I'm not sure when the clock starts exactly. After ww2 the ussr looked like the biggest badest empire. Doubly so after sputnik and their first atomic bombs. Maybe the 70s?
Multiple empires can co-exist simultaneously. The US actually already had colonies since 1898 so it would already qualify as an empire at that point. You can even make a case that the US started in empire in 1848 when it annexed Mexican land. The 1970's is way too late. Even my initial guess of post-WWII is late.
America was an actual empire (as in actually taking over other countries and colonizing them) back in the 19th century. America's "empire" after WW2 is more of a redefinition of the term.
Good point. Puerto Rico, Guam, and maybe even the Virgin Islands are proof of that. The Philippines too, but we didn't keep that island chain. 1898 is that birth of the US empire.
It’s essentially an entire continent unto itself that stays completely geographically insulated as long as a single power doesn’t coopt all of Eurasia.
The territorial ambitions are slightly different to a colonial maritime power within spitting distance of no fewer than 3 other maritime powers, or one in control of the Mediterranean with a very large front door open to the North European Plain.
The US was not in Afghanistan to nation build. It went there to dismantle Al Qaeda and kill bin Laden, which it did. Preventing the Taliban from retaking the nation would have been a bonus certainly.
The US didn't leave after two weeks because it took a lot longer than that to find and kill bin Laden and wipe out Al Qaeda in the country. The US didn't leave after killing bin Laden because Afghanistan was a relatively inexpensive sandbox for the military industrial complex to play in, train its soldiers in, and deploy/test weapons in. US & allied troop deaths in Afghanistan have been fairly low since 2013. So Afghanistan got to act as a war training ground with low risk of losing a lot of soldiers, an exceptionally rare commodity as far as the Pentagon is concerned. Now they have to find another country to occupy.
Given the amount of money that has flown into cancer research already, probably not a lot closer. Cancer research is actually historically one of the largest wastes of money with some of the worst outcomes in terms of life expectancy increase.
And I'm not just being quip, the actual point here is that these generic takes about "military spending bad, xy good" are kind of shallow.
It comes from dominating the world and specially oil. If the US does not dominate the world militarily then the US becomes poorer overnight.
Would you believe that the US world be able to continue printing $USDs ab infinitum if the world countries didn't need $ to buy energy?
If energy countries were free to make deals in euros, yens, renminbis or reals without being invaded by the US the next day, then the US would be much less wealthy. That is the reason the US does not let countries do that.
Americans can print as many dollars they want because the rest of the world is forced to buy them. Without that, the $USD would be valued probably half or a quarter of what it is today.
Taliban still has significant influence in Pakistan. If OBL wasn't killed back then, you can rest assured he'd be leading the charge today into retaking Afghanistan.
Its better that OBL is dead. But the new wave of leaders of the Taliban are still stronger than expected.
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Hell, ISIL / Daesh has splintered off of Al Qaeda and the two occasional get into skirmishes with each other. The leadership was in fact fractured successfully.
It may not be enough for a lasting peace, but I wouldn't say that its completely worthless.
They're only stronger than expected if you let the US media and US intelligence services set your expectations. If you had come to your own conclusion, you would have realized that the Taliban is one of the few entities actually able to hold Afghanistan and nothing the US did made it less potent in its ability. All we did was give them a twenty year break to amass more forces, more resources, and more training.
> All we did was give them a twenty year break to amass more forces, more resources, and more training.
They would have had more forces and resources if they were in control of the country for the last 20 years. In fact, that's why they're trying to take over the country again, to once again have control of the Opium / Poppy farms and start getting more money for their organization.
Now the question is: is it worthwhile for the USA to hold onto those farm locations just so that the Taliban won't come into power? Probably not. But lets not be too hasty in our judgement here. The value in that land may be miniscule for the USA, but its of huge value to the Taliban.
This confirms my theory above that the most important resource is people, which the united states handed to the Taliban in droves by occupying the country for the last twenty years. The look of a Christian country occupying a Muslim one is an easy catalyst that the Taliban can use to radicalise even the most moderate Muslim, especially when the US was happy to bomb anything and anyone. This was not difficult to see for anyone with a sound understanding of Muslim Christian relations and Islam in general. The US was always going to lose the moment we engaged in pro-longed occupation.
Looks like its only been increasing in size since 2008, which is roughly when ISIL / Arab Spring was all getting stronger.
Obama was put into a situation where he needed to "surge" to counteract the rise of the Taliban. I'm not convinced that giving up in 2008 to 2010 was the best plan.
When it comes to popular resistance movements, you are underestimating the most prominent force of all... that of persuasion.
The Taliban had to just sit back, do nothing, and preach at the mosques about how the evil christians were coming to destroy good islamic peoples, and wait for their followers to amass. You have to be deluding yourself to think that poppy farms are what they really want. They are a religious faction. They want followers. The poppy farms are just an added benefit.
But in terms of holding land, they have what matters most... people. And more importantly, they have religious and cultural dogma.
You will never win against the Taliban. Just like empires have never won against Christianity. You are talking about a group of people with shared values that can act in concert without ever meeting because they have shared values that are so deeply engrained in their culture. The best way to break the Taliban apart would have been covert ops designed to sow sedition and splinter the group, but even that is risky and not a guarantee.
> In fact, that's why they're trying to take over the country again, to once again have control of the Opium / Poppy farms and start getting more money for their organization.
No it's not the reason they want control of the country. They want control because they believe it is their religious obligation. Any discussion of the Taliban that does not include Islam is like discussing Spanish colonialism without mentioning the church.
