Posted on 08/17/2021 6:14:55 AM PDT by SJackson
The legitimate US interest in Afghanistan was to deny Muslim extremists a place to plan and launch terrorist operations against the West. After CIA operators connected local war lords with US air power to defeat the Taliban, The Swamp’s lust to get some too blinded them to the obvious: Dance with them what brought you. I.e., using a light footprint, back six or so natural regional war lords and pay them to keep the Taliban at bay. Let the Kabul warlord operate some semblance of a national government in a very lose federation. This would have had many challenges (such as keeping the warlords from each others’ throats), and subtlety we apparently don’t have, but would have cost enormously less. But defense contractors, consultants, diplomats, military brass, and politicians wouldn’t like that, so they did what they always do: spend, flail, and fail.
We had 20 years of Special Forces and bombing.
We still lost.
Just think what our inner cities would look like today had we used all those billions on refurbishing them.
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