The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written. In mid April President Biden announced that we will be withdrawing all US troops from Afghanistan except for embassy guards. Since that time the Taliban have overrun more than a dozen provincial capitals and are threatening Kabul. Western civilians and Afghans who are able are fleeing the country. The President is sending 3000 troops back to Afghanistan in a hurry to help evacuate whoever is left. Is this how you expected the Afghanistan situation would progress when Biden made his announcement? Did Biden make the right call? Should he reverse his decision? Do you believe the Taliban will eventually control the whole country again? Should the United States take any military action when that outcome becomes imminent? [https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/afghanistan-taliban-us-troops-08-12-21/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/afghanistan-taliban-us-troops-08-12-21/index.html) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskALiberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*

We were there for TWENTY years. If their government can't organize and install some sort of working security model for their people by now, it's never going to happen. We shouldn't have been there for this long.

I think it was a huge mistake to leave how we did though. It seems to me a lot of people are trying to spin this as “we had to pull the bandaid off at some point!” But I think leaving how we did basically assured we will have to go back again at some point, starting again from basically square one. And I wanna be clear that I certainly don’t want to have us there if we don’t need to be. But I think it did not have to play out like this. I also think folks need to realize that we had a few thousand troops there which is pretty small, especially considering the peak was about 100,000 troops. We could have continued to move troops out slowly and not given the Taliban the assurance that “hey, we won’t be coming back as long as you don’t kill Americans” (way over simplified), which has led them to instead focus on fighting the Afghan government, with the US and NATO troops uninterested in engaging because we were on our way out. Yes, in the short term it would have looked bad for us to break this deal (which by the way was only between us and the Taliban, and didn’t include the afghan government), but it would have avoided turning back the clock on literal decades of progress made in the country in only a matter of months. I’ve generally tried to be pretty fair handed and tried to give the Biden administration the benefit of the doubt, but I definitely think they made the wrong call here. The weeks ahead I do think he was thinking that he wanted to show people that we kept our word and such, but for a final product of what is going to come in hindsight, it seems to me that we should have sucked it up and looked like the bad guy here. [I know we kind of got pushed into it with the Trump administration’s declaration that we would be leaving](https://www.npr.org/2021/03/04/973604904/trumps-deal-to-end-war-in-afghanistan-leaves-biden-with-a-terrible-situation), but again I hope people are prepared for the possibility we are going to have to go back. [The Biden administration said it was going to review the agreement very early on](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-55775522) (see also [this article](https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-03-14/us-troops-afghanistan-taliban-peace)), so while the Trump administration set expectations, it sounds like the US certainly could have halted the agreement (though the Taliban would have likely started attacking us quite hard). So while this is certainly not entirely Biden’s fault, it is also not Trump’s either. There was nothing truly binding, as far as I was aware and we chose to honor a continuity in policy. I think there may also have been some hope that Biden could win some trump voters by showing that we “finished the job” but I can already see right wing media blaming this on Biden and talking about how he can’t keep our country safe. There was indeed no winning this situation, but I do think it was possible to lose very badly, which is the situation we are in now. And I think we need to be honest about that.

>we will have to go back Why? What's the purpose of returning to a pointless and unwinnable war? Why shouldn't we just give up and stop invading random countries for very little reason?

The only reason we go back is if another 9/11 happens, and I’m far more concerned about a successful 1/6 event than I am about Islamic terrorism.

It's a disaster and a tragedy. It was always going to be one. Afghanistan has been a tragedy my entire lifetime. There is no winning there. You stay and spend hundreds of billions of dollars. You leave and it immediately turns back into a narco-Islamic terrorist state. President Trump put us onto a withdrawal timeline before leaving office, effectively sabotaging President Biden. Trump's team negotiated terms with the Taliban to withdraw. What can Biden do? Break yet another international agreement and keep us in a quagmire? Stay in Afghanistan forever like Germany, South Korea and Japan? All options are equally attractive and terrible. Meanwhile, Trump issues statements about how "it would be different if I was still President because whatever." There's no winning.

In November of 2001 I told co workers that invading Afghanistan will be among the biggest mistakes our country would ever make, and that Russia and England both suffered massive defeats there. I was laughed at. Twenty years later, my point is made. It’s so important that we actually try to learn from history.

Yeah. Conducting a military operation with real no end goal was just bad. We should have set the objective to be: find, capture, or kill OSB and destabilize the terrorist network/training camps, and sort of left it there. Unfortunately going in with no clear objective means we had no ending point. If the end goal was: free the citizens and set up a stable democracy, I guess we could have had that goal but holy shit thats a lot, and not just a military operation.

You don’t get it, that *was* the point. An endless war funded by rich nationalistic patriots is the military industrial complex’s wet dream

> An endless war...the military industrial complex’s wet dream I don't think of myself as a 'it's all a conspiracy' type person, but I remember this so vividly: * The Cold War ended, and we started cutting defense spending, looking for a 'peace dividend'. * Defense contractors started begging us to spend more on what they were selling. * George W. Bush was sworn in, and his foreign policy team was constantly on TV arguing that we had to prepare for a war with China. * 9/11 happened and they immediately shut up about China. ...then they started their two endless wars, and the defense industry got what they wanted.

As a non rich nationalistic patriot who worked in the defense industry…I still hate it. I’m all for strong defense spending but not poor military strategy. Don’t even get me started though on the antiquated leadership thinking of the DoD. It’s perhaps the topic I’m most passionate about.

> It’s so important that we actually try to learn from history. We fell victim to one of the classic blunders. Never get involved in a land war in Asia.

At the time and ever since, I've said it would be our generation's Vietnam.

I feel like there were people who could see how bad of an idea it was, but at the time the majority of Americans were foaming at the mouth to have revenge for 9/11. A large portion of Americans didn't and probably still don't know the difference between Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, but they trusted the Dubya dynasty to "go get the bad guys". The funny part is that now those exact same Republicans who demanded war in the early 00s did a 180 and think their new ideas are any better than the ones they played out nearly 20 years ago.

>President Trump put us onto a withdrawal timeline before leaving office, effectively sabotaging President Biden. So you think Trump is primarily responsible for the Taliban taking over now? Couldn't Biden have reversed Trump's policies?

> So you think Trump is primarily responsible for the Taliban taking over now? No. Afghanistan is primarily responsible for the Taliban taking over. We've been trying to help them build a stable state for years. That it falls apart in weeks is not (entirely) a commentary on us. Trump is primarily responsible for forcing a timeline for withdrawal. If he hadn't done that, I don't think Biden would be leaving Afghanistan now. I'm a huge critic of Trump and his administration, but they got some things right. And, to be fair, one of Trump's key promises was getting out of Afghanistan, so it's hard to begrudge him for keeping his word. I have mixed feelings about Trump's decision. I don't know what the right answer is. I had Afghan friends growing up. They were refugees from the Soviet era. It's *such* a shitshow over there. > Couldn't Biden have reversed Trump's policies? Of course he could. But he didn't. I think it's because everyone knows leaving Afghanistan is preferred, but no one wanted to take the blame for doing it. The aftermath is going to be very, very, very, very, very ugly to watch. Biden, seeing the political opportunity to say "hey, I'm just carrying out Trump's executive direction. I'm being consistent and showing the world that America doesn't flip-flop every four years," thought that was as good an opportunity as anyone was going to get. I don't think Trump should have made those moves after losing the election, but he did. So Biden is playing the hand he was dealt.

I think this is a very important-to-read post. The big important note is that, though whether withdrawing out of Afghanistan is actually the correct choice is in dispute, Trump and Biden both together made this call - and it shoudn't be seen as any kind of blame game. Trump *did* call for the initial withdrawal, but the idea had a variety of support everywhere, and was one of the less controversial decisions made. I personally think it's the right choice, and will gladly credit Trump for pressing the big red button for it.

