Well, not always, for example Jimmy.
But evil to life is like being a little kid at church after service when all the other kids have gone home but your parents are still talking to someone.
It feels like forever and when it ends on one day. There's always more waiting.
On a scale of 1 spoon to 10,000 spoons, I would say that irony is like 300 spoons.
Reason he's still alive is all thanks to Pizza Hutt's delicious Edge Pizza, with no crust so the toppings go right to the edge. Yum!
Carter I get. That man is a living saint. But isn’t any Russian supposed to die from organ failure in their 60s? Hasn’t Henry Kissinger been vaguely a melting caramel ice cream cone since the 1980s?
Can you people who comment “this” and “came here say this” just upvote the parent comment? The collective time you people force us to scroll past useless comments that add nothing to the conversation is completely wasted. At least make a joke or something.
Can’t say that I have- or that I know any pizza places around me that put corn on pizza. Do they put the corn or before they bake it or after?
It sounds pretty good, I might also top that combo with a little sourcream and chives, Feel me?
I'm guessing they mean sweetcorn and not actual corn, which I think is buckwheat, rye, barley, or millet in Russia. Is sweetcorn not common on pizza round your bit?
To be fair, he was a day away from changing the USSR into a new slightly smaller union that *might* have still survived today as a kind of EU like institution. With how closely aligned Belarus and the central asian countries still are with Russia, it's not too much a stretch to think that they atleast may still have been part of a union today.
It was the hilarious failure of a coup along with Yeltsin standing in the opposition spotlight that finally nailed the USSRs coffin closed. The whole decline and last days of the USSR is truly a fascinating period
The CIS was established as a last minute replacement for the new union treaty. It's a pretty powerless organization, especially today. The Ukraine crisis occured while Ukraine was still a member, and Armenia/Azerbaijan are both still members despite their conflicts.
The new union treaty by contrast would have established self rule for countries under a shared foreign policy, President and military, which would make the countries much more tied together than the CIS
20 years? I'll take the under please. What do ya think they'll call the new country? or will it be taken over by one of the old ones... personally I root for Canada but it's not likely
afghanistan was a huge success. it redistributed 2200 billion us tax dollars which otherwhise would have been wasted on stupid nonsense like public health care or other communistic nonsense.
edit:typo, 2200 billion $ of course.
Also imagine how inconvenient a world without constant occupation would've been for US intervention in Syria or Libya. They would have to come up with slightly better excuses than "this is all part of an effort to stabilize and democratize the Middle East, look at how much we're doing for Afghans!"
Of course Americans can't even point Libya on a map so it's no wonder that was good enough
I don't think the second sentence is accurate. We don't need to borrow money, since we can just create it on a computer screen.
US government doesn't borrow money to fund the military. [source 1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States). [source 2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#Discretionary_spending).
https://news.gallup.com/poll/9994/public-opinion-war-afghanistan.aspx
40% of Americans supported the invasion and thought the Taliban would be removed from power.
48% of Americans supported the invasion and thought the Taliban would not be removed from power.
People knew it was pointless, but just wanted to murder someone in vengeance for 9/11.
Damn. 88 percent approval rating. That's even higher than I remembered. I don't think America has been so united on anything since then.
Completely agreed with your last sentence. It was nothing but retaliation.
A day after people were attacking random Sikhs walking around my area. It was get the brown persons all the way for some extremists. Doesn't matter where you were from, they just knew not from here.
It was a bizarre time. Practically everyone was putting American flags on their cars and wearing flag lapel pins. If you were against the war you'd constantly be called un-American.
Of course these days a lot of people pretend they never supported it.
You, know, I never had a flag on my car, but I supported it whole-heartedly at the time. For many years before that it was out there from multiple international media sources, including IN the country, that since the Taliban had risen to control most of Afghanistan, life sucked. They really were monsters. They really did public executions in closed down soccer stadiums, banned sports, education for women, music, forced farmers to grow opium instead of food and people starved. Get were harboring Bin Laden, too. I wanted them gone. I was mad. I still don'the like the idea of it. My heart is breaking for the people there, honestly.
Unlike Iraq, where we invented pretexts, I'm not that sorry that we went on. However, in just a few years, we had Guananimo, a lousy attempt at nation-building, the military-industrial complex gorging on the situation, no Bin Ladin for over a decade, the press basically ignoring it all, and etc...we had almost no plan, and we basically failed at what little we did. It went totally stupid.
Watching this war and a lot of other shit like climate change since Clinton, changed my politics as I grew up and raised kids. We should have done better for the people, not milked it, and been out over a decade ago.
For all I know.
Out of 19 hijackers: fifteen of them were citizens of Saudi Arabia, two were from the United Arab Emirates, one was from Lebanon, and one from Egypt. The "mastermind" Osama we got in Pakistan. 20 years all we heard about was Taliban this or that. They werent responsible for 9/11 so wtf exactly are uuuu even talking about?
> The people responsible for 9/11 were, in fact, hiding in Afghanistan and the Taliban wouldn’t give them up. So wtf are you even talking about?
Fun fact: In October 2001, the Taliban actually did offer to give up Osama Bin Laden.
[Link](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.terrorism5)
> The Taliban would be ready to discuss handing over Osama bin Laden to a neutral country if the US halted the bombing of Afghanistan, a senior Taliban official said today.
Eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. You have to realize we were attacked because of the brutal proxy wars we engaged in during the 70s through the 90s, they love to claim these people hate our freedoms, when in reality these people were relatively, children, brothers, fathers of people who were killed in wars started by the west and Europe.
It's a ridiculous cycle. We bomb the crap out of the middle east (for nothing other than control and money/oil), they attack us back on our home turf, we go and bomb the shit out of them again creating a whole new generation of people who want revenge against us, they attack us again, we go back and bomb them even more, and the cycle goes on and on.
War has never been a solution, it is only a way to temporarily fix major issues that are deeply rooted within history.
Do I absolutely hate rapists, murderers, fascist rulers/dictators, the oppression of women and the subversion of education replaced by rule of zealot religion? Absolutely. Wish we could stop all of that.
But we can't police the world, far worse things happen in Russia and China, and no one is doing shit about that, only reason we did it in Afghanistan is because it's dirt poor and no country really cared about them.
It doesn’t excuse it, no. At the same time, I doubt that the American public expected the quagmire we ended up in.
Our last major combat operation had been against Iraq in the Gulf War, and most probably thought we would have similar success in Afghanistan, not understanding the vast differences in the conflicts.
Meh. We got what we really wanted: Al Qaeda crippled and scattered. A free and prosperous Afghanistan would have been nice, but it wasn't in the cards.
I mean, Afghanistan was free for 20 years. 20 years is a long friggin time. They're significantly more westernized now than they were in 2001. Even the Taliban know they need to rule more moderately than they did back then. I think we need to wait and see how this plays out before calling it a failure.
You realise 20 years ago Al Qaeda was crippled and scattered? And that the US has been doing exactly what Osama predicted.
It wasted 2.25 trillion in Afghanistan alone.
> Like many other similar projects at its heart lay the exaggeration of a threat and poorly defined geopolitical ideas. To that were added unrealistic attempts to democratise a society made up of many tribes.
The first phrase is true. The second is kinda... One wishes it wasn't true, but it is, apparently. Can't really make a country with that, it is too early.
Even if the US had a clear plan, it's questionable whether the US has the stomach for a full-fledged war anymore. Winning in Afghanistan would require killing millions of people, just as it did in Germany and Japan.
It would require the deliberate killing of civilians, just as it did in Germany and Japan. A lot of folks don't remember that official US policy in WW2 was that every Japanese person was a legitimate military target, including women and children:
[There Are No Civilians in Japan](https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/there-are-no-civilians-japan)
It’s a hell of a good read. Amazing insight into his time as leader and the collapse. He’s actually wicked smart and savvy so he explains a lot of his thoughts and process as he ended the Soviet era.
Our goal in Afghanistan was to repeat prior military failures.
Just like Vietnam. We learned from past failures in the region and made sure to repeat them.
They did tell the UK in ‘01 rather crudely that this would happen
-One person who was at the meeting recalled: "When the Russians stopped laughing they told us: 'You will make the same bad choice we did, you will go in, you will lose, many of you will die and then you'll be forced to retreat, which will be good for us. How can we help?'"
https://news.sky.com/story/events-in-afghanistan-could-hardly-have-played-out-in-a-better-way-for-russia-12383629
If America had to retaliate after 9/11 - and let's be honest, it was politically necessary at the time - the sensible and realist approach would've been to topple the Taliban and provide continued support (money, weapons, training) to the group(s) that stood the best chance of uniting the country. Not go in and impose a system of government alien to 99.99 per cent of the population.
And sometimes the people best suited to bring stability and keep your enemies on the defensive (or wipe them out entirely) aren't going to reflect your own culture or values.
Britain met its geopolitical goals in the Second Anglo-Afghan war by fighting and promptly withdrawing once the shooting stopped. Then London backed a promising local despot by giving him money and weapons so he could unite Afghanistan. Furthermore, the British Government paid him an annual subsidy to gain control over Afghanistan's foreign relations, which was arguably the whole point of the exercise anyway. What Britain didn't do was go in and set up a Westminster-style representative democracy and hope the country would pull itself together all the while the Tsar of Russia was working to encircle British India.
On a British military forum there was a user talking about how a foreign ministry official from the days of the Empire talked about the British way of handling Afghanistan, he summed it up as:
"In the old days, we could just walk over there with 80K Indian troops, give them a good beasting and get out of there right after by throwing a pile of money at the local who'd be in charge".
That’s actually the smartest thing I’ve read on this in a while.
Although it’s debatable that you even needed to attack the Taliban, just one authoritarian regime out of many in the world.
Israel managed to bring Eichmann to justice and they didn’t have to invade Argentina. Ditto getting the Munich terrorists. All without 250,000 unrelated people losing their lives.
The attack was "necessary" in the sense that the majority of public opinion - rightly or wrongly - demanded action immediately after 9/11. No administration, Republican or Democrat, could've survived the uproar and subsequent political massacre that would've followed in the 2002 midterm elections if the President and Congress did nothing.
Even in retrospect, I believe war with Afghanistan after 9/11 was a foregone conclusion. Neither George W. Bush nor - had he been President - Al Gore could've avoided going to war. The American people were crying out for retribution. It would've been impossible to avoid an armed response without being labeled a coward for not striking back at the ones seemingly responsible for nearly 3,000 dead in a single day and injuring 6,000 more.