Was defeat of the Taliban really the plan? I don't think so. The important plan was to kill Osama Bin Laden, which did happen. And another important bit was to hamper their resources such that they won't attack the US homeland again.
Defeat of the Taliban was secondary from the start. If the Taliban negotiated a peace such that they wouldn't support Al Qaeda, I'm sure we would have let them take over the country and integrate back.
Even in WW2, we never killed every Nazi or every Japanese. We let Japan keep their Emperor for example, though they were a society who was willing to accept a new government / democracy. But anyone who was hoping to kill the Taliban until they gave up would be hopelessly naive.
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I do think it was perhaps a mistake to try to push liberal ideals to their primitive society (okay, so Women were getting abused. It'd be nice if those women could be treated better... but now we've left the country and all those women are going to be oppressed again).
It would have been more important to have them build their society akin to their values, as opposed to our values. Spreading our ideals never was really part of the plan or a priority.
This is amnesia. The neocons thought they could export US style democracy to the Middle East and Central Asia. They were wrong, morally and practically.
Also, the Taliban did not attack America. Al Qaeda, led by OBL, did. Now the Taliban is back in power (as good as) and the US is giving material and military cover to rebranded Al Qaeda groups in Syria.
Fortunately Russia put a stop to the regime change plans in Syria.
The war was presided over 3 Presidential terms with a wide variety of political and policy viewpoints. To focus on just one political group as a scapegoat ignores the huge support the country had in 2001 across the political spectrum.
Iraq was a mistake. Iraq convinced locals that we were anti-Muslim. ISIL was born from that mistake.
The Taliban harbored and protected OBL and Al Qaeda. If they renounced AL Qaeda like other Muslims, I'm sure we could have worked out an agreement.
But your post has amnesia: Mullah Omar of the Taliban protected Al Qaeda. Our attack on the Taliban is a natural result after that.
I didn't say Obama was a neocon. He inherited the war, but it was engineered by neocons like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz.
I don't think it matters much who's president. There's clearly semi-shadowy decision making behind the presidential facade.
I think in internal politics the US president still has some influence but in international affairs, not so much.
Edit: Fwiw, I acknowledged the US' right to attack Afghanistan in 2001 because they harboured OBL, and refused to renounce. Everything changed in 2003 with the completely unjustified attack on Iraq.
You guys (assuming you're American) have absolutely no idea of how much you lost with that war of aggression. Now, everyone knows what the US is. People (who think) started reappraising history and once you start digging you realise what the US really is.
Your narrative is broken. Noone believes in your values anymore. Now, countries which support the US are merely doing it for short term purposes, not because they really believe in your "values".
The pipe dream of democracy, international rule of law and human rights all ended in 2003. It was always just a dream, but the world woke up in that year.
I concede that you brought up Iraq first. Does that win you points or something. I am thoroughly aware of recent US history. I watched that clown Colin Powell disgrace the US with his "evidence" of weapons of mass destruction before the UN. If I remember correctly, it was televised live on Danish TV.
Also: I didn't claim you were ignorant of Iraq. You are reading that into my comment. But your characterisation of that war of aggression as a "mistake" is incorrect. It was a crime.
Ok, I don't think HN points work that way (might be wrong, and don't really care). I meant points in a generic sense. But if you read back in our thread, I think you'll find that I'm contributing substance in every comment and you're just attacking. But I do now completely agree with you: This is is a waste of time.
Maybe the calculus does not rely on metronomic time frames but rather historical push-pull factors from surrounding empires? That's the nuanced, complex reality of Afghan history - a place that exists on/as a natural invasion/trade route, much like Laos, Armenia, Poland, etc. The list of rebuffed invaders is long, and we can now add the U.S.A. and its allies who are now leaving. It is, indeed, the graveyard of empires:
Here is part of the post:
"...They better have a good plan for a pull off in a hurry of the current US Embassy. As soon as the wind changes it is pretty clear to what allegiance the current Afghan Army will go with..."
Not sure why this person is being downvoted, but it's well known that any informant that works with an occupying force is on the chopping block once that force is no longer there. This is especially true in the middle east as many cultures there have a history of generational feuds. In other words, they don't easily forget "traitors".
What I've learned over the past twenty years dealing with the middle east issue, is that everyday Americans should not be trusted with having to vote for politicians on this issue.
The truth is the Taliban will win because that's what Afghanis want. No amount of Western huffing and hawing about how terribly the Taliban treats women and girls and progressive activists is going to change that most Afghanis (women included) don't really mind the taliban. The western media picks and chooses to make Westerners believe that Afghanis hate the group. in reality, no government can persist long without broad support on the ground.
My guess is that the Taliban is more popular amongst the average Afghani than the US federal government is popular among the average American. If that statement shocks you, stop reading American news.
Can you recommend good sources of non-american news? I always see this suggestion and truly despise american media in general, but as an american I don't even know where to look.
So I am also an American and mainly read American news. However, you must realize that American and Western news sources are extremely biased and insular. It's difficult to find English non-western sources, but there's one that stands out -- Inidan news, since it's mostly in English, and decidedly not western. But you'll have to be willing to read journals that might not have the same kind of 'standards' the American ones have. When you read Indian news, you'll come across a culture that is much more prescriptive, much more accepting of an absolute morality, and much more willing to engage in stereotypes -- things that are very foreign to most Western people. Russian news is also good. Al Jazeera is good but you must understand not to take them seriously.
