Not surprisingly, the United States Government lied its ass off about Afghanistan

WuWei · 2019-12-11T22:56:56.850Z

MoleUK:

WuWei:

Are the “experts” not the reason?

■■■■ no.

Afghanistan has always been about politics. At least after the first few weeks.

Bush et al were terrified of “cutting and running”, or being accused thereof. Ditto with Obama and Trump.

And the sunk cost fallacy is a lot harder to reject when the cost was in blood and limbs. Not to mention a trillion+.

You do realize promises had to be made to the Muj, right?

All war is about politics.

WuWei · 2019-12-11T23:01:04.543Z

Safiel:

AZslim:

We have to fight 'em over there so we don’t have to fight 'em over here.

Remember that? It was a con mantra.

Neo-con mantra, joined in by plenty from both parties.

Had it strictly been a conservative thing, we would have been out of Afghanistan long ago.

2003
…

WuWei · 2019-12-11T23:03:29.170Z

I like the passion.

CanadianJudo · 2019-12-11T23:28:45.670Z

I supported Afganistian, Iv always been the mindset that nation building is needed to defeat terrorist as a threat.

but if you asked me if we turned back the clock to 2001 and if we should do it again with knowing how insanely hard that mission would be I would oppose it.

hwyflier · 2019-12-11T23:33:12.799Z

MoleUK:

This topic should have gotten waaaaaay more attention than it did. WaPo did an amazing job cataloguing the rampant corruption and lies, either greenlit or given a blind eye to by the US Govt re: Afghanistan.

Non paywall version for the interested:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/wasteful-spending-and-half-baked-ideas-us-officials-reveal-how-massive-rebuilding-projects-in-afghanistan-backfired/ar-BBXYeRI

In a Lessons Learned interview, he said he came across a U.S.-built greenhouse that cost $30,000 and had fallen into disuse because the Afghans could not maintain it. His unit built a replacement greenhouse out of iron rebar that worked better and cost only $55 — despite pressure to spend far more.

“Congress gives us money to spend and expects us to spend all of it,” Copes said. “The attitude became we don’t care what you do with the money as long as you spend it.”

Roxiebelle · 2019-12-11T23:34:31.088Z

That’s basically because we have the politicization of warfare started by the Democrat President LBJ during the Vietnam war and we couldn’t just get in there and flatten Afghanistan and occupy it for decades like we did Japan to rid them of their radical religious ideology. We got literally nothing to show for our blood, sweat and tears effort in that region when after 18 years we could have been more then halfway to a complete transformation and reformation of their barbaric religion and life style.

America unlike other countries does not occupy forever, we conquer, we occupy, we rebuild and then we give the country back and the 30 year occupation of Japan is the perfect example of that success formula which we will never have again as long as leftist progressive liberal Democrats are voted into political office and power since Dems are hell bent on never making America great and powerful again!

bootz · 2019-12-11T23:41:34.398Z

It appears the only honest guy was Trump, but MSM criticizes him for wanting to pull out.

HMMM

WuWei · 2019-12-12T00:22:50.810Z

You want these people running healthcare?

hwyflier · 2019-12-12T00:50:31.927Z

WuWei:

You want these people running healthcare?

I’ve never been for a military invasion of healthcare.

WuWei · 2019-12-12T01:17:15.339Z

hwyflier:

WuWei:

You want these people running healthcare?

I’ve never been for a military invasion of healthcare.

Bless your little heart.

hwyflier · 2019-12-12T01:21:22.961Z

WuWei:

Bless your little heart.

Is that a PPO or HMO policy?

merickson · 2019-12-12T03:15:08.848Z

Roxiebelle:

That’s basically because we have the politicization of warfare started by the Democrat President LBJ during the Vietnam war and we couldn’t just get in there and flatten Afghanistan and occupy it for decades like we did Japan to rid them of their radical religious ideology. We got literally nothing to show for our blood, sweat and tears effort in that region when after 18 years we could have been more then halfway to a complete transformation and reformation of their barbaric religion and life style.