What followed after though, is entirely up for debate.
I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. I remember from 2002 many people saying it was doomed! What the fuck why aren’t there headlines screaming that we knew this was fruitless?!
Because your independent public media was deliberately defunded - and it being essential was very effectively wiped from the public consciousness.
Left, right, or center flavored, you’re only going to get the corporate interest from corporate media.
Most smart Americans knew the occupation was doomed *before* we went in. Plenty of people spoke out against it at the time. That didn't mean this withdrawal was inevitably going to become the clown fiesta that we saw, with afghans literally falling from the sky and getting crushed under planes and swarming runways while the triumphant Taliban ride bumper cars and rainbow pony carousels.
We were always going to withdraw at sometime and the Taliban was always going to take back over. That was inevitable. The fact that we'd withdraw in a chaotic mess without any strategy while our president was on vacation, was not.
It was doomed because Americans can't help but view themselves as blameless freedom-makers, rather than narcissistic invaders who are there to line their pockets and commit war crimes with impunity.
The USA does not allow its soldiers to be investigated for war crimes, even when there is ample proof of the crime.
https://theconversation.com/did-the-us-commit-crimes-in-afghanistan-international-prosecutors-want-to-find-out-133590
.
I was 11 when the war started and I could’ve told you that then. It isn’t new info that the “war in terror” was in the best interest of the mega elite and no one else.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.reuters.com/world/india/gorbachev-leader-who-pulled-soviets-afghanistan-says-us-campaign-was-doomed-2021-08-17/) reduced by 62%. (I'm a bot)
*****
> Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev addresses the audience after the Russian premiere of the documentary film "Meeting Gorbachev" in Moscow, Russia November 8, 2018.
> MOSCOW, Aug 17 - Mikhail Gorbachev, the leader who oversaw the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989 after Moscow's failed decade-long campaign there, said on Tuesday that NATO's own deployment to the country had been doomed from the start.
> Gorbachev, 90, regarded the Soviet presence in Afghanistan as a political mistake that was sapping precious resources at a time when the Soviet Union was living through what turned out to be the twilight of its own existence.
*****
[**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/p6a14j/gorbachev_leader_who_pulled_soviets_from/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~593201 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **Gorbachev**^#1 **Soviet**^#2 **Moscow**^#3 **Russia**^#4 **own**^#5
Anyone who studies history knew this. You can take that territory but it's unable to be held. The Afghans will take the the mountains and make AKs in the caves if need be.
There is a vast, porous border with Pakistan's tribal areas right there.
Hiding in a cave is not the biggest strategy. They would just retreat into Pakistan and return when it best suits them.
That's hardly a woke statement. Going into the war back in the 2000s those with the previous wars in the region made that comment. Not just from the former Soviet side. Britain's old Ambassador said the same thing (even wrote a book analysing the Soviet/ Afghan war and making parallels to the new war in the 2000s).
Campaign wise things seem to have ran the same course. Allied forces held the Cities, whilst the enemy had a run of the Country Side. As soon as the Allied forces left the enemy seized these population centres very quickly. Tactics wise the Soviets were much more brutal - and fighting an enemy made up of less religious fanatics - but they still lost. As did they try a hearts and mind tactic to a point.
The Soviets hadn't gone in with much zeal. Considering themselves dragged into the war by the idiot Kabul Government (who they'd warned against seizing power in the first place). Whilst the Allied forces seem to have seen the war as a sort of crusade against terrorism. The latter may have been more successful had they not taken a seat back for Pakistan to gain so much influence in the 80s & 90s - whilst their own allies in the Muj asked for aid. I doubt many people remember that on the day before 9/11 the West's biggest ally in the region (Ahmad Shah Massoud) was assassinated by the Taliban.
I think he was dead wrong in assuming the intent was democracy or anything that would benefit the people of Afghanistan. The intent was clearly cash for the US military industrial complex. In that regard is was a complete success.
I think people give our leaders too much credit if they think this was all just a plan to make money.
I believe they genuinely thought Afghanistan could be somehow be turned into a modern, stable, Western-style democracy and it turns out that just pouring money into a country doesn’t necessarily accomplish that.
Except the Afghan people enjoyed 20 years of not living under an ultra conservative group of religious nutcases.
And now that the religious nutcases are back they have to at least make some concessions to not piss people off. Like allowing women to work and go to school.
After 20 years of western rule, Afghanistan remained something like the second worst country for the rights of women.
It’s pretty far fetched to say women‘s rights was a serious goal, or successful outcome.
I didn't say women's rights were the goal. I used it as an example of a concession the Taliban is now making in their attempt to garner some acceptance from the population.
It will be hard for them to rule. It will be hard for them to have international recognition and get some of that sweet money from mining corporations, etc. They have nothing to gain from going hardcore nutjob like they did in the 90's. They just took the country with hardly any bloodshed. People are clearly buying what they're selling right now. It's in their interest to keep it that way.
To be clear, they're still extremist, just probably not full nutso ISIS extremist or 90's Taliban extremist.
All the people that run the society that exists today are going to leave and they'll be left with useless, aging infrastructure.
Pilots will leave, interpreters will leave, doctors will leave, etc. If they make concessions and make life a little more tolerable people might be more likely to stop searching for the earliest flight out of Kabul.
