History bears that out. When you hear people criticize Nixon for his many faults one thing that almost never comes up is “he was the guy who gave up on winning Vietnam.”
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I acknowledge that Al-qaeda and Isis were separate entities when they first entered
Afghanistan, but they have been intermarrying with the Taliban for years now. One can question who is more influential component in formulating policy, but there is very little
daylight between them when it comes to suppressing human rights.
Fun fact: that started under the Carter administration, courtesy of Zbigniew_Brzezinski (already fondly remembered for helping LBJ to win the war in Vietnam).
The Reagan administration then kicked it up a notch or ten.
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The median age of the Afghan population – 18.4 years.
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If Afghanistan is so legendarily hard to hold, why do the Taliban make it look easy?
I got up this morning and came downstairs to find my wife watching the news out of Afghanistan, she was crying because the children, who did nothing to deserve what’s happening to them, are going to suffer the most.
I had no answer.
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Legendarily hard for foreign powers to hold – and that is debatable.
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Good point. I was just thinking about Genghis Khan.
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Which, in my mind, makes them more responsible for this mess than otherwise. The people involved in the original invasion had joined the US military at peace time. They probably didn’t expect to ever be deployed or if they did, only in peacekeeping missions like Kosovo (even the first Iraq war was arguably a reaction to an invasion).
The people who joined after the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq had started knew exactly what they signed up for. They wanted to go to war and war is what they got.
For many communities in the United States military service is one of the few available avenues for escaping poverty. So I’m still going to lay the blame for this war on the politicians rather than the grunts.
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A lot of young people in poverty see military service as a way out, not as an opportunity to murder people. If we fixed the problems that lead to that lack of opportunity it would go a long way to strangling the supply line of bodies for the military. Probably one reason we don’t fix those problems.
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Military service is a welfare system with strings attached.
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ETA:
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Yeah, today is not a day I have a lot of patience for the aggressors. If it’s such a great way out of poverty, why don’t they make it more explicit?
Give every poor American a gun, have an even poorer person from another country kneel before them and tell them you’re going to pay them money if they pull the trigger.
To be clear, it is NOT a great way out of poverty. It is just promoted that way. And as always, with the promise that you are going to be helping, not hurting. I still say blame the people at the top.
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I’m not saying the people at the top aren’t more responsible than the ones pulling the trigger but I also won’t absolve the latter of responsibility.
There are millions of people around the world who could escape poverty by acting unethically who aren’t doing so.
it is not hard to take , it is hard to HOLD ; the warlords vs the taliban is yet to start , a lot of trained people and assorted munitions are still very available , just taking a much needed breather
Can confirm. Several of my Highschool acquaintances and one close friend enlisted for just this reason. One signed up, changed his mind, then intentionally flunked out so he didn’t have to go. I had good grades but no money or support and came this close to joining, myself.
I don’t blame a bunch of poor kids who’s brains aren’t even technically done forming for this stupid war. Just like I don’t blame every poor person who buys the cheap ground beef for factory farming. 
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I remember reading an article back when Cindy Sheehan was protesting the war under Dubya, how the Army was being accused of underhanded tactics to get poor and low-information potential recruits to sign up.
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This was inevitable but what wasn’t inevitable is leaving behind people who out of desperation cooperated and worked with the US government as guides, interpreters, and low level workers. These folks need help and the fact this administration dragged its feet on allowing them to come here as refugees is frustrating to me. Even the German government is being insular about taking on refugees.
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