This hurts. A friend of mine gave his life fighting over there along with many young men and women from my generation. All the while the war hawks in Washington and their military industrial complex friends fatten their pockets. All for nothing now.
As much I can criticize the US for having no business being there so long and doing a shit job. The Afghan people had a decade to get it together. Their military were trained and funded. Doesn’t seem like they really put up much of a fight.
You need belief to win a war. Twisted though it is, the Taliban definitely have belief.
That’s always the problem, you can’t motivate people to revolt or fight much by leading them with an outside force, by riding in and handing over the keys. You can provide them with some tools if they want to try, but that’s about it.
And the US had to get out, it was never winnable. But at the same time what the Taliban is doing/will do is atrocious.
I suspect the US doesn’t really grok ultra-violent societies like Afghanistan which have failed in every way imaginable. The problem is not the Taliban specifically. It’s Afghans. Not all of them, but enough of them to bring the country to its knees.
Stewart, when he was made provincial governor of an Iraqi province (that sort of thing happens to people with connections and money) was advised by the locals to do what Saddam had done: round up every person who disagrees with you and put them in jail. But that isn’t how a nice genteel Scottish Laird does things (even one with military experience). And I guess that isn’t how the US military occupation wanted to proceed either. But it was almost certainly a prerequisite for success, if you want to occupy a backward shithole and turn it around. The idea that a bunch of criminals, thugs and grifters might be talked into behaving like civilised people is … highly implausible.
– Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC.
War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.
I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we’ll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.
I wouldn’t go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.
There isn’t a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its “finger men” to point out enemies, its “muscle men” to destroy enemies, its “brain men” to plan war preparations, and a “Big Boss” Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.
It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.
I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.
I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.
During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.
That’s easy to say now but it was in the aftermath of 9/11. Virtually everyone supported the Afghanistan war. People felt like it was threatening the American way of life.
People were told it would be a brief intervention.
People knew better, they fooled themselves if they thought otherwise.
Sure, but it was clear to most people that it was a massive failure after a few years. How else can you view it when you see the Taliban pull up in Toyotas the US gave to the Afghans when they all ran away from battle.
I doubt that was ever the point. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
And this…
…this is a LOT of Marines for a civilian evacuation. 
Perhaps it’s just to coordinate a disciplined withdrawal. People hanging off helicopters doesn’t look good.
People should get used to seeing hangings there I think.
But, yeah, I imagine it’ll take yet another show of force to prove to the other lickspittle dickheads around the planet that the US is still numba won…by far.
When will America’s military-industrial messiah complex learn that you can’t win hearts and minds with bombs and bullets?
It’s a sad state of affairs and probably another refugee crisis on the way.
I get to thinking that Afghanistan should have been split into parts where the more civilised portion can live more freely and then the other difficult to defend parts abandoned to the Taliban. But it’s very much a hodge podge of tribes and corrupt warlords and politicians there that seem not to like each other .
But abandoning the women especially to go back to an extreme Islamic state…seems terrible.
Hearts and minds? 
That’s not what it was about. At all.
Poppies? My guess it was the poppies. And, of course, the rise in “opioid” addiction.
Nah. Chump change.
Think geopolitical. At the tip of the spear is liberal democracy and capitalism.
Whatever it is, it’s a serious waste of lives and money. All that money could have been used to improve military technology and more helpless asshats could have been chosen to test said technology on if need be. The only reason the US should be involved in the ME is if Israel or Saudi Arabia asks it to be. I could also support using drones or assassins to take out certain targets.
Big Obama fan were you? 