The United States has not spent $ 300 million a day on war in Afghanistan.

[Ranjr]

I need some very strong evidence of this last statement.  So far I haven't found anything to substantiate this and it sounds rather far fetched.  It is true the the CIA partnered with Pakistani agencies to provide training and weapons to Afghans in the 1980's to help drive out the Soviets and that resulted in Islamic terrorist groups forming, which is, if anything, an unfortunate unintended consequence.  I remember news reports of Madrassas in the 1980's where radical Muslims were learning to hate Americans.  Even then this was considered a potential threat to our future.  So it seems highly unlikely that the CIA would have been involved with such a plan.  I don't believe rebels needed Islamic ideals to motivate them to fight the Russians.

---

The US had already experienced the outrage of Muslim extremists in Iran in the form of an overrun embassy and long-term hostage situation.  Then, Iran-Contra happened.  The CIA was fighting communists, while other US agencies were fighting religious extremists and drug cartels.  They were often at odds with each other.

None of this backs up the OP claims.

[Spongebob]

Policing the entire world is a bitch.

[The Grand Nudger]

Thankless expensive job - and if we didn't do it, they'd bitch about that too.

[arewethereyet]

A young man that I pretty much raised from the time he was seven years old did two tours in Afghanistan. He was searching for IEDs. Sure glad he made it home mostly okay though not totally unscathed.

I hate that we went there and stayed as long as we have.

[The Grand Nudger]

Or that it took so long and we still never achieved that thing that the afghan people need, so desperately, now. People here in the us are positively apoplectic over the idea of the authorities rounding people up and shooting them in the streets. It's the big bad that even good policies can be assassinated with.

Now, I'll say this. 20 years is a long time to go to bat for people you don't know, who hate you - but might we be seeing the end of american's appetite for going to bat for anyone or anything, even themselves? That we aren't withdrawing there as it's own thing, but as a part of a larger trend of receding in our sphere of concerns which, for at least some americans...doesn't just exclude afghan citizens, but other americans as well. More than half of them, perhaps.

I know I bitch about this to you guys alot, and I appreciate that you put up with it, but more and more, I feel like I have no country or never had one. Our inaction in syria and now our withdrawal from afghanistan....it's rough. Your boy was doing good work for good reasons, one day...even the people there are going to enjoy the freedoms we failed to institute. The history of that place will include the attempt, and we can hope it might distinguish between the poor decisions of successive us administrations and the profuse decency of the the people who listened and helped on the ground.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Thankless expensive job - and if we didn't do it, they'd bitch about that too.

We wouldn’t mind so much is you could shift focus a wee bit and promote yourselves as the world’s EMT. I mean, you’re already doing a far job of it, you just need to market it better.

Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

Little less torture, skip a few bouts of pure foreign adventurism...and some upbeat commericals, that's all we need.

[HappySkeptic]

Or that it took so long and we still never achieved that thing that the afghan people need, so desperately, now.  People here in the us are positively apoplectic over the idea of the authorities rounding people up and shooting them in the streets.  It's the big bad that even good policies can be assassinated with.

Now, I'll say this.  20 years is a long time to go to bat for people you don't know, who hate you - but might we be seeing the end of american's appetite for going to bat for anyone or anything, even themselves?  That we aren't withdrawing there as it's own thing, but as a part of a larger trend of receding in our sphere of concerns which, for at least some americans...doesn't just exclude afghan citizens, but other americans as well.  More than half of them, perhaps.

I know I bitch about this to you guys alot, and I appreciate that you put up with it, but more and more, I feel like I have no country or never had one.  Our inaction in syria and now our withdrawal from afghanistan....it's rough.  Your boy was doing good work for good reasons, one day...even the people there are going to enjoy the freedoms we failed to institute.  The history of that place will include the attempt, and we can hope it might distinguish between the poor decisions of successive us administrations and the profuse decency of the the people who listened and helped on the ground.

(bold mine)

I do see the withdrawal of the U.S. from the world sphere as a problem, as there are plenty of enemies who want to crush even the idea of democracy.  That is why I disagree that people in Afghanistan will eventually enjoy freedoms. 

I don't see freedom as something that can be retained without the willingness to die for it, and I see very little will for that in any nation.  Democracy is not a default condition - it requires a balance between a strong educated populace, and a government strong enough to keep order.  If either side gets too powerful, we get populist autocratic revolution or an elitist oligarchy.

I see myths as central to the existence of a nation.  The myth of "divine right" held together kingdoms.  The myth of divine succession holds together theocracies.  The myth of "inherent rights given by a creator" holds together liberal democracies.

Today, most people don't give a damn about liberal democracy, as long as they can buy the next iPhone.

[Anomalocaris]

Thankless expensive job - and if we didn't do it, they'd bitch about that too.

We wouldn’t mind so much is you could shift focus a wee bit and promote yourselves as the world’s EMT. I mean, you’re already doing a far job of it, you just need to market it better.

Boru

we have more experience then anyone else taking unvaccinated convid sufferers to the emergency room or morgue.

[The Grand Nudger]

(bold mine)

I do see the withdrawal of the U.S. from the world sphere as a problem, as there are plenty of enemies who want to crush even the idea of democracy.  That is why I disagree that people in Afghanistan will eventually enjoy freedoms. 

Yeah, so..that's one of my many beliefs, and I respect that you might have this right and I have it wrong.  I personally think that you can only punch a human being in the face so many times before they burn every trace of you to the ground and do exactly what they want to do.  Enfranchisement, in my view, is an inexorable product of human being.  Every moment of every day we compulsively seek to employ our agency, and to extend the purview of our agency.

I don't see freedom as something that can be retained without the willingness to die for it, and I see very little will for that in any nation.  Democracy is not a default condition - it requires a balance between a strong educated populace, and a government strong enough to keep order.  If either side gets too powerful, we get populist autocratic revolution or an elitist oligarchy.

Right, that's where we (may) differ.  I do see democracy as a default.  That people will do whatever they collectively do no matter what the government says and that ultimately that's the shape of government efforts to reform local activity in the mold of it's overarching legal structure. 

Take some actual taliban nutjob, age of 17, male.  He will one day..... inevitably..... want something outside of the boundaries of his descriptors warrant, and be committed to that desire.  

I see myths as central to the existence of a nation.  The myth of "divine right" held together kingdoms.  The myth of divine succession holds together theocracies.  The myth of "inherent rights given by a creator" holds together liberal democracies.

Today, most people don't give a damn about liberal democracy, as long as they can buy the next iPhone.

What about a bind outside of myth?  I don't believe, for example, that human rights are rightly premised or persuasively argued for on notions of a shared Creator. I've never understood why the status of some creator's existence applied rights to it's creations. Human beings, for example..make many things - and literally none of the things people make have human rights. I guess what I'm asking you, is that if human rights are true, do they or even can they actually be premised on some silly ghost story, or even on the rights (whatever those are) of their very human creators? Such that, if the ghost story were false, human rights would be untrue....or, had they been designed by a computer program, they would have none?