone explain to me what we've accomplished in Afghanistan?

[JRLeft]

I'm trying to figure out why we need to stay? Is it the trillion dollars worth of minerals, good politics, or is it the MIC making more money or all of the above?

[HassleCat]

1. Just send money

We can bribe them to like us. We already know that. In fact, they will like us better if we remove our combat troops and simply give them money. Personally, I don't care if they like us or not, so I wouldn't even send money, but that's just me.

[mikeysnot]

2. Heroin proliferation...

and secured the mineral rights for the world oligarchy until they figure out a way to extract them from the region...

[randys1]

3. great QUESTION AND TOPIC - I remember right after 911 seeing a movie, like a year later

on HBO, about what we did in Afghanistan.

Sending in CIA undercover creating relationships, etc.

Dont know how accurate it was, but the idea was to try and prevent a system that results in 911 and it was thought that most of that came from there, as in training and so on, I think.

And to be fair, the Taliban is a horror movie, the way they treat Women and Gay people.

Do we belong there? I guess not, but a part of me wants to DEAL with the disgusting puke men, so called men, who treat Women and others that way.

Is that our job? no, I guess.

Have we created WAY more enemies than vanquished? Yep, mainly because of W and CHeney.

[JRLeft]

5. The Taliban is just as strong as ever.

[Throd]

4. We got a lot of people killed and wasted billions of dollars.

I don't see a strategy, and if there is one, it is a complete failure.

We should have left ten years ago.

[arcane1]

29. Those billions aren't considered "wasted" to the corporate recipients of it.

For them, it's "Mission Accomplished"

[Ikonoklast]

6. Made the 1% even wealthier.

Goal of every war ever fought.

[Scuba]

7. /\_/\_This right here_/\_/\

[JRLeft]

10. Our troops are cannon fodder for the wealthy.

[johnp3907]

26. Yep!

Always start here.

[stone space]

8. Draft Registration was introduced 35 years ago specifically to fight the Afghanistan War.

And we're STILL in Afghanistan to this day.

[JRLeft]

11. It sounds like we have an open ended departure date.

[Rex]

9. Are my methods unsound?

I don't see any method at all.

[Bonx]

12. Drone practice

[Iggo]

13. I believe we have lined the pockets of the warmongers.

So, yeah, mission accomplished.

[rug]

14. No one can.

It's a long-time problem. Read the attempts to give a rationale for Vietnam fifty years ago.

[Wellstone ruled]

15. Pretty much shades of the 60's and our attemps

to protect essential world resources. In Vietnam it was the Rubber Plantations owned by Michelin Tire and Rubber,a French Company and it was pay back for DeGalles WW2 aid to Ike.And we know how that worked out. Here we are again protecting the Rare Earth Minerals for the Chinese and a Oil Pipeline for Exon-Mobile. Of course we all had a hunch there were people needing to provide Heroin Base from the Poppy Fields and what a better way to transport it than using USA transportation assets.

Money talks and Bullshit walks.

[Comrade Grumpy]

16. To be fair: We pretty much smashed core Al Qaeda and threw out the Taliban.

Osama bin Laden is dead, Zawahiri is hiding in a cave somewhere and is largely irrelevant.

But the Taliban was never destroyed, and it's proving very resilient.

As far as I'm concerned, it's up to the Afghans to get things there sorted out.

[maxsolomon]

20. and we bought some time for the women of AF

some women have gotten an education where they otherwise wouldn't have.

also, al Qaeda hasn't had a base of operations there for over a decade.

not that that makes the deaths worth it, but that's all I got. if it were my choice, i would have launched a military action there after 9/11 (i would isolated tora bora and killed every man there), but i wouldn't have stayed.

[Dems to Win]

17. Created the Taliban. Armed Bin Laden.

In the 80s, the US CIA supported and armed the Taliban, including a group of Islamic fundamentalists from the Gulf called 'The Arabs,' led by Osama Bin Laden.

The Taliban kicked the Soviets out of Afghanistan and took over.

In 1991, Bin Laden was outraged when US troops were based on the Muslim soil of Saudi Arabia, and declared war against the infidels. His biggest success came a decade later on 9/11.

The US entered Afghanistan to 'get Bin Laden.' After a decade or so, they got him -- in Pakistan.

Once the US leaves, of course the Taliban will be in charge in Afghanistan.

The US has spent many decades, killed many people, spent trillions of dollars, to firmly install the Taliban in Afghanistan.

[ms liberty]

18. This. n/t

[Comrade Grumpy]

19. The Taliban didn't exist in the 1980s.

Afghan mujahadeen backed by the West drove the Soviets out.

Mujahadeen warlords then fought among themselves.

The Taliban emerged and drove them from power in 1996.

[daleo]

25. The Taliban emerged from the Mujahadeen

A name change, after some internecine warlord fighting.

