Afghanistan 20 Years Later

This is an excerpt from an AP News article...

Here’s what 19-year-old Lance Cpl. William Bee felt flying into southern Afghanistan on Christmas Day 2001: purely lucky. The U.S. was hitting back at the al-Qaida plotters who had brought down the World Trade Center, and Bee found himself among the first Marines on the ground.

“Excitement,” Bee says these days, of the teenage Bee’s thoughts then. “To be the dudes that got to open it up first.”

In the decade that followed, three more deployments in America’s longest war scoured away that lucky feeling.

For Bee, it came down to a night in 2008 in Afghanistan’s Helmand province. By then a sergeant, Bee held the hand of an American sniper who had just been shot in the head, as a medic sliced open the man’s throat for an airway.

“After that it was like, you know what — ‘F—k these people,’” Bee recounted, of what drove him by his fourth and final Afghan deployment. “I just want to bring my guys back. That’s all I care about. I want to bring them home.”

And now we are right back where we started. How do you teach people to fight for their own country? 

sad episode in our history

difference between then and now is  we had a republican admin getting us into that deadly and extremely expensive war and now we have democrat admin getting us the hell out of that mistake

A democrat introduced the AUMF legislature and it passed the Senate 98-0 and the House 420-1. 

“Credible report that the US is offering vast sums of cash to the Taliban in order to allow evacuations to proceed. Hope US media is on top of this story.”

How embarrassing. 

Took us 10 years to find him laden in Pakistan and 10 years to pull out.... 

The $2 trillion in US taxpayer debt we accrued in Afghanistan in 20 years averages: $273 MILLION PER DAY.

Imagine if the national media had a ticker on the screen for this like they had for Covid cases? 

Correct. A republican government took us to WAR without declaring war.  WAR was not authorized. Use of force to get Bin Laden was, though the republican government FAILED to do that to which they WERE authorized.

Obama got that key job done.

And certainly occupying TWO countries for close to 20 years was never authorized nor was nation building, nor was financing it all on a credit card.

We NEVER should have OCCUPIED either country.   The republican government is fully responsible for that.

No such credible report exists.

However, president trump begged the taliban to avoid shooting us while he put in effect his plan to withdrtaw all US troops by no later than May

Obama got him.   And he should have pulled out.  Or trump should have,

But we never should have been an occupying force in the first place.

A surgical strike by a seal team was all that was needed.

The $2 trillion in US taxpayer debt we accrued in Afghanistan over nearly 20 years - as a result of a massive republican admin BLUNDER - cost an avg: $274 MILLION PER DAY.

ELLEN KNICKMEYER of Associated Press writes that the cost is actually DOUBLE that war cost, because "the United States has committed to pay in health care, disability, burial and other costs for roughly 4 million Afghanistan and Iraq veterans: more than $2 trillion" (through 2048)

We also lost an incalcuable amount in American lives: 6,300 .....plus another 1,144 allies lives lost who joined ONLY BECAUSE Bush insisted "You are either with us or against us"

Can we send back the pow's held in gitmo? 

Much of the data below is from Linda Bilmes of Harvard University’s Kennedy School and from the Brown University Costs of War project.
Read more here: https://www.sacbee.com/news/business/article253499909.html#storylink=cpy

Date Congress authorized U.S. forces to go after culprits in Sept. 11, 2001, attacks:
Sept. 18, 2001.

Number of times U.S. lawmakers have voted to declare war in Afghanistan:  0

Number of times lawmakers on Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee addressed costs of Vietnam War, during that conflict: 42

Number of times lawmakers in same subcommittee have mentioned costs of Afghanistan and Iraq wars, through mid-summer 2021: 5

Number of times lawmakers on Senate Finance Committee have mentioned costs of Afghanistan and Iraq wars since Sept. 11, 2001, through mid-summer 2021:  1

Read more here: https://www.sacbee.com/news/business/article253499909.html#storylink=cpy

That’s false (as usual). 

You can educate yourself here. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Military_Force_of_2001

stunning really . use of force such as seal team strike is one thing .

declaration of war on afghanistan is quite another

detox is wrong as usual

We went to war to give a boost to war Industry advancement of weopon s systems all those politicians lobbyists lobby for America industries general dynamics Raytheon halaburton made a fortune diligently gave campaign funds to both sides to furthur the war....

20 years later I am sure the media paid by the advertisers are going to show a shit ton of footage of the misery closing that gravy train to weopon s makers... awe it was a good run made a lot of money but they need to get busy trying to start another war... so what building do they intend to destroy to get a new blank check 273 million a day just can't go away not after a couple decades. 

That was to get us the artifacts of Nineveh 

 plans for the upcoming invasion of Iraq are well underway, the administration realizes that the American people are not strongly behind such an invasion. They aren’t convinced that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, and unsure about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction. White House and Pentagon officials decide that using retired military officers as “independent military analysts” in the national media can help change hearts and minds (see April 20, 2008). Assistant secretary of defense for public affairs Victoria “Torie” Clarke, a former public relations executive, intends to achieve what she calls “information dominance.” The news culture is saturated by “spin” and combating viewpoints; Clarke argues that opinions are most swayed by voices seen as authoritative and completely independent. Clarke has already put together a system within the Pentagon to recruit what she calls “key influentials,” powerful and influential people from all areas who, with the proper coaching, can generate support for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s agenda. After 9/11, when each of the news networks rushed to land its own platoon of retired military officers to provide commentary and analysis, Clarke saw an opportunity: such military analysts are the ultimate “key influentials,” having tremendous authority and credibility with average Americans. They often get more airtime than network reporters, Clarke notes. More importantly, they are not just explaining military minutiae, but telling viewers how to interpret events. Best of all, while they are in the news media, they are not creatures of the media. Reporter David Barstow will write in 2008, “They were military men, many of them ideologically in sync with the administration’s neoconservative brain trust, many of them important players in a military industry anticipating large budget increases to pay for an Iraq war.” And even those without such ties tended to support the military and the government. Retired Army general and ABC analyst William Nash will say: “It is very hard for me to criticize the United States Army.

http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a030603pressscripted

Amount President Harry Truman temporarily raised top tax rates to pay for Korean War: 92%

Amount President Lyndon Johnson temporarily raised top tax rates to pay for Vietnam War: 77%

Amount REPUBLICAN President George W. Bush   cut tax rates for the wealthiest, rather than raise them, at outset of Afghanistan and Iraq wars: At least 8%

Time to send Jared back to the Middle East.

' republican blunder'  being the operative and completely applicable term here .

            "One more year, or five more years, of U.S. military presence
             would not have made a difference    if the Afghan military
             cannot or will not hold its own country,"
                                                                       - President Biden wrote in a statement from Camp David

NOTE:
The U.S.-trained and well-equipped Afghan military was said to number 300,000
compared to estimates of only 75,000 for the Taliban rebel forces.

NOTE #2:
trump had negotiated with the Taliban so the US could leave before May 01
Having been alerted by trump, the Taliban had plenty of time to prepare

Despite collapse of Kabul, US withdrawal is the right decision and supported by majority of Americans in polls.  Biden is unfairly blamed for 20-years problem inherited from past presidents. Trump decision put Biden in a difficult situation. A messy withdrawal is inevitable just as in Vietnam and Iraq.