US strikes deal w/ Taliban to remove troops from Afghanistan (2 Viewers)

[Heathen]

Surprised I didn't see it posted anywhere. And to preface -- I know there are too many contextual complexities to name regarding this.

Props to this administration for pushing to get this done. Endless war shouldn't be what American citizens view as 'normal'.

This would be a huge win for Americans and Afghanis if this works out as planned:

Afghan conflict: US and Taliban sign deal to end 18-year war

President Trump says it is "time after all these years to bring our people back home".

www.bbc.com

The US and Nato allies have agreed to withdraw all troops within 14 months if the militants uphold the deal.

President Trump said it had been a "long and hard journey" in Afghanistan. "It's time after all these years to bring our people back home," he said.

Talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban are due to follow.

Under the agreement, the militants also agreed not to allow al-Qaeda or any other extremist group to operate in the areas they control.

 

[SystemShock]

Keeping less than 3000 soldiers there to support is not occupation of the country. The terrorists will establish themselves and it will have a negative impact on our security. This was an unforced error. It took more than 20 years to establish democracy in Korea. I would’ve given it another 20 years, since it was costing us very little. It will cost us more to try to deal with the terrorists in Pakistan without a base in Afghanistan.

Do you really think 3000 soldiers were going to stop terrorist support in Afghanistan?

Frankly, Afghan terrorist support is way overblown, and hardly Saudi Arabia level.

 

[Dragon]

I'm sure that withholding defensive briefings from the incomming administration did not help either..

Remember the Trump administrations were very little forthcomming in that respect

 

[J-DONK]

Most everyone who was being honest with themselves predicted this twenty years ago before the Bush administration started such an ill-advised approach. To be sure, Biden deserves some blame for bungling the withdrawal and not allowing those who wished to leave the country time to get out. Perhaps they were caught flat-footed by the Afghan government simply surrendering.

What is hilarious is the GOP has already embraced the talking point, removing all references to supporting Trump's withdrawal's platform and laying all of this on Biden's feet. Not really sure how much more he could have done short of prolonging the occupation. The funny thing most of these GOP (and Trump supporters) were the same ones chanting "USA! USA USA!" when we initially started the war and denounced those who opposed it as "not having the stomach for war." That the Afghan government fell in a couple of weeks after two decades and trillions of dollars of U.S. support speaks more to the past administrations.

This is very much the Fall of Saigon 2.0. Hopefully people finally learn the lesson this time.

One of the bigger whatifs of the last 20 years is Powell as SoD instead of Rumsfield. America probably would have captured/kiilled OBL in 2001 at Tora Bora. How long do we spend in Afghanistan after OBL is dead?

 

[bdb13]

I'm sure that withholding defensive briefings from the incomming administration did not help either..

Remember the Trump administrations were very little forthcomming in that respect

I'm sure stuff like that didn't help anything.. but Biden's far enough into his term now that I don't think that's really going to fly as an excuse for the mishandling of the withdrawal here.

Seems there was opportunity for the Biden administration to prevent the situation from going down like we're seeing here now, but a lack of urgency/care from the administration combined with the intelligence failures has exacerbated an already bad situation and ultimately endangered, and almost certainly killed, Afghanis that we have been wanting to help and get out of there.

I'm sure we're going to learn more and more in the coming days here.

 

[brandon]

I'm sure stuff like that didn't help anything.. but Biden's far enough into his term now that I don't think that's really going to fly as an excuse for the mishandling of the withdrawal here.

Seems there was opportunity for the Biden administration to prevent the situation from going down like we're seeing here now, but a lack of urgency/care from the administration combined with the intelligence failures has exacerbated an already bad situation and ultimately endangered, and almost certainly killed, Afghanis that we have been wanting to help and get out of there.

I'm sure we're going to learn more and more in the coming days here.

I tend to agree.

Did we need to get out? Sure. Could this have been done a hell of a lot better? Almost certainly.

 

[Lapaz]

Do you really think 3000 soldiers were going to stop terrorist support in Afghanistan?

Frankly, Afghan terrorist support is way overblown, and hardly Saudi Arabia level.

3000 had been enough for the last year and a half. With our troops providing logistical support and air support, many of the Afghan soldiers were fighting bravely. Without it, they got demoralized, because they knew the fall was inevitable.

Also, while the 911 attackers were mostly Saudis, the training grounds were in Afghanistan. The Saudis are a separate hypocritical problem, but we've just allowed a fundamentalist organization that hates the West to take over Afghanistan, and they will turn a blind eye to terrorist groups operating among them, because they sympathize with them, and they have nothing to gain from us, unlike the Saudis, that need our money, so they won't let terrorists operate within their country.

 

[Lapaz]

Not a good idea. Those 3,000 American soldiers would be constantly attacked by a much larger Taliban force. The costs outweigh the benefits.

We had not lost a soldier in months. I heard one account that it’s been 1 and 1/2 years. Young men die more frequently at home. The cost in lives was trivial. We spent money keeping them there, but we will probably spend more trying to deal with counterterrorism from farther away.

The reality is that the only good reason for pulling out is political and to satisfy the American public, but with a little education about the implications of leaving, the public would’ve been more supportive of a long term presence.

 

[Lapaz]

One of the bigger whatifs of the last 20 years is Powell as SoD instead of Rumsfield. America probably would have captured/kiilled OBL in 2001 at Tora Bora. How long do we spend in Afghanistan after OBL is dead?

We should’ve treated it as a long term presence like Korea and Europe. 3000 is a pittance, when we have over 150k deployed overseas.

 

[bdb13]

3000 had been enough for the last year and a half. With our troops providing logistical support and air support, many of the Afghan soldiers were fighting bravely. Without it, they got demoralized, because they knew the fall was inevitable.

