Should we take whatever action is needed to stop the Taliban from taking over Afghanistan?

Question

After two decades of this bullsh**, we're going to let it all be undone in a matter of weeks?

nightdrot · Accepted Answer

Vote No as it was time for the United States to leave Afghanistan. The war was begun for a legitimate purpose and degenerated into what amounts to armed social work. At that point it became unwinnable and a net drain on US foreign policy.

As a purely military exercise in the narrowest sense, the United States was victorious early on. The war having been launched to depose the Taliban government from power in Kabul. That position itself being relative as ever since the fall of the monarchy, what limited sense of cohesive national identity and central government authority had existed in Afghanistan had not really existed except by the imposition of force of arms.

Where things went awry was when the military action became a war of social engineering. An effort to transform Afghanistan from a tribal society overlaid by a limited theocracy into a modern democracy. That was always going to be beyond the power of the United States and it left the military in the hopeless position of being little more than a cork on an active volcano.

From that point on, it was only a matter of time until the US horror over 9/11 - a terrorist act planned and launched in Hamburg, Germany, in any case - subsided and the US grew war weary. At that point, the US began to withdraw and the nominally pro-Western authority that Washington was propping up in Kabul will now be left to its fate.

The final irony being that, in the long run, it is not apt to matter very much. As one wag has put it, "Afghanistan is a dagger pointed at the heart of Tajikistan." The British Empire fought three wars in Afghanistan. It lost the first one, one the next two and after all three withdrew, effectively restoring the status quo ante in the country itself. All to no ill effect for the British long term national interests.

It being the long term national interest that is the fundamental question as the international arena is the realm of Machiavelli and not Mother Teresa, of hard national interests and not moral principle. The advancement of moral principle - to the extent that it is advanced - riding on the back of the advancement of American national interest to the extent that the latter is ultimately compatible with the former.

"Good enough for government work." As Theodore Roosevelt said, "World peace comes not from human kindness or moral restraint, but from balanced power; equilibriums of force restraining the selfish aims of nation-states." So it will play out.

Indeed, if any moral question comes into immediately into play it is the question of how moral it is to ask young Americans to fight and suffer grave injuries and even death, all in the name of turning a hostile foreign society into something that there is no precedent for assuming that it will become. There is a certain nobility in that the United States went to war in a country in the name of self-defense and yet sought to leave it better than it was.

Noble, but ultimately foolhardy. America is having a hard time managing security in its own cities. To ask its citizens to go to a foreign land with no history of it and turn it into a thriving democracy was, and is, the height of absurdity.

Bottom line, the US secured its immediate purposes. Anything after that was a fantasy hopped up on hopeless Utopianism. Americans having yet to learn that in the international arena, it is sufficient to do well. Doing good in an imperfect world not likely ending well.

BCA6010 · Accepted Answer

Any time you're going to commit troops, you have to have an end goal. More often than not, the US does not have a cohesive plan that it's willing to commit to, which results in decisive final victory never happening, and the onset of an endless war. Additionally, the people at the top typically have an extremely warped idea of what UW or FID missions ("hearts and minds" operations at their core) actually entails, usually because they try to apply the values of their own country to a radically different culture. This has been a major problem for the USA in Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan, along with the general unwillingness due to either cowardice or greed to decisively finish off the enemy. It's far too detailed of a story to fit in here, but the original plan for Afghanistan would've likely produced much better long term results before Rumsfeld, Bush Jr, and the Pentagon screwed it up by basically ignoring the reports from the CIA, USSOCOM, and troops on the ground. Vietnam on the other hand had a major problem in the sense that while on one hand the US didn't want to commit to actually invading and defeating the communist North to end the conflict, they also believed they could replicate the results of the Korean war and force a DMZ between two nations. A major blunder there was making the idiotic assumption that Americans, Koreans, and Vietnamese people think alike.

The bottom line here is I'm not convinced that the US political machine has the slightest clue how to win a war, or outright isn't interested in it, and until that changes (most likely never unless we get directly attacked), then I have no interest in sending troops into foreign countries.

