Our puppet government has folded and we now have to recognize that we achieved nothing after spending 20 years, 100,000+ Afghan lives, 3,000 American and European lives, and unknown $trillions (the spending will continue as U.S. soldiers sign up for disability benefits and Afghans immigrate to the U.S. and sign up for multiple generations of means-tested public housing, Medicaid, food stamps, etc.).
What will change going forward? Will we still be just as enthusiastic about wars we can’t win?
Related:
- “Analysis of ACS data from 2006–2015 finds that, with controls, Afghan refugees’ earned incomes are the lowest of seven refugee/immigrant comparison groups.” (“Challenges to the economic integration of Afghan refugees in the U.S.”)
- Wikipedia regarding Omar Mateen, the son of Afghan immigrants to the U.S. (i.e., in the long run, our 20-year war may actually increase the level of jihad here in the U.S. due to more Afghans coming into the U.S.)
What will change going forward? Nothing. Will we still be just as enthusiastic about wars we can’t win? Yes! We must continue the war on covid 19! Even one death is too many.
Great question. I agree with Mr. Toucan. Even one Pentagon general or government official punished for their failures is too many. Narrative of US exceptionalism must continue, or else we’ll start questioning all the other forever wars.
There are a lot of 2nd lieutenants pissed that they will have a harder time becoming 1st lieutenants now–and so on up through the ranks. Shrug. Apart from that and the usual MIC grifting, what other purpose did it ever have?
I heard some older vet say that he just spent his time literally guarding CIA poppy fields, so maybe with Fentanyl being the drug of choice now the real mission is gone. I thought he was joking, but who knows.
I’m too disgusted right now to comment coherently without spewing expletives all over your blog. I’ll just use one: It’s a 20+ year clusterfuck that ended worse than it began and nobody is going to count the dead Afghans who are being tarred and paraded around with ropes and then tortured and executed, not to mention the fate of their women and children – or the lives and treasure we lost – in this stupendous cataclysm. I’m honestly too upset to prognosticate about the future while people are having their heads cut off.
Utter failure in Afganistan triggered Soviet collapse and was followed with restoration of market economy and return to Christianity in Russia (other formet Soviet Union republics are mostly basket cases).
We can only hope something like that will happen in US. But chances are slim for now, as collectivist cult is still has ways to go before American economy is destroyed to the point that even the humaniform hamsters can see that that commies should go.
@averros, Afghanistan was Soviet war that costed least of treasure to former USSR and resulted of smallest losses to former USSR; it was also the only war that former USSR had positive personnel loss ration, and by huge margin. How ironic that it is considered a crippling loss to former USSR and other wars considered victories.
As of fall of USSR, not sure whether you watched last USSR CP and governmental plenums/ town-halls, USSR integration started with Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia initiating exit for USSR. Last remain in USSR champions, even after Russia wanted to end it, were Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan I believe, sorry if I missed Kirghistan and Turkmenistan.
I made so many typos so I decided to post it again
@averros, Afghanistan was Soviet war that costed the least of treasure to former USSR and resulted in the smallest losses to former USSR out of all of its significant military conflicts; it was also the only war that former USSR had positive personnel loss ratio, and by huge margin. How ironic that it is considered a crippling loss to former USSR and other wars considered victories.
As for the fall of the USSR, not sure whether you watched last USSR CP and governmental plenums/ town-halls, USSR disintegration started with Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia initiating exit from the USSR. Last remain in USSR champions, even after Russia wanted to end it, were Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan, sorry if I missed Kirghistan and Turkmenistan.
We achieved nothing? During the time we were in Afghanistan no one flew a plane into a US building murdering 3,000 civilians and no one flew a plane into the Pentagon. We will see what happens now – or is the thought that the Taliban have mended their ways — now having seen the Great Satan fleeing? And how will China react and Russia and Iran and North Korea? And Japan, South Korea, Saudi, Taiwan, and Turkey? If I were them i would go nuclear rather than depend on a feckless US. And the world is then a better place than having 3,500 US soldiers providing support, mostly air support to the Afghan army? Sounds naïve to me.
Almost all of the 9/11 attackers were from Saudi Arabia. So, we doubled down by sending 7,000 US soldiers to die in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus countless wounded, while spending $7 Trillion because $2.2 billion dollar(adjusted for inflation) buildings were destroyed? Makes perfect sense.
The VAERS system says 6,490 people have died from the COVID-19 vaccines, over 2x the civilian deaths on 9/11.
Russia has now one more headache of having Taliban on the border of their Southern sphere of influence – Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Uzbek and Tajik citizens work seasonally in Russia and now that Taliban crossed ethnic divide it can be an issue for Russia.
I do not think that Taliban would want again get G. W. Bush like response. Their old leaders are gone. But who knows with Biden and Dems in power.
