Was the war in Afghanistan lost when it turned into a woke crusade?

As someone who was in the military during this time period, I feel very qualfied to answer this question. The war in Afghanistan was about weakening the foothold of regimes like the taliban who actively funded terrorist cells like Al-Qaeda. The secondary purpose was community building. The idea was get the Taliban out of power then install a stable democratic-republic within the region. It then became the job of the military to provide aide in setting up this government within the region. That included, hosting civilian job fairs, providing security for special elections, and assisting with construction projects. Aka "winning hearts and minds".
Where we messed up was when we started acting like a police force for Afghanistan. America's only interest in the region was originally to get rid of terrorists who may pose a danger to the people of America. We should have went in, captured or killed key players in the Taliban and Al-Queda and got out. Instead we became enablers and allowed that nation to become dependent on us for protection from these people. At the same time, these terrorists were embedded in the community to the point where you have no idea who is on your side and who isnt. So bottom line, instead of protecting our own interests we went in and made a mess of things, weren't really sure how to clean it up, then spent the next decade trying to save face.

No, it was a failed imperial conquest from the first day.

It had fuck all to do with "woke" anything.

And the fact all you care about is how Afghanistan should make things better for the USA to prove my point.


[quote]he Taliban harbored terrorists who bombed a few of our most iconic buildings by exploiting serious security flaws in our airports[/quote]

This is factually wrong. The Taliban offered to hand them over to a neutral third nation for criminal prosecution but Bush wanted to be a war hero.

And FYI he was found in Pakistan, not Afghanistan.

And nice racist stereotypes reducing an entire nation to a cliche.

[quote]What should we do in the future in some similar situation? Thank you.[/quote]

This is really really simple. Quit invading countries.

You can trace most of the US failures in Afghanistan to Bush's Sec'y of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and by extension Rumsfeld's White House ally Dick Cheney.

When the US first entered Afghanistan after 9/11, the CIA was on the front line, buying temporary loyalty from tribal leaders with suitcases full of money. They were closing in on Bin Ladin in the difficult Tora Bora area.

But when Bush sent more troops to Afghanistan, Rumsfeld staged a sort of bureaucratic coup, and said he couldn't support troops there unless he, Rumsfeld, was in total charge of all US people in Afghanistan. I'm sure Cheney backed him.

The result was the US didn't try to surround Tora Bora, and Bin Laden walked out over the mountains to the tribal areas of Pakistan. This was a total failure of the US job in Afghanistan. Politically, Bush couldn't admit the failure, so began a period of mission creep, where Bush & Cheney added more and more goals for US troops in Afghanistan.

But what Bush really wanted to do was punish Saddam Hussein for his invasion of Kuwait during the Bush 1 admin. So he had Rumsfeld and Cheney manufacture excuses for an Iraq invasion and made Iraq the centerpiece of his efforts. Troops were withdrawn from Afghanistan and prepared for Iraq.

So Afghanistan was left on the back burner with reduced military resources and minimal attention along with the mission creep. I've never seen a better recipe for failure.

Everyone who invades Afghanistan bleeds and then leaves ignominiously. The russians learned that the hard way (and are now re-learning the lesson in Ukraine)

🇺🇦 🌻 🇺🇦

The war in Afghanistan was probably lost when it was announced that the US would bring democracy to a nation that is not able to stand up and fight for itself. Why can’t it?… because Allah hasn’t see fit to will it to fight.


The Ukraine on the other hand is a totally different kettle of fish.

The Americans created the Taliban
Ben Laden was from an extremely rich Saudi family who made their fortune through contracts with the US

I always thought it was weird, a Saudi Arabian group, attacks America, so we invade Afghanistan and Iraq, try to kill off Al quadas biggest rivals to the areas, sadom Hussen, and the taliban, and come to find out Osama Bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan the whole time? 🤔 like what? Lol

I wouldn't characterize this as "woke"...lol.

We had a perfect storm of stupidity sadly.

• We wanted to act, so we ignored the lessons we could have learned from the Soviet Union's attempt to take over/control Afghanistan.

• We had the oldest Sec'y of Defense ever (he'd been the *youngest*, years before...) who thought he was smarter than everyone in every room, who threw out the doctrine attributed to Colin Powell, which tried to encapsulate some critical lessons from Viet Nam:

[quote]The Powell Doctrine states that a list of questions all have to be answered affirmatively before military action is taken by the United States:

1) Is a vital national security interest threatened?

2) Do we have a clear attainable objective?

3) Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?

4) Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?

5) Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?

6) Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?

7) Is the action supported by the American people?

8) Do we have genuine broad international support?[2][/quote]

(Quote from the Wikipedia article.)

3) Even educated State Department or CIA regional/country experts seemed to have been excluded from the war planning, because of the incomprehensible inability to understand the importance of the local Islamic leaders...


These were NOT people asking to be imprinted with an American mindset. They were being held in the medieval period.

Nah the war was lost when we decided the goal was to eradicate the Taliban. Absolute silliness.

I know what you're suggesting : that the secondary phase of the war , the strategy of nation building was doomed from the start. And I actually agree. But why on earth would you choose to characterise it as a 'woke crusade' ?

The Afghanistan papers showed that the war never had coherent aims and was based on lies.
Was your side going to deny that?
Demopublicans always do! Wars are good money.

I think it's telling that people now use "woke" and "democratic" interchangeably.

As someone who served 4 tours in Afghanistan, you are not entirely wrong, the original premise for the invasion was to get Osama Bin Laden, not to oust the Taliban and try to impose our Western values on a Nation that didn't want them. Bush wanted to be a king maker and attempted to impose political values that hold no merit in that country. They aren't Americans and don't want shopping malls, Walmart and McDonalds on every street corner and a Ford in every driveway, the majority want to be a non-secular, Muslim Nation and we should have accepted that and gotten out after we got Bin Laden, who wasn't even in Afghanistan anymore.

😂😂 the official story of 9/11 is true and the "allies" illegally waged war on afghanistan for "terror", not for natural resources

Got to love murdering millions of people with bombs and sanctions of peace and democracy

The war in Afghanistan was lost the day it was declared. The silly idea that Afghanistan was a democracy just waiting to break out if the Taliban was removed was neocon/neolib hubris in the extreme.

Yep.

Actually, when it turned into nation building… rather than counterinsurgency.

“Never get involved in a land war in Asia” — Vizzini the Sicilian

No, it was lost as previous invasions were lost by Britain and Russia; taking over a country that isn't really an actual nation but more of a tribal agglomeration is next to impossible. Just as in Vietnam, unless you're willing to essentially destroy the entire nation, guerilla warfare will sap the strength and will of any invader.

Just like Trudeau and Biden are calling citizens who disagree with the regime installation ‘terrorists’.
.. all across the Middle East. Countries were destabilised, a puppet regime was installed. And the local populace who disagreed we’re given names like Al queda and such…

Exactly like we’re witnessing in Ukraine with the azof nazis..
Obamas European varsity team..

It was lost when this happened.

I am reminded of the lines written by Rudyard Kipling

"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier."

What can we do? Don’t elect brain dead liberals.

If freedom of information and was truly a a thing in America you know this already. But I cannot claim my country has the moral high ground on that. The Governments been doing shady shit for years.

I can recommend this movie:

[media=https://youtu.be/G1mnSjjeC2o]

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472062/

There's no woke anything here. It was about land money and resources. Same with all the other wars.