Yep. They were wrong. The us Intel agencies are wrong on important topics quite often. The predictions went from 1month away to 72 hours to it's already taken within days.
I don't come to HN for politics, so I'll try to say this as apolitically as possible:
I'm reading in some places that after deciding to pull out, the United States decided to not fulfill promises to emigrate many Afghan civilians who helped the US or the US-backed government by serving as translators and such. These "traitors" may find life particularly difficult under a reinstated Taliban government. If this is true, it is shameful and (for better or worse) may make attempts at finding local support for future regime-building adventures much more difficult.
This discussion is also in the news today in the Netherlands with regards to our own involvement there. Some translators have been evacuated, some have not yet been picked up. And apparently there are others that weren't local translators but that did support the military there (e.g. as drivers or suppliers) and are at risk. That last group hasn't been saved yet and it's unclear whether something has been arranged.
This wavering with helping our friends will surely have an effect on our chances of making friends in the future.
It's quite frankly dishonourable to leave them in the lurch like is happening. I do appreciate the advance has been swift but it should not have been hard to simply put everyone on a plane and process their claims someplace less dangerous.
Same in Germany. I wonder how one can be naive enough, read government and armed forces, to
a) say you gonna retreat by date X
b) say local helpers will get the opportunity to get to your home country
c) organise your troop withdrawal, without any thoughts on how fast the Taliban will take over
d) pull your troops, sans local support staff and their families, out. Be surprised that your locals are now stuck
e) expect that next time your army goes somewhere you'll still find reliable local help
How difficult would it have been to evacuate your supporting locals along your troops before the country is taken over by your opponent. But then the German Army is unable to tell how many soldiers the deployed there since the war started... Mark me surprised, I am way beyond being shocked by stuff like that so.
I'm of the opinion that the German or Dutch army probably isn't as incompetent as half the population thinks compared to the US. It's just that the US has a much more "thank you for your service" culture than the "what an idiots" attitude the Germans and Dutch (and UK?) have to our armies.
I think the problem the US did was we announced we were leaving prior to doing any of that necessary work before we even announced or started to leave.
In hindsight I'm not sure why but it felt liked it was indeed a rushed effort, obviously started by the Trump admin and now Biden's admin, either way I think everyone is tired of the situation in general since it's not a society or place anyone will ever change unless we decide to stay there for a few centuries.
The (not anymore) secret talks with Taliban started under Obama already, but looks like in the end the Taliban smelled your weakness and saw the opportunity getting into power without listening what americans want from them.
It's 20 years, 100s of billions of dollars, and many thousands of lives -- all wasted. The government that was setup (and then propped up) to replace the Taliban is gone, and replaced again by the Taliban: 0 net gain. All those rights and liberties that had been gained for women and girls have vanished literally overnight.
Everything, all efforts, sacrifices, and losses are for absolutely nothing. The depth of this historic failure is mind-boggling.
$2 Trillion or so, also we have to admit the failure was the US changing its role there from hunting Bin Laden and the Taliban to "Nation building" with an obviously corrupt Govt that has always been there.
It shouldn't be a surprise since you need a society that wants to actually break from the same continued cycle, unfortunately Afghanistan isn't it due to many reasons.
> we have to admit the failure was the US changing its role there from hunting Bin Laden and the Taliban to "Nation building"
The cause of the failure was when, in 2003, the US decided to focus on an entirely unnecessary war of choice (aggression, really) in Iraq (and a whole bunch of propaganda own-goals scored in that war that affected the US particularly in the Islamic world reinforced that.) Nation building was always an element of fighting the Taliban, not mission drift, since having something stable and broadly supported in place was the key to prevent a resurgence.
I don’t have a strong opinion, but “nation building” always sounds like this horrible thing and I don’t quite understand why. Charitably, bringing democracy to corrupt, oppressed countries seems eminently desirable. Maybe nation building has a bad rep because it’s immensely difficult and we always fail at it (presumably it takes many decades and we always think it will take 5 years?). Genuinely trying to understand.
It's just based on a flawed premise. Democracy functions based on the public's democratic beliefs about legitimacy and power, so you can't impose it on a country the way you can install a king or set up an occupational council. No matter how well you mimic the forms and functions of a democracy, if the fundamental root of power is "the Americans said this is how we're doing it", the government's gonna fall as soon as they stop saying that.
I kind of agree, but culture is malleable and if you sustain democratic trappings for long enough the culture will adapt accordingly. I think this kind of culture change takes generations and our flaws have always been expecting the change to take place in a handful of years. Indeed, the Chinese and North Koreans have lived through the worst communism has to offer, but after a sustained period they have largely come to accept it as legitimate (although it requires a sustained investment in intense propaganda and isolationism because they are clearly stuck in a local optimum). Similarly Rome was pretty good at this sort of thing as it incorporated even backwater Britain into its empire.
If I were going to go about nation building, I would “export democratic values” some 20 years in advance of any military action by way of film, literature, etc. Cynics can think of this as propaganda, but really it’s just giving Afghans or whomever a more accurate taste of western life. When enough people had a good idea about what democracy was concretely and were ready to support it, I would then provide for military support with the expectation that the democrats would need sustained assistance for many decades.
Of course, there might be lots of reasons why this still isn’t a good idea, especially that we might be able to do more good per dollar elsewhere. But I don’t think “we tried it (poorly) for 20 years and it didn’t work out” is a good criticism—we shouldn’t expect the kind of requisite culture change to happen over a single generation.
I agree that it can in principle work over generations (and there's a solid argument that's precisely what happened in Germany and Japan after World War II). But this kind of explicit cultural imperialism is... frowned on, to say the least, in modern times. Can you imagine the controversy if the US had gotten up in 2002 and said "the goal of our occupation is to ensure that young Afghanis grow up American"?
> agree that it can in principle work over generations (and there's a solid argument that's precisely what happened in Germany and Japan after World War
Germany and Japan were occupied (excluding the post-1955 nominal occupation of Germany because the Cold War prevented agreement on a formal end) for less time than Afghanistan when you add them together. To the extent something worked there but not in Afghanistan, it had nothing to do with it taking “generations”.
Political factors encouraged people to consider the “occupation” phase over quickly, but parts of Japan were under direct US civil administration until 1972, and both countries to this day have an order of magnitude more troops than Afghanistan did. If a German 20 years after World War II were plotting to restore the Nazi government, “the US might just shoot us all” would have to be part of the calculation.