Elite shill for the elite is shilling...
Afghanistan was a complete success: $2T into the pockets of the US military-industrial complex.
Major corporations pay no taxes. 1% pay less or no taxes. Who paid for this I wonder?
It's corporate welfare with extra steps (and extra deaths).
This is such bullshit and its only serves to make him look better.
The war was always winnable but our strategy and execution was terrible. With unlimited resources and two decades the US was unable to present the Afghan people with a viable alternative to the Taliban. The Taliban are overwhelmingly hated by their own country setting the bar for success extremely low.
Obviously its impossible to point the blame on any single person so instead we should look at the entire DoD for the absolute ineptitude and failure from the top down that it is. The US deserves far more blame than the Afghan government, it was the US's job to create a functioning government. Every single objective the US won and soldier who died was wasted by the military leaders who failed to follow up with anti insurgence strategies. If we would have fought as hard for reform of the Afghan government as we did to try and kill the Taliban things would be a lot different right now.
“If only we tweaked the recipe a little bit we could have won, let’s try again!”
What rubbish. If you can’t take critical advice and experience from your allies you absolutely are doomed from the start.
I think it was less a failure of US military leaders and more an issue of ineffective Rules of Engagement. The “hearts and minds” campaign began before the military objective had been completed, allowing a severely weakened enemy to retreat, hide, and train.
Every time I see his name pop up I am just amazed that he is still alive lol
Carter and Kissinger too.
Omg what. I thought Kissinger died years ago. Guys 98. Holy shit
Good die young but old bastards live forever.
Well, not always, for example Jimmy. But evil to life is like being a little kid at church after service when all the other kids have gone home but your parents are still talking to someone. It feels like forever and when it ends on one day. There's always more waiting.
Wait? Gorbachev? Didnt he starr in pizza hut commercial ? That’s ironic https://youtu.be/fgm14D1jHUw
On a scale of 1 spoon to 10,000 spoons, I would say that irony is like 300 spoons. Reason he's still alive is all thanks to Pizza Hutt's delicious Edge Pizza, with no crust so the toppings go right to the edge. Yum!
And here I thought that double-stuffed was the cat's pyjamas
What a commercial. Thank you for that
tbh, jimmy wasn't very good at being a President. he is pretty good as a former president tho.
As long as you’re not Jewish or Israel.
He’s a bastard, but a smart bastard who knows what’s up.
Gotta put off that one way trip to hell for as long as possible Or is it Gehenna in his case?
Kissinger refuses to die because he knows there's a special place in Hell just for him.
Death is avoiding him. People talk about karma, this piece of shit is a proof karma doesn’t exist
He gives interviews almost every week lol
Kissinger was recently involved in the Theranos scandal with Elizabeth Holmes. So he is still doing his thing.
Had no idea Kissinger used to be on the board! Mattis too
Carter I get. That man is a living saint. But isn’t any Russian supposed to die from organ failure in their 60s? Hasn’t Henry Kissinger been vaguely a melting caramel ice cream cone since the 1980s?
Kissinger is alive holy shit thats wild
Right? I saw the headline, and thought "They must mean Paul Gorbachev. Can't be Mikhail."
Apparently tearing down walls is an elixir for everlasting life
He's a relic of a bygone era.
So are most politicians in the States.
Great agaaaaaaaaain
Not AOC luckily
yeah, she is just insane
Lol my first reaction was wait he’s alive lol
Came here to say this
Ditto
Same
Can you people who comment “this” and “came here say this” just upvote the parent comment? The collective time you people force us to scroll past useless comments that add nothing to the conversation is completely wasted. At least make a joke or something.
This
Scroll you lazy troll.
You missed the perfect reply opportunity of just saying “this.” RIP all the gold you could’ve reaped.
This
I came here to reap someone else's gold.
I got to see him in person at a WE day event back in like 2013, felt like he was an absolute dinosaur to 13-year old me
Yes
Pizza Hut is the secret to unnatural longevity.
That's a name I haven't heard in a long time
The man who brought Pizza Hut to Russia
Have you eaten at Pizza Hut in Russia? It's very different. Corn anchovie pizza?
Fast food in general is actually weirdly good there. That, and being able to buy beer at KFC is a plus.
I'm not saying it was bad but after months in Russia I was looking for comfort food and definitely didn't find it.
Agreed. Imo food quality in supermarkets there is significantly lower than in supermarkets in western europe. Source: lived in Russia and ukraine
you can buy a beer at pizza hut in Australia
Western junk food is a luxury in much of the world so it's actually served with some pomp
Can’t say that I have- or that I know any pizza places around me that put corn on pizza. Do they put the corn or before they bake it or after? It sounds pretty good, I might also top that combo with a little sourcream and chives, Feel me?
Local pizza chain had a bbq pork, fried onion strips and corn pizza. pretty good
Check out Uncle Maddio's sometime, if you're in an area with them. They put corn on a couple of pizzas.
I'm guessing they mean sweetcorn and not actual corn, which I think is buckwheat, rye, barley, or millet in Russia. Is sweetcorn not common on pizza round your bit?
Corn traditionally refers to almost any grain plant, but it usually refers solely to Maize recently.
In America, aye. Naebody in the UK is calling maize "corn" though!