We supported the Taliban’s when they were called “mujahedeen” fighting against the Soviet. In doing so, we created Osama bin Laden.
As for Saudi Arabia, they are and should be treated as an enemy of the USA in the same way as we see and treat the Taliban’s.
As always, our priorities are misplaced and our memories are short lived.
Jack: The only way that our war in Afghanistan prevented domestic jihad is if Afghanistan was the only place in the world where jihadis could train AND if our occupation of Afghanistan eliminated all of the corners of the country where jihadis could train. In the long run, because our being in Afghanistan lead to more Afghan immigrants than we would otherwise have had, shouldn’t we expect the net result to be more domestic jihad? Consider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Mateen for example, the son of Aghan immigrants (“His family was described as being moderate Muslims and “all-American.””)
Yes, for three reasons,
It seemed like a good idea at the time
sunk cost theory
people have short memories
The Afghan Army folded as quickly as it could toss its weapons and run. Why should we risk American lives for Afghan democracy and human rights the Afghans themselves care not one whit for?
One silver lining: now that we no longer depend on the treacherous Pakistanis for logistics support, let’s cut them off completely and see how they enjoy being a full-on Chinese colony.
I agree, let the East deal with their problems, not us. Let China have their war on drugs and migrant influx. Afghanistan is not fixable till when you cut the money supply [1] and end corruption which is not a realistic thing to do.
[1] https://theconversation.com/the-taliban-are-megarich-heres-where-they-get-the-money-they-use-to-wage-war-in-afghanistan-147411
Utter failure in Afganistan triggered Soviet collapse and was followed with restoration of market economy and return to Christianity in Russia (other formet Soviet Union republics are mostly basket cases).
We can only hope something like that will happen in US. But chances are slim for now, as collectivist cult is still has ways to go before American economy is destroyed to the point that even the humaniform hamsters can see that that commies should go.
George A: China won’t have mid-Eastern migrant influx. They are not THAT stupid.
@Fazl Majid: Well, time has shown that Pakistan is on the right side of history. USSR failed. George W. and Obama failed (after orchestrating the whole mess).
And those peanuts in “aid” mean zero. Please keep them or divert them to Israel.
@osman
save this – there won’t be a porkistan left with the mess they have entered into. its division is inevitable. the only question is how soon?
@anonymous: On the contrary, India’s image is severely tarnished: failed attack on Pakistan (with Indian plans getting shot down and pilots being captured), Corona virus mishandling (hundreds of thousands of deaths, with international aid solving the problem at last) and now Afghan failure. Modi has failed, along with Indian policies of the past 30 years (at least) in Afghanistan.
This explains the anonymous handle and online harassment. Must be frustrating.
Massachusetts should love the Taliban, as I understand mask usage by Afghanistan women is on the rise.
No, How can we be racist if everyone is covered?
And if the news is to be believed it has begun. Pretty funny running this angle as a sob story.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/aug/15/afghan-womens-defiance-and-despair-i-never-thought-id-have-to-wear-a-burqa-my-identity-will-be-lost
“Biden Press Secretary Jen Psaki has assured the washington press corps that the Taliban must be fully vaccinated before entering the US Embassy. We can now circle back to your question on Biden’s favorite icecream”
Nothing will change because…
Yes, I am afraid this is accurate. The wikipedia link gives a brief summary of the argument. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket
It’s a shame this book isn’t required reading in US schools.
We’ll find out if another Bin Laden is able to thrive as we were told would happen. Highrise condo owners & airlines with patriotic names are going to need some serious economic stimulus packages.
Fortunately, Bide man is going to say something in the next few weeks, as soon as he’s had enough rest from the last few weeks & finds his mask.
Yes leaving was the right decision, though not keeping our promises to support those Afghanistan people that helped is ugly. And it seems like there was no good plan to evacuate our embassy people either.
And in not leaving quickly after the 9/11 objectives had been accomplished, we showed a lot of hubris in thinking we could foster a democracy in a country with quite different customs and heavy tribalism. I guess none of our politicians read history.
I was against ‘country building’ in Afghanistan to begin with. And in Iraq. We should have simply spent whatever money, resources and special forces it took to find bin Laden and take him and anyone else involved out, without invading and taking over the entire country and taking on responsibility for democratizing two countries where there is no real mind-set or culture that generally supports any type of secular rule of law. But then, oh, the oil. That’s why. At least for Iraq. And then, in Iraq at least, instead of keeping the Iraqi army together, paying them, and having them police the country, we had to do it, because Bremer and the rest didn’t learn anything from history, in particular the Marshall Plan, and let the Iraqi military disband and dissolve into the population. If you’re going to do stupid, try not to add more stupid to it. Afghanistan would have remained a ‘democracy’ only as long as we had forces there to keep it that way, so it’s no surprise that once we left, it all fell apart. The only surprise is in how quickly the Taliban walked in and took it all back.