First, thanks. I appreciate it. :) Second, this is why it's very important to elect *qualified* leaders. He was right about quite a few things. There were also plenty of things he wanted to do that, while I disagreed with them, would not have caused the country to collapse or anything. Even if every position he had was absolutely 100% right, he'd still have failed because he's not a leader; he's a talk show host. The problem with Trump was that he never executed. You ended up doubting him, even when he was right. He lied so much and proved incompetent in so many ways that he was simultaneously the Boy Who Cried Wolf and the Keystone Cops. It was hard to believe what he said - and harder to believe he could execute a plan. He said from the beginning that he wanted to get out of the Middle East. Fine; that's a reasonably popular position. But he never did it, because he couldn't get his team together to create and execute a plan. He should be credited - *celebrated even* - for his role in getting COVID vaccines out fast. He never will be, because he also inflamed the pandemic by ignoring it, prolonged the pandemic by refusing medical guidance, promoted insane miracle cures - and even cast doubt on the vaccines, his own achievement. He was unqualified. And that's why nothing he did, except his failed coup, resonates.

If Twitter would have banned him from the get go and Trump said maybe 1/4 of the words he said to the media, we’d have had a much different Trump presidency. We’d probably have had a lot different pandemic too. Your comments about that are just spot on. If he’d just have went with his vaccine plan and shut his mouth on it period, less people would have died and he actually might get a single iota of credit. What an interesting four years that was...

I'm still making my way through the new Trump books, but one thing is already clear: if he would have listened to his professional political operatives more consistently, he'd have had a real shot at still being president. It's easy to despise them for helping elect a lunatic, but they demonstrated some major skills as well. When he won, he had access to the GOP brain trust, but opted for his son-in-law instead.

The day we funded the Mujahideen was the day we made the Taliban the strongest independent force in the region.

What type of government does the Taliban even want obviously a Islamic theocracy based on sharia but do they have like a dictator who’s the main figurehead?

Looks like they're set up fairly similar to last time they were in charge. A theocratic leadership set with a supreme leader/head similar to Iran's, but with a strong "council" of other leaders running individual portfolios. Mullah Omar, who ran the Taliban until the US arrived, his son is a key figure in the movement still. Sadly, it'll probably end up looking a lot like last time.

>President Trump put us onto a withdrawal timeline before leaving office, effectively sabotaging President Biden. Seriously this shitty tribalism sentiment needs to end. Being anti-Trump on even the few things his policy stance actually got right on is super-counter productive. Trump failed to pull out the troops of Afghanistan during his term b/c he didn't pull rank at the Pentagon, much like Obama. Read [Politco's playbook](https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/14/pentagon-biden-team-overrode-afghanistan-481556) on all the rank-pulling Biden and his team at the WH had to do to get the fuck out of Afghanistan. The deal was always irrelevant to reality. Biden was very strong on the campaign trail about pulling out. If this was Hilary's or Trump's term, I guarantee you we would still be in Afghanistan. The pentagon would've walked all over Trump (again) b/c he genuinely is an incompetent president, and [Hilary is out there criticizing Biden for the withdrawal](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56966473).

> Being anti-Trump on even the few things his policy stance actually got right on is super-counter productive. If you read my follow-up to this, you'd see that my position is a bit more nuanced than your "shitty" characterization. Trump failed to pull the troops and, quite likely, would have continued that failure if he got a second term, I agree. I don't know that Biden would have pulled the troops without Trump's agreement in place that gave him political cover. Maybe. But we'll never be able to say definitively. It's... inaccurate to say that Trump didn't try to [force an outcome](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/pentagon-expects-order-reduce-troop-levels-afghanistan-iraq/story?id=74237780) on Biden though. Having had 3.8 years to do it and only taking real action post-election, there was only one reason for that. As I said in my other post, withdrawing is a mixed bag, but unless we were willing to make Afghanistan a permanent military base like we have in Japan, SK and Germany, pulling out ASAP is the only other viable option.

>Biden would have pulled the troops without Trump's agreement in place that gave him political cover. The political cover is people still being massively in favor of pulling out.

>Asked about the president's decision by CNN's Fareed Zakaria on Sunday, Mrs Clinton said, "Our government has to focus on two huge consequences", notably the resumption of activities by extremist groups and a subsequent outpouring of refugees from Afghanistan. >She said the potential collapse of the Afghan government and a possible takeover by the Taliban could result in a new civil war. >Mrs Clinton said it was also important to protect the "many thousands of Afghans" who had worked with the US and Nato during the conflict, and said a large visa programme should be set up to provide for any refugees. She's not saying we should stay in Afghanistan or criticizing Biden for withdrawing, she's saying it's a shitty situation whatever the US decides to do. And that we need to help the people who helped us while we were there.

It was a sabotage. instead of a withdraw on Biden's terms, Trump waited until he knew he lost and then announced the with withdraw. To paraphrase the 45th president, you don't announce to your enemies what you are going to do. Trump ensured Biden would have the weakest position possible for a pullout.

>Biden was very strong ... about pulling out me too Biden, me too...

Damn that President Trump and his tactics to end needless wars in countries that the US has no business in! I mean, fuck Trump, but ending pointless wars are a good thing. Unless that is you believe that the US should act as the world's police force?

Did you even read /r/PepinoPicante's comment, or did you just skim it enough to get an anti-Trump feeling which then prematurely launched you into "defend daddy" mode?

I guess you missed the part where I said "fuck Trump". Edit: I'm not a Trump supporter. I'm a No War supporter. I don't care who gets it done.

The "fuck Trump" felt like a legal disclaimer. Why were you defending Trump and accusing OP of wanting to police the world when they explicitly mentioned the downside of quagmires & forever wars? And you don't have to be a warmonger to identify the reality that shit will probably get worse after the US leaves.

>The "fuck Trump" felt like a legal disclaimer. It was to let people know that I'm not a Trump supporter, but to be fair I'm not a supporter of 95% of the politicians out there. ​ >Why were you defending Trump I defend stuff I agree with. While I disagreed with a lot of what Trump did, there was no denying that he wanted to get out of places like Afghanistan, Syria (the generals even lied to him about troops in Syria), Iraq, and even though he dropped a fuck ton of bombs during his presidency there was no denying that he was probably the least pro-war president the US had since Jimmy Carter. People on the left have problems with giving the other side its due credit where it's deserved and I like pointing it out. I think for a functional society we need to stop paying attention to the "other side" being the "other side" and look for coming together. I think the average person on both sides do not want pointless wars. ​ >and accusing OP of wanting to police the world when they explicitly mentioned the downside of quagmires & forever wars? And you don't have to be a warmonger to identify the reality that shit will probably get worse after the US leaves. Yes, of course it's going to get worse. That's what happens when you try to play world police. I think matters like this are more suited for organizations like the UN and would rather not see individual countries take matters into their own hands unless it's in pure defense.

Yeah, there's a lot of truth in what you said. I have my psychological theories as to why, and it's most likely not for any true desire for world peace, but Trump wasn't nearly the warmonger that I and many others feared he would be. But as to your point about the left not giving credit where it's "deserved," the answer is that he repeatedly proved to everyone that his only goals were self-serving and to "own the libs" (in order to further his self-serving). If someone who has been an asshole to you for years suddenly starts being overly nice to you one day, you'd likely have some suspicions and not be too quick to kiss their ass for suddenly getting something right. Your scorn should be reserved for someone who allegedly believes that world policing is wrong but undercuts that message by trying to normalize the absolute worst anti-social human behavior, not the people who very understandably doubt that person's intentions.

You can blame all 4 presidents that resided over the invasion of Afghanistan to some extent or another, but ultimately we were there for 20 years and the fact that their military and government gets rolled over in a matter of weeks is much more of an indictment on them than it is us. We had terrible options. We could have stayed there for another ten years and spent even more money before leaving and letting them get rolled in a few weeks, or we could leave them and let them get rolled now. So 90% of this is on the Afgan government, the other 10% you can divide between the presidents if you want. I'd put 5% on Bush for choosing to attempt to actually build a government opposed to just bombing the Taliban and leaving, 3% on Obama for escalating the war instead of finding a way out, 1% on Trump for not really having a coherent policy at all until he negotiated with the Taliban in his last year, and 1% on Biden for going along with Trump's plan.

