Afganastan
- Thread starter Geezer II
- Start date
If leaving Afghanistan were easy, it would probably have been done a long time ago. Four presidents have presided over the 20-year war. Three have said they wanted to get out. None, until President Biden, were willing to pull the plug and face the consequences.
So America stayed in, spending a trillion dollars and losing thousands of lives for what we’re finding out was a failure in nation-building.
Why did America pursue a war it didn’t want to fight? The answer, according to experts, is that its leaders were caught between the politics of an unpopular conflict and the reality of an intractable conflict that could make America less safe if it ended.
“What they all realized was almost all the options we had for leaving would ultimately create an unstable Afghanistan where no one could predict what was going to happen next,” said Anthony Cordesman, a Middle East policy expert now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “And the cost of getting out would be that failure.”
Here’s a brief history of America’s longest war through the lens of the decisions and statements of the four presidents who presided over it.
Bush: From hunting 9/11 terrorists to nation-building
Marines land in an undisclosed location in 2001 as the war on terror takes off. (Johnny Bivera/AFP/Getty Images)
This part of the story is well-known. America was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, and then-President George W. Bush invaded Afghanistan and Iraq to find the attackers.
He had the support of Congress and much of the public for his mission, but he was forging a new conflict in a strange land, and that lent itself to plenty of mistakes, said Emily Harding, an intelligence expert now at CSIS.
“I know some of the guys who were in on the first wave,” she said. “And they went in with a pocket knife and a prayer to say: ‘We’re going to try to find somebody we can work with who can help us find al-Qaeda and get rid of them.’ ”
They did. “That mission went extraordinarily well,” Harding said.
The Bush administration had hoped that after the bad guys were run out of Afghanistan, they could safely hand the keys of power back to Afghans. They quickly realized that was impossible, and they got stuck in the country with no clear path on what to do next, Harding said.
Bush pivoted to nation-building. He sold it as the next, necessary step in his war on terror. “By helping to build an Afghanistan that is free from this evil and is a better place in which to live, we are working in the best traditions of George Marshall,” he said as he announced a Marshall plan of his own for Afghanistan.
Bush’s optimism in Afghanistan was underpinned by a belief that democracy would flourish when given the opportunity. “The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands,” he told Congress in 2005.
When Bush left office in 2009, there were about 25,000 troops in Afghanistan. And the war was about to escalate.
Obama: Ramping up to ramp down
Former president Barack Obama campaigned on his opposition to the invasion of Iraq and his skepticism of the war on terror more broadly. Yet in office, he presided over the largest troop presence in Afghanistan and a false declaration that the war was over.
Obama ended the war in Iraq and aimed to do the same in Afghanistan. His strategy was to ramp up so he could ramp down. He initiated several surges of tens of thousands of troops there, at one point reaching 100,000 as violence escalated.
Obama also called for an end to combat there in 2014, and when that date came, he declared the fighting was over. “[O]ur combat mission in Afghanistan is ending and the longest war in American history is coming to a responsible conclusion,” he told Americans at the end of that year.
Obama meets with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, head of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, in 2009. (The White House/Getty Images)
But The Washington Post’s Craig Whitlock reports that the Obama administration’s assertion that the fighting had ended was “among the most egregious deceptions and lies that U.S. leaders spread during two decades of warfare.” The war was nowhere near done, and Obama wasn’t willing to actually end it, lest he face exactly what Biden is facing right now.
A hugely symbolic moment in the war on terror did come under Obama: The United States found and killed Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the 2001 terrorist attacks, after a decade on the run.
When Obama left office in 2017, there were about 9,000 troops on the ground in Afghanistan.
Trump: Let’s just get out
President Donald Trump addresses U.S. troops, with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani standing behind him, in 2019. (Reuters)
By the time Donald Trump came into office in 2017, he — and much of the American public — were so over this war. He upended the Republican Party in part by attacking Bush and other establishment Republicans for their handling of foreign policy in general and, specifically, for pursuing “endless wars.” He promised to bring the troops home.
“Are they going to be there for the next 200 years? At some point, what’s going on?” he said in 2015 on the campaign trail.
Trump signed a peace agreement with the Taliban that said the United States would leave in about a year, and in exchange the Taliban would promise not to let Afghanistan harbor terrorists who would launch attacks on America.
“I really believe the Taliban wants to do something to show that we're not all wasting time,” Trump said, continuing a tradition of American presidents offering rosy assessments that didn’t match reality in Afghanistan. Almost as an aside, he added this: “If bad things happen, we’ll go back with a force like no one’s ever seen.”