Germany and Japan were also quite a bit more successful at actually ending the organizations occupying troops found unacceptable.
yes. there are photos going around of rooms full of weaponry seized, and they are already patrolling in humvees and mraps. there are even some videos of probably ANA defects piloting American helicopters for the Taliban.
this is absolutely astonishing to me. im honestly surprised the us didn't conduct airstrikes on the vacated armories and hangars. they just got a leg up from antique firearms and fertilizer bombs into modern weaponry and air force.
i expect all of this to show up in Iraq, Syria, etc
On the positive side the Taliban won't be able to sustain those American helicopters for more than a few flights before they run out of spare parts. Iranian revolutionaries were able to continue operating American aircraft for a while by fabricating their own parts but the Taliban lack that capability.
The price tag sounds impressive at first but note that most of it never leaves american hands. Instead it is paid to contractors in key congressional districts.
While that might be true, that's kind of saying that if I go around breaking windows, I'm helping the economy as people are going to go out and spend money to buy new windows. Our society produces a limited amount of goods and services, and any allocation to one project means we have a little bit less for everything else. Whether the beneficiary is American or not isn't really relevant as it doesn't change the end result that everyone else has to tighten their belts to make room for the war.
OMG! corrupt corrupt corrupt ! I can't believe how many times the US supported local governments have been accused of being corrupt!
Kuomintang' China, South Korea, South Vietnam, Iraq, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. You name it! Every single local government supported by the U.S. was and is being accused of being corrupt. You know what? They are all corrupt judged by the western standard. Corruption is the norm in the countries need U.S. support. If, for God's sake, they can build a government which is not corrupt (like a consituational republic???), what kind of society would that be? Why would they even need U.S. support in the first place?
And you know what? Corruption is not a choice of the central government. It is not like the central government can choose being corrupt or not. It is a reflection of the society it is in.
It is just shameful that because of this extremely naive accusation, the U.S. government made countless foreign police mistakes.
> Corruption is not a choice of the central government.
Often, it is.
> It is not like the central government can choose being corrupt or not.
Sure it is. It can also choose how much energy to devote to rooting out corruption at lower levels, but in many of the cases at issue it was the very top leaders that were deeply corrupt, so corruption was, in fact, a very direct choice of the central government.
It's trying to install a puppet regime which ruled for the last 30 years and looted the country in Ethiopia which is hated by 90% of the country. The attitude for the US has changed in a country of more that 100 mil people.
> the US changing its role there [..] to "Nation building"
You must mean "installing puppet government". The Taliban were before, the puppet government lasted two decades, and now the Taliban are back. If it had been done with more diplomacy it might have succeded, but after the Twin Towers attack there was a push to overreact, and to profit from the sudden political capital.
I am most surprised that there is no fighting back at all. Are all those deserting soldiers really thinking their lifes and the lifes of their families will be spared?
Most of the regular soldiers and their families will be spared. The Taliban have nothing to gain now by killing them and making more enemies. They can afford to be magnanimous in victory. Reprisals will largely be targeted towards special operations troops who actually did fight against the Taliban instead of just running away, and the former translators whom we abandoned.
Agreed. I fear the cold calculus is ... Afghanistan is strategically important for Russia, not the U.S., and making it peaceful is actually not in the best interests of the U.S. If Russia wants a path to a warm-water port, then it can deal with it.
I have no evidence of this, so just speculating on the actual motives.
I don't think it makes sense to speculate about a hidden calculus here, because the US military leadership and national security establishment were uniformly opposed to withdrawing from Afghanistan. The pressure to withdraw came from the general public.
I don't concretely know what's happening, but I have an idea.
Why didn't the US State Department see the failure of the fledgling and corrupt democratic Afghanistan government? The US should have pulled out 10 years ago, or if it was actually interested in the strategic nature of Afghanistan, it could have arranged to purchase permanent bases independent of the Afghan government, fortify them, install missiles, occupy the Khyber Pass, block China/Russia, shore up rare earths, etc.
So why didn't we take these actions sooner if we knew the government couldn't handle it? Incompetence? Too many cooks?
My guess is that we were still interested in Afghanistan, but that this is a new shift in geopolitics. It's a chess move, and not one originated by the Trump or the Biden administration directly. My guess is that this is being done to appease Putin.
The US is softening up on its approach to Russia as a regional counter against China. This is more important than having forces on the ground in Afghanistan (which have to fly in over Pakistan anyway). And of course it's more important than building and propping up democracies. If it weren't, we'd still be there.
The story to look at now is China. This is a chess move in that story.
> Why didn't the US State Department see the failure of the fledgling and corrupt democratic Afghanistan government?
They almost certainly did, but they serve the foreign policy directives of the executive-at-the-time.
> The US should have pulled out 10 years ago,
Of course, but there's nearly no upside to breaking this status quo. It's all downside. Biden will take this hit because it looks embarrassing to withdraw and leave people worse off than when we found them. I agree with you: his predecessors should have done it.
In 2002 they did. The war had, like 90% support among the public.
I can still remember Jon Stewart saying "hey, afghanistan was good. we should have another one of those." A year or two later. That was the peacenik end of the political spectrum.
This was at least forty years in the making, starting with at least the Soviet-Afghan war. Afghanistan was used for conducting a proxy war between the Soviet Union and the USA, similarly to another Vietnam. This proxy war militarized the region and sowed the seeds for radicalism.
This is not a very intellectually honest comment. What about Saudi Arabia? What about women and girls there? Why raise issue about women rights in Afghanistan but be silent about Saudi Arabia, Emirates, etc. For god sake they are going to host World Cup.
> This is not a very intellectually honest comment. What about Saudi Arabia? What about women and girls there? Why raise issue about women rights in Afghanistan but be silent about Saudi Arabia, Emirates, etc. For god sake they are going to host World Cup
The Taliban don't allow women to get any sort of education or work, which is worse than the situation in SA, UAE and Qatar ( the ones who are going to host a World Cup)
There are many reasons why the mistakes happened again and again and can not be fixed. Mainly human cognition defects that confuse beliefs driven by spiritual satisfaction with solid facts. The deep root cause can not be addressed so they will make the same mistake again.
If somebody want give some advice that can prevent the next 2-trillion dollar mistake here in HN what will happen? The advice will be down voted heavily and maybe it will been seen as a bot from repressive regime. So most of people know the ground truth but also understand this collective bias choose keep silent.
In machine learning the trainer want to select the data from different sources to avoid over fitting. In real world there's no role acting as a god to feed different types of data. The human brain train their own neural networks. The consequence is people select the data that reinforce their existing belief because of impact from million of years evolution, even ignore the facts that can not add up. (Does any body suspect something wrong with all our perception due Taliban take control of power so quickly, I ask HNers think about it for intellectual challenge, not about or beyond politics )
I have a fine, really simple advice - don't start wars. I don't know where some US citizens take the idea that half of the world is longing to get invaded and westernized, it is simply not the case. If some politician tells you so, he/she is lying and you should seriously questions their motivation (like Bush' administration after 9/11 and its ties to companies who got many of the army orders). The idea that politicians are up there for the good of mankind if laughable at best, and dangerously naive at worst, regardless of country.
