(August 21, 2022 at 10:50 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: 20 years, 200. As long as it takes, right? Particularly if we have some responsibility to the folks involved. Do we....?
Do I think that a war with the taliban is winnable? I know it is, because the war against the taliban was won. It's just adding insult to injury propping them back up again. There was never any real doubt that they'd shit on the agreement that put them back into power. Lo and behold, the leader of aq sunbathing in kabul, eh. Women and girls back where they were - in their proper place. Boys and young men being groomed for jihad. This, after..as you rightly note, 20 years of other realities and expectations. Whole generation growing up. What could possibly go wrong for the good people of afghanistan, to whom we owe a debt?
No, the US is not responsible for them, but taking in refugees is still the humane thing to do. You're not responsible for funding Afghanistan or helping them in any way, but this was their money and you stole it. Just because you're not responsible for them, doesn't mean it's cool to starve and steal from the people that were already barely keeping things together as it was. So you pretend to hate the police but you actually want to police the entire world, eh? Where do you want to occupy next? Iran sound cool? The war on terrorism is like the war on drugs. There is no winning, and there is no end in sight. A decade and a half of the US occupying the middle east and overthrowing Libya and other places and what did it get you? ISIS still rose up. Who's to say the same won't happen in ten years? There is a never ending supply of young Muslim men who will feel a dedication to their faith and their fellow Muslims in distress around the world. Terrorism is simply not something that can be stomped out. All you did by going to Afghanistan was help the Taliban grow in numbers. All you did in Iraq was embolden more people to become terrorists with your occupation and drone strikes which result in killing around 90 % civilians if I'm remembering right. YOU were and are the ones grooming the terrorists with your presence in their homelands.