Was it not part of the deal that the Taliban was to hold back up until a certain date? Saw that said in one of the articles I posted, which leads you to think to the 3,000 probably wouldn't have been enough once the attacks ramped up.

 

[Lapaz]

Was it not part of the deal that the Taliban was to hold back up until a certain date? Saw that said in one of the articles I posted, which leads you to think to the 3,000 probably wouldn't have been enough once the attacks ramped up.

I think that is true that we told the Taliban to hold back until we leave, but that was a stupid deal, and the Afghan army was fighting and willingly dying as long as they knew we had their back. A large portion of the Afghan army were obviously not interested in fighting for a lost cause, but they were fighting and dying in large numbers when they believed they actually could win. I don't think we would've had to change our troop support. We possibly would've had to conduct more air support. The Taliban only controlled rural areas, which are easier to attack. Now they control big cities, which are bloody to take back.

And if the Afghan army had quit fighting, then we could've made the decision to leave, but while they were still fighting and dying for their country, and all we were doing was giving them a belief, then we should've maintained our commitment. What we've done is an embarrassment and immoral.

 

[Lapaz]

I tend to agree.

Did we need to get out? Sure. Could this have been done a hell of a lot better? Almost certainly.

Why did we need to get out?

 

[coldseat]

I tend to agree.

Did we need to get out? Sure. Could this have been done a hell of a lot better? Almost certainly.

I'm not convinced it wouldn't have come to this no matter what approach we took. The way the government and Afgan forces folded, this was inevitable.

Intel was obviously off, again (another failure). But intel doesn't change the outcome any.

 

[Lapaz]

I'm not convinced it wouldn't have come to this no matter what approach we took. The way the government and Afgan forces folded, this was inevitable.

Intel was obviously off, again (another failure). But intel doesn't change the outcome any.

Should we leave South Korea, since we know North Korea would take over in a day or 2? Should we leave Europe, since we know that would embolden Russia to try to take over territory in NATO countries? Should we leave Iraq and Syria, since we know the Syrian government would take over, and Iraq would collapse? The answer to all of those is no, even though those are costing us much more than Afghanistan was costing us.

Will terrorists probably have havens in Afghanistan to plot against the West? The answer is very likely yes. Will it be harder and more expensive to deal with them? The answer is probably yes.

 

[coldseat]

I think that is true that we told the Taliban to hold back until we leave, but that was a stupid deal, and the Afghan army was fighting and willingly dying as long as they knew we had their back. A large portion of the Afghan army were obviously not interested in fighting for a lost cause, but they were fighting and dying in large numbers when they believed they actually could win. I don't think we would've had to change our troop support. We possibly would've had to conduct more air support. The Taliban only controlled rural areas, which are easier to attack. Now they control big cities, which are bloody to take back.

And if the Afghan army had quit fighting, then we could've made the decision to leave, but while they were still fighting and dying for their country, and all we were doing was giving them a belief, then we should've maintained our commitment. What we've done is an embarrassment and immoral.

So you're okay with us being on a perpetual war footing in Afghanistan? The corruption in the American backed Afgan government was so deep that it was never going establish a functioning entity and stable country. So that leaves us with upholding a whole country in perpetuity and pouring American tax dollars into corruption. Americans clearly did not want that any longer.

Al Qaeda is going to exist and function regardless of our presence in Afghanistan. They haven't even been our primary purpose there for the last 19 years.

 

[DaveXA]

I'm not convinced it wouldn't have come to this no matter what approach we took. The way the government and Afgan forces folded, this was inevitable.

Intel was obviously off, again (another failure). But intel doesn't change the outcome any.

Intel changes the outcome for Americans currently still stuck in Afghanistan. The pictures coming out of Kabul right now, I'm worried about those still there getting out alive. Were the intel good, they would have gotten out weeks ago. I mean, the plan to send 3k more troops to help with the withdrawal was too little too late. Good Intel would have had all of our assets out of there a month ago.

 

[coldseat]

Should we leave South Korea, since we know North Korea would take over in a day or 2? Should we leave Europe, since we know that would embolden Russia to try to take over territory in NATO countries? Should we leave Iraq and Syria, since we know the Syrian government would take over, and Iraq would collapse? The answer to all of those is no, even though those are costing us much more than Afghanistan was costing us.

Will terrorists probably have havens in Afghanistan to plot against the West? The answer is very likely yes. Will it be harder and more expensive to deal with them? The answer is probably yes.

South Korea and Europe are functioning stable countries with their own government and military. We are there support and coordinate with allies for strategic positioning against major adversarial countries (North Korea/China - South Korea, Russia - Europe). That situation if very different than Afghanistan.

The terrorist are already currently plotting against the west. Having Afghanistan will only give them more mountains to do it in. As long as we don't let them board planes here in the US, hopefully their ability to attack us will be diminished.

 

[GrandAdmiral]

As botched as this was, to Biden's credit, he's always been against going into Afghanistan. He even challenged Obama on the idea of keeping troops there.

 

[samiam5211]

Should we leave South Korea, since we know North Korea would take over in a day or 2? Should we leave Europe, since we know that would embolden Russia to try to take over territory in NATO countries? Should we leave Iraq and Syria, since we know the Syrian government would take over, and Iraq would collapse? The answer to all of those is no, even though those are costing us much more than Afghanistan was costing us.

Will terrorists probably have havens in Afghanistan to plot against the West? The answer is very likely yes. Will it be harder and more expensive to deal with them? The answer is probably yes.

The public would not have supported a permanent or longer term occupation of Afghanistan. Any candidate who says we need to be in Afghanistan for 20 more years would never win an election.

It doesn't matter what the right or best thing to do would be when promising to do the right thing would prevent anyone from ever having the power to do it.