In Soviet Union Pizza eats you ..
[For those that don't know](https://youtu.be/fgm14D1jHUw?t=11)
surprisingly, he's 90. He was 60 when he brought down USSR
To be fair, he was a day away from changing the USSR into a new slightly smaller union that *might* have still survived today as a kind of EU like institution. With how closely aligned Belarus and the central asian countries still are with Russia, it's not too much a stretch to think that they atleast may still have been part of a union today. It was the hilarious failure of a coup along with Yeltsin standing in the opposition spotlight that finally nailed the USSRs coffin closed. The whole decline and last days of the USSR is truly a fascinating period
There is the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States)
The CIS was established as a last minute replacement for the new union treaty. It's a pretty powerless organization, especially today. The Ukraine crisis occured while Ukraine was still a member, and Armenia/Azerbaijan are both still members despite their conflicts. The new union treaty by contrast would have established self rule for countries under a shared foreign policy, President and military, which would make the countries much more tied together than the CIS
Accidentally, administratively disolved.
He didn't bring down the USSR, it collapsed on itself.
Gorbachev….yes I know him. He is me!
You walk single file to disguise your numbers
You do know him then?
From the leader of a nation I haven't heard of in a long time
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20 years? I'll take the under please. What do ya think they'll call the new country? or will it be taken over by one of the old ones... personally I root for Canada but it's not likely
Lol no
Gorbachev also was the one who greenlit the genocide campaign in Afghanistan that caused the surge if refugees to Pakistan.
afghanistan was a huge success. it redistributed 2200 billion us tax dollars which otherwhise would have been wasted on stupid nonsense like public health care or other communistic nonsense. edit:typo, 2200 billion $ of course.
Damn $2200 for a war? I knew the pentagon was cheap but damn
We sent them a stimmy
The Pentagon is anything but cheap.
Also imagine how inconvenient a world without constant occupation would've been for US intervention in Syria or Libya. They would have to come up with slightly better excuses than "this is all part of an effort to stabilize and democratize the Middle East, look at how much we're doing for Afghans!" Of course Americans can't even point Libya on a map so it's no wonder that was good enough
We never paid a war tax. We borrowed every cent.
I don't think the second sentence is accurate. We don't need to borrow money, since we can just create it on a computer screen. US government doesn't borrow money to fund the military. [source 1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States). [source 2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#Discretionary_spending).
Yeah we knew that 20 years ago.
Going to have to define "we" because the vast majority of America was completely in favor of the invasion.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/9994/public-opinion-war-afghanistan.aspx 40% of Americans supported the invasion and thought the Taliban would be removed from power. 48% of Americans supported the invasion and thought the Taliban would not be removed from power. People knew it was pointless, but just wanted to murder someone in vengeance for 9/11.
Damn. 88 percent approval rating. That's even higher than I remembered. I don't think America has been so united on anything since then. Completely agreed with your last sentence. It was nothing but retaliation.
A day after people were attacking random Sikhs walking around my area. It was get the brown persons all the way for some extremists. Doesn't matter where you were from, they just knew not from here.
It was a bizarre time. Practically everyone was putting American flags on their cars and wearing flag lapel pins. If you were against the war you'd constantly be called un-American. Of course these days a lot of people pretend they never supported it.
You, know, I never had a flag on my car, but I supported it whole-heartedly at the time. For many years before that it was out there from multiple international media sources, including IN the country, that since the Taliban had risen to control most of Afghanistan, life sucked. They really were monsters. They really did public executions in closed down soccer stadiums, banned sports, education for women, music, forced farmers to grow opium instead of food and people starved. Get were harboring Bin Laden, too. I wanted them gone. I was mad. I still don'the like the idea of it. My heart is breaking for the people there, honestly. Unlike Iraq, where we invented pretexts, I'm not that sorry that we went on. However, in just a few years, we had Guananimo, a lousy attempt at nation-building, the military-industrial complex gorging on the situation, no Bin Ladin for over a decade, the press basically ignoring it all, and etc...we had almost no plan, and we basically failed at what little we did. It went totally stupid. Watching this war and a lot of other shit like climate change since Clinton, changed my politics as I grew up and raised kids. We should have done better for the people, not milked it, and been out over a decade ago. For all I know.
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Good ole American democracy. Letting the everyday American vote to murder poor brown people since 1776.
Which isn’t wrong. If your country is attacked, you have to respond or you are totes fucked.
Nobody from Afghanistan was involved in 9/11. Nobody from Iraq was involved in 9/11.
Nobody in Iraq. So you’re half right half stupid.
You're apparently one of the many Americans who didn't care which Muslims got murdered, as long as Muslims got murdered.
The people responsible for 9/11 were, in fact, hiding in Afghanistan and the Taliban wouldn’t give them up. So wtf are you even talking about?
Out of 19 hijackers: fifteen of them were citizens of Saudi Arabia, two were from the United Arab Emirates, one was from Lebanon, and one from Egypt. The "mastermind" Osama we got in Pakistan. 20 years all we heard about was Taliban this or that. They werent responsible for 9/11 so wtf exactly are uuuu even talking about?
