Phil Hands for April 17, 2021

I remember when we “declared victory and left” in Vietnam. That turned out to be… not all that bad, in the longer run, despite all the soldiers who died. Afghanistan hasn’t cost (US soldiers) anywhere near that much, though the survivors may be more psychologically traumatized. Or not.

Better late than delusional.

“Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires.”

One “over” is worth more than ten “accomplished”, when nothing was accomplished but a photo-op.

Plus, Biden didn’t “ham it up” like Bush, when Bush declared “Mission Accomplished” in the Iraq “war”.

I have a neighbor who was on the Abraham Lincoln when the shrub put on his ridiculous little show. About 80% of the crew was below-decks watching on the ship’s television system…and LAUGHING THEIR BUTTS OFF AT HOW STUPID HE LOOKED!!!

And ANYONE who thinks that there will be “Peace” in the Mid-East anytime soon is delusional. It ain’t gonna happen!

Much as I dislike Biden, he is doing the right thing. As we learned in Vietnam, don’t get involved with a country in a long civil war.

Twenty years ago we went into Afghanistan with clearly defined objectives.

Dismantle al-Quaida and remove the Taliban from power.

What we learned was, you can’t kill an idea. It justs morphs and twists and evolves into something else. Fighting the Taliban was like fighting air.

Did we accomplish our objectives? We’ll never know until we leave.

It is time we find out.

But is the situation in Afganistan any better than it was 20 years and several trillions of dollars later?

All good things must come to an end, like the Republican party who lied us into that quagmire.

The original purpose of going into Afghanistan was to stop Al Qaeda from using it as a haven to launch more attacks on the US. We accomplished that long ago, but like in Iraq we overthrew the government and left nothing to replace it, and had to stay to hold things together.

Just curious.. has there “ever” been a military mission truly “accomplished”. Sure.. you can go in and destroy a city (or dozens) but in the end did you win the hearts and souls of the oppressed, were they grateful?.. guessing not

I would say, after WW2 and what was learned after WW1, helping rebuild countries and protecting them while doing so, won the hearts but then, I don’t think they were oppressed by USA or Britain.

We’re screwed, no matter what. You could carpet-nuke that country and the bugs would eventually come scurrying out of those caves of theirs to start right back up.

Halle-freakin’-lujah!

I wish Biden the best of luck in this endeavor. President Trump was very desirous to pull out of Afghanistan but was opposed by the Pentagon and was persuaded otherwise several times. My only complaint is giving the Taliban a heads up by announcing the timeline beforehand. This should have been played low keyed as possible. I hope Biden fairs better against The Pentagon than did Trump.

What, exactly, were we TRYING to accomplish?

Long before Dubya left office it was obvious that some future POTUS would withdraw all US troops and leave Afghanistan to the Taliban. There was no realistic alternative once regime change became the nominal goal. The blind stupidity of the Bush, Cheney,Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz consortium is unlikely ever to be exceeded again since SinceTrump is unlikely to hold office again, and even Trump did not start two idiotic wars.