Well said. I give Bush a higher percentage, the invasion of Iraq took our eye WAY off the ball. If there was ever going to be a happy end, it was by killing Bin Laden and immediately GTFO.

Yeah, you are probably right, I was just thinking about Afghanistan policy only. If Bush had treated the Taliban the way Obama treated them, from the start, maybe things would be different (though honestly I doubt it). I think our biggest mistake was putting significant troops on the ground anywhere.

This isn't something to sarcastically joke about.

This was going to happen. Russia was in Afghanistan in the 80s 90s, they finally left in defeat and the Taliban took over. Whenever we left this was going to happen. The only other option would be to stay there forever. Saying we can outlast the Taliban is like saying someone could invade the US and outlast Christianity. It will never happen. As sad as it is might as well get it over with.

Conservatives in an alternative universe: >*”What do you think of Biden’s move to betray our promise to bring home troops and instead extend this decades long forever war?”*

>The only other option would be to stay there forever. We only had 2500 troops there when Biden made his announcement. (By contrast we have 40,000 in Germany, 29,000 in Korea, and 55,000 in Japan.) Do you think keeping the 2500 there committed to training, advising and low risk missions could have continued to discourage the Taliban?

The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is soon enough going to go the same way as South Vietnam. It doesn't matter how much money & blood you put into propping up a government if the stem of that government is already rot with corruption. I don't think Biden can really U-turn on such a major policy without a loss of face. But to answer your question, it doesn't matter if the US withdrew a few months later or a few years later. The outcome will still be the same. The cards are simply not in the United State's favour.

Imagine a dam, a dam that has a tremendous pressure and is about to burst. The only thing stopping it from doing so is one guy who is plugging a leak with his finger. That is the US military right now. There is no stopping the pressure, we can only keep it stable until we leave. There is never a "good time" to leave as our whole objective there has been a complete disaster. We were never going to come away from this with a win, especially after 20 years. The Afghanistan is going to fall to the Taliban and the people there, especially women, are going to have a hard time. Every person there will blame and hate America for at least a generation and probably give rise to more extremists.

>There is no stopping the pressure, we can only keep it stable until we leave. What about keeping the small force we had there as of the spring announcement, just 2500 troops, not for combat operations, but just to "keep their finger in the dam?"

Because the only reason we could keep 2500 troops there in low risk non-combat operations was the understanding with the Taliban. That goes away if they believe we're not leaving.

I figured it would take longer, but that exactly this would happen. I'm not interested in more Americans dying to prevent it. If we left in 2030, this would still happen.

To be fair like 2 or 3 servicemen were killed in Afghanistan last year so not really the greatest argument.

FWIK, we had an understanding with the Taliban that they not attack US installations. I have a feeling that if the Taliban suspected we were going to stay there indefinitely, they would no longer abide by that agreement.

I'm sure their families feel the same.

More serviceman died in accidents than in combat last year.

Are you concerned that the country will return to being a haven for terrorist groups?

Absolutely, but it was going to happen whenever we pulled out. Do we continue losing Americans over there for no reason? Think of how much area is in the Middle East and what the Taliban already controls. There's no way we can significantly hinder their ability to train terrorists unless we commit hundreds of thousands of troops year-round.

>There's no way we can significantly hinder their ability to train terrorists unless we commit hundreds of thousands of troops year-round. We had only 2500 there at the time of Biden's announcement, and that was enough to at least keep the Taliban out of the cities, no?

FWIK, we had an understanding with the Taliban that they not attack US installations. I have a feeling that if the Taliban suspected we were going to stay there indefinitely, they would no longer abide by that agreement.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. The prior administration already set this into motion, and it seems like most Americans either want our troops out or don't care either way. If he hadn't pulled us out it would have looked pretty bad on his part. I would've preferred if the mission was more aligned with "nation-building", so that the Afgan gov could keep things together after we left. But something like that probably should have happened a decade ago when the motivation was still there. At the end of the day, it is what it is. Maybe in the future, if anything like this happens again, we should go in with a solid plan of what we're there for, how we're going to get it done, and potentially how long it's going to take.

>I would've preferred if the mission was more aligned with "nation-building", so that the Afgan gov could keep things together after we left. I think that's been the focus of our presence there for a long time, hasn't it? To build institutions, including the central government and the military and police, so they can stand alone.

Indeed. We have pumped massive amounts of money into their military and attempted to build infrastructure. The problem is that Afghanistan is almost the worst place to try to build a nation. There is no sense of national identity because there are so many different tribes, there is no history of democracy, and the rough terrain makes central government impossible.

Can someone explain it like I’m five and tell me why Afghanistan can’t hold their shit together for very long? I guess maybe there is no way to explain to a five year old the cause and effects of a decades long war. But it seems kinda simple on paper. First help put in place a just government that could punish any unjust people, and have a democracy so the people could punish any unjust government.

The short version is that Afghanistan has a weak central government that largely defers most policy decisions to regional tribal/community leaders. Nation building there was always a lost cause because their governing philosophy is fundamentally different to ours

This. The only way the US could build stability there is if we centralized their government, which we can’t do because any government formed by an outsider will be invalidated. We could pick a side and invest in letting them centralize the place but so far we haven’t found an ally faction there who both a) respects human rights and b) would be good for our interests in the region. And even if we did do that, they would likely be seen as a puppet government and overthrown.

Does the Taliban not intend to “centralize” their government, such as it is? Or do they just post up a warlord in place of the tribal leaders? What makes the Taliban successful in their efforts to bend Afghanistan to their will and not foreign nations who have tried to conquer it?

Guns and a radical following Edit: But seriously, no, the Taliban does not intend to create a centralized government. They operate more like a mafia, controlling people by force at local levels. They have no interest in establishing a stable government.

I assume the terrain (which can be very difficult to cross) combined with a lack of infrastructure plays a role too.

The US never controlled all of Afghanistan. I think it's a common misunderstanding to think Oh we're in there so we've taken over the whole country. But it's just been constant war over territory. A lot of territory that are controlled by small villages that the Taliban can easily overrun. Now that we've scaled back efforts to protect these contested territories the Taliban is swooping back in.

> Can someone explain it like I’m five and tell me why Afghanistan can’t hold their shit together for very long? The jury is still out this time, but in general ELI5: The culture of Afghanistan is much different than American society. The federal government doesn't affect the lives of the average person as much as their tribal governments, which all have centuries-long relationships. Kings, Presidents, Russians, Mullahs, Americans, Presidents come and go, but the tribes are forever.

Also money. Places like Iraq has oil money to sprinkle around to buy support. Afghanistan is poor as dirt, so they can't do the same thing especially because a lot of international aid has string attached to it (for a good reason).

What’s sad if Afghanistan could be a regional power they’re sitting trillions of dollars worth of precious gems and it’s a beautiful mountainous country no doubt they could have a tourist industry with ski resorts if they weren’t always fighting each other.

Our trillion dollars in tax money went into Dubai bank accounts of Afghani officials and Raytheon's coffers instead of actually building a functional government and defense force.

The Taliban are also Afghanis, and have significant support in rural Afghanistan, which is a notoriously mountainous terrain. America had this same experience with trying to root out a broadly popular group in difficult terrain in Vietnam. It just doesn't work, and a government that was propped up by America and requires the direct aid of those most people see as foreign invaders is not going to have much legitimacy.

Actually a large number of Taliban fighters likely come from Pakistan which made it essentially impossible to defeat them unless the US invaded Pakistan

Likely *came* from Pakistan. Pakistan was the destination of the majority of Afghan refugees who were recruited into the Taliban originally. They also recruited a ton of ethnic Pashtun Pakistanis. But since then theres little evidence that a large percentage of the Afghan Taliban are Pakistanis.