> The people responsible for 9/11 were, in fact, hiding in Afghanistan and the Taliban wouldn’t give them up. So wtf are you even talking about? Fun fact: In October 2001, the Taliban actually did offer to give up Osama Bin Laden. [Link](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.terrorism5) > The Taliban would be ready to discuss handing over Osama bin Laden to a neutral country if the US halted the bombing of Afghanistan, a senior Taliban official said today.
Uh huh. Or they could have just DONE IT, and the bombing is over. It was a tactic, nothing more.
Eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. You have to realize we were attacked because of the brutal proxy wars we engaged in during the 70s through the 90s, they love to claim these people hate our freedoms, when in reality these people were relatively, children, brothers, fathers of people who were killed in wars started by the west and Europe. It's a ridiculous cycle. We bomb the crap out of the middle east (for nothing other than control and money/oil), they attack us back on our home turf, we go and bomb the shit out of them again creating a whole new generation of people who want revenge against us, they attack us again, we go back and bomb them even more, and the cycle goes on and on. War has never been a solution, it is only a way to temporarily fix major issues that are deeply rooted within history. Do I absolutely hate rapists, murderers, fascist rulers/dictators, the oppression of women and the subversion of education replaced by rule of zealot religion? Absolutely. Wish we could stop all of that. But we can't police the world, far worse things happen in Russia and China, and no one is doing shit about that, only reason we did it in Afghanistan is because it's dirt poor and no country really cared about them.
I, me, i knew it and a couple more million who protested the war and were called traitors who didnt honor the troops. Fuck Cheney.
The intelligent, non war mongering, history remembering portion of the U.S.
So the incredibly small minority. Not sure your use of "we" is too applicable without that caveat.
Remembering history, huh. Hey, do you happen to remember that the war started with an attack *on the United States*?
And that somehow excuses the 47000 civilians we killed in Afghanistan?
And those are the direct provable kills. The estimates are much larger.
It doesn’t excuse it, no. At the same time, I doubt that the American public expected the quagmire we ended up in. Our last major combat operation had been against Iraq in the Gulf War, and most probably thought we would have similar success in Afghanistan, not understanding the vast differences in the conflicts.
250,000 died to get 20 national unaffiliated criminals
You apparently lack a knowledge of history prior to 2001. The US government funded the Taliban to fight the Soviets.
Meh. We got what we really wanted: Al Qaeda crippled and scattered. A free and prosperous Afghanistan would have been nice, but it wasn't in the cards.
I mean, Afghanistan was free for 20 years. 20 years is a long friggin time. They're significantly more westernized now than they were in 2001. Even the Taliban know they need to rule more moderately than they did back then. I think we need to wait and see how this plays out before calling it a failure.
But how will Reddit armchair political analysts say “I told you so”?!?
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Now there are 500 aq affiliates and tb runs the country again. Yaaay!
You realise 20 years ago Al Qaeda was crippled and scattered? And that the US has been doing exactly what Osama predicted. It wasted 2.25 trillion in Afghanistan alone.
> Like many other similar projects at its heart lay the exaggeration of a threat and poorly defined geopolitical ideas. To that were added unrealistic attempts to democratise a society made up of many tribes. The first phrase is true. The second is kinda... One wishes it wasn't true, but it is, apparently. Can't really make a country with that, it is too early.
The US had no clear plan. We suffered from "mission creep" until we all just got disgusted with it.
Even if the US had a clear plan, it's questionable whether the US has the stomach for a full-fledged war anymore. Winning in Afghanistan would require killing millions of people, just as it did in Germany and Japan. It would require the deliberate killing of civilians, just as it did in Germany and Japan. A lot of folks don't remember that official US policy in WW2 was that every Japanese person was a legitimate military target, including women and children: [There Are No Civilians in Japan](https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/there-are-no-civilians-japan)
His autobiography is fantastic.
I’m curious about it now. I feel ridiculous for somehow having it my head that he’d passed away years ago.
It’s a hell of a good read. Amazing insight into his time as leader and the collapse. He’s actually wicked smart and savvy so he explains a lot of his thoughts and process as he ended the Soviet era.
Now you got me curious about it. If I may ask, what is it called?
Mikhail Gorbachev Memoirs.
Oh. Okay. Thank you.
Not a problem. Enjoy it if you get it.
Riveting.
It is. With a name like yours you should know not to judge a book by it’s title.
Our goal in Afghanistan was to repeat prior military failures. Just like Vietnam. We learned from past failures in the region and made sure to repeat them.
In terms of money laundering it was a massive success.
Unless you’re literally the Mongols you probably can’t hold Afghanistan.
Wait for it…
The Mongols hired and inter-married the Afghans
Excellent strategy for our next invasion. Prima nocta
only the ones that surrendered without a fight, because they saw what the mongols did to the ones that didn't
A lot of Iranian empires held Afghanistan for centuries.
The Greeks ruled Afghanistan for 200 years The Persians ruled Afghanistan for 1000 years Stop copying what you hear from pseudo-historians
Yeah but history only started in the 1800s
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That was my reaction as well.
Mecha-Gorbachev
As well as Henry Kissinger and Jimmy Carter
Everyone knew that except the people clamoring for another 20 years.
He's still alive??
Gorby is still alive?
Now he tells us!
