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Not in my view. That ship sailed regardless or we had to move people back in.
But the country was relatively stable with just 5k troops and the annual cost was small. Couldn’t we put together an international force to stabilize the country thereby avoiding this mess and the mess we created from our hastily departure?
I think we had well over that number then a deal was made to leave. If 5K could have somehow kept a nation running with no deal from the Taliban then perhaps it might have been best to say. Not sure how realistic that is. We did give their government a lot.
Agreed that we can't change the will of a country. We bombed them for years, we droned them for years, we poured money into their government, we trained their military for a decade. It all collapsed in a couple months. We weren't fixing this without a reboot and a ####load of troops, money, etc.
I think it was around 10k with no fatalities for a long time before deal made. Everyone should take issue if we thought this would happen. Could have put together an UN force.
Link?
Link for what? Us didn’t have a death in over a year prior to withdrawing. We invaded to rout out terrorism post 9-11 and it worked. Based on where we are today, both trump and Biden dead wrong and it’s costing thousands of lives.
Link to show that keeping 5K people in place was long-term sustainable.
Link to prove a hypothetical? Weird request. I’ve stated up thread that we form an UN force to stabilize..
Apologies, just to clarify my brain function comment wasn’t directed at you. It’s a commentary on the people who invaded in the first place. People who in theory had studied the history of the region and knew that the Soviets couldn’t control the country in the 70s, that nobody has been able to. It was an impossibility.
Correct. Criticism for how we left is fair. Criticism for leaving though. Total nonsense. And it all pales in comparison to the decision making process 2 decades ago...and ongoing since Bin Laden was offed.
The day Osama got the bullet was the day we should have started packing it up. Of course it's not this simple but that should have always been the sole mission.
To put together a UN force, wouldn't we need buy in from China and Russia? I suspect those countries may well prefer the current situation.
Complicated yes but we essentially owned the country so UN force could have comprised of other countries imo.
Seems you're suggesting a volunteer (by country), allied force, as opposed to an official UN-sanctioned force? That's fine if you are, and may have been workable. I suspect a formal UN force was not a realistic option.
Yeah I realize China and Russia have veto power in UN so purely volunteer force if they wouldn’t go along. UN forces have not worked in certain hostile areas.
Hell no. The best solution was to never had gone there in the first place.
No but we didn't need to leave in a day either abandoning allies and even Americans to fend for themselves. They could have had a plan to draw down the troops over the course of a year to at least give transition a chance to take hold. Plus you don't give a public timetable. You draw every one out. You DONT close our airbase there until all US citizens and Afghani allies are out of the country. You then dismantle our gear and equipment that we aren't bringing with us. Then once we have removed all civilians, you start quietly drawing down troops. You then leave the Afghan military with a strategic foothold and a chance to hold off the Taliban. If they fold after that, it's on them. At least you gave them a shot and more importantly got our people out of harms way.
Like most despotic countries they are stealing humanitarian funds. This is no surprise, but it makes it so that food aid get siphoned away and strengthens the Taliban.
Yep. Not surprising and very sad. You just hope enough gets through but no perfect way to do this.
This is where the UN is SUPPOSED to step in. They're mostly useless and corrupt also though.
That’s sad and not funny in anyway. If they can’t support this or any just cause then there’s no reason to support them in anyway.I'd say the reason is they won't do it
I was being a little flippant. EU I believe has been adding some aid and working with humanitarian groups in the country. They don’t have the same political baggage that we do in the area.
I strongly disagree that is US being out helps. How’s it going without now and how would it be with us?
Us parking ourselves in there indefinitely is a bad and very expensive band-aid. This is up to them to resolve.
It is tragic but there are places in the world that are unstable. We cant place ourselves everywhere. We blew up portions of the country for years trying to kill the bad guys, we installed a government, we built a military there and it all crumbled in a couple months.