Poppykate · Accepted Answer

I totally feel for them! I saw the news where people where hanging onto the planes as they were taking off. However, my first thought was ‘this is your country! Why aren’t you fighting for it!
The people have power in sheer numbers! They need to group and fight for their country! The Taliban is so interwoven into their culture, it was always going to be impossible for an outsider to try to beat them. The only way to bring down the Taliban is for Afghanistan to unite and develop a Zero Tolerance for the Taliban.

xHoneyxBeex · Accepted Answer

The fact that it's all going to be "undone in a matter of weeks" tells me that it was a futile attempt to begin with. The U. S. can't (or at least we shouldn't) stay in the middle east forever. At some point, it has to end and these countries need to take action to strengthen themselves and hold the terrorists that reside in their nations accountable. That being said, I certainly feel empathy for the innocent people who are there who will suffer due to the Taliban taking over again.

asomeone · Answer

Too late

Seriously, though - we went to Afghanistan because we wanted to deny Al Qaeda a base of operations, and kill or capture Bin Laden. We succeeded at the first fairly quickly, and a decade in we kill Bin Laden. We won that war ten years ago. The war we lost, that ended last month, was the war to prop up the collective delusion which was Afghan democracy, a fundamentally unwinnable war against a socially conservative majority that agreed with the Taliban's vision for Afghanistan more than the United States'. Are there Afghans who believe in non-sectarian democracy, gender equality, the values of a western-style democracy? Of course, but many fewer than the public was led to believe, and those who did buy in bought in much less fanatically than those who joined the Taliban. The unpleasant truth is that we were an occupation, and as such could only achieve our objectives by staying in Afghanistan indefinitely; once you admit that to yourself you just have to ask, why? Why stay in Afghanistan and not use US military might to "fix" any of a dozen failed or failing states I can think of off the top of my head? We were in Afghanistan because of 9/11, and the material support the Taliban was giving Al Qaeda. I don't even necessarily think it's a given that the Taliban will provide protection to whatever is left of Al Qaeda going forward, because they know that Al Qaeda is what brought American bombs, not whatever they were doing to their country. And it's worth remembering that the Taliban and ISIS do not like each other - remember ISIS calls itself the Islamic State because they literally conceive of themselves as being the only legitimate government for all Muslims. Anyone who is non ISIS or will not submit to them is their enemy, the Taliban included.

WhiteSteve · Answer

Afghanistan needs to hold down their own block. America, or anywhere else, shouldn’t have to play Cap’n Save-A-Country every time leadership unfavorable to America for whatever reason tries to take over. We send people who are practically kids to duck bullets and get their limbs blown off, come back here with all kinds of PTSD and shit, and the poor bastards think they’re fighting for one thing, when behind the scenes it’s another. Uncle Donny and Grandpa Joe never have and never would put themselves in harm’s way, I feel bad for the decent and well-meaning people who get conned into that life, with all respect to them. It’s not their fault, they get sold right up the river by this country, and really every country has the potential to do that to its youth, and that’s simply bullshit.

purplepoppy · Answer

All they have to do is scurry across the border into iran or Pakistan then wait it out until you go home. Then simply return and take over. The only real solution is for a powerful country to fully conquer Afghanistan and claim it as it's own. History shows that the people of conquered nation's very quickly adapt to their new rulers especially if they treat them better than the old.

hellionthesagereborn · Answer

What action is that? Two decades didn't fix it, what time table are we looking at, another twenty years, fourty, one hundred? How is our intervention going to stop anything? Afganistan wanted the taliban there, if they didn't they would have stepped up and did something about it, they didn't. If they didn't want them their they wouldn't fund them, they wouldn't join them, they wouldn't look the other way, they wouldn't wait for every one else to do something to save them. After twenty fucking years of trying to pull a drowning person out of the water and they just keep throwing themselves back in, well at that point you just have to accept the fact that they want to drown. Maybe this will be the kick in the ass they need to step up and safeguard their own nation, and if not well their was nothing we could have done to fix it anyway (not with our current approach anyway).

darkfoxjj · Answer

No, the reasons most if not all wars were started were a lie or setup to be. Maybe fight for real democracy at home first. Could start by freeing the press and freeing Assange.

Iraq no weapons of mass destruction - they just wanted Saddam gone and to "fix" the country. Look what happened.

Afghanistan no Osama bin laden (by the way I am skeptical he was only to blame for 9/11 - building 7 was not hit by a plane), no rebuilt nation either.

Libya - Gadaffi was fighting Al Qaeda and then set up to be seen as attacking his own people. Just look at how that destabilized Libya and southern Europe afterwards.

Vietnam - no gunboats were attacked
ww2 - warned by a British sub the Japanese fleet was moving towards pearl harbor. Look at the way the US ambushed and destroyed them at midway afterwards. Coincidence or just an excuse to enter the war (machine) for profit?

Kaneki05 · Answer

Well the 2 best options out of the worst situations. Is to blow it all to hell, lots of innocents deaths but ends the war. US do what they did to japan but to afghan.