For example -- and please, I am not trying to be inciting, just describing reality -- the muslims are hated in India and all the non-muslim neighboring countries. Americans find this shocking, but it's a strong cultural bias in all the countries around the middle east. Why is that? Why are people there so open about it and find nothing wrong with that?
The typical American reaction is to chastise the Indian or the Chinese or the Russian, but we must instead seek to understand. What do they know about these people that we do not? Could it be that they are biased against them because centuries and centuries of contact with them have shown that Muslim culture is highly dogmatic and persistent? If so, what does that tell us about how we need to act in those places?
Again, this is not about whether we should hate muslims or not (we shouldn't). It's about understanding that behavior influences people's stereotypes, and their stereotypes might tell us something. This is absolutely foreign to American understandings of how to approach other cultures, but it's something that exists in the majority of the world. Only in the west are we taught that stereotypes should be dismissed out of hand as the result of unfair bias.
I'd look at The Economist, though that's still very much old school Washington Consensus (but not as US centric as most US news). I consider it quite reliable.
For alternate view points, and to see how other societies frame things, you could look at Spiegel (Germany), Al Jazeera (Qatar), RT (Russia), Global Times (China). With the last two, you definitely enter the territory of propaganda.
> one of continental Europe's most influential magazines. […] The magazine plays the role of opinion leader in the German press. […] The Atlantic claimed that "Der Spiegel has long peddled crude and sensational anti-Americanism."
Sample: "It’s Time to Cut Funding for Orbán. Hungarian President Viktor Orbán and other like-minded populists are trampling on the EU’s values with growing disregard. Europe has an effective option for taking action and it is time to use it: We need to cut Hungary’s EU funds."
> The network is sometimes perceived to have mainly Islamist perspectives, promoting the Muslim Brotherhood, and having a pro-Sunni and an anti-Shia bias in its reporting of regional issues. […] According to The Atlantic magazine, Al Jazeera presents a far more moderate, Westernized face than Islamic jihadism or rigid Sunni orthodoxy. […] The channel is considered by some to be a propaganda channel of the Qatari government.
Sample: "The US is leaving Afghanistan, but what is it leaving behind? After 20 years of direct intervention, Washington decides that the future of Afghanistan is for its people to decide."
> RT has been described as a major propaganda outlet for the Russian government and its foreign policy. Academics, fact-checkers, and news reporters […] have identified RT as a purveyor of disinformation and conspiracy theories.
Sample: "Stop obsessing about Moscow & fix human rights violations in your own backyard, Russian embassy in Washington tells US State Dept" or "Critical race theory is bringing back segregation to America, and turning the clock back to the 1960s"
> has been labelled as "China's Fox News" by some scholars and writers for its propagandistic slant and the monetization of nationalism. It is part of a broader set of Chinese state media outlets that constitute the Chinese government's propaganda apparatus
Sample: "US, Taiwan crossing the red line will create historic opportunity for PLA fighter jets to fly over island. If US and Taiwan's tricks continue, a major crisis in the Taiwan Straits will doomed to take place." or "Largest HK opposition group likely to disband; city no longer secessionism hotbed"
And the US policy towards Germany and Japan was one of utter indifference until the Japanese and Germans explicitly declared war on our country.
Moreover, unlike Afghanistan, the Germans and Japanese (especially the Japanese) displayed an actual ability to attack American interests not just isolated incidents.
The truth is that with 9/11, there was no government entity to be defeated. The best we could have hoped for was to beef up our own security, and then ignore the countries in question. Maybe go after Bin Laden like we did -- stealthily and in the night.
The US from a position a real weakness handled a strong Germany and Japan and rebuilt those countries. Which goes to the point about Leadership. There is a long list of terrible decisions post 9/11. No comparision between FDR/Truman/Ike and the buffoon class of Bush/Obama/Trump.
> No comparision between FDR/Truman/Ike and the buffoon class of Bush/Obama/Trump.
As much as I would love to rag on Bush, Obama, and Trump, you have to realize that FDR, Truman, and Eisenhower had an extremely homogeneous, nationalistic, patriotic people to lead, whereas bush, obama, and trump all were handed an extremely divided country where nationalism and patriotism were bad words, with perhaps the exception of Bush who got post-9/11 unity for a bit.
On top of that, the conquered nations were not failed states. The US had a vested interest in protecting western Europe from the soviets, and given the historical and philosophical similarities and background of western Europe to the US, this was rather doable.
Even the US policy towards Japan was rather shrewd.
It's unlikely to see Afghanistan become anymore than what it is regardless of foreign intervention. They don't have the same recent history. It's similar to a Somalia than a Vietnam.
The national unity that FDR brought forth was no accident. FDR created the Office of Censorship and spent billions of dollars on pro-US propaganda, the likes of which Bush/Obama/Trump never wanted to repeat.
FDR was damn near a dictator, a popular one but a near dictator nonetheless. With one executive order, FDR made gold illegal while the USA was still on the gold standard. FDR almost succeeded in stacking the Supreme Courts (and even then, his 12+ years of tenure allowed him to make the courts almost entirely his choice). FDR grew so powerful that we literally got an Amendment to the Constitution to make sure 4-terms as President can never happen again.
Today, there's so many libertarians who just go up in arms about the idea of making Cryptocoins illegal.
US policy towards Japan was hardly one of indifference. In the years leading up to the Pearl Harbor attack the US establishment was well aware that a conflict was likely. That's why they took steps to contain Japan and limit their access to natural resources.