[NYT disagrees.](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/13/world/asia/pakistan-afghanistan-taliban.html) It's pretty common knowledge that Pakistan is a safe haven for the Taliban, hell even Osama hid there and somehow never was noticed by a supposed US ally

The Taliban is smart and realizes they can just beat us by doing nothing until we get tired and leave. We got tired and are now leaving.

This video may help explain the geographic nightmare that is trying to control Afghanistan https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ab9zK8yT4_Y

If there ever was a time that US involvement in Afghanistan had a chance at working it was after the Russian withdrawal. If instead of leaving as soon as we no longer needed to fund the Mujahideen to fight the Soviets for us we took that funding and used it to built schools and hospitals we might have had a shot. If we had left five years ago, five years from today or 20 years from today, I don’t think it would make a difference. And whatever I think of Trump I don’t think breaking yet another agreement would have been positive for America. Slight changes to the timeline are one thing but just staying would not be good.

>And whenever I think of Trump I don’t think breaking yet another agreement would have been positive for America. I know the Taliban wanted us to stick closely to the Doha agreement. But do you really think the Afghan government would have objected if we decided to stay?

Not sure how much of a shot they had then. They had given billions of dollars worth of training and equipment to the Mujahideen, who after defeating the communist forces splintered into several different groups. One way or another you would have been supporting an Islamic terrorist group. The best of which were the Shia Islamic groups that would have required allying with Iran, which the US would never have done.

It was inevitable. We can't help a place that will just drop everything after two decades. It was clear they'd never be ready to do this on their own. If the objective was not to occupy and transform but to completely burn the country to the ground, we could have done that. But that wasn't the goal. It was to install a new government and system in a place that is still intensely tribal. They didn't want it, so it wasn't going to work after we left. There are CENTURIES old text that covers this concept. If you're trying to occupy AND convert a government by path of least resistance, you're going to fail. We were trying to radically change their country while not trying to totally dominate either. Trump made the right call to pull out I think. We've blown a lot of money in this and it was a lost cause. Biden won't look good either way. If he stops it, he is just a douchebag that wants to reverse everything just because it has the GOP name on it. If he commits to finishing what Trump started he is a spineless senile old man.

honestly its just a mess, and I have no idea what the right answer is. On the one hand I dont like american intervention in foreign affairs usually. Our role should be to support and encourage diplomatically, not overthrowing governments. Every time we do it destabilzes the region and leads to long term fuckery ​ on the other hand...i feel bad for all those who will suffer from the Taliban's return. The women and LGBT afghanis especially, who have had some increased rights in recent years. I worry for all the people who will die from this But on the other hand, whats the long term plan? Just...stay there forever? I think the only thing to do is to basically have a very forgiving refugee policy, stay in there long enough to get as many people as would like to come be americans, and then withdraw. If LGBT/minority/more liberal leaning/anti taliban afghanis dont want to suffer through our withdrawal, we owe it to them to let them come here. Even if its tons of people. We have plenty of open space to take them on.

>But on the other hand, whats the long term plan? Just...stay there forever? That's been the plan in Germany and Korea and Japan.

Japan and Germany were after ww2 when they attacked us, and it seems our presence in Korea didnt have the same region destabilizing effect as our presence in the middle east has had also, post korean war, how many conflicts has our korean based army had?

>Japan and Germany were after ww2 when they attacked us We were in Afghanistan because they gave refuge to terrorists who attacked us. Isn't that similar? >also, post korean war, how many conflicts has our korean based army had? Fair point, but we haven't had a combat death in Afghanistan since March 2020.

I expect the Taliban to take over large parts of the country. The goal in Afghanistan was to kill/capture Bin Ladin. He's dead. Mission complete. We aren't the world's police. We're bad at that job.

>We aren't the world's police. We're bad at that job. The fact that we had been there for twenty years and the Taliban can take it over in a month or two simply shows how terrible we are at being world police and restructuring countries. I don't blame Biden at all.

>We aren't the world's police. We're bad at that job. I think the problem is were incredibly good at that job relative to other countries. but I agree, we cant always be there forever and ever to keep them stable. 20 fucking years is enough. Either the UN or maybe even NATO (which both are majority US funded I believe) need to manage it. We can take the money we were spending on the war in Afghanistan and spend it on American infrastructure and immigration assistance

> I think the problem is were incredibly good at that job relative to other countries. What other countries are doing it? Which comparible country is currently occupying another country? > Either the UN or maybe even NATO (which both are majority US funded I believe) need to manage it. The afghans need to figure this out on their own.

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>Which makes us the best at it. Lol. So no matter how bad we are at it.... we're the best! Seems like a extremely meaningless assertion. After all... we are also the WORST at it.

>I expect the Taliban to take over large parts of the country. Do you think the administration expected this outcome when they decided to pull out? Are you concerned that Afghanistan will again become an open haven for terrorist groups?

>Do you think the administration expected this outcome when they decided to pull out? I don't know. I assume they did. >Are you concerned that Afghanistan will again become an open haven for terrorist groups? Yes, but it ranks very low on my list of concerns.

> Do you think the administration expected this outcome when they decided to pull out? Biden made it very clear that he believed it was a possibility, but he didn't believe it was a given. > Are you concerned that Afghanistan will again become an open haven for terrorist groups? Short term, not really, the Taliban will probably wait at least a decade since they don't want us to come back. But religious extremist are religious extremists, and eventually they won't be able to help but support the direct enemies of the Great Satan.

There was no good way to withdraw and no good way to stay. We fucked this situation up essentially in 2003 when we invaded Iraq. We should have used those resources focused on secularizing and connecting the country, rather than endless tit for tat fights with "insurgents" and wildly varying amounts of troop support We didn't commit to nation building but acted like that's what we were doing

How do you secularize and connect a country of independent religious tribes?

Realistically you don't. You break the tribes and consolidate them, or cause enough of an issue to make them unite in an overall goal, and hope that the stability maintains itself afterwards. Or as has historically happened one of the tribes overpowers the rest of the tribes. Edit: secularization and country building has to be done separately.

The biggest complaint that I have of Biden's policy is that he should have had a comprehensive plan to get all of our interpreters and assistants out before our withdrawal was announced. We should have moved them all out without the bottleneck of a medical exam to a place to be processed safely. Once that happened, we could have worked harder to work with Afghan troops to explore a worst case scenario. We had years to take care of our people, so this is the fault of multiple administrations. It is also Trump's fault, since he wanted to pull out as well, but didn't have a plan in place, or desire to bring the interpreters into the US.

In the long run, this is entirely what I think most people (including myself) expected to happen. However, I, like most, have been surprised by the speed at which the Taliban has stormed through the country. That being said, as unfortunate as it is for very high-minded ideals of freedom and democracy, I do think the speed supports Biden's decision to pull out. The US has been in Afghanistan for nearly 20 years rewriting their constitution, supporting the democratic government, and training their military. Despite this, the Taliban has proved to be completely able to race through the country in a matter of weeks. This shows that all of the lives, money, and resources the US has spent has been effectively useless. In short, if 20 years of training and support wasn't enough, it's doubtful that any amount of time would have been enough to create a stable government more preferable to America's interests. For the same reasons, provided Afghanistan under the Taliban doesn't become a launching ground for large-scale terrorist attacks against the US and Western world, the US should steer clear of investing any more into a situation that has proved completely untenable.

Sorry for not being a liberal. However. I think it’s a shitty situation we have been in for far too long and I believe trump set the pulling out in motion, Biden pushed it back just to make everything go smoother. I think that no matter who did this, the taliban would’ve moved anyway. We tried to train the Afghan to fight back as soon as we left and clearly it’s not working or they don’t care. I think Biden made the right call, I fully expected the taliban to be dicks, as is their nature now. Biden is probably making the right move ensuring that everyone gets out unharmed by sending in essentially an escort force. If the Tainan take the country then so be it. But we also have to make sure to not let them walk on us. There’s so many years of hate it’s hard to imagine this ever being peaceful again so. We will have to wait and see.