Or wait it out and see if Taliban can actually stabilise and create a functioning government, see if they actually start to run the country now they have it or will they just war monger another country nearby just causing more war because in reality they have no clue what to do other than that.

Which at that point we would have to send are troops to fight.

JackSmy · Answer

NO!! We have spent WAAAAAAAYYYY too much to try to bring a democratic government to a place that is too ignorant to know what that is!!
Let the Taliban have it, and MURDER all their citizens!!
Haven't enough Americans died, and been horribly wounded for these fuckers that don't even want the kind of life we think they should have?
THEY WANT TO LIVE IN ANCIENT BIBLICAL WAYS! Leave them be, and let them kill each other!! Who are we, as Americans to say that they cannot kill their own people, being the sick, twisted fucks that they are?

MCheetah · Answer

I think what the US really plans to do is go all black ops on the situation and just slaughter all of them, and blame it on "rebel insurgents" or some other group. I mean, maybe that's just wishful thinking though, since Biden IS super-corrupt and super-dumb (not that he's actually controlling anything). But I don't think the greater forces in Washington are just "giving up" and walking away. There's too much oil to be had! NO WAY they'd just leave the Taliban there to take over. That, or the US government is now working WITH the Taliban, which I wouldn't put past them.

Soteris · Answer

You say it as if you have a choice in this matter. You dont. Not only did Trump force USA to leave the country because he was stupid enough to actually set a precise deadline instead of just vaguely promising to leave which would let USA enact it anytime they wanted or push it into the future infinitely.

Add to that the fact that USA fundamentally ruined its chances for Afghanistan to be stable as well as any chance that you could help. They do not want your help anymore, they want you gone. As such, you have to leave. You can never solve the issues in Afghanistan by US occupation anymore, you had your chance and you blew it.

rjroy3 · Answer

The Taliban have already taken over Afghanistan. The question is do we want to go back and redo our work, because Biden?

And it's a sincere question we need to ask ourselves. Is it worth considering for a band in men to allow for the people in the region to protect themselves or die trying?

Like at what point does the country stand up and fight to protect itself? Sure we should maintain some spies over there so we can get Intelligence on the Taliban and make sure that we can for any effort but they have. But we can't be in the game of nation building

We either need a full takeover by America, or we need to leave it alone. End of story

Anonymous · Answer

The question is why should we take action. Hate on me if you will but Nato and the US had not business there. If you argue they were going after the terrorist because of 9/11 then the reality is that the country should have been left a long time ago. I dont support this movement but they are fighting for their country and what they believe in. They manged to hold off 2 super powers for 20 years and if a group is able to take back everything despite that in a matter of days shows how much of a shitty job NATO did there in the last 20 years. Only the Afgans are able to control their country and they are already divided as is. No foreign can dictate change without understanding their divide. Iraq Syria and Libya went through it all and look how they ended up, their leaders even stated that you can't run our people. In the end you have to let the people find away to their own salvation as we in the West face our own governmental problems

Anonymous · Answer

Wonder why the USA didn’t interfere with Germany in 1933 but instead in 1941 or 1942? Their intention was never to liberate the Jews but rather to take action when what Germany was doing became a threat against the USA. They never interfered with what Russia/Soviet Union was doing, and they killed a lot more people! 45 million in comparison to 11-12 million people in which Hitler killed, 6 million of them being Jews. In fact, in 1938, Hitler was named as Man of the Year in Time magazine, and in the next year, Time magazine named Joseph Stalin as the man of the year. I think they no longer find the Taliban or the radical people as the biggest threat to the US, and present countless things to distract us, while planning silently behind closed doors in how to implement the New Word Order.

supercutebutt · Answer

Sadly, the Afghan people don't have the will and determination to fight the Taliban. Culty religion has ruined the world. The same thing is happening in the USA. Fuckwads try and destroy everything logical with their twisted fever dreams. Hopeful we can squash the cult nuts here but there's no guarantee. :(

ZackBan · Answer

It's all about the war economy. The US and pals pull out now let the taliban give the world a display of savagery then go back to the nato meetings and UN summits and say "We are willing to go fight for the freedom of Afghanistan look at how amazing we are" then they can poor more tax dollars into military campaigns as they have been doing since the end of WWII.
Same shit different day.