It was "as much indifference as we can muster while staying on good terms with allies who's colonies they are either threatening or rolling right over"
The way current administration was handling evacuation of translators was a big tale, but one would assume that they would not do same to actual US citizens…
So in barely 30 years Afghanistan will transform into a peaceful, economically prosperous, and basically free society, finally having cast off the yoke of colonialism?
Nice websites, but try actually visiting Vietnam, as I have. You’ll encounter a people who are fairly prosperous by regional standards, and downright rich compared to the colonial era. Government involvement in their day to day lives is minimal. I chose my words carefully.
How long do you suppose it will be until the US gets into another crazy Asian adventure? GW Bush ran on a platform against nation building, and still got into two nightmare wars. Who will be the next president to be led down this path?
You're forgetting about the Gulf War, Kosovo/Bosnia War, and a handful of significant "interventions" and "police actions" around the world. Plus there is the ongoing crisis in Syria, Iraq, and Libya (Not an Asian adventure, but still battling Islamic troops).
I would not be surprised if the country is dragged into another war during the current administration. Could be Georgia (the country), Pakistan, Israel, Somalia, Iran, Sudan, or any number of other destabilized nations in the region.
Not sure I agree, as the NATO was actively engaged by 1994 after https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banja_Luka_incident . After which time, NATO / US forces began active bombing campaigns against Serbian targets.
Kosovo/Bosnia was about the new incoming French president Mitterand doing private deals with Milosevic, who promised him that the enclaves will be okay. They weren't. Srbenenica caused the NATO airplanes finally flying, ending the sieges and genocides.
US took actions vs Iran and Iraq in the 80s and early 90s.
Bin Laden attacked the twin towers in the early 90s. It was originally a big bomb in the basement / garage floors, but the bomb wasn't strong enough to topple the towers.
We didn't start the fire. It was always burning, since the world's been turning
At this juncture it is very difficult to see because we are seeing a broad realignment and resurgence of non-interventionism. For example, it is quite clear that the GOP war hawks are no longer popular, and nation building has become anathema in that party, whereas it used to be more accepted. On the other hand, I personally believe the opposite force is happening within the democratic party, but I'm guessing that'll be an unpopular sentiment around here.
EDIT: if you're going to downvote, at least engage.
Well we are "pivoting" to asia. Apparently, that's the new battlefront. Funding unrest in myanmar now that the hong kong fiasco failed. Also a few black presidents/leaders died in the last few months. No doubt isis will magically show up all over africa and we'll need to set up more bases there in the near future. God knows the people who want iran and venezuela taken out are still around. Who knows these people will do to get us to destroy iran and venezuela.
Considering that the "defense" budget has increased, I doubt the empire is ending anytime soon. More wars. You have to justify your budget. My guess is that we will be "defending" ourselves all over asia, africa, south america, etc. Now that iraq, syria, libya, afganistan, etc were turned to rubble ( mission accomplished ), we'll need to spread "democracy" all over the world.
We're like the borg. We have to assimilate them all. It's amazing how long we've been able to get away with being so evil and cruel.
Oh please. Do you really think you were there to liberate the women of Afghanistan? That was cooked up by the CIA to get some liberal EU countries to cooperate.
Right, by and large the women of Afghanistan supported and enabled the Taliban, along with the men of Afghanistan. The Taliban enjoys little opposition and lots of support.
Look... Afghanis have had more than a decade to organize for the eventuality of TAliban take over. They could have done reasonable things while having a democratically elected government, like arming all citizens, forming organized militias, etc. This would have lead to a citizenry actually able to fight. That they did not and that the citizenry is doing nothing to stop the Taliban indicates that the Taliban are more popular than the government.
From my perspective as a Westerner, that is very sad. But it's not my country.
>They could have done reasonable things while having a democratically elected government
I am skeptical this was the "right" path, broadly defined. Democracy was completely foreign to them, conflicted with their deeply hierarchical tribal structure, and was extremely difficult to administer in a country as geographically and culturally diverse as Afghanistan is. If Kharzi had appointed himself King of Afghanistan we probably would've had more luck.
> I am skeptical this was the "right" path, broadly defined.
Yes, it was the wrong path. I am sceptical too. But even with some modicum of a different government, they were uninterested in doing anything to actually prevent the taliban.
Maybe I'm wrong and we'll see them finally re-align to fight against them. But... I'm not holding my breath.
>But even with some modicum of a different government
Sorry, you lost me here. This isn't some variable we are optimizing for whose program we get to iterate over.
>they were uninterested in doing anything to actually prevent the taliban.
I learned this lesson the hard way, but a lot of people today (I see you, ex-State Department twitter) seem to not get it that sometimes people will choose a government that makes people in the west uncomfortable. What do we do, invade again?
My point is that even with the catalyst of a new regime, no one wa able to form any organized opposition to Taliban..
And yes I totally get the frustration with he state department. I have a neighbor whose son is a state department employee in Burma. And I'm just listening to this guy talk about his son like he's some hero that will singlehandedly save the Burmese from themselves. He talks about how his son has been influencing all these politicians to make a better government more amenable to american interests, blah blah blah. As the child of immigrants from a British colony, I'm just sitting here shaking my head, and frankly I pity that he doesn't realize that the majority of the Burmese likely think his son and people like him interfering in their governance are the problem.
The tragic part is that the coup ended up killing a lot of the people the son interacted with in his quest to impose american norms on Burma. As a diplomat, he himself bears none of the actual pains of course. And I'm sure the state department accomplished it's goal. America treats other countries as disposable. It's gross. Time to leave these foreign interventions completely.