But Trump failed to publicly share that there was no enforcement mechanism to keep the Taliban from harboring terrorists, and signs pointed to them doing just that, recounts Paul Miller, a veteran of Afghanistan now teaching at Georgetown University, in the Dispatch.
Trump drew down troops in Afghanistan to 2,500. But even he didn’t officially end the war.
Biden: “We’re ending America’s longest war.”
Afghans climb atop a plane as they wait at the Kabul airport on Monday to get out of the country. (AFP/Getty Images)
By the time Biden came into office, the American debate on whether to withdrawal had been settled, and Biden was the president to actually do it.
Biden reversed many of Trump’s international agreements. But Trump’s peace deal with the Taliban he notably kept. America would be out of Afghanistan by the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
No war was worth this cost, Biden argued.
“[T]he United States did what we went to do in Afghanistan: to get the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 and to deliver justice to Osama bin Laden, and to degrade the terrorist threat to keep Afghanistan from becoming a base from which attacks could be continued against the United States. We achieved those objectives. That’s why we went,” he said in July. “We did not go to Afghanistan to nation-build. And it’s the right and the responsibility of the Afghan people alone to decide their future and how they want to run their country.”
Even Republican hawks acknowledge that there was no political will to stay in Afghanistan. Where Biden is facing intense heat and criticism now is in the execution of the final withdrawal, which has been chaotic, as Biden and his administration were caught flat-footed by the swift collapse of the Afghan government.
Intelligence was warning that the Taliban could take over in as soon as six months. Yet in July, as a resurgent Taliban advanced toward Kabul and Americans shuttered military bases, Biden assured Americans: “The likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.”
The Taliban overran the country even before the U.S. military officially left.
Both Republicans and Democrats say they’re frustrated that Biden failed to plan for a worst-case scenario and for how to get the United States’ Afghan allies out of the country before the Taliban took over.
Despite doing what no other president was willing to do, Biden was arguably the most disingenuous about what the consequences would be in ending the war, some analysts say.
“I just find it amazing to say you didn’t realize you could have a catalytic collapse,” Cordesman said, “to deny a Vietnam-like case as possible … that borders on just plain lying.”
The legacy of the Afghanistan war is one for the history books, to be debated and studied for years to come. And Biden’s bungled withdrawal could add a new chapter, depending on how events play out in the coming days and weeks. But the shared experiences of four very different presidents — and the evolving justifications for two decades of costly and increasingly unpopular conflict — suggest that there will be little political appetite for American military intervention in faraway nations.
So America stayed in, spending a trillion dollars and losing thousands of lives for what we’re finding out was a failure in nation-building.
Why did America pursue a war it didn’t want to fight? The answer, according to experts, is that its leaders were caught between the politics of an unpopular conflict and the reality of an intractable conflict that could make America less safe if it ended.
“What they all realized was almost all the options we had for leaving would ultimately create an unstable Afghanistan where no one could predict what was going to happen next,” said Anthony Cordesman, a Middle East policy expert now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “And the cost of getting out would be that failure.”
Here’s a brief history of America’s longest war through the lens of the decisions and statements of the four presidents who presided over it.
Bush: From hunting 9/11 terrorists to nation-building
Marines land in an undisclosed location in 2001 as the war on terror takes off. (Johnny Bivera/AFP/Getty Images)
This part of the story is well-known. America was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, and then-President George W. Bush invaded Afghanistan and Iraq to find the attackers.
He had the support of Congress and much of the public for his mission, but he was forging a new conflict in a strange land, and that lent itself to plenty of mistakes, said Emily Harding, an intelligence expert now at CSIS.
“I know some of the guys who were in on the first wave,” she said. “And they went in with a pocket knife and a prayer to say: ‘We’re going to try to find somebody we can work with who can help us find al-Qaeda and get rid of them.’ ”
They did. “That mission went extraordinarily well,” Harding said.
The Bush administration had hoped that after the bad guys were run out of Afghanistan, they could safely hand the keys of power back to Afghans. They quickly realized that was impossible, and they got stuck in the country with no clear path on what to do next, Harding said.
Bush pivoted to nation-building. He sold it as the next, necessary step in his war on terror. “By helping to build an Afghanistan that is free from this evil and is a better place in which to live, we are working in the best traditions of George Marshall,” he said as he announced a Marshall plan of his own for Afghanistan.
Bush’s optimism in Afghanistan was underpinned by a belief that democracy would flourish when given the opportunity. “The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands,” he told Congress in 2005.
When Bush left office in 2009, there were about 25,000 troops in Afghanistan. And the war was about to escalate.
