The people we're leaving behind in Afghanistan

[Oldguy]

We've seen this play before, in Vietnam and Somalia and Iraq and Lebanon and who knows where else. America goes in, find's its not as all powerful as it thinks, loses interest and pulls out, leaving those who supported us holding the bag.

And, just as in Vietnam, it's a dreadfully horrible bag they'll be holding. The Taliban and al Qaeda know who they are and the price they'll pay for trusting us will be their lives.

How many more times will we do this before we re-learn the lesson that you can't build a new nation before the enemy is completely crushed and unable to rise again? We've forgotten how to win wars and it's those indigenous folks who rally to us that pay the price for our blind, ideologically driven ineptitude.


The People We're Leaving Behind in Afghanistan : The New Yorker

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

I always thought we should have never stayed in those countries after the regimes fell. Go in stomp their ass into oblivion and let THEM pick up the pieces.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

We've seen this play before, in Vietnam and Somalia and Iraq and Lebanon and who knows where else. America goes in, find's its not as all powerful as it thinks, loses interest and pulls out, leaving those who supported us holding the bag.

And, just as in Vietnam, it's a dreadfully horrible bag they'll be holding. The Taliban and al Qaeda know who they are and the price they'll pay for trusting us will be their lives.

How many more times will we do this before we re-learn the lesson that you can't build a new nation before the enemy is completely crushed and unable to rise again? We've forgotten how to win wars and it's those indigenous folks who rally to us that pay the price for our blind, ideologically driven ineptitude.


The People We're Leaving Behind in Afghanistan : The New Yorker

So you are against the Obama pull out? You support years more of combat? You are aware we lose more soldiers to afghan police and soldiers turning their weapons on our troops then we do to Taliban counter attacks?

Give us YOUR solution.

 

[Oldguy]

I always thought we should have never stayed in those countries after the regimes fell. Go in stomp their ass into oblivion and let THEM pick up the pieces.

I always thought we should have gone in with both feet, smashed the Taliban and simply hired our own strong man to run the place and left. Let him know in no uncertain terms what we expected of him and so long as he did it, the money would flow. Turn on us and we'll come back and kill him and his whole family.

 

[Oldguy]

We've seen this play before, in Vietnam and Somalia and Iraq and Lebanon and who knows where else. America goes in, find's its not as all powerful as it thinks, loses interest and pulls out, leaving those who supported us holding the bag.

And, just as in Vietnam, it's a dreadfully horrible bag they'll be holding. The Taliban and al Qaeda know who they are and the price they'll pay for trusting us will be their lives.

How many more times will we do this before we re-learn the lesson that you can't build a new nation before the enemy is completely crushed and unable to rise again? We've forgotten how to win wars and it's those indigenous folks who rally to us that pay the price for our blind, ideologically driven ineptitude.


The People We're Leaving Behind in Afghanistan : The New Yorker

So you are against the Obama pull out? You support years more of combat? You are aware we lose more soldiers to afghan police and soldiers turning their weapons on our troops then we do to Taliban counter attacks?

Give us YOUR solution.

At this point, we have no other alternatives. We have to leave, but there's no reason we can't take those people who supported us when we go, is there? Or, shall we consign another million or two people to terror, imprisonment, torture and death for trusting us?

And, no, I don't blame Obama. The die for this outcome was cast the day the Bush administration embarked on nation building before the war was finished, the same as it was in Iraq. You simply cannot build a new nation in the midst of war and it was only their ideology-based, American hubris which set the stage for our failure in both Afghanistan and Iraq. And, make no mistake...we've failed.

 

[Mad Scientist]

Afghanistan. Where Empires Go to Die.

Don't worry OldMan, the US will still control the lucrative Heroin Trade there for years to come and US Banks are ALWAYS willing to Launder the drug money.

As long as Eric Holder maintains that some banks are "Too big to Jail" everything will be cool.