Isn’t the US still maintaining regular attacks from the air over Afghanistan, and the taliban has no advanced AA apart from manpads, meaning the US and allies has full air superiority?
How can the taliban operate in that environment? Shouldn’t any camp, convoy or even individual armed pickup truck be the target of air strikes even as the US withdraws ground troops?
Remember that kobanî almost fell to ISIS, it only held thanks to the kurdish ground combatants (helped by western air force strikes). If you cannot hold ground, no amount of airstrikes will push a ground army back.
You're air superiority means nothing if you don't know who is the enemy and who is not. How can you tell if that truck is carrying boxes of ammo or boxes of clothes? Also you can't surveil everywhere and you cant track everything.
Furthermore airplanes can't hold ground they can clear it but that doesn't stop someone from hiding in a cave and coming back out.
There's no such thing as perfect reconnaissance from the air, let alone unlimited fuel and ammunition. You can't always tell with 100% accuracy whether you're bombing a Taliban camp or a wedding party.
Frankly, the policy decision has been made that the fate of Afghanistan is of marginal strategic value to the United States. That's why we're leaving. Why would we try and eradicate an insurgent ground force from the air--a feat that has never been accomplished in all of military history--if keeping a minimal troop presence to deter them from overrunning the rest of the country wasn't considered worthwhile?
It's not my area but there are probably lots of vehicle columns from refugees. That means our pilots need to rely on Afghan forces on the ground to call for strikes.
That's been one of the problems with the Taliban all along, they blend in.
Maintaining air superiority indefinitely isn't sustainable. An F-15E costs something like $29K per flight hour, a B-1B double that. And that's not even counting the cost of munitions. Those aircraft have been used so hard since 2001 that the airframes are literally falling apart, and there isn't enough funding to replace them on a 1:1 basis.
I was told by a military intelligence dude that airstrikes are mostly laser guided by ground based special forces when it comes to anti-insurgency stuff. The satellite imagery is just too inaccurate for small targets that shift around.
This was inevitable. Better to let it happen now than continue to waste resources on a hopeless conflict.
A great example of the failure of modern war. The inability of the military to effectively execute total war because of public palatability leads to these outcomes - zombie wars that can never be won, because no one has the stomach to do/say what actually needs to be done.
It's hard not to think about the military industrial complex in all of this - a long term war wasting millions on equipment, supplies, energy, with relatively minimal cost to lives compared to total war, is an ideal money maker.
> The inability of the military to effectively execute total war because of public palatability leads to these outcomes - zombie wars that can never be won, because no one has the stomach to do/say what actually needs to be done.
What more could have been done in Vietnam? The US deployed napalm, agent orange, reinstituted the draft at home, maintained a policy of inflicting maximum casualties on the enemy, and still failed to achieve victory. It's also hard to justify "total war" when your sovereignty/existence is not at stake and you're effectively an interloper in other people's conflicts.
The US never committed to total war in Vietnam, likely because of consequences from the USSR and China.
Just because harsh agents were used doesn't mean the US couldn't have been harsher. They certainly could have been.
> It's also hard to justify "total war" when your sovereignty/existence is not at stake and you're effectively an interloper in other people's conflicts.
Yes, that's my point - so instead you end up in 20 year zombie wars that bleed over time and accomplish little.
Almost exactly 25 years ago, the Taliban captured Kabul for the first time. I still remember the sense of foreboding while following the coverage in the Times of India in Aug-Sep 1996. We all know how that played out.
The situation is very different now, and there will be much less violence this time, at least initially when Kabul falls. But it is difficult to imagine how this round plays out in a fundamentally different way. History may judge Biden very harshly for this withdrawal.
I don't see how history can judge him harshly. Of course there is no way of knowing.
But this is what everyone wants. No one wants to fight this war anymore, it's unwinnable, and staying any longer will just delay the inevitable. I think history will look harshly upon the instigators of this war than the ones who decided enough was enough.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 143 ms ] threadThe territorial ambitions are slightly different to a colonial maritime power within spitting distance of no fewer than 3 other maritime powers, or one in control of the Mediterranean with a very large front door open to the North European Plain.
The US didn't leave after two weeks because it took a lot longer than that to find and kill bin Laden and wipe out Al Qaeda in the country. The US didn't leave after killing bin Laden because Afghanistan was a relatively inexpensive sandbox for the military industrial complex to play in, train its soldiers in, and deploy/test weapons in. US & allied troop deaths in Afghanistan have been fairly low since 2013. So Afghanistan got to act as a war training ground with low risk of losing a lot of soldiers, an exceptionally rare commodity as far as the Pentagon is concerned. Now they have to find another country to occupy.
And I'm not just being quip, the actual point here is that these generic takes about "military spending bad, xy good" are kind of shallow.
It comes from dominating the world and specially oil. If the US does not dominate the world militarily then the US becomes poorer overnight.
Would you believe that the US world be able to continue printing $USDs ab infinitum if the world countries didn't need $ to buy energy?
If energy countries were free to make deals in euros, yens, renminbis or reals without being invaded by the US the next day, then the US would be much less wealthy. That is the reason the US does not let countries do that.
Americans can print as many dollars they want because the rest of the world is forced to buy them. Without that, the $USD would be valued probably half or a quarter of what it is today.
Its better that OBL is dead. But the new wave of leaders of the Taliban are still stronger than expected.
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Hell, ISIL / Daesh has splintered off of Al Qaeda and the two occasional get into skirmishes with each other. The leadership was in fact fractured successfully.
It may not be enough for a lasting peace, but I wouldn't say that its completely worthless.