Obama: Ramping up to ramp down
Former president Barack Obama campaigned on his opposition to the invasion of Iraq and his skepticism of the war on terror more broadly. Yet in office, he presided over the largest troop presence in Afghanistan and a false declaration that the war was over.
Obama ended the war in Iraq and aimed to do the same in Afghanistan. His strategy was to ramp up so he could ramp down. He initiated several surges of tens of thousands of troops there, at one point reaching 100,000 as violence escalated.
Obama also called for an end to combat there in 2014, and when that date came, he declared the fighting was over. “[O]ur combat mission in Afghanistan is ending and the longest war in American history is coming to a responsible conclusion,” he told Americans at the end of that year.
Obama meets with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, head of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, in 2009. (The White House/Getty Images)
But The Washington Post’s Craig Whitlock reports that the Obama administration’s assertion that the fighting had ended was “among the most egregious deceptions and lies that U.S. leaders spread during two decades of warfare.” The war was nowhere near done, and Obama wasn’t willing to actually end it, lest he face exactly what Biden is facing right now.
A hugely symbolic moment in the war on terror did come under Obama: The United States found and killed Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the 2001 terrorist attacks, after a decade on the run.
When Obama left office in 2017, there were about 9,000 troops on the ground in Afghanistan.
Trump: Let’s just get out
President Donald Trump addresses U.S. troops, with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani standing behind him, in 2019. (Reuters)
By the time Donald Trump came into office in 2017, he — and much of the American public — were so over this war. He upended the Republican Party in part by attacking Bush and other establishment Republicans for their handling of foreign policy in general and, specifically, for pursuing “endless wars.” He promised to bring the troops home.
“Are they going to be there for the next 200 years? At some point, what’s going on?” he said in 2015 on the campaign trail.
Trump signed a peace agreement with the Taliban that said the United States would leave in about a year, and in exchange the Taliban would promise not to let Afghanistan harbor terrorists who would launch attacks on America.
“I really believe the Taliban wants to do something to show that we're not all wasting time,” Trump said, continuing a tradition of American presidents offering rosy assessments that didn’t match reality in Afghanistan. Almost as an aside, he added this: “If bad things happen, we’ll go back with a force like no one’s ever seen.”
But Trump failed to publicly share that there was no enforcement mechanism to keep the Taliban from harboring terrorists, and signs pointed to them doing just that, recounts Paul Miller, a veteran of Afghanistan now teaching at Georgetown University, in the Dispatch.
Trump drew down troops in Afghanistan to 2,500. But even he didn’t officially end the war.
Biden: “We’re ending America’s longest war.”
Afghans climb atop a plane as they wait at the Kabul airport on Monday to get out of the country. (AFP/Getty Images)
By the time Biden came into office, the American debate on whether to withdrawal had been settled, and Biden was the president to actually do it.
Biden reversed many of Trump’s international agreements. But Trump’s peace deal with the Taliban he notably kept. America would be out of Afghanistan by the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
No war was worth this cost, Biden argued.
“[T]he United States did what we went to do in Afghanistan: to get the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 and to deliver justice to Osama bin Laden, and to degrade the terrorist threat to keep Afghanistan from becoming a base from which attacks could be continued against the United States. We achieved those objectives. That’s why we went,” he said in July. “We did not go to Afghanistan to nation-build. And it’s the right and the responsibility of the Afghan people alone to decide their future and how they want to run their country.”
Even Republican hawks acknowledge that there was no political will to stay in Afghanistan. Where Biden is facing intense heat and criticism now is in the execution of the final withdrawal, which has been chaotic, as Biden and his administration were caught flat-footed by the swift collapse of the Afghan government.
Intelligence was warning that the Taliban could take over in as soon as six months. Yet in July, as a resurgent Taliban advanced toward Kabul and Americans shuttered military bases, Biden assured Americans: “The likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.”
The Taliban overran the country even before the U.S. military officially left.
Both Republicans and Democrats say they’re frustrated that Biden failed to plan for a worst-case scenario and for how to get the United States’ Afghan allies out of the country before the Taliban took over.
Despite doing what no other president was willing to do, Biden was arguably the most disingenuous about what the consequences would be in ending the war, some analysts say.
“I just find it amazing to say you didn’t realize you could have a catalytic collapse,” Cordesman said, “to deny a Vietnam-like case as possible … that borders on just plain lying.”
The legacy of the Afghanistan war is one for the history books, to be debated and studied for years to come. And Biden’s bungled withdrawal could add a new chapter, depending on how events play out in the coming days and weeks. But the shared experiences of four very different presidents — and the evolving justifications for two decades of costly and increasingly unpopular conflict — suggest that there will be little political appetite for American military intervention in faraway nations.
