So they can learn our mastery of building an SUV?
Besides, that stuff is going to the four corners. Iran to the West, Pakistan to the East, the Russian states to the north and even our friend China to the North East. Everyone will learn how to build SUVs!
(Reality is the neighboring states have bribed the corruptible Afghans for twenty years and have had this equipment in their hands for just as long. I’d figure that’s why we abandoned it.)
Have never invested in the bomb and missle makers, although my father had a simultanious hand on the button to release. He hated that responsibility, but was up to it if required. He never knelt during a flag ceremony. I miss my golf partner.
Screenshot from a video that I couldn’t copy. Pity because it showed much more then this.
We need to bomb all of the air bases and depots- leave the CPC’s alone… hardware should have been retrograded out or destroyed prior to withdrawing…
If there was one mistake made by the Biden administration it was the foot dragging of the evacuation of the thousands of Afghan people who supported our soldiers and airman these past twenty years. That was a preventable atrocity-to-be. Those people, their families, if they’re not dead soon they will spend the rest of their lives in fear. That is Biden’s ‘little mistake’ that I hope haunts them for all time.
People that believed we were going to protect them. Saddest part of this nonsense,
P43 engineered the war in Afghanistan and said it would be quick and easy. His supporters cheered. His detractors booed. And the army got stuck.
P44 campaigned on getting us out. His supporters cheered. His detractors booed. Then P44 found getting us out wouldn’t be quick or easy.
P45 campaigned on getting us out. His supporters cheered. His detractors booed. Then P45 found getting us out wouldn’t be quick or easy.
P46 campaigned on getting us out. He did it, after 20 years of throwing American lives and money down a rathole.
I lost track of who is supposed to be cheering, when.
My major concern is this: some of that hardware falling into the wrong hands will seriously undermine regional security- especially if it’s transferred to those who will not hesitate to use them against ships, soft targets (not just in that region) and other mayhem…
It makes me sad to think that all of our brave Men and Women of the Armed Forces (and not just US) sacrificed so much for something that turned naught in the end… While I understand that some of the hardware was necessary for the locals- advanced weapon systems should have been removed or destroyed.
This region of the world has underwent upheaval dating back centuries- many centuries at that. Unless you go into a conflict with overwhelming technology and force and the overwhelming will to win- then stay out…
We abandoned our Afghan allies to be haunted, hunted and hanged. We could have got them all out but we erected a great wall of bureaucracy that kept them out all while tens of thousands of irregular immigrants - who have done nothing for our country - pour over the border to be shepherded into new lives. Its a big fucking shame.
Risk your lives for Americans and we shit on you. Fucking shameful.
I have been waiting years for the shoe to drop in Afghanistan. The situation is unraveling just as I have anticipated. We should have left after the first year. This is what happens when you insert yourself (without constitutional authority) into a civil war in a third world country and back a corrupt government. This film from 2013 shows the futility of our efforts. This is What Winning Looks Like
Every woman and girl in Afghanistan is now in real and imminent danger. Is the world going to stand from the sidelines and watch? Answer: Yes!
The bigger mistake was not helping the Russians, ray gun armed the opposition instead.
One of the biggest tactical mistakes the USA has ever made.
Maybe, but Bush had very few detractors at the time, IIRC his approval ratings went to something like 90% at the time.
Afghanistan truly is “where armies go to die”. This has been true for two thousand or more years, but this message has been lost on many nations which hope to bring peace to a nation populated by numerous competing factions that have no intention nor desire to compromise on much of anything with their neighbors. The events of the last few days are just the latest phase of a never ending conflict. Why can’t we or any other nation realize this?
In desperate attempts to flee, Afghans are climbing onto aircraft as it takes off.
This is probably a thread best left for U.S. citizens to debate. I am not from the U.S. but as my Great Grandfather fought in the Civil War I feel I can enter and say my piece.
First of all I think the U.S. were wrong to go in and right to go out. Its the way that they did it is disturbing. Many of their Afghan civilian allies that have been working with the military have now been hung out to dry and left at the mercy of the Taliban. I have no doubt that the U.S. military personnel have done their duty well but it’s the consecutive administrations that have made a mess of it. Joe Biden said recently that the Afghan Army were 300,000 strong and well trained,equiped and armed. Problem is they had no “Resolve”. So now, given time those in the US who benefit most from wars will be searching for another one to fight. The question as to whether Afghanistan is a better place after 20 years of US involvement I would like to discuss on another thread.
Where was John Wayne and Rambo when they were needed? How long will it take Hollywood to produce another action hero to put the Taliban in their place.
Alexander the Great and the USSR could not conquer these people.
Better off leaving them alone.
This country never faced itself after the fiasco of the Iraq/Afghanistan wars. So we try to act like they never happened–until something like the current events happen. Then we blame everyone but ourselves, who allowed the wars to happen.
The nation has never faced the fact that we were wrong. About 45% of Americans stick to the notion that the wars were somehow right, even though we were sold on them looking for WMDs that never existed, and as a search for OBL, that certainly didn’t require occupying entire nations.
Another 45% of us can’t face ourselves for being deluded, and so we shut up out of shame. About 10% of us have the right say, “We told you so,” but the other 90% despised them when they tried to warn us 20 years ago, and despise them now for being right.
I have read several books and a bunch of articles about Afghanistan and peoples experiences there, both military and civilian. They overwhelmingly painted a picture of a government that did little for their people (at least where the rubber met the road) and was viewed as a corrupt kleptocracy. When you do not have support of the people, the government will eventually fall to an opposition viewed as less corrupt.
It is sort of like reading the Pentagon Papers (reference Vietnam) all over again. I was not against going into Afghanistan. But I shook my head at what we did afterwards. A real lack of understanding of the people and culture.
Of course it didn’t help when we give stinger missiles and other aid to the resistance (Mujahideen). Some would argue that came back to bite us in the ass.