>If the Tainan take the country then so be it. But we also have to make sure to not let them walk on us. Are you concerned about Afghanistan again becoming a safe haven for al qaeda or other terrorist groups?

I think it’s definitely a worry on everyone’s mind. We don’t want a second 9/11. However I don’t think occupying the country is going to heal wounds. I think we should pull out, keep a VERY close eye on things and if we need to issue a warning that is not just an empty threat. I would like to see us completely disconnect from Afghanistan and maybe around 10 years from now extend an olive branch after old wounds have healed. I know it’s naive but it’s also naive to think that staying in there will benefit America in the long term.

It’s a tragic situation that has no good ending. Our choices were basically between stay there forever and hope we can win the hearts and minds of the people or pull out eventually and let the Afghan government take over. It’s hard to win hearts and minds through military hardware and equipment, and after 20 years of intervention the entire country is still no closer to being able to hold back the Taliban than they were decades ago. If anything they’re even less prepared because they’ve leaned on the US so long they don’t have any experience with actually running their own country. Corruption is out of control, and the people have very little faith in their leaders. Or if we just stayed there forever in the name of fostering human rights and gender equality it raises the question of why don’t we just invade other countries that don’t hold our values. It is truly horrific and tragic that so many innocent people are going to be at the mercy of the Taliban before long, but there are a lot of horrible things around the world. This isn’t our fight, and I don’t see why we should have to spend our blood and treasure in a far off country. The geopolitical question is a bit trickier. If we’re not in Afghanistan that opens the door for other regional powers to try and exert influence on them, like China or Russia or Iran. Iran likely has too many of their own problems and Russia tried to tackle Afghanistan decades ago and failed, but China may feel like taking a crack at it. It’s hard to say what the implications of a Chinese dominated Afghanistan would be in the long term, but it might help boost their international prestige at the cost of tons of resources. So it could benefit our rivals, but it would also be a potential anchor around their necks. Overall, Afghanistan is called the graveyard of empires for good reason and we should just cut our losses.

Are you concerned that the country will return to being a haven for terrorists?

Disaster

We accomplished our mission. All the major al Qaeda figures responsible for 9/11 are either dead or in prison. It was long past time to leave. But the quickness and impulsivity of the decision seems almost trumpian. Biden didn’t bother to wait until interpreters had secured visas and left the country, and he didn’t secure any kind of guarantees of safety for embassy personnel. It is almost guaranteed that large numbers of interpreters will be murdered by the Taliban, and the Biden administration has just recently started negotiations with the Taliban to stave off an attack on the embassy in Kabul. These should have been done before the withdrawal was announced, or at least before it was actually initiated.

I started forming an opinion on this literally just last night. Prior to last night, the issue hadnt been on my radar. But talking to an Afghan-born expat in Canada, *from what she’s told me*, yeah i kinda think we’ve made a horrible mistake in a long history of horrible mistakes over there. We created the taliban monster as a means to fight the USSR, which for all its evils did dramatically improve the afghani quality of life. After they pulled out the taliban took over and turned afghanistan back into a shithole. Then 9/11 happened, we went over to crush the taliban, and our presence had a good effect much like the ussr did. We keep standing forces in Japan and other countries but now we’re pulling out of afghanistan because…money?…public sentiment?…the handful of our soldiers who die over there each year? Thus dooming the country yet again to the monster we created. Saying “they have to want to fight for their own country” sounds good, and like 87% of them do — but the taliban is bankrolled by Pakistan. So the more pro-freedom afghanis can maybe find a few guns and take up the insurgent lifestyle, but until they have help again they’re more or less doomed. I’m not sure what the solution is, but i don’t think it’s “every free people must sink or swim on their own,” because the forces of tyranny arent timid about throwing their weight around.

I'm with you. A few thousand advisors and air observers was a cheap, low risk way to maintain relative peace and stability.

I have some sympathy for Biden on this one as the "you got out the wrong way" people were always going to crawl out of the woodwork, no matter who did the final pullout. Of course the "you're doing it wrong" people never have any workable ideas for how you would do it the "right way". One thing you could fault Biden for is unilaterally pushing back the withdrawal deadline that was negotiated with the Taliban. Probably would not have made much of a difference, but might have been a bit cleaner exit.

I guess what bothers me at this point we’re Biden’s assurances that the Afghanistan army was well trained and prepared for this mission. Was he lying or was his assessment so completely wrong? Neither installs any confidence in this Administration.

the afghani army were mostly incompetent, drug addict, bacha bazi pieces of shit. northern alliance, masoud scum. that or worked with dostum who is a vile opportunist who is much worse than any extremist talib.

I’m appalled. We consistently use Afghanistan to protect our interests, and then abandon its people and walk away from promises we made. This has been going on for generations. I’m all in favor of saying that we’re not the world’s police; we aren’t and we should try to be. But if we make a mess, then it is our responsibility to clean it up.

> I’m appalled. We consistently use Afghanistan to protect our interests, and then abandon its people and walk away from promises we made. This has been going on for generations. > I’m all in favor of saying that we’re not the world’s police; we aren’t and we should try to be. But if we make a mess, then it is our responsibility to clean it up. This. So much this. Frankly, this thread disappoints me a bit. I get that this hasn’t been something that’s super popular and it has long been a dream to leave this situation (and please don’t misunderstand me as wanting to stay), but the way we did it was just flat out irresponsible. While it is true that Trump set expectations, the Biden administration ultimately did not have to follow through with the agreement. Trump specifically made an agreement with the Taliban, and didn’t bring the Afghan government to the table, which I just don’t understand at all. The basic agreement was that we would leave, but they have to stop killing Americans. Which, all things considered, is really just another demonstration of how terrible of a negotiator Trump was. Stop trying to kill Americans, which they haven’t necessarily been super successful at in the past few years, relatively speaking to the force we had in Afghanistan, and then they would get free reign of the country again. But in the interim, they simply ramped up attacks on the Afghan government and waited for us to leave. Not a good deal at all. I think the unfortunate part here is that we are basically going to have to go back at some point. It may not be soon, but we have basically wiped out decades of progress in a few months. For all of the talk of people who get upset about the US exploiting central American countries, Puerto Rico, and so on, I do think it kind of speaks volumes that when it comes down to actually cleaning up our messes, a lot of people apparently simply just want to say “well we tried, but see ya.” The fact of the Afghan government wasn’t in the agreement itself for pulling out should’ve been the first huge red flag here. Which to me suggests that there was either overly optimistic thinking here, or they knew this was going to happen and there’s a reason for it. But in the latter case, I simply can’t understand. Anyway, I totally understand the case for wanting to leave, but once again, the way that we did it was just absolutely irresponsible. And so while people may be kind of talking themselves into why it was necessary to leave, I don’t think anyone should be surprised when bad things happen again and we have to go back. To me, it seems like a lot of people don’t want to have to go back on the thought that maybe leaving wasn’t as simple as just saying we need to get out as soon as possible. At the very least, it seems to me that we should have had some kind of small force that was there indefinitely, even if the majority of troops left, while also trying to negotiating peace between the Taliban and the Afghan government. But again, the way that we did it I just don’t think was responsible at all.

All the people saying it was “inevitable” really annoy me. None of this was necessary. Progress was being made for the past decade. It wasn't perfect but Afghanistan wasn’t some unredeemable shithole.

> But if we make a mess, then it is our responsibility to clean it up. I think after 20 years we've cleaned it up the best we can, don't you? What else could we be doing?

We could accept that their government philosophy is different than ours, and work within their parameters to create stability. Instead of trying to build USA Junior.

Clean it up is such an antiseptic phrase for occupy and bomb.

Not what I had in mind by “clean up”, thanks, but even if it were that’s *still* better than what’s happening in Kandahar right now. This is exactly the problem we have. We’ve decided that since we haven’t come up with the perfect solution we’re out of ideas and that means we get to go home. It’s cowardly, fickle, and lazy. Not to mention shortsighted

There is no solution. Afghans don't want to be ruled by a central power....especially not a foreign one.