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I don't think anyone would disagree that Afghanistan was a lost cause. You can't wage a war against an ideology unless you completely eradicate everyone with that ideology, including those in neighboring countries. But I think everyone would agree that you get your people out before handing it back over to your former enemy. As the Taliban advanced across the country they should have been met with stiff resistance at every US strategic installation they tried to capture.
Completely bogus copy/paste attempt there @Geezer II . Trump was getting us out and would have done 10x the job that your boy slow joe has done. Do you think for one second the man that obliterated Irans spymaster would have rolled over like your dementia president has? Also, its bad form to copy and paste entire articles...just post the link next time.
But at least we don't have to deal with mean tweets now. That's all that matters.
But at least we don't have to deal with mean tweets now. That's all that matters.
Of course it was copy and paste - trying to get a historical persective on this - be interested in anything you care to share -: thanks for the info on posting the link - not to savy with doing this
Joe Biden doesn’t have enough brain matter to get a fugging gum ball out of a quarter machine.
If Trump was President this shit wouldn’t be happening . We got weak leadership that has been nothing short of a complete failure across all spectrums.
Fuggin guy has not done one damn thing good not one.
and if you look below this you will see what a Biden rally looks like .
If Trump was President this shit wouldn’t be happening . We got weak leadership that has been nothing short of a complete failure across all spectrums.
Fuggin guy has not done one damn thing good not one.
and if you look below this you will see what a Biden rally looks like .Yep if you read the article i posted it closed with stating Biden was "outright lying" - i agreeJoe Biden doesn’t have enough brain matter to get a fugging gum ball out of a quarter machine.
If Trump was President this shit wouldn’t be happening . We got weak leadership that has been nothing short of a complete failure across all spectrums.
Fuggin guy has not done one damn thing good not one.
No one is against leaving, it was how it was done. There was no reason to abandon Bagram Airbase, which was a very defensible post, to trade it for an airport with no defenses and then trust the Taliban to defend the perimeter??? No one is actually this stupid, it had to be a set up and planned and the expense of our military people’s lives.
Don’t give us a stupid ass historical perspective that is BULLSHIT!!!
This a major, major FUCK UP!! Beyond belief, who in the hell thought it would be a good idea to trust or align or whatever the hell you call it with a terrorist organization.
Leaving behind American citizens, setting an arbitrary date to begone because that is what the Taliban wants? FUCK THEM, and fuck anyone in anyway who tries to defend this FUBAR situation.
we have military bases all around the world from WWII, no reason to not keep an established airbase in Afghanistan.
Our small town is a wreck this AM:
"United States Navy Medic Max Soviak graduated from Edison High School in 2017 and gave the ultimate sacrifice this week while honorably serving our country. Please say a prayer for all of our soldiers and their families."
"United States Navy Medic Max Soviak graduated from Edison High School in 2017 and gave the ultimate sacrifice this week while honorably serving our country. Please say a prayer for all of our soldiers and their families."
Adam, this has me so ticked off I’ve all but turned everything off…. Still get links from friends and family but about ready too just not look at those as well…
If you happen too see his family, please give them our condolences and let them know there’s a community out there behind them.
If you happen too see his family, please give them our condolences and let them know there’s a community out there behind them.
May all of our brave and heroic military and medic personnel, innocent American and Afghan citizens who died RIP and those who were injured make a full recovery…SAD SAD DAY YESTERDAY WAS…
Big_Holla
Senior Member
I dont need another hat, this family needs all the support they can get. If you are able, please do so...
Removed.
Removed.
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Just found out this is bogus, don't donate...wtf is wrong with ppl!!
Wow! Thanks for the heads up, you just saved me by seconds.... Let me know if or when there will ever be a legitimate one available, thanks!
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Whoever set this up needs to be beat silly. This is sick. Despicable.
RIP Max. The write up brought tears to my eyes. Sounds like he was an outstanding young man. Our country needs more heroes like him.
Apparently there are 3 bogus go fund me's....we are out $, but I can't wrap my head around how this can happen and how ppl sleep at night.
Here is a little more about Max, and docs, something I never knew. I didn't know Max personally, but I can tell you that everywhere you turn, the community/school/businesses are coming together like something I have never seen. No life is more important than others, but since he gave the ultimate sacrifice for the title of this thread, I'll share:
"This photo was posted on Max’s Instagram when I originally saw it. Then the names continued to get released and the dots started to connect.
