According to President Trump, the decision to go into the Middle East was “the worst decision in the history of our country”.
According to Glenn Greenwald, the military and CIA have been lying about the capability of the Afghan forces since the US invaded almost 20 year ago. The actions are similar to the deceit about the Vietnam War back in the 1960s.
Has our government been a propaganda machine for decades?
Guvnah
2
It has been a propaganda machine for longer than any of us have been alive.
Smyrna
3
The dynamic duo of this whole mess…
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Yes, certainly there has been a high level of deception going back at least to the Vietnam era.
Has American uniqueness been whittled down to that Americans are uniquely gullible to believe the same disinformation from the surveillance-military-media alliance for so long?
Have most of the media become little more than an arm of the surveillance agencies?
WuWei
5
I’m not real sure what the current goat rope in A-stan has to do with “Middle East”.
Too bad we lost the old AAW, it was all clearly explained there.
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To degrade AQ, going to Iraq was strategically a good move. The boys killed far more AQ in Iraq than A-stan. They attacked our homeland, we attacked theirs back. AQ is Arabs, not Pashtuns.
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To get into A-stan without sending everybody in uniform including the salvation army, promises had to be made to people we had already screwed over once. It worked. A couple hundred shooters with air support took it. Everything else after was paying the bill for it.
One can argue we paid too much, that 20 years was too long. I don’t disagree, but I didn’t make the deal.
It’s real easy to sit here in the shade 20 years later and woulda/shoulda/coulda. It’s also ignorant and lazy.
What those guys achieved at that time was beyond estimation. 555 et al going in there where and how they did was this generation’s Doolittle Raid, but quicker and much more difficult.
Yeah, we stayed too long. It happens.
We didn’t have to leave like this.
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WuWei
6
And by the way, we didn’t “lose” in Vietnam.
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As Saigon falls in 1975.
Did we stay too long there too…
Allan
WuWei
8
A democracy madam, if you can keep it.
There are three choices for how the United States did in the Vietnam war.
“Win”
“Draw”
“Lose”
I would say lose is what happen.
So if you claim we didn’t lose.
There must be some other condition of how the US performed in Vietnam.
So exactly what is it?
Allan
Going after Al Qaeda in Afghanistan was reasonable. Staying there was not.
The surveillance state failed to stop 9/11, but used it justify a massive increase in surveillance on Americans.
The attack on Iraq was justified based on false information about weapons of mass destruction. The dictatorship in Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks.
If we were going to attack anyone in retaliation, it should have been the Saudis, but the government did their best to downplay obvious Saudi involvement. It is as if the FBI and CIA at least tacitly endorsed the 9-11 plot launched by Bin Laden and other Saudis. Given the history of FBI instigation of terrorist attacks and conspiracies, nothing would surprise me at this point.
Then why all the frothing about Biden pulling out?
I agree with leaving Afghanistan.
Biden has clearly screwed up the withdrawal and evacuation. I would not be surprised if we get into a Carter-style hostage situation. Estimates are 10 to 40,000 Americans are stuck there.
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STODR
14
It is a big reason I stopped being a contractor over there. The writing was on the wall.
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I’m concerned about that myself.
Actually that isn’t true at all.
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Does anyone know what the deal was, or why the Trump admin thought it was a good idea to trust the Taliban?
Sounds like an awesome deal.
What’s in the agreement?
Within the first 135 days of the deal the US will reduce its forces in Afghanistan to 8,600, with allies also drawing down their forces proportionately.
The move would allow US President Donald Trump to show that he has brought troops home ahead of the US presidential election in November.
The deal also provides for a prisoner swap. Some 5,000 Taliban prisoners and 1,000 Afghan security force prisoners would be exchanged by 10 March, when talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government are due to start.
The US will also lift sanctions against the Taliban and work with the UN to lift its separate sanctions against the group.
In Kabul, activist Zahra Husseini said she feared the deal could worsen the situation for women in Afghanistan.
“I don’t trust the Taliban, and remember how they suppressed women when they were ruling,” the 28-year-old told AFP.
“Today is a dark day, and as I was watching the deal being signed, I had this bad feeling that it would result in their return to power rather than in peace.”
tnt
19
Wht mission did we accomplish in VN?