Don't start wars half around the world for made up / weak reasons with a country that is not anyhow threatening you, the amount of evil that is 'inserted' into mankind doesn't dissipate but all of us have to deal with it for generations to come. On top of all the destruction and death/murders/rape/torture/etc.
This is valid for any country, I may be bashing chinese in 10 years (and would be bashing colonizing west european states 100+ years ago), but for now its clear on whom this is aimed.
I can't imagine how all the patriotic US veterans must feel now - all the things they went through and lost friends, physical and mental health meant much less than nothing. Nothing would mean there wasn't 20 years of war and death, that would be a damn fine thing compared to current situation.
Oh and one final one, that one is also easy - don't start war in Afghanistan. Graveyard of empires they called it.
Sure and most of those folks came from Saudi Arabia. But anyway Al-Qaeda was out pretty quickly, yet US stayed with half-hearted effort to conquer and do changes.
Look up how the USA treated the Hmong after they pulled out of Vietnam. This is nothing new unfortunately, I hope the translators and workers made plans to get out on their own because it was virtually guaranteed that they would be abandoned when things got rough. As an American, I find it incredible that they got anyone at all to work with us.
Some of these people were probably desperate enough to get rid of the Taliban, that's how the US made friends. I read a piece about a couple of days ago about a woman leading a group of anti Taliban resistance fighters. Probably a propaganda piece but still.
Not sure why you’re being downvoted. Whether or not you agree with the US leaving (especially in the manner that we left), it seems like we should all be able to agree that the US should honor its commitments to protect translators and other partners. I don’t understand the controversy here.
> If this is true, it is shameful and (for better or worse) may make attempts at finding local support for future regime-building adventures much more difficult.
This is such a regularly recurrent kind of thing at the end of US interventions that the n+1st instance probably won't noticeably change the total effect from what is there from the first n instances.
The biggest one is that the Taliban overtook the country far, far faster than anticipated. The Afghan military crumbled and lost ground about as fast as the Taliban could move its army.
So while there were and are plans to evacuate those who helped the US military, the visa process—tens of thousands of which are in process and which began in the sprint—they weren’t expecting for the situation to change in a matter of days. In June, the US intelligence community was predicting they could have six months post-leaving before the Afghan government collapsed.
Instead, the past week did it.
The US won’t be able to get everyone out, but they are making a good faith effort. They are adapting by, for example, asking allied countries to temporarily take people whose visas are in progress but not fully finished.
It’s a horrible situation. Thousands if not tens of thousands will be left behind. They and their families will be in danger.
But we also have to be careful of who we let into the country And the embassy and in-country forces have other priories as well like destroying sensitive documents—which will itself save lives of people who worked with us—and extracting allied diplomats, their families, etc.
Well I got the impression that US is not taking them to US territories not because they don't want to go there, rather because US isn't able to make arrangements to do so in time.
When the US abandoned Vietnam, we ferried people out by helicopter as Saigon fell. We rescued 5500 Vietnamese civilians this way. The ambassador wouldn’t leave until marines forced him to get onto a helicopter. How many did we rescue this time? Do we have fewer helicopters than we did in 1975? Do our helicopters have an interlock that prevents them from taking off if someone without a visa is onboard?
There is much more diligence to be done. Hell hath no fury like accidentally letting a sleeper Taliban into a Western country who commits a terrorist attack.
The Afghani military and government collapsed far faster than anyone anticipated. We knew they would fail—our estimates (that were wrong) were still a question of _when_ the state collapses, not _if_.
Did we ever have enough helicopters in the country? Sure, probably. But part of leaving the country involves taking our stuff out of the country. We left Bagram a week or two ago.
Now the situation in the ground has changed. Yes, in retrospect, with information we didn’t have then, it would be nice to have more helicopters. But even though we have more in the US military, you can’t Amazon Prime overnight ship a helicopter. We are sending more troops.
The comment about locks checking visas is snarky, but also uninteresting. We’re talking about an emergency evacuation in a failed state that’s a hotbed for terrorism. Of course we should know who we’re bringing into aircraft and prioritize people we know and who have been vetted for visas.
You cannot be serious. The Biden administration has made only a token effort to protect and evacuate translators and other vulnerable Afghanis who worked for the US occupation forces. Biden abandoned them to their fate and their blood is on his hands. He could have simply issued orders to load them on US aircraft and fly them out, but chose to do almost nothing.
oh boy another theocracy. can't wait for the idiots to come out of the woodwork saying it's some phobia or -ism to criticize because religion or skin color.
e: flagged, lol. i'm sure women and homosexuals in afghanistan appreciate your concern for the feelings of muslim theocrats.
20 years later and the Taliban has more land than they did as well as a much improved infrastructure and military equipment. I imagine they have a small air force now.
Maintaining it will be an issue, but it’s quite an upgrade for them.
If Wikipedia[1] is to be believed, the Afghan Air Force consisted mostly of utility and light attack helicopters, primarily designs from the 1970's. That's unfortunate, but they're no match for any modern air force.
But certainly a match for any internal resistance militia that may rise up. Even this out dates tech, if maintained, could help stop the probable uprisings in certain providences.
general lesson in this, specially to westerners. don't assume what you believe in, is what everyone else believes in. the us, went to a false / wrong war with the taliban under the additional presumption that afghan natives don't wanna be under taliban rule. or they wanna practice a form of western democracy. now what's apparent is the afghan military are just abandoning their posts and returning home. and natives likewise, don't mind taliban rule, as long they're not under civil war.
Specifically about "natives, likewise, don't mind taliban rule".
Nicholas Kristof (an American journalist with possibly pro-American biases, but one who I think has a pretty good track record of honest reporting), has pointed out that Afghani women may enjoy less rights under the new administration, and there are many who have worked for pro-Western NGOs that are fearing for their lives. I'm not sure things will "just be life as usual" for all citizens, particularly women, under Taliban rule.
Very few things are ever what all people want, but when the overwhelming majority seems to be fine with something, it's fair to say they don't mind it. If e.g. an election is decided with a 80/20 split, the electorate "wanted that person to win", even though some didn't. On average, they do. Getting into semantic over it isn't achieving much.
A while back I was listening to one of those "group analysts" on a mainstream "news" channel where they were talking about how they had perfect plans to transform the middle east for "western democracy" with regime change and installing western friendly governments. Not a single one of the "analysts" they had brought on had any experience or talked to Arabs, Persians or Afghanis. These "analysts" think all countries want the same thing which is simply not the case.
I know Afghanistan isn't exactly middle east but the regime change wars were all identical. Libya is another example.