America unlike other countries does not occupy forever, we conquer, we occupy, we rebuild and then we give the country back and the 30 year occupation of Japan is the perfect example of that success formula which we will never have again as long as leftist progressive liberal Democrats are voted into political office and power since Dems are hell bent on never making America great and powerful again!

The people of Puerto Rico would disagree with your rebuild and leave claim. The folks in Okinawa might wonder when we are going to leave. And the people of Frankfurt as well, although they don’t seem as anxious for us to leave as the other cases.

FloridaYankee · 2019-12-22T00:20:05.000Z

The Washington Post, after several years of legal battles, acquired a massive trove of internal govt. documents detailing much about the Afghanistan War that was either not known, or downplayed in a major fashion by officials. I have a very simple take on this.

Bin Laden won.

His stated goal, very early on, was to harm our economy by getting us to spend untold fortunes on ineffective warfare. We have spent a trillion dollars there in cash alone, lost nearly 2400 service personnel and nobody knows how much will be spent caring for the thousands of wounded, maimed and disabled veterans in their lifetimes, I dare not guess. I daresay our economy might be considerably different if not for our folly there. Yes I supported it for a very long time.

The Washington Post is a pay site that many can’t read but here is a paragraph from a Reuters article and a link to the full article. It’s pretty depressing, though we all know more or less that the situation is a lose lose one.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/afghanistan-papers-reveal-tragedy-not-170050447.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cucmVhbGNsZWFycG9saXRpY3MuY29tLzIwMTkvMTIvMTkvdGhlX2FmZ2hhbmlzdGFuX3BhcGVyc19yZXZlYWxfYV90cmFnZWR5X25vdF9hX2NyaW1lXzQ5NTk0My5odG1s&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAN6oOlqa1Ia7gOhKN716yOknMEKJIw5mZC3lAKj1WMg9Z1kJfS8rxghlMBCan3PCRWLbRAwbu9Gc71IDL2esJmRTz9tjWyfxKo8Q9W8lEB23L6zf9whVFXqbIFXxp9JGtjUz8tJUzBp3NzaGnqYu94zHgZgBhLHlYQYuNZqI2aAY

(Bloomberg Opinion) – Is America’s two-decade war in Afghanistan a tragedy or a crime? A recent series in the Washington Post contends that it is more the latter than the former. For years, the argument goes, U.S. officials systematically lied regarding the prospects for success, while blithely downplaying the corruption and dependency American intervention fostered. The title of this series — “The Afghanistan Papers” — is meant, clearly, to echo the Vietnam-era Pentagon Papers. It implies that we should see this conflict, like Vietnam, as a misbegotten war fought in the service of illusions and lies.

SixFoot · 2019-12-22T00:32:26.534Z

Live Fire Exercise.

conan · 2019-12-22T00:32:46.098Z

My take, we had to go in and kill AQ. Now I know there is tons of opinion on it but United States couldn’t allow them to go unpunished. Not a big fan of nation building…or what followed in Iraq.

FloridaYankee · 2019-12-22T00:44:40.557Z

The Afghanistan Papers

Live Fire Exercise.

Yes I know about that lol. I don’t subscribe to it, though the benefits are clear.

FloridaYankee · 2019-12-22T00:45:04.845Z

The Afghanistan Papers

My take, we had to go in and kill AQ. Now I know there is tons of opinion on it but United States couldn’t allow them to go unpunished. Not a big fan of nation building…or what followed in Iraq.

Agreed. We did that in six months.

SixFoot · 2019-12-22T00:47:28.050Z

Best trained fighting force on the planet.

Most experienced too.

FloridaYankee · 2019-12-22T01:00:04.371Z

Probably.

bootz · 2019-12-22T03:35:35.054Z

Perhaps this should be said of al our military excursions but then if we accept this hypothesis we are Trump supporters. WE must keep fighting purposeless wars.