Coulis · Answer

Ok, so America needs to stop sticking their nose in everyone's business. I find it interesting how the Taliban now have all these resources to wreak havoc again. I really hate the Taliban. They are a scourge

MarkRet · Answer

We shouldn’t have to. For 20 years, we’ve spent billions and trained the Afghan army. They should now be the mightiest army on Earth. They can easily take down the Taliban. If not, the Afghans are pathetic shits, we’ve wasted time and money on them, and whoever signed off on it should be fined for reimbursement.

rc321 · Answer

The USA never really legitimize the Afghan government or assisted in building a force for them. The ramifications of this insurgency and rise to power will effect not just the people living in Afghanistan but the rest of the world. USA and NATO should try to resolve this before it gets worst. To turn away from these that need help now, it will come back and bite you

AmandaYVR · Answer

2 weeks? How about 20 years and $2 Trillion dollars.

Static_In_The_Attic · Answer

Some wars can’t be won & this is one of them & when it comes to being a piggy bank for the world we totally are & the only thing we are good at doing is fucking things up. Not for nothing we have to stop handing out money & fix our own money problems & win our own wars on our soil instead.

KimmyKimmy · Answer

We've spent trillions over there. We've spent 20 years training the Afghan army. We left them billions in weapons. I think enough is enough. Let countries in the region step up to the plate and take over.

douride2 · Answer

The US lead coalition was there for 20 years before that it was the Russians for almost as long. If anything that was accomplished in that time will be undone in a matter of weeks let the shithole implode on itself.

Dragonpurple · Answer

No real way to do that beyond making the place radioactive for a few thousand years, before they can flee... meaning getting innocent people to.

That or some country needs to annex them with no intention of trying to leave and setup a government that people do not want.

CasuallySamsonite · Answer

I think any amount of force, short of just wiping out everything... is justifiable. "Religion" and "Tradition" is no excuse for the inhumanities committed against women and girls in the middle east. Honestly, there are areas of the USA that let people get away with that too. Need to revoke some religious freedoms before we can actually expect to enforce real lasting change. Where there is religion, there will be religious extremism.

The-Wise-Phoenix · Answer

Nope.
Those people need to put their own house on order. The middle east is a cesspool and it always will be. That country is not worth the life of one single American soldier.
If the Afghanis are not going to fight for their land then screw em. We already sacrificed too many people.
Same goes for all the future Afgani refugees that will want to flee to western countries instead of fighting for their homeland.
Screw those people too.

jshm2 · Answer

You've been trying that for decades and failed - just like you did everywhere else, like Iraq, Vietnam. China...

Get it into your thick head that you have never made things "better" wherever you have invaded. You're just incompetent at thinking past what to do to after you've fired that first shot. It's also why your cops are fucking hopeless.

demonics · Answer

Imagine having faith in the United States ever again after this shit show. If you are a POW, your plane went down in enemy territory, or you're under the boot of a foreign dictator... don't even bother escaping, hiding, and waiting for a rescue. No one is coming. CNN won't even report on you going missing.

lasher010 · Answer

A little too late for that. What I want to know is what's wrong with the damn Afghan people that over 20 years they couldn't get their s*** together. They have no national identity so they need to deal with the problem themselves. 20 years. Too many Americans missing legs and and at worst their lives. wash our hands of it. and shame Joe Biden for being such an incompetent boob

Schizoaffective · Answer

The states should stop meddling in the middle east it always ends badly, and there were never good intentions for their intervention anw.
I am just curious how the taliban is so threatening rn and were did they get their weapons.

Anonymous · Answer

$2 trillion on the war in Afghanistan.

OfDeath · Answer

Action needs to be taken to stop the Taliban taking control of the lethal and efficient technology the allied forces have given to the Afghan army which was intended to help them fend off the Taliban.

They'll be the most dangerous terrorist organisation in history.

007kingifrit · Answer

let it go. afghanastan will become a den of terrorism again. the terrorists will attack the united states... and then we will go back.

but the america that goes back into afghanastan will be forged in the fires of over population, dwindling natural resources. more common plagues, and political extremism.

we made the mistake of fighting a war on terrorism. next time we will fight a war against islam.

CowboyAceTre · Answer

All the dead, all the sacrifice, any gain, everything done just like that. Of course, we were never really allowed to do what we needed to eliminate the Taliban. Now there's going to be a lot of dead, as the Taliban retake their holdings. All that blood is on the hands of the leadership that let it happen.

Anonymous · Answer

We, being the USA, have never truly cared about stopping the Taliban as much as we claimed to, or else we'd have done it. What we wanted was a place to keep the military complex machine going, and that's what we did. Vietnam was no different. Our own soldiers will tell you we weren't there to "win it".