Yeah, after watching this show, I came to conclusion that Taliban is a sort of conservative faction that wants to run things in a traditional way (that "sharia" law or whatever), while the US has been trying to create a progressive gov with western values. Turns out, the locals are very conservative.
Polls at the time in Afghanistan showed around 80% support there for the US ousting the Taliban. See the links in the Wikipedia article on Afghanistan [1].
They were being beaten back for at least the last three years that I was following it. They didn't just leave voluntarily, they were defeated and left early to save face. Check a timelapse map of the Taliban's territorial gains and consider that recapture of the entire country took them only two weeks.
Keeping in mind it is an afghan defeat even more than a US defeat. I kind of agree with Biden when he says "One more year, or five more years, of U.S. military presence would not have made a difference if the Afghan military cannot or will not hold its own country"
This is not how most of the world or Americans are going to see it. Speaking as an independent, this is precisely the kind of abject failure and mess that will be the reason for a single term presidency as well as a likely change in party next term.
I don't know. Getting out of Afghanistan is kind of a bipartisan issue. I am conservative leaning and I side with Biden on this. In effect he executed the Trump plan and I don't think Trump would have done any better.
I think Biden is a one term president but not for exiting Afghanistan, unless it becomes again the host for the sponsors of a new major terrorist attack on the US. And it is not clear to me that this is something the Talibans are really contemplating.
I think people are surprised by the speed of the outcome, not by the outcome.
That's details, it's not a few months earlier or later that would have made any difference. The point of the plan being prompt and full withdrawal within a year.
Timely withdrawl before the Taliban started shelling the capital absolutely would have made a difference.
But I'd settle for getting US citizens and diplomats (and afghans who've earned a visa) out before having our military cut and run in the middle of the night.
Honestly, I don't see what difference it would've made. The past week has shown that the ANA is either utterly incapable of or uninterested in defending Afghanistan against the Taliban. Whether we'd left by Christmas or stayed another two years, the outcome would've been the same.
It's not about the end result of the country, but a withdrawal being executed properly, getting civilians out before the diplomatic corps before the military. The reverse of what's happened.
And all before the summer gave the Taliban time and mobility (as in no snow) to start gaining ground.
> And all before the summer gave the Taliban time and mobility (as in no snow) to start gaining ground.
Yeah, I've read that the Taliban basically retreats during the winter, then returns for "fighting season." So it would have been much smarter to withdraw US troops during the winter. Withdraw them now ensured that the Taliban was in the best position possible to capitalize on it, which we are seeing now.
I don’t personably agree judging by sentiment I’m seeing, but hopefully you’re right. The average person doesn’t seem to think of this as executing trump’s plan and fwiw I personably think that’s a cop out to blame it on a previous administration if you ultimately make the choice now.
Speaking also as independent (and not a Biden supporter), this is one of the few statements Biden has made that I agree with. I find it incredibly refreshing to see that for once we didn't seek to delay inevitable disaster at the huge cost of blood and treasure for political expediency.
The average Biden voter isn't losing sleep over having less presence in Afghanistan and knows that the mess was in place long before he stepped foot in the office.
There's not a single Biden voter that cares that Biden is incompetent and creating messes for the US (border crises, inflation, gas shortages, etc). What they care about is no more Trump mean tweets.
USA accused Taliban of sheltering Bin Laden, and invaded afghanistan because Taliban was the government.
Now USA is leaving, and Taliban is again the government... to me this feels more like USA invaded, occupied for 20 years with the help of a puppet government, and now Afghanistan as it was before the invasion, won.
This isn't just a insurgency winning or terrorism, USA litearlly invaded a country, tried to conquer it, and failed, it is a country vs country war and USA lost.
The brutal carpet bombing and the countless collateral civilians killed didn't help USA win the locals' appreciation.
At the time of the bombings, it was reported that they were overdone because it was old stock, as if disposing of it instead of strategically bombing Taliban bases. Some lucky contractors likely were very happy to replenish that stock.
Except when it was a campaign issue, he said Trump's timeline for troops out before Christmas, which generals delayed to troops out by May, were both too fast.
Now it looks like being out before the summer fighting season started would have been the right call.
Sometimes I think winning is secondary, and the main objective is to keep the war machine going. A prolonged period of peace (mutual or by sheer intimidation) would be disastrous for the sector.
I suspect that the main objective could have been achieved quickly and we might be back to exactly that point (Taliban in power but with the understanding that they should not cross red lines).
But if the objective was to somehow change the country and make it more 'Westernized' then then that was rather arrogant and that did not end better than in Iran...
It also wasn't primarily the US, they were just onboard with it. But these interventions are never to transport values, that is ridiculously naive. It should be extremely clear in the case of Iran since it was its democracy that was undermined in favor of a more western aligned dictatorship which was then replaced by a religious theocracy because people were spiteful enough to just get western influence out of their country. Not a good solution, but completely understandable.
The EU knows how to screw with foreign regimes just fine. They lead the way in Libya and weren't holding any punches in Syria. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
For example, France is extremely involved in African affairs and likes to act as a King maker there, in such a blatantly colonial way that it puts US imperialism to shame. The only difference is the world wide focus on American affairs... and maybe also because of the ingrained belief in France that Africa ought to be their own backyard ("Francafrique"). so it's okay when they do it, meaning there's way less internal oppostion to French interventionism (in Africa). Contrast that with the huge, bi partisan anti foreign interventionism voting block that has emerged in the US.
Not long ago, the news of China meeting with Taliban sparked criticism, though China has also met with the then government of Afghan. The United States did not issue any diplomatic protest.
Now we see why, China knew this will happen, and so did the United States, and likely also a lot of people who follow closely with the currents of that region.
It's not surprising. It's the expected result from the US' retraction. What surprised me is the reaction from the media, somehow the Taliban became a bigger enemy in the public discourse than the governments has declared it to be.
What's striking is the speed with which the government and army crumbled. It implies they felt the masses supported the Taliban. How did the US miss that?
The masses do not support the Taliban. The speed at which they took over is not a reflection of the support they have on the ground but more a function of the fear they instil in people. My family and many others fled to Kabul when fighting started in Mazar-e-sharif, people are terrified. You have to remember that the Taliban were in power for quite some time prior to the US, images of public executions and floggings are still fresh in our minds. You'd struggle to find anyone supporting these barbarians.
I've always wondered if the big unspoken reason for establishing American bases in Afghanistan and Iraq was to surround Iran. They perfectly sandwich Iran in from the east and west. Maybe with that clash seeming less imminent it was time to pull out. Geographical advantage is behind most military decisions but it's never enough of a reason to get public support for invading countries. Hence, the need to defeat terrorism and get Bin Laden.