[YoungDemCA]

40. Nope.

nt

[daleo]

55. That was a devastating refutation

Very skillfully argued.

[frizzled]

21. A supreme court that affirms the death penalty for homosexuality?

Progressive!

[HickFromTheTick]

22. What has been accomplished is yet to be revealed.

Creating hundreds of thousands of vengeful (and resourceful) people sworn to make America pay is most certainly accomplished.

Politics don't mean sh*t when you see a family member dismembered by a thousand pound bomb, whether you stupidly, obscenely, and arrogantly call it collateral damage or not. There are thousands who will have their revenge. Count on it.

This is America driving off a cliff.

[JRLeft]

33. We've created more terrorists.

[Lizzie Poppet]

23. Two things. The first is "jack."

I'm sure you can guess the second...

[JRLeft]

24. We're in a fucking quagmire and most politicians won't admit it.

[morningfog]

27. Eat crow Obama loyalists who repeatedly claims Obama was

getting us out of Afghanistan. I had so many arguments here about this. It sucks to be right sometimes.

[JRLeft]

31. I use to be a loyalists, I got my rude awakening with his transition team.

[cwydro]

34. Yup.

I gave up on Obama being anti-war a long time ago.

He fooled me once.

[JRLeft]

36. He fooled a lot of people, the Robert Gates appointment was a spit in the face of

progressives.

[RKP5637]

28. IMO after all of these years it's a total failure, but continues as a MIC money maker! n/t

[Maedhros]

30. Our adventure in Afghanistan has been an unqualified success!

Many hundreds of billions of public dollars have been transferred into the hands of private military contractors. Hooray!

[CanadaexPat]

32. We put troops next to Iran.

Then put troops on the other side when we invaded Iraq. If a Republican had been President we would have attacked Iran. instead we've gone after their ally Syria.

[Township75]

35. We have shown that Democrats and Republicans can't say not to a War

whether they campaign on fiscal responsibility, no more nation building, peace not war, or a smaller defense budget.

Obama...McCain...it would be the same.

[JRLeft]

37. Too much money to be made for defense contractors, who then finance congress.

[Township75]

38. apparently the president too

Both Bush and Obama have pushed to be in that country.

[JRLeft]

39. It's all about the minerals, 1 trillion dollars worth.

[restorefreedom]

41. some people have gotten very rich

and as we know, thats all that really matters, right?

other than that, nothing but a lot of death.

[JRLeft]

42. People are only collateral damage, getting in the way of defense contractors.

[restorefreedom]

43. well, those "other" people don't matter to them

the 'murikan 1% interests have to be protected at all costs.

[JRLeft]

44. It's just the cost of business.

[restorefreedom]

45. btw did you see this?

a short report from the young turks about the newest drone whistleblower report

very disturbing..i think i clipped it into that thread, too

https://m.

[JRLeft]

46. It's not surprising, there were rumors about problems before.

[Recursion]

47. The 2010 Jirga was probably the last constructive thing that happened

That did establish a framework for an Afghan government going forward, though whether it will survive long is questionable.

[JRLeft]

48. Was that the program that built schools?

[Recursion]

49. No (at least not directly), it was a big parliament attended by most factions

It didn't have any binding legal authority (even nominally) but it did build something like a consensus around the idea of negotiating with and co-opting into government some of the less hard-line Taliban groups. Unfortunately the implementation led to something of an intra-Taliban civil war which has now spilled out into a second insurgency.

[JRLeft]

50. The only logical thing to do is leave.

[Recursion]

51. Pulling out the military means pulling out USAID, Ag, State, the UN, MSF...

Neither staying nor leaving are very attractive.

[JRLeft]

54. It sucks but we have to go. We will never make progress there.

[Aerows]

52. Being the latest in a long line

of people that knew it as the Graveyard of Empires.

Alexander the Great and everybody that has attempted to stir that particular soup bowl.

[Skittles]

53. nothing, and trillions spent

but repukes want to drug-test people who get assistance buying food

[Jesus Malverde]

56. Well,the poppies ar happy...nt

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

57. The usual accomplishments that occur in wars. A lot of dead people for no reason.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

58. We've made the place safe for child molesters

The Taliban frowned on that activity.

[JRLeft]

59. Let the Taliban deal with them.

[EX500rider]

60. "Here's the Best Thing the U.S. Has Done in Afghanistan"

In late 2011, the U.S. Agency for International Development announced some astonishing news about progress in health and mortality in Afghanistan. The new findings came from the release of the 2010 Afghanistan Mortality Survey, the largest survey of its kind ever undertaken in Afghanistan. The survey showed that from 2004 to 2010, life expectancy had risen from just 42 years--the second lowest rate in the world--to 62 years, driven by a sharp decline in child mortality. As a result, nearly 100,000 Afghan children per year who previously would have died now don't.


http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/10/heres-the-best-thing-the-us-has-done-in-afghanistan/280484/

[JRLeft]

61. That's great news.