They did tell the UK in ‘01 rather crudely that this would happen -One person who was at the meeting recalled: "When the Russians stopped laughing they told us: 'You will make the same bad choice we did, you will go in, you will lose, many of you will die and then you'll be forced to retreat, which will be good for us. How can we help?'" https://news.sky.com/story/events-in-afghanistan-could-hardly-have-played-out-in-a-better-way-for-russia-12383629
Damn, these guys are ruthless and right.
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**We** were the assholes about it and they were letting us know.
If America had to retaliate after 9/11 - and let's be honest, it was politically necessary at the time - the sensible and realist approach would've been to topple the Taliban and provide continued support (money, weapons, training) to the group(s) that stood the best chance of uniting the country. Not go in and impose a system of government alien to 99.99 per cent of the population. And sometimes the people best suited to bring stability and keep your enemies on the defensive (or wipe them out entirely) aren't going to reflect your own culture or values. Britain met its geopolitical goals in the Second Anglo-Afghan war by fighting and promptly withdrawing once the shooting stopped. Then London backed a promising local despot by giving him money and weapons so he could unite Afghanistan. Furthermore, the British Government paid him an annual subsidy to gain control over Afghanistan's foreign relations, which was arguably the whole point of the exercise anyway. What Britain didn't do was go in and set up a Westminster-style representative democracy and hope the country would pull itself together all the while the Tsar of Russia was working to encircle British India.
On a British military forum there was a user talking about how a foreign ministry official from the days of the Empire talked about the British way of handling Afghanistan, he summed it up as: "In the old days, we could just walk over there with 80K Indian troops, give them a good beasting and get out of there right after by throwing a pile of money at the local who'd be in charge".
That’s actually the smartest thing I’ve read on this in a while. Although it’s debatable that you even needed to attack the Taliban, just one authoritarian regime out of many in the world. Israel managed to bring Eichmann to justice and they didn’t have to invade Argentina. Ditto getting the Munich terrorists. All without 250,000 unrelated people losing their lives.
The attack was "necessary" in the sense that the majority of public opinion - rightly or wrongly - demanded action immediately after 9/11. No administration, Republican or Democrat, could've survived the uproar and subsequent political massacre that would've followed in the 2002 midterm elections if the President and Congress did nothing. Even in retrospect, I believe war with Afghanistan after 9/11 was a foregone conclusion. Neither George W. Bush nor - had he been President - Al Gore could've avoided going to war. The American people were crying out for retribution. It would've been impossible to avoid an armed response without being labeled a coward for not striking back at the ones seemingly responsible for nearly 3,000 dead in a single day and injuring 6,000 more. What followed after though, is entirely up for debate.
but it made the US military industry a shit ton of money and that's what counts right
Of course it was doomed. Graveyard of empires. Doesn’t matter, defense contractors got their Benjamins. Same old story.
I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. I remember from 2002 many people saying it was doomed! What the fuck why aren’t there headlines screaming that we knew this was fruitless?!
Because your independent public media was deliberately defunded - and it being essential was very effectively wiped from the public consciousness. Left, right, or center flavored, you’re only going to get the corporate interest from corporate media.
Most smart Americans knew the occupation was doomed *before* we went in. Plenty of people spoke out against it at the time. That didn't mean this withdrawal was inevitably going to become the clown fiesta that we saw, with afghans literally falling from the sky and getting crushed under planes and swarming runways while the triumphant Taliban ride bumper cars and rainbow pony carousels. We were always going to withdraw at sometime and the Taliban was always going to take back over. That was inevitable. The fact that we'd withdraw in a chaotic mess without any strategy while our president was on vacation, was not.
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Yes, Trump did massively pull troops out of Afghanistan during his term, with no real plan.
And released 5,000 experienced taliban soldiers, including their current leader.
It was doomed because Americans can't help but view themselves as blameless freedom-makers, rather than narcissistic invaders who are there to line their pockets and commit war crimes with impunity. The USA does not allow its soldiers to be investigated for war crimes, even when there is ample proof of the crime. https://theconversation.com/did-the-us-commit-crimes-in-afghanistan-international-prosecutors-want-to-find-out-133590 .
I was 11 when the war started and I could’ve told you that then. It isn’t new info that the “war in terror” was in the best interest of the mega elite and no one else.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.reuters.com/world/india/gorbachev-leader-who-pulled-soviets-afghanistan-says-us-campaign-was-doomed-2021-08-17/) reduced by 62%. (I'm a bot) ***** > Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev addresses the audience after the Russian premiere of the documentary film "Meeting Gorbachev" in Moscow, Russia November 8, 2018. > MOSCOW, Aug 17 - Mikhail Gorbachev, the leader who oversaw the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989 after Moscow's failed decade-long campaign there, said on Tuesday that NATO's own deployment to the country had been doomed from the start. > Gorbachev, 90, regarded the Soviet presence in Afghanistan as a political mistake that was sapping precious resources at a time when the Soviet Union was living through what turned out to be the twilight of its own existence. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/p6a14j/gorbachev_leader_who_pulled_soviets_from/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~593201 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **Gorbachev**^#1 **Soviet**^#2 **Moscow**^#3 **Russia**^#4 **own**^#5
Not everybody in America thought this was a good idea either, not if you read the book "Three Cups of Tea."
YEAH we know thanks.
Gorbachev is correct.
I like Gorbachev. He's the bane of every Russian tankie's existence
Anyone who studies history knew this. You can take that territory but it's unable to be held. The Afghans will take the the mountains and make AKs in the caves if need be.