Not only Afghan military has folded, there is no Northern Alliance of Tajik and Uzbek fighters anymore which were main troops on the ground to defeat Taliban under G. W. Bush and other neocons. It is all Taliban now, that’s why Taliban calls it “united Afghan emirates”, because it is not about Pashtun any longer. Guess they did not like “zer/their” etc pronouns that are required in official documentation, or they were left out of our military subcontracting. It is a miracle how incompetent US intervention could unite thousand years foes.
I’m going to try and look at the bright side since the dark side has been covered to a large extent.
The U.S. was able to project power and fight for 20 years in a land-locked country an enemy known to decimate its foes. We did this while fighting in Iraq, Syria, and Africa, as well as staying on top of cold wars with Russia and China. I understand that expectations were much higher.
Inherently, winning an insurgency is still an unsolved problem. Our salesmen are too good, and our prophets too unreliable.
got this meme:
>>>
Orange man set Twitter on fire but kept the real world largely peaceful and boring. Xiden made Twitter boring but is setting the real world on fire.
<<<
Also, from the ending of the movie Charlie Wilson's war:
Getting out was the right thing to do, but it was 15+ years too late.
Starting Iraq War II was the wrong thing to do, we should never have started it.
It is sad that all empires and nations with powers will never learn that nation building is impossible. This has been proven over and over going way back to even before B.C.. No great powers ever been able to hold on and build another country indefinitely.
The only good outcome from those 2 wars are: 1) we kept our war machines going, and 2) we tested the capacity of our war machine in real life. Together, this allowed us to keep the economy humming.
George is quite right (except perhaps the last paragraph). The level of naivete, hubris, insanity and ignorance of the ruling elites on both sides of the aisle in this country is remarkable.
Here’s an article that at least tries to comprehend the complexity of the Afghan tribal dynamics during war times . Perhaps, the author was spared Harvard or Yale “education’ which lets him to retain a degree of sanity.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/08/16/afghanistan-history-taliban-collapse-504977
Soviets whose attempt at commie state building was also an utter failure understood quite a bit more about those dynamics. Interestingly, the Nadjibullah government managed to survive for three years after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989.
It is clearly time to send in the HR Consultants, perhaps we could offer the incoming Taliban a free year of Zoom based sensitivity training.
Apparently one week into Taliban rule in Kunduz the chief problem of the new regime is getting municipal workers to return to their jobs, and so the Taliban have been going house to house searching for city employees sheltering in place, if you will. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/15/world/asia/afghanistan-taliban-kunduz.html
I thought at first the workers were scared of Covid but apparently the Taliban are very pro mask. No, instead the workers do not feel their offices are safe spaces any longer. According to a Talbian quoted in the NYT, workers were specifically assured, “our jihad is not with the municipality, our jihad is against the occupiers and those who defend the occupiers.”
Since this did not go over well with the workers, what other messages could the Taliban provide to create a diverse and empowering environment for employees free from white supremacy? Maybe if we send some America F500 corporate HR sensitivity consultants in to help the Taliban re-connect with their workforce, we could finally achieve through dialog and safe space creation what 20 years of cishet violence could not (finally thwarting the ambitions of the Taliban)
@Ryan –
Also, this might just work: https://babylonbee.com/news/biden-administration-drops-elite-squad-of-tiktok-influencers-into-kabul-to-stop-taliban
Alas, this military overreach in Iraq and Afghanistan has continued the dollar’s value destruction, just like military overreach has done throughout history for various empires.
What’s the upside, exactly? These wars were unnecessary and had no real goal, beyond nation-building in an area that isn’t suited for it.
With the Taliban taking over now, the news media and all leaders and talking heads, women and men now so worried about women in Afghanistan. Women will no longer get an education, will require to cover head-to-toe, be locked at home, be executed in public and lose all their freedom.
This is sad, really, really sad.
Unfortunately, women in Saudi Arabia, for decades now have face very similar restrictions, but yet NO talking head dares to make news out of it in the way they are now with women in Afghanistan. Go figure.
Saudi Arabia is an “ally”, Afghanistan no more. Quod licet Iovi …
The usual double standard, nothing new.
Plot twist — what if the Talibans set up a state that treats people more or less like Iran or Pakistan (i.e. women are 2nd class citizens in practice but not de jure, same for minorities, etc)? that would mean that the ‘democratisation’ of Afghanistan has succeeded (my statement about women and minorities applies to Afghanistan until about a week ago), at no further cost to the US tax payer. We’ll probably see in a few months, but it would be delightful if the Talibans got the western media to eat crow (and it would also be ‘things as they are’ for women, minorities, etc).