They're only stronger than expected if you let the US media and US intelligence services set your expectations. If you had come to your own conclusion, you would have realized that the Taliban is one of the few entities actually able to hold Afghanistan and nothing the US did made it less potent in its ability. All we did was give them a twenty year break to amass more forces, more resources, and more training.
They would have had more forces and resources if they were in control of the country for the last 20 years. In fact, that's why they're trying to take over the country again, to once again have control of the Opium / Poppy farms and start getting more money for their organization.
Now the question is: is it worthwhile for the USA to hold onto those farm locations just so that the Taliban won't come into power? Probably not. But lets not be too hasty in our judgement here. The value in that land may be miniscule for the USA, but its of huge value to the Taliban.
45,000 (2001 est.)
11,000 (2008 est.)
36,000 (2010 est.)
60,000 (2014 est.)
85,000 (2021 est.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban
Obama was put into a situation where he needed to "surge" to counteract the rise of the Taliban. I'm not convinced that giving up in 2008 to 2010 was the best plan.
The Taliban had to just sit back, do nothing, and preach at the mosques about how the evil christians were coming to destroy good islamic peoples, and wait for their followers to amass. You have to be deluding yourself to think that poppy farms are what they really want. They are a religious faction. They want followers. The poppy farms are just an added benefit.
But in terms of holding land, they have what matters most... people. And more importantly, they have religious and cultural dogma.
You will never win against the Taliban. Just like empires have never won against Christianity. You are talking about a group of people with shared values that can act in concert without ever meeting because they have shared values that are so deeply engrained in their culture. The best way to break the Taliban apart would have been covert ops designed to sow sedition and splinter the group, but even that is risky and not a guarantee.
> In fact, that's why they're trying to take over the country again, to once again have control of the Opium / Poppy farms and start getting more money for their organization.
No it's not the reason they want control of the country. They want control because they believe it is their religious obligation. Any discussion of the Taliban that does not include Islam is like discussing Spanish colonialism without mentioning the church.
Defeat of the Taliban was secondary from the start. If the Taliban negotiated a peace such that they wouldn't support Al Qaeda, I'm sure we would have let them take over the country and integrate back.
Even in WW2, we never killed every Nazi or every Japanese. We let Japan keep their Emperor for example, though they were a society who was willing to accept a new government / democracy. But anyone who was hoping to kill the Taliban until they gave up would be hopelessly naive.
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I do think it was perhaps a mistake to try to push liberal ideals to their primitive society (okay, so Women were getting abused. It'd be nice if those women could be treated better... but now we've left the country and all those women are going to be oppressed again).
It would have been more important to have them build their society akin to their values, as opposed to our values. Spreading our ideals never was really part of the plan or a priority.
Also, the Taliban did not attack America. Al Qaeda, led by OBL, did. Now the Taliban is back in power (as good as) and the US is giving material and military cover to rebranded Al Qaeda groups in Syria.
Fortunately Russia put a stop to the regime change plans in Syria.
The war was presided over 3 Presidential terms with a wide variety of political and policy viewpoints. To focus on just one political group as a scapegoat ignores the huge support the country had in 2001 across the political spectrum.
Iraq was a mistake. Iraq convinced locals that we were anti-Muslim. ISIL was born from that mistake.
The Taliban harbored and protected OBL and Al Qaeda. If they renounced AL Qaeda like other Muslims, I'm sure we could have worked out an agreement.
But your post has amnesia: Mullah Omar of the Taliban protected Al Qaeda. Our attack on the Taliban is a natural result after that.
I don't think it matters much who's president. There's clearly semi-shadowy decision making behind the presidential facade.
I think in internal politics the US president still has some influence but in international affairs, not so much.
Edit: Fwiw, I acknowledged the US' right to attack Afghanistan in 2001 because they harboured OBL, and refused to renounce. Everything changed in 2003 with the completely unjustified attack on Iraq.
You guys (assuming you're American) have absolutely no idea of how much you lost with that war of aggression. Now, everyone knows what the US is. People (who think) started reappraising history and once you start digging you realise what the US really is.
Your narrative is broken. Noone believes in your values anymore. Now, countries which support the US are merely doing it for short term purposes, not because they really believe in your "values".
The pipe dream of democracy, international rule of law and human rights all ended in 2003. It was always just a dream, but the world woke up in that year.
Also: I didn't claim you were ignorant of Iraq. You are reading that into my comment. But your characterisation of that war of aggression as a "mistake" is incorrect. It was a crime.
Its not my points that matter. Its your points in this discussion. I'm no longer convinced I'll have a reasonable discussion with you on this matter.
A good discussion has give and take, back and forth. I don't expect it from you.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanis...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1539468.stm
Maybe the calculus has changed in the past two centuries?
https://thediplomat.com/2017/06/why-is-afghanistan-the-grave...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27800432
Here is part of the post: "...They better have a good plan for a pull off in a hurry of the current US Embassy. As soon as the wind changes it is pretty clear to what allegiance the current Afghan Army will go with..."
So much for the wisdom of the crowds.
"American negotiators are trying to extract assurances from the Taliban that they will not attack the embassy"
Oh boy....
Edit: White is what is controlled by the government, Orange dark is already under control of the Taliban, other orange contested.
https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/2021/08/08/taliban-afg...
The embassy in Kabul is still hiring.[2] They want a Public Engagement Assistant, a Cultural Affairs Assistant, a truck driver, and a plumber. Really.
[1] https://nypost.com/2021/07/13/taliban-executes-afghan-specia...