I want to say something about Max and Corpsmen. Someone not familiar with the military would look at this and just see 3 Marines or 3 guys in the same uniform. Max wasn’t a Marine though. He didn’t attend boot camp at Parris Island or San Diego. He didn’t go through the crucible or spend time at either School of Infantry. His left chest didn’t say “U.S. Marines” or his dog tags stamped with “USMC”. If anything, he was the blunt end of few light hearted jokes about not being a Marine. To those of us who have served or are serving though, this picture speaks more words than any of us could ever muster.
Max was a ‘Greenside Corpsman’ or better known in the Marine community as just “Doc”. We rely on Docs to keep us alive, healthy, and ready to fight when called on. Whether that’s here in the U.S. or overseas in the middle of a combat zone. It can be as simple as making sure a package for a certain school is filled out to bandaging up gunshot wounds. At times we despise them when they don’t respond to our emails and at times we owe them a case of beer for going the extra mile on a Friday evening. What some of you may not know is that Docs are as Marine as you can get without being, well, an actual Marine. They wear the same uniform from color to pattern and all the way to how they cut their hair. They live in the same worn down barracks, eat the same subpar chow hall food, and sit right next to us at the weekend safety briefs that always seem to run 30 minutes too long. They become ingrained in the Marine lifestyle. From the way we talk and walk to having that “we’re the best of the best” arrogance Marines just exude. That lifestyle includes that closely held camaraderie and brotherhood you always hear Marines talking about. The one that’s usually displayed in some sort of picture with the verse of John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” As the caption. There’s never, and never will be any doubt that a Marine wouldn’t give their life for a Doc and a Doc wouldn’t do the same for their Marines.
The photo below is the epitome of that relationship, camaraderie, and brotherhood. They would each give their lives for one another in a heartbeat if they had too. Instead, all 3 gave their lives for every single one of us, for the Americans trapped in Afghanistan, and for the Afghans trying to start fresh, away from the strict and extreme rule of the Taliban.
They were brothers to the very end. KIA 26 August 2021 Kabul, Afghanistan.
Left: Cpl Hunter Lopez (Coachella Valley, CA)
Center: HM Max Soviak (Berlin Heights, OH)
Right: Cpl Deagan Page (Omaha, NE)"
Here is a little more about Max, and docs, something I never knew. I didn't know Max personally, but I can tell you that everywhere you turn, the community/school/businesses are coming together like something I have never seen. No life is more important than others, but since he gave the ultimate sacrifice for the title of this thread, I'll share:
"This photo was posted on Max’s Instagram when I originally saw it. Then the names continued to get released and the dots started to connect.
I want to say something about Max and Corpsmen. Someone not familiar with the military would look at this and just see 3 Marines or 3 guys in the same uniform. Max wasn’t a Marine though. He didn’t attend boot camp at Parris Island or San Diego. He didn’t go through the crucible or spend time at either School of Infantry. His left chest didn’t say “U.S. Marines” or his dog tags stamped with “USMC”. If anything, he was the blunt end of few light hearted jokes about not being a Marine. To those of us who have served or are serving though, this picture speaks more words than any of us could ever muster.
Max was a ‘Greenside Corpsman’ or better known in the Marine community as just “Doc”. We rely on Docs to keep us alive, healthy, and ready to fight when called on. Whether that’s here in the U.S. or overseas in the middle of a combat zone. It can be as simple as making sure a package for a certain school is filled out to bandaging up gunshot wounds. At times we despise them when they don’t respond to our emails and at times we owe them a case of beer for going the extra mile on a Friday evening. What some of you may not know is that Docs are as Marine as you can get without being, well, an actual Marine. They wear the same uniform from color to pattern and all the way to how they cut their hair. They live in the same worn down barracks, eat the same subpar chow hall food, and sit right next to us at the weekend safety briefs that always seem to run 30 minutes too long. They become ingrained in the Marine lifestyle. From the way we talk and walk to having that “we’re the best of the best” arrogance Marines just exude. That lifestyle includes that closely held camaraderie and brotherhood you always hear Marines talking about. The one that’s usually displayed in some sort of picture with the verse of John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” As the caption. There’s never, and never will be any doubt that a Marine wouldn’t give their life for a Doc and a Doc wouldn’t do the same for their Marines.
The photo below is the epitome of that relationship, camaraderie, and brotherhood. They would each give their lives for one another in a heartbeat if they had too. Instead, all 3 gave their lives for every single one of us, for the Americans trapped in Afghanistan, and for the Afghans trying to start fresh, away from the strict and extreme rule of the Taliban.
They were brothers to the very end. KIA 26 August 2021 Kabul, Afghanistan.
Left: Cpl Hunter Lopez (Coachella Valley, CA)
Center: HM Max Soviak (Berlin Heights, OH)
Right: Cpl Deagan Page (Omaha, NE)"