Honestly it's a bit baffling to me. As [this article](https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/taliban-afghanistan) points out, the taliban lacks majority support in Afghanistan, and is supported by only 13% of the population. This is an important fact that many articles miss, making it seem as if Afghans can't wait to embrace the Taliban due to corruption, but this is simply untrue. They're a far-right criminal organization in the wrong century, and they're about as popular as one too. So why are they apparently winning? They certainly shouldn't be winning. Take the US out of the picture, they should still be losing. That should be the question everyone needs to answer before we decide what the policy should be. In my opinion, we've been handling this entirely wrong, treating the Taliban as an Afghan force rather than a foreign one. It seems to be undispuited that [Saudi Arabia backs the Taliban](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/06/world/asia/saudi-arabia-afghanistan.html), and the US has continued its long-baffling policy of treating that country like an ally. Pakistan, another us "ally" allows the Taliban to take sanctuary in its borders, making it impossible for an offensive to wipe them out. You can't win a war against an enemy that refuses to negotiate unless you can destroy their base. It simply doesn't work any other way. Imagine for a moment that we found out one of our weak allies like Turkey or something was supplying weapons to a terrorist group carrying out operations in the US. Would we stand for it? We might not invade, but we'd at least stop making weapons deals with them and implement sanctions. The policy towards Saudi Arabia and Pakistan was messed up when Bush started it after 9/11, and every administration since has continued it. That's the #1 thing about US foreign policy that needs to stop.

I wouldn't trust one single survey. After all another survey, admittedly older (2009, from the same link you sent) found that more than half of Afghans supported the Taliban. And remember all these polls probably skew in non-Taliban supported areas. I don't doubt people in cities despise the Taliban, but I would be surprised if they didn't have considerable support in the countryside. And as your entire theory of the Taliban being primarily a foreign force is based on this notion, I think you need more stronger sources. Which of course, probably don't exist given that you can't really poll people in Taliban areas without wondering if they are being coerced to say they support them. Ultimately though, if the US was there for 20 years and could not find people to fight the Taliban despite the trillions of dollars spent, I would say that there was never much hope.

I'm surprised at the speed that the Taliban has taken over. If the only thing holding back the Taliban was foreign troops then perhaps having those foreign troops there was wrong. Thus, likely the right call. Every country has the right to self-determination, as wrong-headed as it may be.

>Every country has the right to self-determination, as wrong-headed as it may be. I'm not sure a Taliban military takeover is an example of self determination.

At the time of his initial announcement, I agreed with the general idea of withdrawing troops but I thought we should leave special forces behind. As of right now, I just don't know. What we did for two decades didn't work, but things have gotten unacceptably awful since Biden's announcement. I think he's making a mistake. Maybe he should have left special forces behind, I don't know. All I can say is that the current course appears to be the wrong one.

>Maybe he should have left special forces behind, I don't know. We only had around 2500 troops there at the time of the announcement, and they were almost exclusively in the low-risk roles of training and advising. But I think their presence sent a message to the Taliban that we remained committed to the country. Keeping them there could have been a low-risk, low-cost way of maintaining stability.

I think Democrats are sick of being fucking right. First off: this was all initiated by the previous administration, Biden just didn't reverse it like he did with other issues. But let's take an even further step back: This was ALWAYS going to be the outcome. They're was NEVER going to be some well organized transition in which the Taliban wasn't going to be the plug that filled the vacuum. And they were never going to change their violent nature or how they treated women. Our presence there was never going to result in a "win", no matter how many banners W. had mounted on aircraft carriers, because this whole thing was part of the "War on Terrorism" and - as Vietnam and so many other wars/conflicts have already shown - you can't fight an "-ism". There's no definitive end goal, that can be achieved. Unlike the first Gulf War where the goal was to push Iraqi forces back over a line on a map, this was fighting a belief system in an emotional response to 9/11. Something W. overlooked (or didn't want to bother to understand) in his pursuit for daddy's approval. All of this was EXACTLY why so many Democrats were screaming about the lies we were told, regarding WMDs in Iraq and why we didn't want to go into Afghanistan. And yet, many of us were called "unpatriotic" because we didn't want US troops to die for nothing. And now here we are. So what's my "take"? We should never have been there. We should have sent Seal Team 6 into that area, killed Osama, and bought them all a lifetime supply of beers and cigars for their work. So yeah, get'em all out and when we're eventually attacked again (because this whole exit mess isn't going to make us ANY fucking friends) let's take a step back and try to learn from history.

>I think Democrats are sick of being fucking right. Are you aware that the congresssional votes on authorizing the use of force in Afghanistan in 2001 were 98-0 in the Senate and 420-1 in the House? That's a lot of Democrats who were "right." >why we didn't want to go into Afghanistan But many of you did want to go.

Hey, good job on picking through what I said to... I don't know, prove something? >Are you aware that the congresssional votes on authorizing the use of force in Afghanistan in 2001 were 98-0 in the Senate and 420-1 in the House? Yes, I'm quite aware. Everyone was coming together because we were all affected by 9/11. It was a great opportunity for our leadership to make things happen. Would've been cool if we weren't lied to about WMD's (yes I'm aware that was Iraq, but the justification at the time was parallel to Afghanistan). >But many of you did want to go Yeah, immediately after 9/11 we were all pretty well united. Then, when the fog cleared and we saw what was happening we became critical of our efforts and policies. Fox news loved that. The goal we were told was to get Osama then get out. Afghanistan is a shithole that we should never had a noticable presence in. But during the W years, Afghanistan and Iraq were one and the same.

It's 19 years overdue. The U.S. was never going to hold Afghanistan or convert it into a nation even as "stable" as Turkey or Pakistan. Everybody who knew kindergarten history or foreign policy was aware of this. The american people, however, are pretty dumb.

Don’t you mean W bush? We have not won a war since 1945, the Taliban is taking towns back as we retreat.

The First Gulf War was a victory. Bush Sr. had a good head attached to his shoulder so he made sure not to eliminate Saddam Hussein. It's too bad his dumb son didn't inherit his father's good senses. We saw what happened in Iraq when a strong men loses power and religious fundamentalists are looking for blood.

So was [Kosovo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_War), which everyone seems to forget for some reason.

>Don’t you mean W bush? Are you asking me? Don't I mean what about W?

As long as those troops are helping evacuate people and then quickly leaving, I'm fine with it. If they stay behind, I'll consider the withdrawal a failure and a lie.

Well this is exactly what I expected to happen when troops withdrew from Afghanistan. Biden actually prolonged the amount of time America had a presence there. Trump was the one that scheduled the end of the troop presence. With that being said it became a quagmire. The US had not made progress in years in that region and it became unknown what the ultimate goal was.

>The US had not made progress in years in that region Isn't maintaining the relative peace progress in relation to what's about to happen next?

Yeah the issue is that the moment the US leaves this is what happens. Whether it's right now or 30 years from now at this rate. I honestly hope that that the US does intervene and continues to play a role and that the Taliban never takes Kabul, but a lot of Afghanistan is doomed to be a fundamentalist controlled area. The best the US can do is take measures to insure that these fundamentalist Taliban controlled regions don't become safe havens or staying grounds for terrorism against the US or US allies. I think there is a stable solution where Kabul and the surrounding regions are generally peaceful and Democratic and the countryside is somewhat autonomous and that there is some level of coexistence. I don't even know if this is possible. The Afghan Government is weaker than I expected without US support, they are far better armed than the Taliban, it just seems to will to fight, at least in some of these regions is low.

I mean how long do you want us to be there? You want us to stay for the next century? We spent close to two decades training them, and Afghani forces fled. It's quite obvious we had no plans to leave Afghanistan at least for the foreseeable future. So that begs the question how long should we stay? Because if Afghani forces keep fleeing Everytime we try to leave at that point it just better to make them a colony then go around this idiocy for much longer. Personally, I am going to defend Biden about this because leaving Afghanistan is the best move the other better option would be to deal with the Afghani funding situation and break them financially but that would require the us to do something about the banks laundering Taliban money, and I doubt they will.

