Well I guess the Afghanistan war is finally over, Taliban scores major victories

[ansible]

Link to tweet

What an absolute fucking waste of lives and money, 20 years all for nothing.

[NCjack]

1. We ignored the Russian experience.

[Beakybird]

2. What lost the war in Afghanistan was the war in Iraq

A multi trillion dollar fuck-up.

[former9thward]

11. No.

What lost the war was Afghanistan. The U.S. can not win a land war in Asia/

[Beakybird]

13. Well we stalemated for 20 years.

Iraq depleted resources and international goodwill that we had after 9/11. After 9/11, the world felt sympathy for us. After the invasion of Iraq, the world solidly disliked us.
If we had asked all the countries that had helped us in Iraq to help in Afghanistan instead, things could have been very different.

[EX500rider]

16. "If we had asked all the countries that had helped us in Iraq to help in Afghanistan instead"

Most of those countries did help in Afghanistan, almost all NATO countries did.

The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was a NATO-led military mission in Afghanistan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Security_Assistance_Force

[Beakybird]

17. It's all coulda shoulda woulda, but a lot of resources were dispersed

Bush thought we had Afghanistan in the bag when he invaded Iraq.

[JI7]

21. No it's becsuse of Pakistan . And we aren't going to war with Pakistan

[maxsolomon]

25. They certainly contributed.

The allowed the Taliban safe haven and never attempted to seal the border. They gave OBL a safe house. All the while taking our money.

Now it's their headache, including the looming refugee crisis.

[Calculating]

3. Biggest waste ever

Thanks George w bush

[onethatcares]

22. oh hell no.

we haven't hit the biggest waste ever as yet. Africa needs taming and all that.

[Autumn]

4. Our tax dollars arming the Taliban. The military sent it, no reason why they can't bring it back.

But it's much easier to piss it away.

[SoonerPride]

5. It was a huge success!

Look at all the trillions of dollars the military industrial complex made.



Sigh.

[patphil]

6. That was said about Vietnam also.

The military industrial complex isn't in it for the win, they're in it for the money. The longer the war, the greater the profit.
And the politicians are in it for the sales pitch, and all those defense industry dollars. Sell a war successfully, and you can probably get reelected. As long as the war means votes, the war will continue.
When it gets too unpopular, it's over.

[Solly Mack]

7. Hearts and minds. Hearts and minds.

Just think, in another 20 years we get to hear about how "they wouldn't let us win" just like we hear about Vietnam from certain quarters.

Rinse. Lather. Repeat.

Is it clean, yet? Is it clean, yet?

It's SUPER clean!

[hunter]

8. Clearly we didn't have enough aircraft carriers and fighting aircraft.

w

w

[Chainfire]

9. It was never about winning, it was about staying in the game as long as possible

War is a money-making proposition.

[padah513]

10. +1000

[Mysterian]

12. The USA never should have attempted "nation building" in Afghanistan

We should have gone in, destroyed the terrorist training camps, captured/killed as many terrorists as possible, and had the troops home by Christmas. Of course, if Osama Bin Laden was not captured, continue every effort to do so, but not occupy the whole fucking country.

The corrupt Bush cabal allowed Osama Bin Laden to escape into Pakistan by not committing sufficient forces to Afghanistan. Of course, they held back forces for the unjustified and stupid invasion of Iraq. It will be an eternal mark of shame upon every member of Congress who voted to authorize military action in Iraq. The majority of Democrats in Congress saw through the obvious lies and opposed the invasion.

[Prof. Toru Tanaka]

14. I know Bernie did!

[maxsolomon]

18. We barely attempted "Nation Building"

in Afghanistan (or Iraq for that matter).

We never put enough troops in there (there's some sort of ratio; I knew it once, like in 2004), we never secured the Pakistan border. Once the Iraq invasion happened, it was the poor relation of our Imperial Overreach.

All we bought was space for a generation of Afghanis to grow up WITHOUT Medieval Theocrats controlling their education and culture. That's not nothing.

Of course, they also grew up under constant threat of Terror attacks.

The next generation will really enjoy Taliban rule, I'm sure.

[ansible]

23. There's some afghanis on Reddit and they're absolutely terrified

https://www.reddit.com/r/afghanistan/

it's really depressing

[maxsolomon]

24. All we can do is demand that Biden admit generous numbers of refugees.

Hundreds of thousands.

If the Taliban will even allow anyone out.

[Dan]

15. As the song says.... "What happens now?"

[maxsolomon]

19. Those vehicles won't last long without US contractors to maintain them.

Probably long enough to conquer Kabul and slaughter tens of 1000s of non-Pashtun, but not indefinitely.

[onethatcares]

20. where do we invade next?

It's just not in the nations blood to go all peaceful and stuff.

and it's 1.............2............3 What are we fighting for? Hell, we have a party that's working against Democracy here so I sure as hell don't want to hear about spreading all those squirmy words about countries around the world.

I"ll take Nigeria on the WarTimeBingo Card.

[maxsolomon]

27. Military operations across the Sahel are possible. Nigeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad...

The French are already there, and the Islamist terror groups like Boko Haram are brutal. I think we might be training troops in Nigeria already.

As long as there is a Dem in office, I don't think we'll be "invading" a nation, however.

[Lancero]

30. Maybe some country with weapons of mass destruction?

The chemical weapon lie might not work again, might need to try something slightly different.

Claims of nuclear weapons got us into Korea. Chemical weapons for Iraq. Maybe we can go after a country with, say, bioweapons?

Perhaps they've already used them? Might need to pin quite a few deaths on those weapons, about the only way to get those pacifists to shut up.

We wouldn't happen to be trying to claim that some country was developing viral weapons right now, would we?

[roamer65]

26. We all know what happened to the Soviet Union two years after their withdrawal.

Don’t we?

It’s coming, folks.

[maxsolomon]

29. Please.

I hope that's a joke.

[jalan48]

28. "There's plenty of money to be made by supplying the Army with tools of the trade".

Country Joe McDonald