President Biden announces end to war in Afghanistan.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-afghanistan-troop-withdrawal-watch-live-stream-today-2021-07-08/

20 years, 20 years of failure to chase the Taliban out of Afghanistan. No real headway made, the only thing we accomplished was to get our own men and women killed and Biden ended the suffering we went through for two decades and four US Presidents.

Bravo President Biden, bravo.

 

Because the Taliban *are* Afghanistan, an indivisible entity.

 

"end war" apparently means replace military personel with mercenaries.

U.S. Contractors in Afghanistan Are Hiring Amid Withdrawal (nymag.com)

The direction I see this going: 'the west' will continue its military imperialism throughout the globe, but it will be with corporate militaries instead of national ones. That is no better, and perhaps far worse than what we've been doing.

of note- use of 'mercenaries' is actually banned by US and international law, so these are 'private military contractors'. But tell me the difference between the two...

 

Well, it's not much but it's something. And you're right there's no real distinction between the two but governments are inherently corrupt and self serving.

 

We will never decisively win another war ever
because they won't let the military do what it takes to win wars, not like how we won WW2

 

This alone makes him a better President than the last 4.

 

We'll see if Kabul stands or falls. Several hundred will remain at the embassy and airport. I disagree with the move. Contrary to popular opinion, things in Afghanistan are better now, especially for women. Women have integrated into government, education and business under our protection. When the Taliban take over, this will end badly for women.

 

By letting Britain carpet bomb their cities and Russians rape their women? Or did you mean Japan?

 

Kill them all and let God sort them out? ...

 

The mercenaries will protect

- from the link you posted

they will not protect civilians, and you have to wonder with so much hardware falling into the hands of the Taliban (that could have been prevented had they planned - note not "planned better" but actually "planned" a withdrawal) whether you want to be taking this job. It's becoming harder by the minute with every crate the Taliban open. Likely the Russians, Iran and China will strike a deal with the Taliban and then the "US business portfolio" will become prime target on the list. US military hardware and weapons will be unleashed on the PMC's

 

I'll add that we must remember that the US government in power today, is simply Obama 2.0 where Benghazi played out, that is what you should expect as a contractor

 

I thought Trump ended it, Biden just changed the date for withdrawal ?

 

It worked didn’t it? Germany surrendered. Japan surrendered. Both are now thriving 1st world allies. Radical Muslims are a little different and we have too many soft spineless citizens that yell and scream a lot. And since they don’t have a unified nation, it’s hard to get a bunch of sleeper cells to just surrender and play nice. When there was no social media those people didn’t have a voice. Now everyone does and leadership listens to the idiots who don’t understand war.

 

The people of Afghanistan, the men and women have to defend the hard fought gains that Americans gave them. Either that, or become a new US State but no more of the US soldiers being mercs to keep the Taliban out.

 

We don’t fight those wars anymore. Nobody is trying to conquer Europe. They’re conquering their own nation and we decide they can’t. Basically ever war since WW2, was us deciding who gets to be in charge someplace else. So obviously the tactics won’t be the same.

 

Absolutely. Just like Iraq. They have to understand that you have to fight and bleed for your country. Hopefully it won't be as bad as it was for Iraq.

 

Agree completely. But if they fail, all those gains are gone. I'm not very optimistic about the government surviving. On the other hand, India and Russia are expected to discuss Afghanistan during talks today. Maybe it's best they take over.

Afghanistan situation to figure in India-Russia talks today | Latest News India - Hindustan Times

 

if that is what it takes
war is hell it needs to be

 

And why we don't win and why the threat is still there and will continue to be till they are literally beat into submission like Germany like Japan
and look at those two now thriving American allies

 

Following Trumps withdrawal plan.

 

ALL for NOTHING....NOTHING! And what will we learn from it.....LIKELY LESS THAN NOTHING!

 

So is Vietnam

 

@AmericanNationalist

It wasn’t all failure, and it wasn’t for nothing.

The initial invasion was necessary. Killing AQ members and OBL was justified self defense.

The only real failure was in trying to build a democracy in our image. In Afghanistan, that was a noble goal, but impossible. It was like trying to build a beautiful statue out of sand.

The important thing is that we demonstrated to the taliban what we can do if we are attacked, even if it is from faraway Afghanistan. They would do well to remember. If in the future the taliban prevents AQ from planning and launching attacks against our homeland, that is the win for us.

It wasn’t all for nothing.

 

We should have been out of there long ago, but the Democratic Party Hawks stopped it from happening. The goal was met long ago. We made the people that did 9/11 pay the price. The goal was never eliminating the Taliban. That's not our job. Our warriors did well. Our leaders sucked.

 

The Vietnam war was the dumbest war in American history. Why should we care if a French colony wanted to declare its independence or not? That's not what NATO was meant for, and we know that now but JFK/LBJ led us to those disasters. Credit first and foremost goes to US citizens who said enough was enough, and then credit to Nixon for executing. I feel like that's what Biden has done here. A formality, but an important one.

Because I disagree or rather have a different take on the situation @Seth Bullock Why couldn't we have used smart power in Afghanistan in 2001? We could've easily tried to establish a no-fly zone as in Libya and have less of a military commitment. If the goal was just to cripple the Taliban and retaliate for 9/11, we didn't have to commit ground forces and get ourselves bogged down.


Obviously, this is hindsight indeed but I think the Pentagon's recent history as demonstrated by these topics shows we should be critical and with hindsight and that we have an unspoken role to play in supporting our military and that also means keeping them from screwing up.