Well it also gave us some regional operating capability near Pakistan, which we have out own interesting relationship with and the the Kashmir region has been said to be a huge powder keg and possible cause for the next large scale mutli-national war.
> There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of a embassy in the — of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable.
A friend from another country asked me why we were in Afghanistan in the first place and I mindlessly said something about securing oil.
And he pointed out that we weren't in Afghanistan for oil. And then I realized I had no idea why we were ever over there.
20 years of desperate fighting for "regional stability" or the far more ridiculous "defending democracy"?
Maybe "regional stability in order to secure oil".
Kinda of embarrassing that as someone who considers themselves to stay fairly in the loop in international affairs I couldn't write the first paragraph on why we were in Afghanistan for 20 years.
Somehow the true answer seems to me like: some politicians said some stuff after 9/11 and then it just stumbled on for two more decades based on momentum and not wanting to lose.
Our original reasoning was the War on Terror and specifically to hunt Bin Laden and deny Al-Qaeda a safe base of operations to plan out future attacks.
The Taliban was considered, at the time, to provide safe harbor to Al-Qaeda and thus were driven out of power with force.
At the time, before the invasion Bush even demanded the Taliban hand over Bin Laden. But the Taliban refused and demanded "sufficient proof" of the 9/11 attacks.
It all went downhill from there though. Our money had Afghan's turning in their local enemies as terrorists. Taliban went into hiding but still had plenty of influence. And many villages, especially those that were super rural and away from the larger cities, didnt really want the infrastructure or modernization that the US tried to use as a bargaining chip.
Basically it was the US being really upset about 9/11 and vowing vengance, but losing their way once it became obvious that vengance was not really going to be...swift..
I generally agree with this but I think it's also important to separate separate narrative from the reason.
I think what you wrote is more about the narrative. And while I think there are grains of truth in the narrative I don't think it does a good job explaining what we were doing in Afghanistan.
For example, call me a conspiracy theorist, but I would argue our primary motive in Iraq was securing oil access. But this certainly wasn't the official narrative on why we were in Iraq
Well I think at the time, the narrative was pretty close to the reasoning overall. Americans and our government were raw and out of blood. It was the largest attack on home soil since Pearl Harbor. 9/11 was used to push a lot of freedoms out the window as well.
The narrative was definitely part of the reason. Dont forget we danced in the streets when OBL was finally killed decades later, which i found odd as an American..
However, Its been part of our foreign policy since WWII to always try and take any fight to the other homefront and not our own. And with this being, again, one of the larger attacks on our own soil..
But the ancillaries (having bases of operations on/near Pakistan and Iran and to some extent, Russia were probably also a heavy second. What with the Kashmir region largely considered a powder keg, and our weird love/hate relationship with Pakistan. Those definately werent a deterrent.
Ghost wars, and it's followup Directorate S, are excellent books on the history of US involvement in afghanistan. It has been an enourmous clusterfuck but not for most of the reasons outlined in the comments here. The second afghan involvement post 9/11 was a very poorly run proxy war with pakistan (or perhaps the pakistani intelligence service ISI) and not really all that much to do with afghanistan itself.
America's chief moral argument for continuing to intervene in Afghanistan is now that the Taliban will mistreat women and girls.
There is a simple solution that does not require indefinite occupation:
Hold the country for a year or two longer, and sponsor free flights to the US for Afghan women. Obviously, also provide expedited US residency.
Imagine what the US government could do with a large fleet of cargo aircraft.
For that year or two, the US could maintain a network of fortified franchises, throughout the country, to which women could go. These would be advertised widely.
It could also conduct periodic "door-kicking" raids of Afghan homes, in order to rescue any women who may be held there under patriarchal conditions. Logistically, the easiest way to do this would be to bring all the women encountered to US military bases. There, outside of earshot of their "husbands", they could be offered the choice of free transportation back home (if they really are happy with their marriages), or transportation to the United States (if they are not).
In addition to the usual "tough guys" employed by the US military, this would also create useful employment for American women, who we can expect would be better able to relate to the Afghan women than the dudes-with-guns would be. Essentially, they'd be working in Human Resources.
A successful program would uplift the rights of women, bring millions of new workers to America, and destroy Taliban biopower, all with a single stroke.
And America has no shortage of cargo aircraft to do this.
This reads like the plot of a B movie. Would the women refugees be able to bring their children too? Would they be allowed to form an Little Afghan since most of them don't speak English or know the local culture? Would they be protected from the hate against Arabs the media has fanned for two decades? T-trust me Morty, I assure you this will burp work!
> Would they be allowed to form an Little Afghan since most of them don't speak English or know the local culture?
Of course, this is always allowed. Chinatown, Little Italy, strip malls throughout America... Why would Afghans be any different?
But, now that you mention the language difficulties, well, that's actually a good idea. Hook women up with English lessons, maybe at local libraries. There'd probably be no shortage of English-speaking volunteers who'd help for free, but some government funding couldn't hurt. Surely it's cheaper than funding a war.
> Would the women refugees be able to bring their children too?
Sure, if they want. Not sure what the age threshold should be for male children. Maybe 16.
> Would they be protected from the hate against Arabs the media has fanned for two decades?
Not completely, but you can't compare the occasional racist in America to enslavement by the Taliban.
It's also very HN (e.g. overconfident software engineer wondering far outside their area of knowledge with some harebrained idea/analysis that's full of holes).
I can't tell if what you're suggesting is serious. Very presumptuous to assume that the liberal Western philosophy is the "true" way and the "moral" way. It isn't, not even by a 100 miles.
What would you do with those girl and women? You have to educate them and many of them don't want to leave their families behind. There is no weekend course for integrating in western societies and you would probably have large difficulties integrating them into the job market.
These wars weren't fought because women were treated badly and some "hot-head grunt purging the patriarchy" is not helpful at all.
> Essentially, they'd be working in Human Resources.
Contrary to popular belief, you have to be qualified for that. Especially you need to know the culture and the law...
This is just all around a bad idea.
edit: Another comment said it better: "This reads like the plot of a B movie."
> These wars weren't fought because women were treated badly
Originally, sure, it was about 9/11, but that was a long time ago. That's not what we talk about any more.
> many of them don't want to leave their families behind.
I was careful to construct my solution in a way that gave each woman a choice about that. Don't you think many would choose America over their "families"?
> There is no weekend course for integrating in western societies
The proven way to turn someone into an American, is for them to choose to come to America. That's all you need.
> Contrary to popular belief, you have to be qualified [to work in HR]
I wasn't commenting on the qualifications of HR professionals, but about the nature of the human resources themselves.
> What would you do with those girl and women? You have to educate them
The Transportation Safety Administration could be expanded. Starbucks and Lyft also both have famously inclusive work cultures, and Starbucks offers free college education.
> you would probably have large difficulties integrating them into the job market.
