Posted on 08/25/2021 10:14:09 AM PDT by Onthebrink
Now a 1945 Contributing Editor, Dr. Robert Farley is a Senior Lecturer at the Patterson School at the University of Kentucky. Dr. Farley is the author of Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the United States Air Force (University Press of Kentucky, 2014), the Battleship Book (Wildside, 2016), and Patents for Power: Intellectual Property Law and the Diffusion of Military Technology (University of Chicago, 2020).
What if the United States had never invaded Afghanistan?
The question is not as absurd as it sounds. Popular support for military retribution against Al Qaeda following the 9/11 attacks was high, but this retribution did not need to take the form of a campaign for regime change. Indeed, some senior officials in the Bush administration were notably unenthusiastic about invading Afghanistan, seeing it as a strategic backwater and far too remote to make an effective demonstration of American military might. What if the United States had taken a different path?
(Excerpt) Read more at 19fortyfive.com ...
There would be less poppy-based drugs, the CIA would have one less “war”, there would be less arms smuggling in the world (F&F for Afghanistan), and perhaps most importantly, there would be less child trafficking in the world.
A whole lot of patriots would be still alive and un wounded................
The mistake was supporting a Constitution that was explicitly Islamic. After that became the law of the land that was the time to go.
And simply instituted a travel ban with most Muslim countries?
Best, fastest, cheapest "Homeland Security" measure that could have been done. Of course Bush and America's deep state would not accept that.
Nukes would have been good.
The mistake was thinking we had any interest other than paying back the Taliban and ISIS for 9/11 through aerial bombardment of any and every culprit we could find.
Then we should have gone home, oh and demanded compensation from and retribution against the Suadi’s who thought funding this nonsense would be fun and games for the kiddies. But that’s just maintaining a strong deterrence policy.
Think about it. Does any third rate international punk mess with Putin?
No one can say what would have happened, way too many alternative paths that could have followed.
Pure speculation.
RE: What If America Had Never Invaded Afghanistan?
Osama Bin Ladin would probably still be alive in Afghanistan protected by the Taliban and still coordinating more Al Qaeda attacks against the USA.
If all we had done after 9/11 was bomb Afghanistan, and that campaign failed to kill Osama or any of his deputies, would Bush have been reelected in 2004?
Would we have President Kerry for eight years?
The mistake was not killing everyone and salting their fields.
You are correct. Had we invaded, killed AQ and bin laden and hammered the Taliban and then pulled out after six months and periodically hit any terrorist camps we would have been far more successful.
We should not have set one boot on the ground in that forsaken land.
Bush Junior focused Americas anger on the wrong country. Saudi Arabia and then later Pakistan deserved our attention, not Afghanistan and Iraq. Americans died, our nation has wasted money and resources, for a lost cause. Bigger picture is that we should have gone in to win and defeat our enemies, not coddle them and build nations. We should have eradicated the Islamic Cult. Instead, 20 years later we are in a morass, Biden has surrendered, Americans are held hostage, and our Afghani supporters are dying.
. Dubrovka Theater 2002, Beslan 2004. Islamic terror respects nobody, it is only by death in battle that one is guaranteed heaven in that evil cult.
Containment and getting Moslems to kill each other is the best strategy . Spain actually did what it took for total victory.
The decision or mandate of “regime change” or democratization in Afg was so misguided, it would be laughable it if wasn’t so horrifically tragic. Unless the idea from the beginning was to spend and grift off many billions of dollars and I do not rule that out, odious as the idea is.
There was never a regime to change. Nobody ever asked the Afghanis whether they actually wanted democracy so badly that they would be willing to renounce their religion in the course of fulfilling that desire.
What if there had never been a 9/11 ???
Completely agree, except IMO the timeline should have been 6 weeks. Of stunning violence.
Go back a few years and ask, what if they hadn’t overthrown the king and replaced him with “democracy”? Which led to communists, Russians, jihadis, Taliban, and the utter destruction of the country.
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