[2] https://erajobs.state.gov/dos-era/vacancysearch/searchVacanc...
[1] https://af.usembassy.gov/embassy/jobs/
The truth is the Taliban will win because that's what Afghanis want. No amount of Western huffing and hawing about how terribly the Taliban treats women and girls and progressive activists is going to change that most Afghanis (women included) don't really mind the taliban. The western media picks and chooses to make Westerners believe that Afghanis hate the group. in reality, no government can persist long without broad support on the ground.
My guess is that the Taliban is more popular amongst the average Afghani than the US federal government is popular among the average American. If that statement shocks you, stop reading American news.
Can you recommend good sources of non-american news? I always see this suggestion and truly despise american media in general, but as an american I don't even know where to look.
For example -- and please, I am not trying to be inciting, just describing reality -- the muslims are hated in India and all the non-muslim neighboring countries. Americans find this shocking, but it's a strong cultural bias in all the countries around the middle east. Why is that? Why are people there so open about it and find nothing wrong with that?
The typical American reaction is to chastise the Indian or the Chinese or the Russian, but we must instead seek to understand. What do they know about these people that we do not? Could it be that they are biased against them because centuries and centuries of contact with them have shown that Muslim culture is highly dogmatic and persistent? If so, what does that tell us about how we need to act in those places?
Again, this is not about whether we should hate muslims or not (we shouldn't). It's about understanding that behavior influences people's stereotypes, and their stereotypes might tell us something. This is absolutely foreign to American understandings of how to approach other cultures, but it's something that exists in the majority of the world. Only in the west are we taught that stereotypes should be dismissed out of hand as the result of unfair bias.
For alternate view points, and to see how other societies frame things, you could look at Spiegel (Germany), Al Jazeera (Qatar), RT (Russia), Global Times (China). With the last two, you definitely enter the territory of propaganda.
- Spiegel: https://www.spiegel.de/international/ (Note: English articles only published every few days)
> one of continental Europe's most influential magazines. […] The magazine plays the role of opinion leader in the German press. […] The Atlantic claimed that "Der Spiegel has long peddled crude and sensational anti-Americanism."
Sample: "It’s Time to Cut Funding for Orbán. Hungarian President Viktor Orbán and other like-minded populists are trampling on the EU’s values with growing disregard. Europe has an effective option for taking action and it is time to use it: We need to cut Hungary’s EU funds."
- Al Jazeera: https://www.aljazeera.com
> The network is sometimes perceived to have mainly Islamist perspectives, promoting the Muslim Brotherhood, and having a pro-Sunni and an anti-Shia bias in its reporting of regional issues. […] According to The Atlantic magazine, Al Jazeera presents a far more moderate, Westernized face than Islamic jihadism or rigid Sunni orthodoxy. […] The channel is considered by some to be a propaganda channel of the Qatari government.
Sample: "The US is leaving Afghanistan, but what is it leaving behind? After 20 years of direct intervention, Washington decides that the future of Afghanistan is for its people to decide."
- RT: https://www.rt.com
> RT has been described as a major propaganda outlet for the Russian government and its foreign policy. Academics, fact-checkers, and news reporters […] have identified RT as a purveyor of disinformation and conspiracy theories.
Sample: "Stop obsessing about Moscow & fix human rights violations in your own backyard, Russian embassy in Washington tells US State Dept" or "Critical race theory is bringing back segregation to America, and turning the clock back to the 1960s"
- Global Times: https://www.globaltimes.cn/index.html
> has been labelled as "China's Fox News" by some scholars and writers for its propagandistic slant and the monetization of nationalism. It is part of a broader set of Chinese state media outlets that constitute the Chinese government's propaganda apparatus
Sample: "US, Taiwan crossing the red line will create historic opportunity for PLA fighter jets to fly over island. If US and Taiwan's tricks continue, a major crisis in the Taiwan Straits will doomed to take place." or "Largest HK opposition group likely to disband; city no longer secessionism hotbed"
The difference lies in the type of Leaders the US has propped up across the board.
Moreover, unlike Afghanistan, the Germans and Japanese (especially the Japanese) displayed an actual ability to attack American interests not just isolated incidents.
The truth is that with 9/11, there was no government entity to be defeated. The best we could have hoped for was to beef up our own security, and then ignore the countries in question. Maybe go after Bin Laden like we did -- stealthily and in the night.
As much as I would love to rag on Bush, Obama, and Trump, you have to realize that FDR, Truman, and Eisenhower had an extremely homogeneous, nationalistic, patriotic people to lead, whereas bush, obama, and trump all were handed an extremely divided country where nationalism and patriotism were bad words, with perhaps the exception of Bush who got post-9/11 unity for a bit.
Even the US policy towards Japan was rather shrewd.
It's unlikely to see Afghanistan become anymore than what it is regardless of foreign intervention. They don't have the same recent history. It's similar to a Somalia than a Vietnam.
FDR was damn near a dictator, a popular one but a near dictator nonetheless. With one executive order, FDR made gold illegal while the USA was still on the gold standard. FDR almost succeeded in stacking the Supreme Courts (and even then, his 12+ years of tenure allowed him to make the courts almost entirely his choice). FDR grew so powerful that we literally got an Amendment to the Constitution to make sure 4-terms as President can never happen again.
Today, there's so many libertarians who just go up in arms about the idea of making Cryptocoins illegal.
Prosperous? They could be doing worse, but $2785 per person per year doesn't overwhelm me with their prosperity: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD
So... nice snark, in a very disingenuous kind of way, but not very related to reality.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/12/taliban-claim-...
