Terrible mistake in Afghanistan.

[colker]

Apples vs Oranges. Godwin point already?

Nobody fighted Germany to free the germans of a dictator. He had a ton of support and in many parts of the world there was that shared sentiment that jews were the cause of many issues. Germany also had its allies. The world foughts the nazies and the japaneses because they were invading so many countries and getting too much power, not because of the holocaust or because the german or japanese needed to be freed from a non democratically elected government.

Don´t you feel a slight empathy for girls not allowed to go to school? Do you think a tyrannical rule like the Taleban or isis has a place among other nations? "But the afhgan people like the Taleban.." just like "people" in Venezuela want Maduro. People wanted blood sacrifices, deaths on the colosseum and the fire of the inquisition on the public square. Sure, tyranny is still popular but it´s macabre show is unnacceptable.

[BBB]

Don´t you feel a slight empathy for girls not allowed to go to school? Do you think a tyrannical rule like the Taleban or isis has a place among other nations? "But the afhgan people like the Taleban.." just like "people" in Venezuela want Maduro. People wanted blood sacrifices, deaths on the colosseum and the fire of the inquisition on the public square. Sure, tyranny is still popular but it´s macabre show is unnacceptable.

But, where do you draw the line? If you view Afghanistan as a human rights issue and take military action to stop the Taliban winding the clock back on women's rights by a millennia or two you presumably have to wade into Yemen, Saudi Arabia etc etc. Taking such action would be painted by those holding a more extreme religious view as a form of modern day crusade and hence fostering another generation of terrorists willing to go to extreme lengths to blow people up. But, why stop at enforcing women's rights and tackle human rights per se? China and North Korea can be on the hit list too. I'm sure there are plenty of others that could make that list too.

Yes tyranny is unacceptable, but short of global conflict, how do you propose to tackle tyranny, particularly when it is entangled with a religious point of view?

[sk_tle]

Don´t you feel a slight empathy for girls not allowed to go to school? Do you think a tyrannical rule like the Taleban or isis has a place among other nations? "But the afhgan people like the Taleban.." just like "people" in Venezuela want Maduro. People wanted blood sacrifices, deaths on the colosseum and the fire of the inquisition on the public square. Sure, tyranny is still popular but it´s macabre show is unnacceptable.

I am not saying I don't care or that it is good or bad from my perspective. I am saying the perspective of the inhabitants is what counts most. I am saying you just cannot invade a country and declare that its rulers are bad if a large portion of the population do not share that sentiment. And many, including the person with the least liberties like women, might think they'd rather not gain those liberties than living another 10 years of civil war.

[j44ke]

Foreign policy is fucking complicated. No action goes unpunished. You send tons of grain to a starving country and kill off a nascent agricultural effort. You send help to a reform-minded politician dedicated to peace, and they start killing all their enemies. The UN goes in to stop ethnic cleansing, and suddenly women from that area start showing up in human trafficking sweeps. Send a drone to destroy a car bomb and you kill children in the house next door.

It goes on forever.

It is easier to throw a curve ball than it is to hit one out of the park and win the game.

[vertical_doug]

Foreign policy is fucking complicated. No action goes unpunished. You send tons of grain to a starving country and kill of a nascent agricultural effort. You send help a reform-minded politician dedicated to peace, and they start killing all their enemies. The UN goes in to stop ethnic cleansing, and suddenly women from that area start showing up in human trafficking sweeps. Send a drone to destroy a car bomb and you kill children in the house next door.

It goes on forever.

It is easier to throw a curve ball than it is to hit one out of the park and win the game.

Who is this? Suu Kyi?

The single biggest mistake we make is thinking because the person can speak english, they think like us and share our values. This is fundamentally false and gets us in with the wrong partners.
(The mistake = listening to people who tell us what we want to hear.)

[j44ke]

Who is this? Suu Kyi?

The single biggest mistake we make is thinking because the person can speak english, they think like us and share our values. This is fundamentally false and gets us in with the wrong partners.
(The mistake = listening to people who tell us what we want to hear.)

They are all foreign policy/foreign aid snafus in the last 30-40 years.

I think we have a military top-heavy with careerist generals looking to get promoted to Halliburton or equivalent, a foreign intelligence apparatus that can’t compete with totalitarian super powers or the low tech insurgencies supported by those totalitarian super powers, and the only organization in the US with remedially sufficient foreign language skills runs a big church in Salt Lake City, Utah.

[theflashunc]

Need look no further than the budgets for the State Department vs the Department of Defense -- $60 bln vs $700 bln -- to tell you everything you need to know about how America prioritizes soft power vs hard power.

When all you've got is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.

