Afghanistan

[Dill]

(08-18-2021, 01:37 AM)Benton Wrote: In the end, this will wind up another partisan issue.

We spent decades "training" a country to defend itself. POTUS's from both sides kept moving forward with "let's throw a couple more years, few more billion and thousands more lives at the problem."

We never should've tried to occupy any of those countries. And this is exactly why. When we eventually pull out, it goes back to what it was before.

Not sure we were training Afghanistan to "defend itself." "Itself" was part of the problem, after all. 

We were training Afghans to address US security interests, without thinking much about theirs. 
The "enemy" was foreign to the US, but a part of their country--their relatives and neighbors. 

I think the postwar problems we have had in both Iraq and Afghanistan follow from the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld decision that there
would be no "nation building," when most everyone agreed that to just cut and run after "victory" would leave those broken states
to the re-formation of Al Qaeda, and the epicenter of waves of refugees--an international problem. As Powell said, "If you break it, you own it." 

So those who refused to engage in nation building eventually realized that some half-hearted and unplanned, minimal nation building would be required--neoliberal style. Because private enterprise is so much more efficient than Big Government, US corporations would bid for hundreds of billions of taxpayer money to rebuild hospitals and roads and power plants. US corporations and subcontractors in the Middle East got a windfall, and few hospitals, roads, and power plants were actually built. So nation building is again declared a "failure."

Iraq has not yet gone back to what it was before, though taking out Saddam removed a bulwark against Iran and then extended its influence in Iraq and the Levant. Not a positive outcome for those who spun up the WMD hoax. As of spring 2021, it looked like better governance was developing, as many Shia realize that Iraq cannot really be a Shia state. For many Americans, its fragile democracy was well worth hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths.

It remains to be seen what the new Afghanistan will look like, with unregulable cell phones and millions of women who know how to read. That means a lot of people to punish. But I think there is a chance at least the Taliban will protect their re-aquired state by keeping it clear of US targets, like ISIS. And a lot of US citizens would consider that a "win" then.  Sorry about the girls. 

Owing to the partisanship you reference, Benton, it will be difficult to usefully evaluate and learn from the mistakes made in A-stan, as well as some successes now cast as "failure." Hard to imagine accurate description which couldn't look like blame. I don't ultimately fault the politicians for our foreign policy troubles when they mostly do what voters want.