Mike Luckovich for April 15, 2021

A ground war in South Asia is unwinnable. The best you can do is win an specific objective and get out.

The British and the Russians, as well as the United States, could not win in the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan, just as we also could not win in the jungles of Vietnam.

Yes, we needed a response to the 9/11 terror attacks. Instead of a full-on war, it should have been a targeted police action to strike at the Al Qaeda base, take out Osama bin Laden (which Bush never did, allowing him to escape through Tora Bora into Pakistan) and then engage in heavy retaliatory strikes against the Taliban government, a seizure of all wealth and assets for a full victims’ compensation fund, and retaliation and financial penalties and seizures against the Saudis, who provided 15 of the 19 hijackers, and even more of the masterminds and all of the funding.

But oh yeah, the oil, because the Bush/Saud royal family connections were based on oil (as also was the wealth of Dick Cheney [Halliburton]) as the shared foundations of their wealth and they didn’t want to transition to the renewable energy sources that held no profit$ (for them)…

Could have, should have. History repeats…

We don’t seem to learn from our own history. Guerrrila warfare was a major part in the Colonials victory over the British. Yet we continue to try to use WWII tactics when we decide to go into these third world cesspools.

And in typical fashion, right-wing warmongers (led by McConnell and Graham) are bleating about how terrible this decision is. Screw ‘em, they’re the minority party now. Joe should do what’s right and this is LONG overdue.

Our troops do not belong there.

Honor the Veterans that served there, Call it a wash and walk away , then try to learn from our mistakes. The Afghans are going to do what they’ve been doing for millennia , killing each other over Tribal reasons .

And to think, if only we’d helped the Afghans after the Soviets left, rather than abandoning them because we got what we wanted, all this may never have happened.

Russia didn’t fair any better when they had their chance.

Here, here DD. I’ve said the very same since 9/11. I go as far back as putting some blame on the mindset of Prescott.

We were supposedly there to train the Afghan army. After 20 years, they still cannot defend themselves from terrorists. Time we got out.

The Pentagon Papers validated the rumors that the war in Vietnam was known to have been unwinnable for at least 10 years before the US withdrawal. The US failed to read the Afghan history of war with the British and the Russians. Why do we continue wars with a lot of ineffective tactics (let alone few if any valid reasons) in several drawn out conflicts? That answer can also be found in history. It goes as far back as the Latin question, cui bono? More but no too recently when Country Joe & the Fish sang the lyric “Plenty good made to be made, supplin’ the Army with the tools of the trade.”

What Americans never understand is that one man fighting to defend his country is worth ten invaders from elsewhere.

And the man defending his own country will NEVER quit.

We’re supposed to be the good guys, but we sell aircraft to one country and anti aircraft weapons to another. Far too much money to be made. When we leave, we’ll leave lots of resources that the Taliban will use.

One can never change a culture with force and guns. America (and every other nation) only need to look in its own back yard to realize that.

Ask any military strategist, or any combat line officer, or even a moderately good chess player. All three will tell you that before you enter a war, you need a clearly defined set of “victory conditions;” e.g., the goals to be obtained in order to end hostilities. Going into a war without a clear cut objective is like boarding trains, planes, or buses at random with no particular destination in mind thinking only “you’ll know when you get there.”

We can’t help and we can’t make things worse than they’ve been since Islam came to that place.

Yes, the USA has the mightiest military force in human history. That makes it really, really good at destroying things. If we wanted to wipe Afghanistan off the face of the map, we could accomplish the task by noon today.

Unfortunately, that’s not what needs to be done here. And the armed forces are no more adept at WHAM (winning hearts and minds) in Afghanistan than they were in Vietnam.

When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?

Thanks republicans!

No, you are not! Afghanistan is to any warring country what Moscow is to any invader… UNBEATABLE. Ask Napoleon; ask Hitler…

I always envision looking down at the planet from 500 miles up. Seems the worst thing that ever happened was the evolution of man. We just can’t seem to get it right!

Afghanistan is a “created” country, by maps set forth by others………..usually Europeans, sometimes by fellow Asians. (Of course, “Asia” is a “created” continent……….) Ask people who have the misfortune to live in the Mideast about “created” maps sometimes. (Also, ask people in North and South America………….) I don’t have a “point” here (unless it is to annoy some of my fellow commenters), but that’s how I feel. Please forgive me for it, and now I have to exterminate a few extinct species (which is surprisingly easy!)

Like the V.C., the Taliban “hide” among the people. The lesson of Vietnam is that the people must be on your side. Unless you are willing to kill more women and children than actual “fighters”, you can’t get at them. While Western forces have killed plenty of innocents, we have generally at least tried to minimize “collateral damage”. Those constraints don’t trouble the Taliban, who are killing their fellow Afghans in their efforts to take over the country. There’s been just enough Western “success” in Afghanistan to keep the Western effort going – but Time is on the other side’s side. Heaven help the educated women abandoned when we leave. And Heaven help our allies who remain. And Heaven help us- because we have our own aspiring theocrats- several of whom sit on our Supreme Court.

I’m not sure that we have any theocrats—aspiring or otherwise—on our Supreme Court. We do, however, have two CRIMINALS on our Supreme Court, if that’s any consolation……..

U.S. Drops ‘Mother of All Bombs’ on ISIS Caves in Afghanistan

April 13, 2017

WASHINGTON — The United States dropped the “mother of all bombs” — the most powerful conventional bomb in the American arsenal — on an Islamic State cave complex in Afghanistan on Thursday, the Pentagon said, unleashing a weapon so massive that it had to be dropped from the rear of a cargo plane.

The strike was the first combat use of what is formally named the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast. President Trump has bestowed additional authority on the Pentagon in his first months in office, which the military has argued will help it defeat the Islamic State more speedily. Mr. Trump did not say whether he had personally approved Thursday’s mission.

“What I do is I authorize my military,” Mr. Trump said after a meeting with emergency workers at the White House. He called the bombing “another very, very successful mission.”

The Pentagon gave no casualty totals for the bombing, part of an intense air campaign against the militant group in Afghanistan.

https://www.nytimhes.com/2017/04/13/world/asia/moab-mother-of-all-bombs-afghanistan.html