Two great quotes here...Former Trump adviser Stephen Miller is a fascist pustule on the asshole of humanity and regarding old what's his name the author writes he is a glowering smegma golem...Hard to argue either description.
Americaâs Afghan War: A Defeat Foretold? Recent history suggests that it is foolish for Western powers to fight wars in other peopleâs lands and that the U.S. intervention was almost certainly doomed from the start.
(...) âIn the long run all colonial wars are lost,â the historian of Portugalâs misadventures in Africa, Patrick Chabal, wrote 20 years ago, just as the Americans were becoming fatally embroiled in Afghanistan.
The superpowerâs two-decade entanglement and ultimate defeat was all the more surprising in that the America of the decades preceding the millennium had been suffused with talk of the supposed âlessonsâ of Vietnam.
The dominant one was enunciated by the former majority leader of the Senate, Mike Mansfield, in the late 1970s: âThe cost was 55,000 dead, 303,000 wounded, $150 billion,â Mansfield told a radio interviewer. âIt was unnecessary, uncalled-for, it wasnât tied to our security or a vital interest. It was just a misadventure in a part of the world which we should have kept our nose out of.â
Long before, at the very beginning of the âmisadventure,â in 1961, President John F. Kennedy had been warned off Vietnam by no less an authority than Charles de Gaulle. âI predict that you will sink step by step into a bottomless military and political quagmire, however much you spend in men and money,â de Gaulle, the French president, later recalled telling Kennedy.
The American ignored him. In words that foreshadowed both the Vietnam and Afghan debacles, de Gaulle warned Kennedy: âEven if you find local leaders who in their own interests are prepared to obey you, the people will not agree to it, and indeed do not want you.â (...)
I would curious as to how much of the debt is allocated to the Interest $530B cost.
I would have been inclined to leave that cost out.
I think the issue is that a great deal of the expense was incurred early, and the permanent assessment of interest has added up to $530B. If you borrow money and never pay it back, I guess the tab runs forever. Leaving Afghanistan doesn't end the interest...
I saw a brief interview with an American woman in the US whose husband has been trying to get to the gates of the airport for 3 days. She said he reported that there were dead bodies everywhere around the airport. He hasn't been able to get past the crowds of people surrounding the airport to reach an American representative. I'm afraid the sense of organisation and control is an illusion and gossamer thin. Is complete collapse into chaos and catastrophe imminent? I sure hope not. One small skirmish could start something awful. I can't see how more than but a few lucky people are going to get out safely in the end. In this morning's briefing they said they are processing 700 people an hour at the two airport gates. I have a hard time believing this since it's been reported that flights are departing with 100 - 200 people per flight. This just all sounds like it will be one of the most dramatic clusterfucks in our history. The entire outcome is in the Taliban's hands.
It would seem, most of us could agree 20 years in Afghanistan was a mistake. Pulling out may have been the right thing to do, but leaving behind loyal Afghans before exiting troops was foolish. Which leads us to owning this mistake, holding the Taliban to their word, and returning whatever force is needed to ensure safe passage for those remaining is the right thing to do.
this could have gone under immigration as well and this guy works for some sort of organization to specifically help those who helped them like getting them out of harms way all of this is another reason why those in power should use war as a last result he doesn't mince words...
Location: Perched on the precipice of the cauldron of truth
Posted:
Aug 17, 2021 - 6:32pm
westslope wrote:
The previous regime? Donnie would have flown to Afghanistan, engaged the Taliban leadership in a personal sit down and shared meal, promised them backing for new business ventures, persuaded them that educated, liberated women are better in bed, and invited the Taliban leadership to play golf at one of his numerous opulent resorts. Everything would have worked out better.
The endgame was going to be ugly no matter who was in The White House. Anyone here really believe that the previous regime administration would have done any better?
I do think we're obligated to evacuate those who actively helped us - and their families.
Agree on both points.
The previous regime? Donnie would have flown to Afghanistan, engaged the Taliban leadership in a personal sit down and shared meal, promised them backing for new business ventures, persuaded them that educated, liberated women are better in bed, and invited the Taliban leadership to play golf at one of his numerous opulent resorts. Everything would have worked out better.
Man oh man. I waited almost 2 decades to watch this sorry initiative unravel. Yes. Kudos to Biden for getting the hell out no matter how messy and embarrassing the exit.