[vertical_doug]

Fair Use- from NY Times Guest OpEd

Guest Essay: History Is Clear. America’s Military Is Way Too Big.
2021-08-30 21:06:01.668 GMT

By Jeremi Suri

(New York Times) --

For much of its history, the United States was a big country with a small
peacetime military. World War II changed that permanently: American leaders
decided that a country with new global obligations needed a very large
peacetime military, including a nuclear arsenal and a worldwide network of
bases. They hoped overwhelming military capacity would avert another world
war, deter adversaries and encourage foreign countries to follow our wishes.

Yet this military dominance has hardly yielded the promised benefits. The
collapse of the American-supported government in Afghanistan, after 20 years
of effort and billions of dollars, is just the latest setback in a long
narrative of failure.

The war in Afghanistan is much more than a failed intervention. It is stark
evidence of how counterproductive global military dominance is to American
interests. This military hegemony has brought more defeats than victories and
undermined democratic values at home and abroad.

History is clear: We would be better off with more modest, restrained military
and strategic goals. U.S. public opinion seems to have moved in this
direction, too. Our country needs to re-examine the value of military
dominance.

The reliance on military force has repeatedly entangled the United States in
distant, costly, long conflicts with self-defeating consequences — in Vietnam,
Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan and other places. American leaders have
consistently assumed that military superiority will compensate for diplomatic
and political limitations. Time and again, despite battlefield successes, our
military has come up short in achieving stated goals.

In the Korean War, the overestimation of American military power convinced
President Harry Truman to authorize the Army to cross into North Korea and
approach the border of China. He hoped American soldiers could reunite the
divided Korean Peninsula, but instead the incursion set off a wider war with
China and a stalemated conflict. Now, after seven decades of American military
deployments on the peninsula, the Communist regime in North Korea is as strong
as ever, with a growing nuclear arsenal.

In Vietnam, the “best and brightest” experts around President Lyndon Johnson
advised him that America’s overwhelming power would crush the insurgency and
bolster anti-Communist defenses. The opposite was true. American military
escalation increased the popularity of the insurgency while also creating
greater South Vietnamese dependence on the United States. Following an
offensive by North Vietnam in 1975, American-trained allies collapsed, much as
they did in Afghanistan this summer.

The fault lies not with the soldiers, but with the mission. Military forces
are not a substitute for the hard work of building representative and
effective institutions of governance. Stable societies need to have a
foundation of peaceful forms of trade, education and citizen participation.

If anything, the record shows that a large military presence distorts
political development, directing it toward combat and policing, not social
development. American military occupations have worked best where the
governing institutions preceded the arrival of foreign soldiers, as in Germany
and Japan after World War II.

American leaders have depended on our armed forces so much because they are so
vast and easy to deploy. This is the peril of creating such a large force: The
annual budget for the U.S. military has grown to more than a gargantuan $700
billion, and we are more likely to use it, and less likely to build better
substitutes.

This means that when nonmilitary overseas jobs like training local government
administrators are required, the U.S. military steps in. Other agencies do not
have the same capacity. We send soldiers where we need civilians because the
soldiers get the resources. And that problem grows worse as the military uses
its heft to lobby for yet more money from Congress.

At home, the growth of the armed forces means that American society has become
more militarized. Police departments are now equipped with battlefield gear
and military equipment, some of it surplus from the Army. Former soldiers have
joined the violent extremist groups that have multiplied over the last decade.
Less than 10 percent of Americans have served in the military, but 12 percent
of those charged in the assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6 had military
experience.

Of course, the U.S. military is one of the most professional and patriotic
parts of our society. Our uniformed leaders have consistently defended the
rule of law, including against a president trying to undermine an election.
The trouble stems from how bloated their organizations have become, and how
often they are misused.

We must be honest about what the military cannot do. We should allocate our
resources to other organizations and agencies that will actually make our
country more resilient, prosperous and secure. We will benefit by returning to
our history as a big country with a small peacetime military.

Jeremi Suri, a history professor at the University of Texas, Austin, and the
Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, is the author, most recently, of
“The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office” and
the host of the podcast “This Is Democracy.”

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor.
We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are
some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.

[ABiCi]

Fair Use- from NY Times Guest OpEd
This means that when nonmilitary overseas jobs like training local government
administrators are required, the U.S. military steps in. Other agencies do not
have the same capacity. We send soldiers where we need civilians because the
soldiers get the resources. And that problem grows worse as the military uses
its heft to lobby for yet more money from Congress.

And you guys face the same problem domestically, too. The US needs to defund the police at home and defund the military abroad.

[vertical_doug]

And you guys face the same problem domestically, too. The US needs to defund the police at home and defund the military abroad.

You mean the small town where I grew up doesn't need a MRAP Maxpro for the police? and the local sheriff doesn't need a surplus grenade launcher?

(Both true by the way)

[rwsaunders]

You mean the small town where I grew up doesn't need a MRAP Maxpro for the police? and the local sheriff doesn't need a surplus grenade launcher?

