Post by artraveler on Jul 8, 2021 14:03:22 GMT -8
It has been 20 long years of American troops in Afghanistan. We have sent our best and brightest warriors to that piss-pot country and gotten nothing in exchange. The argument made by the Neo-cons, if it every had validity, no longer does. America was not the first to vent frustration in that hilly forsaken country. Alexander had a go of it, so did the Romans, Persians and even the Brits.
So now lonesome Joe has issued orders for a bug out by 1 August 2021. We will leave behind billions of dollars of infrastructure that will be junk in a years time, if not sooner. We have made assurances to Afghan leaders that we will support them, but no one is naive enough to believe it.
The last few years remind me of the early 70s in Vietnam. We knew we were leaving, our allies in country knew we were leaving, the MVA knew we were leaving. Most importantly the troops knew we were leaving and no one from the rawest grunt to the most ranking officer wanted to be the last KIA in a losing effort.
As usual we have done a poor job of getting our Afghan friends out of country. I am sure CIA has turned a number of them back, with sketchy cover stories, to provide human intelligence. Most if not all will be summarily executed by the Taliban. Any that survive will not provide good intelligence as they will be assumed to be compromised.
Blame is easy to throw around, but let's start with George H Bush and every president over the last 30 years. Yes, Donald Trump also. The opportunity to kill the Taliban existed when George W. sent troops, but the Neo-cons insisted on "nation building". What a ridicules word, we should have brought every asset in the inventory to bear and turned large sections of the country into craters and left--6 months maybe a year later and done. Leaving with the waring that the next time we are forced to come there we won't hold back. A good object lesson to the Taliban and the rest of the world. Alas, the mole people run Washington and blindness is their speciality.
So now lonesome Joe has issued orders for a bug out by 1 August 2021. We will leave behind billions of dollars of infrastructure that will be junk in a years time, if not sooner. We have made assurances to Afghan leaders that we will support them, but no one is naive enough to believe it.
The last few years remind me of the early 70s in Vietnam. We knew we were leaving, our allies in country knew we were leaving, the MVA knew we were leaving. Most importantly the troops knew we were leaving and no one from the rawest grunt to the most ranking officer wanted to be the last KIA in a losing effort.
As usual we have done a poor job of getting our Afghan friends out of country. I am sure CIA has turned a number of them back, with sketchy cover stories, to provide human intelligence. Most if not all will be summarily executed by the Taliban. Any that survive will not provide good intelligence as they will be assumed to be compromised.
Blame is easy to throw around, but let's start with George H Bush and every president over the last 30 years. Yes, Donald Trump also. The opportunity to kill the Taliban existed when George W. sent troops, but the Neo-cons insisted on "nation building". What a ridicules word, we should have brought every asset in the inventory to bear and turned large sections of the country into craters and left--6 months maybe a year later and done. Leaving with the waring that the next time we are forced to come there we won't hold back. A good object lesson to the Taliban and the rest of the world. Alas, the mole people run Washington and blindness is their speciality.