Supply and demand will find an equilibrium.
> This is just all around a bad idea.
It's a lot more likely to succeed that the original Bush/Cheney fantasy.
173 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 207 ms ] threadThe "US Afghanistan" govt has collapsed and the Taliban are the new chiefs in town.
I'm reading in some places that after deciding to pull out, the United States decided to not fulfill promises to emigrate many Afghan civilians who helped the US or the US-backed government by serving as translators and such. These "traitors" may find life particularly difficult under a reinstated Taliban government. If this is true, it is shameful and (for better or worse) may make attempts at finding local support for future regime-building adventures much more difficult.
It's quite frankly dishonourable to leave them in the lurch like is happening. I do appreciate the advance has been swift but it should not have been hard to simply put everyone on a plane and process their claims someplace less dangerous.
a) say you gonna retreat by date X
b) say local helpers will get the opportunity to get to your home country
c) organise your troop withdrawal, without any thoughts on how fast the Taliban will take over
d) pull your troops, sans local support staff and their families, out. Be surprised that your locals are now stuck
e) expect that next time your army goes somewhere you'll still find reliable local help
How difficult would it have been to evacuate your supporting locals along your troops before the country is taken over by your opponent. But then the German Army is unable to tell how many soldiers the deployed there since the war started... Mark me surprised, I am way beyond being shocked by stuff like that so.
Not sure how the French do with this?
In hindsight I'm not sure why but it felt liked it was indeed a rushed effort, obviously started by the Trump admin and now Biden's admin, either way I think everyone is tired of the situation in general since it's not a society or place anyone will ever change unless we decide to stay there for a few centuries.
And The Great Game continues. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game
https://www.loc.gov/ghe/cascade/index.html?appid=a0930b1f4e4... is also certainly looking at for the context too (nicely done presentation from the Library of Congress Geography and Map Division)
Everything, all efforts, sacrifices, and losses are for absolutely nothing. The depth of this historic failure is mind-boggling.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-47391821
It shouldn't be a surprise since you need a society that wants to actually break from the same continued cycle, unfortunately Afghanistan isn't it due to many reasons.
The cause of the failure was when, in 2003, the US decided to focus on an entirely unnecessary war of choice (aggression, really) in Iraq (and a whole bunch of propaganda own-goals scored in that war that affected the US particularly in the Islamic world reinforced that.) Nation building was always an element of fighting the Taliban, not mission drift, since having something stable and broadly supported in place was the key to prevent a resurgence.
If I were going to go about nation building, I would “export democratic values” some 20 years in advance of any military action by way of film, literature, etc. Cynics can think of this as propaganda, but really it’s just giving Afghans or whomever a more accurate taste of western life. When enough people had a good idea about what democracy was concretely and were ready to support it, I would then provide for military support with the expectation that the democrats would need sustained assistance for many decades.
Of course, there might be lots of reasons why this still isn’t a good idea, especially that we might be able to do more good per dollar elsewhere. But I don’t think “we tried it (poorly) for 20 years and it didn’t work out” is a good criticism—we shouldn’t expect the kind of requisite culture change to happen over a single generation.
Germany and Japan were occupied (excluding the post-1955 nominal occupation of Germany because the Cold War prevented agreement on a formal end) for less time than Afghanistan when you add them together. To the extent something worked there but not in Afghanistan, it had nothing to do with it taking “generations”.
Germany and Japan were also quite a bit more successful at actually ending the organizations occupying troops found unacceptable.
I don't even know what to say. My country helped by sending support troops, some of them died there.
https://instagram.com/p/CSj-3bgsxKQ
this is absolutely astonishing to me. im honestly surprised the us didn't conduct airstrikes on the vacated armories and hangars. they just got a leg up from antique firearms and fertilizer bombs into modern weaponry and air force.
i expect all of this to show up in Iraq, Syria, etc
Kuomintang' China, South Korea, South Vietnam, Iraq, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. You name it! Every single local government supported by the U.S. was and is being accused of being corrupt. You know what? They are all corrupt judged by the western standard. Corruption is the norm in the countries need U.S. support. If, for God's sake, they can build a government which is not corrupt (like a consituational republic???), what kind of society would that be? Why would they even need U.S. support in the first place?
And you know what? Corruption is not a choice of the central government. It is not like the central government can choose being corrupt or not. It is a reflection of the society it is in.
It is just shameful that because of this extremely naive accusation, the U.S. government made countless foreign police mistakes.
Often, it is.
> It is not like the central government can choose being corrupt or not.
Sure it is. It can also choose how much energy to devote to rooting out corruption at lower levels, but in many of the cases at issue it was the very top leaders that were deeply corrupt, so corruption was, in fact, a very direct choice of the central government.
You must mean "installing puppet government". The Taliban were before, the puppet government lasted two decades, and now the Taliban are back. If it had been done with more diplomacy it might have succeded, but after the Twin Towers attack there was a push to overreact, and to profit from the sudden political capital.
I have no evidence of this, so just speculating on the actual motives.
Why didn't the US State Department see the failure of the fledgling and corrupt democratic Afghanistan government? The US should have pulled out 10 years ago, or if it was actually interested in the strategic nature of Afghanistan, it could have arranged to purchase permanent bases independent of the Afghan government, fortify them, install missiles, occupy the Khyber Pass, block China/Russia, shore up rare earths, etc.
So why didn't we take these actions sooner if we knew the government couldn't handle it? Incompetence? Too many cooks?
My guess is that we were still interested in Afghanistan, but that this is a new shift in geopolitics. It's a chess move, and not one originated by the Trump or the Biden administration directly. My guess is that this is being done to appease Putin.
The US is softening up on its approach to Russia as a regional counter against China. This is more important than having forces on the ground in Afghanistan (which have to fly in over Pakistan anyway). And of course it's more important than building and propping up democracies. If it weren't, we'd still be there.
The story to look at now is China. This is a chess move in that story.
Just my thoughts. I could be wrong.
They almost certainly did, but they serve the foreign policy directives of the executive-at-the-time.
> The US should have pulled out 10 years ago,
Of course, but there's nearly no upside to breaking this status quo. It's all downside. Biden will take this hit because it looks embarrassing to withdraw and leave people worse off than when we found them. I agree with you: his predecessors should have done it.
Why is it so hard for you and people to see?
All was there to make profit from the war for certain people? It was never about the peace and it can't be.
War profiteering is really really old proffession, isn't it? older than so many nations?
I can still remember Jon Stewart saying "hey, afghanistan was good. we should have another one of those." A year or two later. That was the peacenik end of the political spectrum.
> vanished literally overnight.
This is not a very intellectually honest comment. What about Saudi Arabia? What about women and girls there? Why raise issue about women rights in Afghanistan but be silent about Saudi Arabia, Emirates, etc. For god sake they are going to host World Cup.