Anonymous · Answer

We should have put a UN-backed and enforced peacekeeping mission in place first to uphold the right of the Afghan people to choose their form of government. Pulling the troops out for political reasons without a plan just means that every soldier, sailor, marine and airman who has given their live in service in the last two decades has died in vain.

hahahmm · Answer

2 seconds left in the game, your own players are already on the bus to the airport and the home team is celebrating on the field. Too late to undo.

legalboxers · Answer

past 20 years was for 2 of 2 options. One - Osama Bin Laden (CAUGHT BY OBAMA - none of your fucking right-wing fuckery racist bullshit) And overthrowing Saddam... All this predicated by. "That Man Wanted to Kill my Pappy"...

https://www.youtube.com/embed/nfmATUzBwxY

Why does the FAR RIGHT want to keep going to wars? to generate more Veterans? to keep Veterans Day alive? to pound their chest and shout and growl...

EmbraceThePain · Answer

“Whatever action is needed.” Well, that can be quite vague. Intelligent individuals think through decisions, especially complex dangerous ones such as this.

Anonymous · Answer

Afghanistan is not fighting back, because it will allow the taliban to invade as, at the very least, they’re an Islamic organisation and don’t pose a bigger threat to the fundamental religious beliefs of the nation as a whole, as opposed to, for example, if it was invaded by any other country

Rahuliyer4977 · Answer

Need to learn lessons of the past before my we embark upon any mission. Remember all of the military history.. including Vietnam!

Jaximus-Lion · Answer

Nothing personal! It's just business.

Stoner710 · Answer

Why wouldn’t we take any action necessary to start the Taliban there a terrorist organization and we will likely be back in 6 month when they are killing educated women and our allies

Anonymous · Answer

Wait till you read about Vietnam. It was this mentality that kept a war going on there that should have ended much earlier. In the end, the US still lost, despite all the time, money and lives invested.

Cassieee18 · Answer

This situation is fucked. I dont know what is the best solution.

tartaarsaus · Answer

The action needed has been and was literally a small and cheap military presence that has seen relatively little fighting in the last years.

And now the nation is crumbling with Al-Qaeda also profiting hard.

Anonymous · Answer

People acting like a war is all over 😂. Buddy its just getting started. History repeating it self just like Saigon. So uh enjoy rebuilding that tower for a second time. And we will invade again and back to square one. People saying how long should we stay there. Well tbh with u I don't know cause neither choice is correct. We will end up invading anyway cause you people are gonna cry after an attack so…

DJB72 · Answer

Twenty years lol The British were there nearly a century. The Russians before that. Let the taliban try. The Afghani people will wipe them out

Jersey2 · Answer

Freedom has to be won by those who want to be free. 20 years they have had to prepare. They need to sort out their own country and we need to save American blood and money.

Weasly · Answer

The US and allies from the west have been there for 20 years as you say. This has proved we are not capable of resolving the issues.

rcljr · Answer

We were, but the citizens of that country show zero interest in defending themselves or fighting the Taliban.

DeltaCharlieEcho · Answer

It's a country that has been at war for conservatively 5000 years. Who gives a shit about them. If they fuck with your country, go in and nuke every city center in the region without mercy. End their war for them for good.

GoodGuyBreakingBad · Answer

Yes, Biden is reaching out to help them and sending our Troops and UK is sending their Troops of 600 to protect their people over there

pjf1958 · Answer

That's what the democrats do. Until they hurt us again.

DWornock · Answer

We should mind our own business and avoid foreign entanglements by invading countries that are no threat to us.

David_Bayer · Answer

We've learned the hard way that when you destroy foreign government only anarchy and chaos comes which is further taken advantige of by warlords and other scum.
Try googling Afghanistan 1960 (before Soviet invasion).

cth96190 · Answer

Let the rag heads slaughter each other and go back to the 7th Century. It is not our problem.

ewok737 · Answer

Too late, game over !! No matter what happens a lot of people are going to be killed, either by the US, or the Taliban.

zagor · Answer

Carter and Reagan were idiots to fund the opposition to the regime back in the 70's and 80's. That area is too tribal and primitive to throw money at.

Feelicks · Answer

Whay can you do for a people unwilling to fight for themselves? Stay there forever? It's a shame and a bunch of wasted effort either way.

bamesjond0069 · Answer

Our own country is so fucked up right now, were out now so stay out. We could have done better but its too late. Really we need to focus on our issues at home.

Anonymous · Answer

I think this was done on purpose. Look at all the weaponry, vehicles, equipment that the USA left behind. Taliban takes it up, destroys everyone. Now the USA can go back and get more money.

Should we take whatever action is needed to stop the Taliban from taking over Afghanistan?

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Should the US once again intervene in Afghanistan?

Should we take whatever action is needed to stop the Taliban from taking over Afghanistan?

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Should the US once again intervene in Afghanistan?

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