(Both true by the way)

We both know that deer management is a real problem and requires aggressive tactics, as natural predators and hunting are on a decline.

[monadnocky]

We both know that deer management is a real problem and requires aggressive tactics, as natural predators and hunting are on a decline.

Spot on. That's why my (former) little sleepy NH college town procured an MRAP. To protect against porcupines. And defend the covered bridges from... well, something.
It's ok though, it was not at taxpayer expense (provided by a grant from the feds).

[vertical_doug]

Spot on. That's why my (former) little sleepy NH college town procured an MRAP. To protect against porcupines. And defend the covered bridges from... well, something.
It's ok though, it was not at taxpayer expense (provided by a grant from the feds).

And when they try to drive the MRAP across the wooden bridge, it fails.....

That's what happened in my small town... Local streets weren't rated the weight and it wrecked some of the asphat.... cant make this shit up.

[j44ke]

Just in case you were wondering…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...on-us-weapons/

[fastupslowdown]

The captured weapons will likely be of limited use. Spare parts will not be available, and since so few Afghans can read (it's said only 3% of the Afghan army could read at a 3rd grade level) they likely lack the intelligence to operate and maintain helicopters, let alone smaller, less complicated vehicles, equipment, and weapons.

completely agree. even if the taliban somehow manages to fly a black hawk, that helicopter will not be operational long.

[thollandpe]

Spot on. That's why my (former) little sleepy NH college town procured an MRAP. To protect against porcupines. And defend the covered bridges from... well, something.
It's ok though, it was not at taxpayer expense (provided by a grant from the feds).

I shudder to think of what might have happened at the Keene Pumpkin Festival riot in 2014 if police had not had a Bearcat to respond.

[monadnocky]

I shudder to think of what might have happened at the Keene Pumpkin Festival riot in 2014 if police had not had a Bearcat to respond.

Hard to detect sarcasm - or serious intent - over the webs, but I'm sure you're aware that the 2014 riot was a very real thing indeed, left lots of people traumatized (including one young mother I know whose 2 year old was in the back seat of a car stuck in the middle of the mob, while they rocked it back and forth, at one point almost flipping it over, as men pressed their genitals into the closed car windows and threatened to.... well, do terrible things to both of them). So yeah, this was a serious thing that was very unfairly and unfortunately mocked by late night personalities (Colbert).

My understanding was that the (very) recently-purchased Bearcat, when it was brought out, only exacerbated the rioters, and things got really out of hand after it showed up (very late) to the ... um... party, I guess. Someone I know who was there (who experienced thousands of dollars of damage to his shop) recalled that things really ramped up after its arrival.... hard to tell how it would have gone if the vehicle didn't make an appearance.

It does make me wonder if the whole situation could have been different if $286,000 was applied elsewhere, more intelligently....

Anyway, apologies for the digression from the thread subject.

[bigbill]

We have an oversized military because we have too many admirals and generals. Officers that don't put anything on the line, just keep their mouths shut and follow orders. I'm saying this as a retired Naval Officer who worked up the ranks from enlisted to officer plus I have a kid in his final year at Annapolis. We allowed ourselves to have too many specializations that required their own communities because everyone deserves their own warfare pin. We allowed some group of jackasses to say we needed a new type of warship, the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) to replace our frigates and perform multiple roles forward deployed. The LCS failed miserably, but we kept building them because they're built in Marinette, WI and Mobile, AL, and Congress was too afraid to cancel the project. The first ones are only seeing 10 years of service before they're taken out of service. A NIMITZ class carrier runs for 50 years, the newest Ticonderoga Class cruiser is 28 years old. We didn't develop a replacement for the cruisers because we were distracted by the LCS project, that no one wanted. We also made more admirals while we reduced the number of ships. Go figure.

Now here we are, countering an aggressive China in the Western Pacific with aging ships and overworked crews. We have a bunch of LCS that can't fill the role of a destroyer or cruiser. We should make some more admirals and generals to help us figure this out. But that's not their job, their job is promote new technology so that they can smoothly transition to the board of major defense contractors when they retire.

If it seems like I'm bitter about this, I am. I've seen our military become a bloated, dysfunctional organization with less capability but more "leadership" at the top. I served with many of the folks who are now admirals, about 1 in 5 was worth a shit.

[vertical_doug]

We have an oversized military because we have too many admirals and generals. Officers that don't put anything on the line, just keep their mouths shut and follow orders. I'm saying this as a retired Naval Officer who worked up the ranks from enlisted to officer plus I have a kid in his final year at Annapolis. We allowed ourselves to have too many specializations that required their own communities because everyone deserves their own warfare pin.

what are these warfare pins which you speak?

[bigbill]

what are these warfare pins which you speak?

Back in the day, only submariners and pilots had pins they wore on their uniforms to designate them as such. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badges...ed_States_Navy

Because we've created and expanded these individual communities, we've created additional roles for admirals.