In the end what is the USA military and taxpayer going to get out of our 10+++ years in Afghanistan? The Soviets learned, we didn’t. We never learned that defending corrupt governments and leader/dictator is never a reason to go to war. We need to defend the USA only and forget these alliances. But we can’t because the USA has been hijacked.
There is no way to fight a war by winning the hearts and minds of the people. It is counterproductive. Let the Afghan people fight it out as Americans did in our Civil War.
In reality in today’s asymmetric wars you can not win a war unless one is willing to expend a million to one ratio in offense versus that with which the embedded population expends on insurgent defense. In the end what is won?
Let’s get the hell out of Afghanistan and try to keep in mind the absurdity of going to war without a mission. Either keep our nose out of world affairs and bring the USA back from indebtedness or add a 25% war surtax to every corporation and individual that will then ascertain our commitment.
Afghanistan was the birthplace of 9/11. We should’ve turned it into a bunch of pits like ground zero, but instead engaged in “negotiations” with the Taliban and the possible release of Taliban affiliates from GITMO.
The people of Afghanistan hated the Soviets for their unwarranted intrusion.. SOME Afghanistani’s are sympathetic to our assault on the Taliban and hate the Taliban too.. KILLING the Taliban was working out great but then we switched to pansy-azz ROE and ‘heroin crop replacement’ nation-building crap and things went south.