Edit: and the USA https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/12/us-others-layi...
Like GW Bush, it will probably be whichever president is the next to preside over a deadly attack on American soil.
I would not be surprised if the country is dragged into another war during the current administration. Could be Georgia (the country), Pakistan, Israel, Somalia, Iran, Sudan, or any number of other destabilized nations in the region.
Bin Laden attacked the twin towers in the early 90s. It was originally a big bomb in the basement / garage floors, but the bomb wasn't strong enough to topple the towers.
We didn't start the fire. It was always burning, since the world's been turning
EDIT: if you're going to downvote, at least engage.
Considering that the "defense" budget has increased, I doubt the empire is ending anytime soon. More wars. You have to justify your budget. My guess is that we will be "defending" ourselves all over asia, africa, south america, etc. Now that iraq, syria, libya, afganistan, etc were turned to rubble ( mission accomplished ), we'll need to spread "democracy" all over the world.
We're like the borg. We have to assimilate them all. It's amazing how long we've been able to get away with being so evil and cruel.
Look... Afghanis have had more than a decade to organize for the eventuality of TAliban take over. They could have done reasonable things while having a democratically elected government, like arming all citizens, forming organized militias, etc. This would have lead to a citizenry actually able to fight. That they did not and that the citizenry is doing nothing to stop the Taliban indicates that the Taliban are more popular than the government.
From my perspective as a Westerner, that is very sad. But it's not my country.
I am skeptical this was the "right" path, broadly defined. Democracy was completely foreign to them, conflicted with their deeply hierarchical tribal structure, and was extremely difficult to administer in a country as geographically and culturally diverse as Afghanistan is. If Kharzi had appointed himself King of Afghanistan we probably would've had more luck.
Source: was an 11A there in 2012
Yes, it was the wrong path. I am sceptical too. But even with some modicum of a different government, they were uninterested in doing anything to actually prevent the taliban.
Maybe I'm wrong and we'll see them finally re-align to fight against them. But... I'm not holding my breath.
Sorry, you lost me here. This isn't some variable we are optimizing for whose program we get to iterate over.
>they were uninterested in doing anything to actually prevent the taliban.
I learned this lesson the hard way, but a lot of people today (I see you, ex-State Department twitter) seem to not get it that sometimes people will choose a government that makes people in the west uncomfortable. What do we do, invade again?
And yes I totally get the frustration with he state department. I have a neighbor whose son is a state department employee in Burma. And I'm just listening to this guy talk about his son like he's some hero that will singlehandedly save the Burmese from themselves. He talks about how his son has been influencing all these politicians to make a better government more amenable to american interests, blah blah blah. As the child of immigrants from a British colony, I'm just sitting here shaking my head, and frankly I pity that he doesn't realize that the majority of the Burmese likely think his son and people like him interfering in their governance are the problem.
The tragic part is that the coup ended up killing a lot of the people the son interacted with in his quest to impose american norms on Burma. As a diplomat, he himself bears none of the actual pains of course. And I'm sure the state department accomplished it's goal. America treats other countries as disposable. It's gross. Time to leave these foreign interventions completely.
How can the taliban operate in that environment? Shouldn’t any camp, convoy or even individual armed pickup truck be the target of air strikes even as the US withdraws ground troops?
Furthermore airplanes can't hold ground they can clear it but that doesn't stop someone from hiding in a cave and coming back out.
Frankly, the policy decision has been made that the fate of Afghanistan is of marginal strategic value to the United States. That's why we're leaving. Why would we try and eradicate an insurgent ground force from the air--a feat that has never been accomplished in all of military history--if keeping a minimal troop presence to deter them from overrunning the rest of the country wasn't considered worthwhile?
That's been one of the problems with the Taliban all along, they blend in.
- Taliban commander to Hiller, 2001.
A great example of the failure of modern war. The inability of the military to effectively execute total war because of public palatability leads to these outcomes - zombie wars that can never be won, because no one has the stomach to do/say what actually needs to be done.
It's hard not to think about the military industrial complex in all of this - a long term war wasting millions on equipment, supplies, energy, with relatively minimal cost to lives compared to total war, is an ideal money maker.
What more could have been done in Vietnam? The US deployed napalm, agent orange, reinstituted the draft at home, maintained a policy of inflicting maximum casualties on the enemy, and still failed to achieve victory. It's also hard to justify "total war" when your sovereignty/existence is not at stake and you're effectively an interloper in other people's conflicts.
Just because harsh agents were used doesn't mean the US couldn't have been harsher. They certainly could have been.
> It's also hard to justify "total war" when your sovereignty/existence is not at stake and you're effectively an interloper in other people's conflicts.
Yes, that's my point - so instead you end up in 20 year zombie wars that bleed over time and accomplish little.
The situation is very different now, and there will be much less violence this time, at least initially when Kabul falls. But it is difficult to imagine how this round plays out in a fundamentally different way. History may judge Biden very harshly for this withdrawal.
But this is what everyone wants. No one wants to fight this war anymore, it's unwinnable, and staying any longer will just delay the inevitable. I think history will look harshly upon the instigators of this war than the ones who decided enough was enough.
1975 US embassy, Phnom Penh: Operation Eagle Pull https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Eagle_Pull
1975 US embassy, Saigon: Operation Frequent Wind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Frequent_Wind
1991 US embassy, Mogadishu: Operation Eastern Exit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Eastern_Exit
1997 German embassy, Tirana: Operation Libelle ("Dragonfly") https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Libelle