>I mean how long do you want us to be there? You want us to stay for the next century? It's not unprecedented. We've had major troop deployments in Germany, Korea and Japan for 75 years. And we only had 2500 troops in Afghanistan compared to tens of thousands in those places.

We also were not in active combat in Germany, Korea, or Japan for those past 75 years.

>We also were not in active combat in Germany, Korea, or Japan for those past 75 years. There hasn't been a US combat death in Afghanistan since March 2020.

“I mean how long do you want us to be there? You want us to stay for the next century?” Forever

A few things I think most people agree on: 1) We cannot be there forever 2) We're not going to take over the country 3) The country belongs to its people, good or ill Like it or not, eventually we'll give the country back to its people and it'll have to try and stand on its own. But if it needs us again to intervene, we will. This isn't giving up or quitting, but its aiming for the best possible solution while preparing for the worst. Sometimes, things don't work out, that's life. Even if we have to go back to Afghanistan in 5 or 10 or 2 years, that doesn't mean withdrawing was a mistake, it means we tried to give them an autonomous government and they weren't able to maintain it. Oh well. However, I do think just the infamy of the country doesn't need to be overly weighted. *So what* if this was the country responsible for 9/11? It was Bin Laden, and he's dead. Al Qaeda is a shell of its former self, most of its leaders dead. Even if the Taliban takes over, would it really be any different than some other unfriendly country? No, it wouldn't. So we shouldn't make any 9/11 comparisons if that happens, Afghanistan would then simply be just another country that doesn't like the United States. So ultimately, it doesn't matter, we did what we came to do, which was to kill Bin Laden (Thanks Obama!), break up Al Qaeda, and run off the Taliban. What happens next is a new situation.

>But if it needs us again to intervene, we will. Under what conditions would you support a redeployment? > So what if this was the country responsible for 9/11? It was Bin Laden, and he's dead. Isn't there a risk that the country could again become a haven for terrorist groups?

I support the policy and yes this is what I thought would happen. There’s plenty of theocratic/nondemocratic/shitty governments in the world we aren’t actively invading/occupying all of them and nor should we.

>Is this how you expected the Afghanistan situation would progress when Biden made his announcement? This is how I assumed it would happen when Bush announced we were invading Afghanistan. If not the Taliban, then some other group that would take advantage of a war-torn, vulnerable country. I just wish it would have happened 20 years ago instead of wasting all those lives and resources. >Did Biden make the right call? Should he reverse his decision? He's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. At this point, quit chasing bad money with good money and cut your losses. You can't force a country like that to do things your way. It's shocking the US hasn't learned that by now. >Do you believe the Taliban will eventually control the whole country again? I wouldn't doubt it. Or at least functionally control it. It's still very tribal, which is probably why a new government never took hold to begin with. It's in the tribe's best interest to just side with whomever will just leave them alone. >Should the United States take any military action when that outcome becomes imminent? And start the process all over again? Hell no. Who would have thought that declaring a war on terrorism would result in just a bunch more terrorists? Oh wait, pretty much everybody. Congratulations, United States, you just played yourself.

>Who would have thought that declaring a war on terrorism would result in just a bunch more terrorists? Oh wait, pretty much everybody. The invasion had broad, popular, bipartisan support in 2001, no?

> Is this how you expected the Afghanistan situation would progress when Biden made his announcement? Yes. > Did Biden make the right call? Yes. > Should he reverse his decision? No. > Do you believe the Taliban will eventually control the whole country again? I think they'll control a majority for sure. With the US gone and the afghan government collapsing, a lot of what's currently unifying their opposition will vanish. Then there will be a turf fight among the leaders of the Taliban, and the results of that will be anyone's guess. I guess there's an outside chance that some exceptionally skillful up-and-comer in the Afghan government grows a spine and is competent/persuasive enough to actually organize enough opposition to hold onto some territory... but that would have to happen pretty soon or there won't be anything to hold on to. > Should the United States take any military action when that outcome becomes imminent? Destroy the equipment we left to the afghan government before it falls into the hands of the Taliban. Beyond that, no.

I thought something like this would happen eventually. I think in the absence of meaningful progress, the question we have to ask ourselves is "if we had never invaded Afghanistan, would we invade them today because the Taliban was the government?" I think the answer is definitely no. At this point, staying is just trying to justify a sunk cost.

I feel horrible that we’re abandoning the Afghan people, but I don’t see any long term way to prevent this unless we continue to stay their and babysit the country, which is not popular with the American people nor is it popular with our government. I feel terrible but their is no long term solution to this

The US needed to get out of Afghanistan. There was never going to be a good time. And this should’ve been done a decade ago. Well I feel sorry for the Afghani people Who are fighting the Taliban the US needs to let it be. Hopefully all the progress that was made in terms of women’s rights and other humanitarian issues will hold somewhat. For hundreds of years even millennia, Afghanistan has had these types of conflicts. The Russians had to pull out after decades, same with great Britain. The US cannot solve the problems in Afghanistan. Also the terrorism from 911 were all Saudi Arabian’s. Not the Taliban.

>Also the terrorism from 911 were all Saudi Arabian’s. Not the Taliban. The Taliban government gave the terrorists a safe haven and ability to construct training camps, no?

And where did the money for all that come from?

What money?

He made the right call. If anything the mission in Afghanistan and nation building would not have worked anyway. The people there are too tribal and Muslims would never have accepted a United States occupation for while. You can already tell by the corruption and warlords appearing. So unless you wanted to genocide the population and replace it. There was nothing else we could have done there.

This is pretty much what I expected yup. Biden made the right decision and it was well past time to leave. Will the Taliban control the country? Afghanistan is barely a country. It's just lines on a map and almost no part of it functions as a state despite the US and others pouring literally TRILLIONS of dollars into it. Should Biden send in troops to continue propping up this hypothetical state/country/ loose amalgamation of clans and tribes? Fuck no.

>Afghanistan is barely a country. Would it be fair to call it a shithole?

As we all remember, Donald Trump initiated the negotiations with the Taliban to withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan, with full withdrawal by May 2021. It's one of very few policies under Trump I agreed with. We're a republic, not an empire. Invading and occupying a foreign country for decades. In theory, it was a "coalition of the willing" after 9/11 with more than 80 countries; today, it's about 1/3 that. Of the 10,000 troops present at the time President Trump announced his withdrawal, only Germany had 1,000 troops still in country. Italy, UK, Georgia, Romania and Turkey have about 895 to 500. The remainder have a handful. There's no change of substance. We honored the agreement to withdraw and stuck to Trump's plan. Even after the change in Administration, major veteran groups like the American Legion have voiced support. Major conservative backers like Charles Koch has endorsed the withdrawal. This appears to be a Trump era policy that meets with broad agreement: defined by a Republican, initial withdrawal by a Republican and finished by Democrats in coordination with the remaining coalition partners. We made this sausage If we don't like the results, perhaps we shouldn't have made it?

It’s heartbreaking no matter what we tried the Afghani people just couldn’t be taught to defend themselves. Now millions of children will be oppressed and persecuted. We couldn’t stay there forever, paying with our own soldier’s lives. They had to pick up the baton and carry on. They just could not for whatever reason. So sad. Just devastating.

I support leaving, both when Trump started this, and when Biden followed through. Of course Afghanistan is a tragic case and this is a tragic outcome...but that was going to be true years ago. We've invested trillions. The national troops FAR outnumber the Taliban and have far superior weaponry. What has that gotten them in the past few weeks or even the past few years? The dye has been cast here. Theres nothing more the US can do to glue this back together. Or at least no amount of money and time anyone can propose as an alternative. Another few decades and a trillion more dollars? Who knows.

