Does anyome changed their mind about the Afghan War?

@beckyromero The first paragraph gives justifications for invading Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and others. You have to ask why Afghanistan was on the agenda (along with Iraq but others were not.

The were no WMD and Iraq had no link to Al Queda. Also, it's not the Taliban who organised the attack.

Were mistakes made? Yes. Though I struggle to see how more military and more infrastructure investment would have changed things.

Western influence was always negligable outside the biggest cities. Its a country of 40 million people. Its mostly rural, highly Islamic and hostile to foreigners. An invading force would have no legitimacy for reconstruction, even if it had tried. The size of the country is massive and a trillion dollars was spent anyway. How do you remould a country of fortly million people when they don't even want you there?

The Taliban was beaten militarily several times. Each tine, it was able to survive by hiding within Afghan rural populations. Its a mistake to understand this as a cenventional war. Its against a guerilla army which has support from civilians.

Literally, the only way to fully pacify the Taliban would be to do what the British did in the Boer War: use a vastly overwhelming force and also target civilians. I am not in favour of that.

@Burnley123
Pay off the civilians.

@beckyromero 30 million or 40 million?

Btw, we are buying your country so please denounce Islam and have a Big Mac.

@Burnley123

You misunderstood.

I said "Pay off the civilians."

If the Taliban is paying rural farmers a given amount to grow poppy, we should pay them three times as much to grow something else instead.

@beckyromero For this to work on its own (bad) terms there needs to be done buy in.

@Burnley123

We didn't make enough of an effort.

@beckyromero Its twenty years and two trllon dollars. The people never wanted us there.

Do you really think nobody else has ever thought of paying Afghan farmers? The allies never really had power over the countryside to implement this. There are about thirty million people in rural Afghanistan do to pay them three times more than the Taliban did to produce a less profitable crop? It doesn't work economically. Or it would cost an extreme amount.

@Burnley123
Of course policy makers have. They just never took it to heart and seriously implemented such a policy.


And what will be the cost of another 9/11?

Nearly two-thirds of the population of Afghanistan are under the age of 25 (and over half of that group are women).

Do you think they all go to bed at night dreaming them want to be poppy farmers?

@beckyromero
As someone else said to you in another post, 9/11 is less likely because security and intelligence have improved. There is no causal link between these wars and reducing terrorism. Apart from maybe assassinating Bin Laden, which could have been done without a military invasion. Nobody invaded Pakistan, afterall.


I don't see how this can count as criticism of anything I have said. Of course not. One of the reasons why this has happened is because there has been a violent war for twenty years and people are desperate.

The essential problem that none of the people wanted us there remains. It's not a small country and has a bigger population than Canada. Decades-long subsidy of an economy that size is not viable even for America.

Your views are still based on the assumption that the war had noble aims anyway. It was sold on lies and the real objective was more power in the ME and access to resources. Everything that has happened is consistent with that. It failed in its own terms but those terms were always bad anyway.

@Burnley123 As

🤣

That person also essentially wants a surveillance state and armed air marshals on every airline flight (without explaining how to pay for it, by the way).

And if you really think airline safety has improved, you're kidding yourself. Most of the stuff going on is window-dressing.

Terrorists are fighting over there instead of plotting their way to come up with attacks here.

@beckyromero No that person doesn't. The Taliban didn't even take part in 9/11,remember. Neither did Saddam.

There have been numerous terrorist attacks in Europe since then, indicating that the wars have made the world less safe.

The loss of life in Iraq and Afghanistan is orders of multitude higher than any of that though.

@Burnley123
Saddam? No. The Taliban harbored the planners and refused demands to turn them over.

You really think Europe wouldn't be a terrorist target if 9/11 hadn't happened?

It was before.