Those who left and those who could not flee speak of a country in ruins and decry the world’s apathy towards the humanitarian crisis and the lack of rights, mainly for women, which a UN report describes as ‘gender apartheid’
The resources you’re referring to during the first decade were not used for “fiddling”, but well-spent on capturing and killing bin Laden and negating the threat of al-Qaeda. The occupation of Afghanistan following the raid on bin-Laden continued to be costly without reaping similar tangible rewards and that’s all the more reason for the US to subsequently withdraw from Afghanistan.
The US didn’t “lose Afghanistan”, they stopped pouring resources and lives into a very costly and difficult occupation without significant local support that didn’t make any sense or reap any benefit after achieving their stated goals of capturing and killing bin laden and dismantling al-Qaeda.
Nobody has forgotten Afghanistan, there just isn’t a foreign power actively occupying and policing their country anymore.
In Vietnam, the stated US goal was to stop the Communist takeover of Vietnam as a means to “stop communism”, which is ludicrous and vague and didn’t work. I have to disagree with you and say the US military lost Vietnam since they did so poorly militarily and didn’t achieve what they set out to.
In Afghanistan, they had specific goals of capturing and killing bin Laden and dismantling al Qaeda, two specific goals that were achieved while dominating the country militarily. So yes, the US “won” Afghanistan in that they achieved both of their goals and did well militarily.
I guess you’re arguing that since communism didn’t spread out from Vietnam following US military intervention, the US “won” Vietnam, but the US military didn’t succeed in any practical sense or achieve anything tangible.
If you believe that the war was one man’s and not the nation’s, then the US obviously didn’t lose any war according to your definition.
You’re making broad political assumptions based on the physical appearance of George Bush, which is not a very convincing argument.
You allege bush had “intel”, that he didn’t listen to anybody, and he felt he had all the answers, but you aren’t providing a thesis, evidence, context, examples, or drawing any conclusions from these assumptions. You’re just complaining about assumptions you made up.
Saying “all we had to do was go to Pakistan, and we would’ve gotten Osama a lot earlier” is probably the least-sensical assumption you’re making.
That was the whole point of finding him, his whereabouts were unknown.
You might as well get angry at homicide detectives for finding killers. “Gee, you know if you just went straight to the murderer:s house that you didn’t know the location of, you would have arrested him much sooner. Don’t know why you bothered with all those clues and evidence for years and didn’t just meet him at his hiding spot right away.”
They had to find bin laden before they knew where he was. Bin laden was in something like a half dozen different safe houses in an area of the size of Texas, supported and protected by a terrorist organization spread across more than two countries that by themselves added up to the size of Mexico, and most of the hijackers of the 9/11 attack were from Saudi Arabia.
The resources you’re referring to during the first decade were not used for “fiddling”, but well-spent on capturing and killing bin Laden and negating the threat of al-Qaeda. The occupation of Afghanistan following the raid on bin-Laden continued to be costly without reaping similar tangible rewards and that’s all the more reason for the US to subsequently withdraw from Afghanistan.
The US didn’t “lose Afghanistan”, they stopped pouring resources and lives into a very costly and difficult occupation without significant local support that didn’t make any sense or reap any benefit after achieving their stated goals of capturing and killing bin laden and dismantling al-Qaeda.
Nobody has forgotten Afghanistan, there just isn’t a foreign power actively occupying and policing their country anymore.
No, they were just overthrown by a handful of civilians with guns and thrown out of the country. Totally no loss at all /s
Let me guess, the US also didn’t lose the war in Vietnam, but decided to just leave the country?
In Vietnam, the stated US goal was to stop the Communist takeover of Vietnam as a means to “stop communism”, which is ludicrous and vague and didn’t work. I have to disagree with you and say the US military lost Vietnam since they did so poorly militarily and didn’t achieve what they set out to.
In Afghanistan, they had specific goals of capturing and killing bin Laden and dismantling al Qaeda, two specific goals that were achieved while dominating the country militarily. So yes, the US “won” Afghanistan in that they achieved both of their goals and did well militarily.
I guess you’re arguing that since communism didn’t spread out from Vietnam following US military intervention, the US “won” Vietnam, but the US military didn’t succeed in any practical sense or achieve anything tangible.
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If you believe that the war was one man’s and not the nation’s, then the US obviously didn’t lose any war according to your definition.
You’re making broad political assumptions based on the physical appearance of George Bush, which is not a very convincing argument.
You allege bush had “intel”, that he didn’t listen to anybody, and he felt he had all the answers, but you aren’t providing a thesis, evidence, context, examples, or drawing any conclusions from these assumptions. You’re just complaining about assumptions you made up.
Saying “all we had to do was go to Pakistan, and we would’ve gotten Osama a lot earlier” is probably the least-sensical assumption you’re making.
That was the whole point of finding him, his whereabouts were unknown.
You might as well get angry at homicide detectives for finding killers. “Gee, you know if you just went straight to the murderer:s house that you didn’t know the location of, you would have arrested him much sooner. Don’t know why you bothered with all those clues and evidence for years and didn’t just meet him at his hiding spot right away.”
They had to find bin laden before they knew where he was. Bin laden was in something like a half dozen different safe houses in an area of the size of Texas, supported and protected by a terrorist organization spread across more than two countries that by themselves added up to the size of Mexico, and most of the hijackers of the 9/11 attack were from Saudi Arabia.