ISIS Defeated?

[Dill]

(01-18-2019, 10:59 AM)Au165 Wrote: We have seen it in Afghanistan though we battled the Taliban and they are still around today, maybe less brazen, but they are still functioning. We cannot defeat these foreign born organization based inside their own countries but no one wants to say we quit. I don't hold the "we won" thing to be a huge deal more so than a PR spin. Many wanted out and as you said you can never really leave or else it'll revert back so you can say we give up or we won, but the end result is us leaving which many do actually want. 

Let me tweak this a bit, Au.

We did defeat a "foreign born organization," the Taliban, in their own country.  This is is not unprecedented. 

And it is arguable that the US could have led a basic reconstruction which prevented the return of the Taliban as an effective force. 

Briefly, the Taliban were created by insecurity, specifically the anarchy and violence of warlords unrestrained by any code of justice. Offer the Afghans a third choice and most would take it--or would have in 2002.

When the US drove them out, there was a chance for a redo. Even though A-stan is not a real country with a functioning federal government, support of tribal and community leadership, plus aid for schools and roads--directed by the military, not contractors--could have eliminated the conditions which bred the Taliban.  Instead the US decided against "nation-building" and returned the warlords to power, an especially bad move in the Helmand and Kandahar, where the Taliban got their start.  The warlords private prisons opened again. A third to a half the occupying force was removed to Iraq in 2003, opening vast swaths of A-stan to returning Taliban. And when they began returning, US attack helicopters and drones began shooting "insurgents" everywhere.  

As far as leaving now, not only are Al Qaeda and the Taliban re-rooted in A-stan, but also ISIS.  Now staying is not about saying "we won"; it is about preventing another 9/11.