+- Tendo City (https://www.tendocity.net)
+-- Forum: Tendo City: Metropolitan District (https://www.tendocity.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=4)
+--- Forum: Ramble City (https://www.tendocity.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=44)
+--- Thread: Afghanistan (/showthread.php?tid=7333)
Afghanistan - A Black Falcon - 31st August 2021
So, we are out now. Our 20 year long "forever war" is finally over, thanks to Joe Biden doing what nobody had the courage t odo for over a decade now and actually withdraw from a war we could never win.
What do I think? Well, like most people, deeply conflicted, I would say. On the one hand, we did not invade to reform Afghan society and improve status of women and such, we invaded because the Taliban supported Al Quaida and gave them a place to launch the 9/11 attacks from. That could not be ignored. But that doesn't mean we had to do a 20 year long occupation, of course. It just ended up that way because of mission creep and inattention.
On the one hand, civilians died because of the US action in Afghanistan. But on the other hand, the Taliban before were far worse, and many people were glad we got rid of them (for a while). But as the corruption of our puppet government got worse and worse, we lost a lot of the gains we had made, and clearly the US government didn't adjust well to that. And then there's the whole debate over growing opium poppies... and way more. America is very good at blowing things up, but not nearly as good at building lasting systems in the aftermath, clearly. We tried nation building, increased the literacy rate by a decent amount, built schools, and such, but in one of the poorest and least educated nations on the planet, way more was required, if it was even possible at all to modernize that nation... or, more accurately, that grouping of tribes who never really have had a real national government.
So yeah, I was deeply conflicted over Afghanistan for many years. On the one hand, it was obvious we couldn't win, and that our efforts to modernize Afghanistan and make it a less horrible place for women were, while somewhat successful, not nearly enough. But on the other hand, leave and things probably go right back to being incredibly horrible, particularly for women, probably in short order. So yeah, it's tough.
But, the American people finally tired of the war within the last few years, and both candidates in the 2020 election campaigned on a full withdrawl. Trump made a peace deal wit the Taliban that year which set the stage for the collapse to come; Trump's deal is why things have happened as they did. So Biden had a choice -- stick to the withdrawl, or send in many thousands of troops again, to once again fight a hopeless war in the name of "try to keep the status quo going". And yes, that was the choice, it was one or the other.)
And Biden, to his great credit, did the very difficult thing, defied the war-loving media, and actually withdrew. It is extremely impressive he stuck to it, given the pressure than the media and extremely hypocritical Republicans are putting him under for it. Joe Biden has a stubborn streak at times and he's showing it here. To anyone who thought he'd just be a pushover generic moderate, he's proven that very wrong this time! Because even if withdrawl was supported by a large majority of the American people, as the press has shown it is a very difficult thing to accomplish without taking some significant political hits. But Biden is following through with it because he is not willing to send any more Americans to their deaths in the name of the forever war. Again, extremely admirable actions there. It is honestly stunning that it's actually happened! As far as winning or losing the war goes, obviously we surrendered the territory and lost the 'defeat the Taliban' part of our mission. However, the original goal wasn't that, it was 'get Bin Laden and Al Quaida', and that part was accomplished over a decade ago, so it is something of a mixed legacy as far as success goes. Why did we stay so long after that despite having no clear mission apart from the always-struggling nation-building effort? Honestly, my offhand guess is that it's about a lack of political will to retreat, mostly. That finally changed last year and now it has happened. Though who knows if it would have happened with Trump still in office, the optics of this are bad and with an incompetent idiot in charge things would be very very dramatically worse! He might have reneged on the withdrawl or something, you never know. But Biden is sticking to his beliefs, and he is right to do so.
I mean, it'd have been good to be able to stay if the people of that nation wanted us there and the security situation was safe, as it is for, say, our bases in Europe or Japan and South Korea or such, because that is an important part of the world and America has nothing very close to central Asia now, but the people did not want us to stay and it was extremely unsafe, so that is a quite thoroughly moot point. (And yes, I do think American bases are overall better than the alternative, which is Russian or Chinese bases. We have our major faults, but theirs are far worse.)
And Biden is very cautious with drone strikes too, he has only ordered a few, when they are absolutely necessary. We may see drone and special forces warfare in Afghanistan against ISIS or Al Quaida or something in the future, but I'd like to hope we can actually have peace for once, or at least more of it than that poor, war-torn part of the world has had for the last 40-plus years since their wars started in the late '70s! A lot of that will depend on if the Taliban can follow through on their hard-to-believe 'we're more moderate now' talk or if they start behaving as insanely horribly as they did in their initial 1996-201 reign, though...
But yes, ideally it'd have been nice to get even more people out in that airlift, but every additional day came with a high risk of more ISIS attacks. You can't control only the airport indefinitely. I hope we can figure out a way to get more people who want to leave out of that country. But with over a hundred thousand evacuees getting out of that airport, after a rough start I think the evactuation mostly went pretty well. That is the most people ever airlifted out of a place in a hostile situation, I believe.
There are no real final answers here though, just a sad situation, particularly for the women of Afghanistan, and always more questions. But I am glad it is finally over. (Can we finally end the AUMF now? That'd be nice... the House passed it, but I don't know if its chances in the Senate are great. Here's hoping, however.)
RE: Afghanistan - A Black Falcon - 10th September 2021
So it is the 20th anniversary of 9/11, and... yeah, in some ways this nation has come a long way, but in others, we sure did kind of waste our time killing a lot of people, some innocent and some not, while only accomplishing our most basic goals such as "get Bin Laden" and not the more high-minded ones. It's a sad day both to think back on 20 years ago and on how much the reaction to that awful event was misused.
(And yes, 9/11 makes me think of this website of course, since I first learned of the attacks on this forum.)
RE: Afghanistan - alien space marine - 11th September 2021
( TC forums doesnt seem to be compatible with Mobile browsing?)
Its insane that 9/11 was 20 years ago, feels just like yesterday
I got to stop by NYC and pay my respects to ground zero while on my way to Newark new jersey back in 2006, The One world trade center aka freedom tower was still in its early stages of construction.
I just finnished watching a documentary about the planes and passengers that got diverted to Gander Newfoundland(canada) on that fateful day, Its a total miracle that they where able to reroute and land every in bound jet crossing the atlantic to small old airports in atlantic canada without any incident, small communities like Gander had to accomidate and provide for thousands of stranded passengers for two weeks untill the skies were reopened.