Weekend at Camp David- Taliban Edition

How many people died and money was spent because of Iraq and Afghanistan? 18 years later and we have failed Afghanistan. Iraq is basically an Iranian proxy too. What a wasted head start to the 21st century.

 

Don't get me wrong, we had to go in Afghanistan after 9-11. Its just no reason to still be there

 

We had every reason to go into Afghanistan but no reason for Iraq. The Iraq campaign stole focus and resources from what was otherwise a successful Afghanistan campaign. Afghanistan was forgotten and allowed to go back to what it was.

I still remember watching every evening about the advances of the Northern alliance.

 

I dont defend iraq im talking Afghanistan. I agree iraq was stupid

 

Why? Why did we? Really...

 

Dismantling AQ as a cohesive global entity by denying them territory to freely operate from. Coupled with taking down their financing ability, it did a great job of that, it's just a shame we didn't stop and maintain our involvement at that level.

 

Ironically the Taliban were trained by us to fight the Russians.

 

I don't really have a problem with Trump meeting with the Taliban, even at Camp David right before the 9/11 anniversary. I do have a problem with painting a peace agreement with the Taliban as some kind of success. We quit Afghanistan and they pinky swear not to attack us anymore? We should quit Afghanistan and that is the best deal we can probably get, but don't mug for the cameras and tell me that's a success. That's defeat. I hope Trump can manage to close the deal, but I don't want to see him gloat about it like we didn't just cause 18 years of needless suffering in Afghanistan and probably that much again after we leave.

 

its never a bad thing to have a dialogue with your adversaries, but inviting the freaking taliban to camp david is pretty bizarre.

 

If there was a Trump Islamabad Hotel you know they'd be doing the meeting there.

 

Were't most of the 9/11 terrorist Saudi?

Rocket River

 

Should we ever leave? You may not be students of history, but Germany and Japan haven't started any new world wars since we set up shop after WW2.

 

Yes, we should leave as soon as we can. I'd like to leave Germany and Japan too. Do you think the costs associated with continuous military commitments across the globe are insignificant? We're 22 trillion in debt for a reason.

The American tax payer is not responsible for ensuring world peace but that's what we've been doing for a long time now, even 30 years after the end of the cold war and more fool us.

 

We have around 30 bases in Germany (down from 200) and 88 in Japan -- we are never going to completely pull out of either country emphasis: GERMANY. We can afford to remain Afghanistan indefinitely -- particularly since Japan (for example) pays about 3/4 of the cost of our bases. As soon as we leave Afghanistan it's going to revert back to normal state of existence -- destroying the significant progress we've made.

 

Afghanistan is going to revert to what it has always been, a country divided along tribal lines, we've been there for 18 years and the situation is pretty much as bad as its ever been. There has not been "significant progress" - the Afghan government is as weak, incompetent, corrupt and unpopular as ever before. As soon as the American support goes the Afghan government will collapse in on itself.

That was true in 2009. It's true in 2019. It will be true in 2029.

The only thing we are accomplishing over there is to drain the American exchequer. It's a total waste of resources.

 

You're being dramatic the situation is vastly improved -- the US is an occupying police force that controls the country -- the war in Afghanistan is long over.

 

Al Queda's base was Afghanistan. Its where Bin Laden formed the group and where he lived