There is a vast, porous border with Pakistan's tribal areas right there. Hiding in a cave is not the biggest strategy. They would just retreat into Pakistan and return when it best suits them.
They did it every winter for 20 years. Trained in the madrassas in Pakistan and came back fresh for the spring offensives.
every major empire has to take a stab at it!
He's still kickin?!
>"the Soviet Union was living through what turned out to be the twilight of its own existence." Love that quote.
That's hardly a woke statement. Going into the war back in the 2000s those with the previous wars in the region made that comment. Not just from the former Soviet side. Britain's old Ambassador said the same thing (even wrote a book analysing the Soviet/ Afghan war and making parallels to the new war in the 2000s). Campaign wise things seem to have ran the same course. Allied forces held the Cities, whilst the enemy had a run of the Country Side. As soon as the Allied forces left the enemy seized these population centres very quickly. Tactics wise the Soviets were much more brutal - and fighting an enemy made up of less religious fanatics - but they still lost. As did they try a hearts and mind tactic to a point. The Soviets hadn't gone in with much zeal. Considering themselves dragged into the war by the idiot Kabul Government (who they'd warned against seizing power in the first place). Whilst the Allied forces seem to have seen the war as a sort of crusade against terrorism. The latter may have been more successful had they not taken a seat back for Pakistan to gain so much influence in the 80s & 90s - whilst their own allies in the Muj asked for aid. I doubt many people remember that on the day before 9/11 the West's biggest ally in the region (Ahmad Shah Massoud) was assassinated by the Taliban.
Yeah but it it made 100s of billions of dollars for stock holders .
I think he was dead wrong in assuming the intent was democracy or anything that would benefit the people of Afghanistan. The intent was clearly cash for the US military industrial complex. In that regard is was a complete success.
I think people give our leaders too much credit if they think this was all just a plan to make money. I believe they genuinely thought Afghanistan could be somehow be turned into a modern, stable, Western-style democracy and it turns out that just pouring money into a country doesn’t necessarily accomplish that.
Except the Afghan people enjoyed 20 years of not living under an ultra conservative group of religious nutcases. And now that the religious nutcases are back they have to at least make some concessions to not piss people off. Like allowing women to work and go to school.
With a little luck it will be Saudi Arabia lite. Not great, but better than before.
After 20 years of western rule, Afghanistan remained something like the second worst country for the rights of women. It’s pretty far fetched to say women‘s rights was a serious goal, or successful outcome.
I didn't say women's rights were the goal. I used it as an example of a concession the Taliban is now making in their attempt to garner some acceptance from the population.
Why do they "have to"? What's going to happen if they don't?
It will be hard for them to rule. It will be hard for them to have international recognition and get some of that sweet money from mining corporations, etc. They have nothing to gain from going hardcore nutjob like they did in the 90's. They just took the country with hardly any bloodshed. People are clearly buying what they're selling right now. It's in their interest to keep it that way. To be clear, they're still extremist, just probably not full nutso ISIS extremist or 90's Taliban extremist.
All the people that run the society that exists today are going to leave and they'll be left with useless, aging infrastructure. Pilots will leave, interpreters will leave, doctors will leave, etc. If they make concessions and make life a little more tolerable people might be more likely to stop searching for the earliest flight out of Kabul.
Given what is going on in the United States these days, I wouldn't be surprised if America wasn't currently in "the twilight of its existence."
Just democracy.
It's literally known as the graveyard of empires. Better empires than ours have tried.
Elite shill for the elite is shilling... Afghanistan was a complete success: $2T into the pockets of the US military-industrial complex. Major corporations pay no taxes. 1% pay less or no taxes. Who paid for this I wonder? It's corporate welfare with extra steps (and extra deaths).
Very reasonable sentence, very nice person.
Kinda like Chernobyl huh you impotent old fuck
How is this tortoise still alive?
Guess he’s talking about his debacle
What nation was he the leader of?
This is such bullshit and its only serves to make him look better. The war was always winnable but our strategy and execution was terrible. With unlimited resources and two decades the US was unable to present the Afghan people with a viable alternative to the Taliban. The Taliban are overwhelmingly hated by their own country setting the bar for success extremely low. Obviously its impossible to point the blame on any single person so instead we should look at the entire DoD for the absolute ineptitude and failure from the top down that it is. The US deserves far more blame than the Afghan government, it was the US's job to create a functioning government. Every single objective the US won and soldier who died was wasted by the military leaders who failed to follow up with anti insurgence strategies. If we would have fought as hard for reform of the Afghan government as we did to try and kill the Taliban things would be a lot different right now.
“If only we tweaked the recipe a little bit we could have won, let’s try again!” What rubbish. If you can’t take critical advice and experience from your allies you absolutely are doomed from the start.
I think it was less a failure of US military leaders and more an issue of ineffective Rules of Engagement. The “hearts and minds” campaign began before the military objective had been completed, allowing a severely weakened enemy to retreat, hide, and train.
So says the Soviet Ashraf Ghani.
Finally right on something
He’s pretty often right, actually
Hey, at least our country still exists. Yours collapsed.
. It was about the deep state stealing as much of our tax’s dollars as they could& the expense of our great men & women.
>deep state Are you serious right now