The Taliban don't allow women to get any sort of education or work, which is worse than the situation in SA, UAE and Qatar ( the ones who are going to host a World Cup)
If somebody want give some advice that can prevent the next 2-trillion dollar mistake here in HN what will happen? The advice will be down voted heavily and maybe it will been seen as a bot from repressive regime. So most of people know the ground truth but also understand this collective bias choose keep silent.
In machine learning the trainer want to select the data from different sources to avoid over fitting. In real world there's no role acting as a god to feed different types of data. The human brain train their own neural networks. The consequence is people select the data that reinforce their existing belief because of impact from million of years evolution, even ignore the facts that can not add up. (Does any body suspect something wrong with all our perception due Taliban take control of power so quickly, I ask HNers think about it for intellectual challenge, not about or beyond politics )
Don't start wars half around the world for made up / weak reasons with a country that is not anyhow threatening you, the amount of evil that is 'inserted' into mankind doesn't dissipate but all of us have to deal with it for generations to come. On top of all the destruction and death/murders/rape/torture/etc.
This is valid for any country, I may be bashing chinese in 10 years (and would be bashing colonizing west european states 100+ years ago), but for now its clear on whom this is aimed.
I can't imagine how all the patriotic US veterans must feel now - all the things they went through and lost friends, physical and mental health meant much less than nothing. Nothing would mean there wasn't 20 years of war and death, that would be a damn fine thing compared to current situation.
Oh and one final one, that one is also easy - don't start war in Afghanistan. Graveyard of empires they called it.
Afghanistan did harbor Al-Qaeda, which executed an attack on US soil.
This is such a regularly recurrent kind of thing at the end of US interventions that the n+1st instance probably won't noticeably change the total effect from what is there from the first n instances.
The biggest one is that the Taliban overtook the country far, far faster than anticipated. The Afghan military crumbled and lost ground about as fast as the Taliban could move its army.
So while there were and are plans to evacuate those who helped the US military, the visa process—tens of thousands of which are in process and which began in the sprint—they weren’t expecting for the situation to change in a matter of days. In June, the US intelligence community was predicting they could have six months post-leaving before the Afghan government collapsed.
Instead, the past week did it.
The US won’t be able to get everyone out, but they are making a good faith effort. They are adapting by, for example, asking allied countries to temporarily take people whose visas are in progress but not fully finished.
It’s a horrible situation. Thousands if not tens of thousands will be left behind. They and their families will be in danger.
But we also have to be careful of who we let into the country And the embassy and in-country forces have other priories as well like destroying sensitive documents—which will itself save lives of people who worked with us—and extracting allied diplomats, their families, etc.
https://www.helis.com/database/cn/8983/
I'm not sure, but it doesn't matter.
The Afghani military and government collapsed far faster than anyone anticipated. We knew they would fail—our estimates (that were wrong) were still a question of _when_ the state collapses, not _if_.
Did we ever have enough helicopters in the country? Sure, probably. But part of leaving the country involves taking our stuff out of the country. We left Bagram a week or two ago.
Now the situation in the ground has changed. Yes, in retrospect, with information we didn’t have then, it would be nice to have more helicopters. But even though we have more in the US military, you can’t Amazon Prime overnight ship a helicopter. We are sending more troops.
The comment about locks checking visas is snarky, but also uninteresting. We’re talking about an emergency evacuation in a failed state that’s a hotbed for terrorism. Of course we should know who we’re bringing into aircraft and prioritize people we know and who have been vetted for visas.
e: flagged, lol. i'm sure women and homosexuals in afghanistan appreciate your concern for the feelings of muslim theocrats.
Maintaining it will be an issue, but it’s quite an upgrade for them.
If Wikipedia[1] is to be believed, the Afghan Air Force consisted mostly of utility and light attack helicopters, primarily designs from the 1970's. That's unfortunate, but they're no match for any modern air force.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Air_Force#Aircraft
Nicholas Kristof (an American journalist with possibly pro-American biases, but one who I think has a pretty good track record of honest reporting), has pointed out that Afghani women may enjoy less rights under the new administration, and there are many who have worked for pro-Western NGOs that are fearing for their lives. I'm not sure things will "just be life as usual" for all citizens, particularly women, under Taliban rule.
Source: https://twitter.com/NickKristof/status/1426546421906362368?s...
Very few things are ever what all people want, but when the overwhelming majority seems to be fine with something, it's fair to say they don't mind it. If e.g. an election is decided with a 80/20 split, the electorate "wanted that person to win", even though some didn't. On average, they do. Getting into semantic over it isn't achieving much.
https://inews.co.uk/news/world/afghanistans-first-female-may...
I know Afghanistan isn't exactly middle east but the regime change wars were all identical. Libya is another example.
Likewise, don't assume you know what the natives, which aren't a homogeneous group at all, mind and don't mind.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan
I think Biden is a one term president but not for exiting Afghanistan, unless it becomes again the host for the sponsors of a new major terrorist attack on the US. And it is not clear to me that this is something the Talibans are really contemplating.
I think people are surprised by the speed of the outcome, not by the outcome.
Trump's plan was to be out by Christmas, which generals delayed to May. This is not Biden executing Trump's plan.
But I'd settle for getting US citizens and diplomats (and afghans who've earned a visa) out before having our military cut and run in the middle of the night.
And all before the summer gave the Taliban time and mobility (as in no snow) to start gaining ground.
Yeah, I've read that the Taliban basically retreats during the winter, then returns for "fighting season." So it would have been much smarter to withdraw US troops during the winter. Withdraw them now ensured that the Taliban was in the best position possible to capitalize on it, which we are seeing now.
The average Biden voter isn't losing sleep over having less presence in Afghanistan and knows that the mess was in place long before he stepped foot in the office.
USA accused Taliban of sheltering Bin Laden, and invaded afghanistan because Taliban was the government.
Now USA is leaving, and Taliban is again the government... to me this feels more like USA invaded, occupied for 20 years with the help of a puppet government, and now Afghanistan as it was before the invasion, won.
This isn't just a insurgency winning or terrorism, USA litearlly invaded a country, tried to conquer it, and failed, it is a country vs country war and USA lost.
At the time of the bombings, it was reported that they were overdone because it was old stock, as if disposing of it instead of strategically bombing Taliban bases. Some lucky contractors likely were very happy to replenish that stock.
https://newsthump.com/2021/08/14/war-on-terror-wakes-up-in-s...
Now it looks like being out before the summer fighting season started would have been the right call.
Actually proposing a different plan ahead of time is a validated opinion/decision.
I didn't know there were seasons to fight. What impediment would winter/spring pose there?