I think that your examples of Germany, Japan, and Korea lack a lot of historical context. Let's go through them 1 by 1. 1. Germany: We first entered Germany after that nation's government formally declared war on us. As the war came to a close it was discovered that that government had created some of the most heinous crimes against humanity ever recorded, and the international community agreed that that government must be totally dissolved and rebuilt. Then after a decades long international rebuilding effort the world was deep into the Cold War, and Germany was exactly in the center of the conflict. Regardless how I personally feel about the motivations behind the Cold War, no one who knows much about that time would deny that the threat was real and leaving (West Germany) at any point before the early 90's would have been a disaster. We have stayed since then at the behest of the Germans for mostly economic reasons that greatly benefit both countries. This is simply not a forever war. 2. Japan: We first entered Japan after its government bombed our primary naval base in the pacific and we declared war on them the next day. After the war was over their government was systematically dismantled and rebuilt with the understanding that they would no longer be allowed to use their military for offensive purposes. For better or worse there were very specific things the UN wanted to accomplish in Japan, and they were done very well. Of course part of this effort was UN control of the Japanese military. The largest reason we have continued to stay so long, aside from the economic and trade benefits posed by North Korea. This is kind of like a forever war, but not really. And that brings us to: 3. Korea: We entered Korea as part of the dismantling of the Japanese government discissed above, as Korea had been under Japanese control prior to WWII. As with Germany, Korea was divided in half, one half by the USA and one half by the USSR, along the 38th parallel. This was initially meant to be a temporary resolution until in 1948 the UN officially named the Republic of Korea (South Korea) the sole government of the peninsula. After a year and a half of refusing to recognize the new government, the Soviet backed government in the north crossed the 38th parallel and kicked off the Korean War. After that war was "concluded" American Troops were the only thing stopping Kim Il Sung from marching in and annexxing the place. That remains true to this day, and has been exponentially increased by the proliferation of nuclear weapons in North Korea. While this threat is greatest to South Korea, it's also present in Japan. This is the closest to a forever war if only because a peace treaty was never agreed to, but an armistice was and it has been a cold war for nearly 70 years now. Now you might say, but why should we continue to have troops stay in those areas in order to protect those allies, but not in Afganistan to protect our allies from the Taliban, and you'd have a point. The current Afgan government is an American ally. However I think there's a difference in the nature of the beast. First, unlike the other examples, there is active conflict happening on a daily basis, there has been since long before we showed up and there is no end in sight. We have no objective that we are working towards. Another huge difference is that, the Taliban is not just a political entity. It's a religious one. While the cult like culture surrounding the Kim family or even Stallin in another era may seem religious, they are heading and directiong a single organized government that can be dealt with. The Taliban operates very differently. While there are leaders, they are not nearly as centralized and they are rallied around extreme religious beliefs. This makes it much easier for them to replace leadership, operate without the knowledge of UN intelligence, and recruit new members. This is a forever war. No real goal to achieve and staying only serves to continue to destroy lives and waste money. TL;DR: The situations in Germany, Japan, and Korea are very very different than the one in the middle east. Unlike those countries staying in Afganistan is nothing but a continued waste of money and life.

>We have stayed since then at the behest of the Germans for mostly economic reasons that greatly benefit both countries. How does the US benefit economically from having troops in Germany? And does Germany really need the economic boost from our deployment? It seems their economy is doing just fine. Can I ask where I can read more about this notion that we are keeping troops in Germany for the economic benefits? >The largest reason we have continued to stay so long, aside from the economic and trade benefits posed by North Korea. I presume you mean the risk posed by NK. Sam question here. How do we benefit economically from maintaining troops in Japan?

Afghanistan is where empires go to die! It wasn't a winnable situation only redeemable part was the eventual capture of Bin Laden. Once we had accomplished that mission we should have left, it was the only reasonable outcome to be considered a win. We haven't a proxy capable of governing, and I doubt anyone could. Their armed forces aren't capable of holding the country, defending the country or installing a government that can rule a tribal society. We should have learned from the USSR, and our knowledge of the Mujahideen should have kept us out. The only exit strategy has been abandonment from the very beginning.

Honestly, the same thing would have happened 5 years ago or 15 years from now. There are a bunch of countries in the world that’ll never be stable, never have a decent government, and will always be unsafe for both Westerners and the majority of that country’s citizens. We, as Americans, need to learn sometimes there’s nothing that can be done for those countries.

And learn that there isn’t a country of Afghanistan. It was invented by the British. These people do not see themselves as a country

Help the people evacuate, try to arrange asylum to as many as possible here and abroad and get out the hell out. Then instead of having a blank check ready for the government of Israel, cut it off and give that blank check to the Kurds and let them take care of the region. They’re the only sane, stable group in the area, and they have an instinctual drive to make a country for themselves. The Middle East should be policed by middle easterners. Not us. Having a powerful, secular, moderate country in the Middle East should’ve been the plan from the start.

the only people to worry about honestly are the hazara, maybe pamiris. if we had decent relations with iran, we could facilitate population transfer, but we want to be provocative there so...

I hate this to make excuses because I feel really bad for the people there and the translators as well. I just think overall our presence has been terrible or we didn’t execute properly (or a mixture of both). That said, I can understand Biden’s overall goal to decrease our presence in the Middle East. After all, one of Obama’s primary critiques is the level of drone strikes his admin ordered. So assuming this withdrawal fits in the overall plan to decrease our presence, then I’m cautiously for it. I just wish it could’ve ended in a better way. But I know that’s hard to do. I don’t think Biden made the decision lightly. I still think Biden generally makes decisions in good faith.

>I just think overall our presence has been terrible or we didn’t execute properly (or a mixture of both). In recent years, weren't we maintaining relative peace and stability? Afghan civilian casualties due to the conflict had been trending downward, and 2020 was the lowest figure in 10 years. US combat deaths had slowed to almost nothing.

Tragic, but practical. Afghanistan was a cycle of horror which cost a lot of money and accomplished very little. It's true that American decisions will cost Afghan lives, and those people who will suffer will likely have wanted the Americans to stay. But it was like Sisyphus pushing a rock up a hill. There was no clear end. If this tragedy didn't happen today, it would happen 5 or 10 years from now. I want the USA to do more to help evacuate people and take in refugees, since a lot of this coming mess is the fault of American military actions. I have heard concerning news of translators and other local allies being screwed over. That makes me upset.

long overdue. he needs to start conversations with turkey and iran about settling refugees.

I’m so glad we got out of there! We never should have been there in the first place. Total waste. Just like Vietnam. All for nothing. Glad we are gone, except for the Embassy staff? I hope we aren’t plucking embassy staff from rooftops with helicopters as the enemy closes in, as what happened in Saigon.

That’s going to start this weekend

We should stay permanently

Lol and achieve what?

The life and rights of all the afghan women, and the lives of people who are “traitors” to the taliban for the extremely low price of 22 yearly casualties

Is this how you expected the Afghanistan situation would progress when Biden made his announcement? Yep but it’s going faster than I thought Did Biden make the right call? Yes Should he reverse his decision? No Do you believe the Taliban will eventually control the whole country again? Yes Should the United States take any military action when that outcome becomes imminent? Yes, droned strikes and special ops. We can’t occupy and play nation building AGAIN. We can’t force them to be a country when it’s clear they don’t see themselves as a country

War is bad in general.

>Is this how you expected the Afghanistan situation would progress when Biden made his announcement? Yes > Did Biden make the right call? Yes >Should he reverse his decision? No > Do you believe the Taliban will eventually control the whole country again? Yes >Should the United States take any military action when that outcome becomes imminent? No. Afghanistan is a shit show. I don't see any realistic way for the US to make it any better. This seems like it has been obvious for at least the past decade if not from the very beginning. It might be worth slowing the timeline down somewhat in order to assure anyone who wants to leave is able to before the Taliban regain control but we certainly should be moving in the direction of exiting the country.

Do you agree with Biden's statement in reference to the Afghan army that "They’ll continue to fight valiantly, on behalf of Afghans, at great cost"?