The US wasn't on the victorious side in World War I or World War II?
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Front_(World_War_II)
Can’t help people who don’t want to help themselves.
I suspect that the main objective could have been achieved quickly and we might be back to exactly that point (Taliban in power but with the understanding that they should not cross red lines).
But if the objective was to somehow change the country and make it more 'Westernized' then then that was rather arrogant and that did not end better than in Iran...
No conflict was about bringing western values to anyone...
That's a familiar pattern.
I hope this time CCP can teach Taliban some lessons of how to manage a country after conquering her.
For example, France is extremely involved in African affairs and likes to act as a King maker there, in such a blatantly colonial way that it puts US imperialism to shame. The only difference is the world wide focus on American affairs... and maybe also because of the ingrained belief in France that Africa ought to be their own backyard ("Francafrique"). so it's okay when they do it, meaning there's way less internal oppostion to French interventionism (in Africa). Contrast that with the huge, bi partisan anti foreign interventionism voting block that has emerged in the US.
Now we see why, China knew this will happen, and so did the United States, and likely also a lot of people who follow closely with the currents of that region.
It's not surprising. It's the expected result from the US' retraction. What surprised me is the reaction from the media, somehow the Taliban became a bigger enemy in the public discourse than the governments has declared it to be.
Taiwan is in a better position because it's technology makes it very valuable for the US.
> There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of a embassy in the — of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/20...
This when his top commander in Afghanistan, months earlier, advised that a quick unraveling was the most likely scenario.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/biden-talib...
The guy's out to lunch.
And he pointed out that we weren't in Afghanistan for oil. And then I realized I had no idea why we were ever over there.
20 years of desperate fighting for "regional stability" or the far more ridiculous "defending democracy"?
Maybe "regional stability in order to secure oil".
Kinda of embarrassing that as someone who considers themselves to stay fairly in the loop in international affairs I couldn't write the first paragraph on why we were in Afghanistan for 20 years.
Somehow the true answer seems to me like: some politicians said some stuff after 9/11 and then it just stumbled on for two more decades based on momentum and not wanting to lose.
If you want to change that, you could do worse than read this:
https://www.amazon.com/Jawbreaker-Al-Qaeda-Personal-Account-...
The Taliban was considered, at the time, to provide safe harbor to Al-Qaeda and thus were driven out of power with force.
At the time, before the invasion Bush even demanded the Taliban hand over Bin Laden. But the Taliban refused and demanded "sufficient proof" of the 9/11 attacks.
It all went downhill from there though. Our money had Afghan's turning in their local enemies as terrorists. Taliban went into hiding but still had plenty of influence. And many villages, especially those that were super rural and away from the larger cities, didnt really want the infrastructure or modernization that the US tried to use as a bargaining chip.
Basically it was the US being really upset about 9/11 and vowing vengance, but losing their way once it became obvious that vengance was not really going to be...swift..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Afgh...
I think what you wrote is more about the narrative. And while I think there are grains of truth in the narrative I don't think it does a good job explaining what we were doing in Afghanistan.
For example, call me a conspiracy theorist, but I would argue our primary motive in Iraq was securing oil access. But this certainly wasn't the official narrative on why we were in Iraq
The narrative was definitely part of the reason. Dont forget we danced in the streets when OBL was finally killed decades later, which i found odd as an American..
However, Its been part of our foreign policy since WWII to always try and take any fight to the other homefront and not our own. And with this being, again, one of the larger attacks on our own soil..
But the ancillaries (having bases of operations on/near Pakistan and Iran and to some extent, Russia were probably also a heavy second. What with the Kashmir region largely considered a powder keg, and our weird love/hate relationship with Pakistan. Those definately werent a deterrent.
There is a simple solution that does not require indefinite occupation:
Hold the country for a year or two longer, and sponsor free flights to the US for Afghan women. Obviously, also provide expedited US residency.
Imagine what the US government could do with a large fleet of cargo aircraft.
For that year or two, the US could maintain a network of fortified franchises, throughout the country, to which women could go. These would be advertised widely.
It could also conduct periodic "door-kicking" raids of Afghan homes, in order to rescue any women who may be held there under patriarchal conditions. Logistically, the easiest way to do this would be to bring all the women encountered to US military bases. There, outside of earshot of their "husbands", they could be offered the choice of free transportation back home (if they really are happy with their marriages), or transportation to the United States (if they are not).
In addition to the usual "tough guys" employed by the US military, this would also create useful employment for American women, who we can expect would be better able to relate to the Afghan women than the dudes-with-guns would be. Essentially, they'd be working in Human Resources.
A successful program would uplift the rights of women, bring millions of new workers to America, and destroy Taliban biopower, all with a single stroke.
And America has no shortage of cargo aircraft to do this.
Of course, this is always allowed. Chinatown, Little Italy, strip malls throughout America... Why would Afghans be any different?
But, now that you mention the language difficulties, well, that's actually a good idea. Hook women up with English lessons, maybe at local libraries. There'd probably be no shortage of English-speaking volunteers who'd help for free, but some government funding couldn't hurt. Surely it's cheaper than funding a war.
> Would the women refugees be able to bring their children too?
Sure, if they want. Not sure what the age threshold should be for male children. Maybe 16.
> Would they be protected from the hate against Arabs the media has fanned for two decades?
Not completely, but you can't compare the occasional racist in America to enslavement by the Taliban.
> This reads like the plot of a B movie.
I do my best.
It's also very HN (e.g. overconfident software engineer wondering far outside their area of knowledge with some harebrained idea/analysis that's full of holes).
These wars weren't fought because women were treated badly and some "hot-head grunt purging the patriarchy" is not helpful at all.
> Essentially, they'd be working in Human Resources.
Contrary to popular belief, you have to be qualified for that. Especially you need to know the culture and the law...
This is just all around a bad idea.
edit: Another comment said it better: "This reads like the plot of a B movie."
Originally, sure, it was about 9/11, but that was a long time ago. That's not what we talk about any more.
> many of them don't want to leave their families behind.
I was careful to construct my solution in a way that gave each woman a choice about that. Don't you think many would choose America over their "families"?
> There is no weekend course for integrating in western societies
The proven way to turn someone into an American, is for them to choose to come to America. That's all you need.
> Contrary to popular belief, you have to be qualified [to work in HR]
I wasn't commenting on the qualifications of HR professionals, but about the nature of the human resources themselves.
> What would you do with those girl and women? You have to educate them
The Transportation Safety Administration could be expanded. Starbucks and Lyft also both have famously inclusive work cultures, and Starbucks offers free college education.
> you would probably have large difficulties integrating them into the job market.
Supply and demand will find an equilibrium.
> This is just all around a bad idea.
It's a lot more likely to succeed that the original Bush/Cheney fantasy.