Should we have pulled out of Afghanistan?

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• Yes
  20 years of training and support,
  They don't have the will to fight for their own freedom

• Yes. But not like this! Holy crap what a SH**SHOW!

• History has shown us that no matter how bad a moslem group, another moslem group will not side with the infidels.
  So, we should never have gone into Afghanistan, to punish or to help!
  Politically, economically and morally it was a self destructive effort in culmination of the attack.
  Smart degradation of the moslem factor can be done without using our armed forces by taking out their supply lines and cutting off their funding.
  But then, that would take a willingness to be solidly behind the American way of life.

• Biden has totally fucked this up. It's almost criminal what he's done. We had only 3,000 troops left over there, in garrison, no longer out in the field, providing training and support, air support (a huge thing), repairing Afghan fighter jets, etc. Under Trump we had found a cheap, effective, almost-no-casualty way of keeping the Taliban out of power. The Afghan government controlled 70% of the country. Then Biden yanks the American military out in the middle of the night, not even telling our allies that we were leaving, and pandemonium breaks out. Just two months later the Taliban controls 70% of the country and is about to take Kabul.

  Now the moron is sending 5,000 troops back into Afghanistan, 2,000 more than we had there in the first place, to try and recoup some semblance of order. It's almost unbelievably stupid.

  This is an exact repeat of what Obama did in Iraq, throwing away all our gains and leaving a vacuum that ISIS rushed in to fill, which required us to go back in and refight the same war, costing us ten times what it would have cost us in both lives and money if he hadn't suddenly and precipitously scrammed out of there.

  I want to scream I'm so angry. Biden has blown up Afghanistan, blown up the economy, blown up our energy independence, blown up the border, and blown up the Constitution. He's only been president for seven months, barely more than half a year. Think about it.

  • "It’s almost unbelievably stupid."

    I would agree except for one thing.
    He's following the King Barky model of doing the most destructive and stupid things possible, just to spite the previous Republican president.
    This isn't an accident, it's a plan.

• I'll agree with the earlier comments, We should not have been there in the first place. You can not establish freedom where it doesn't have a chance unless you are willing to enforce it forever. South Korea is a good example. Politicians never learn. I'm just glad the inevitable happened under the Obiden administration.

• We should never have been there in the first place.
  However, if we are going to send troops into a war zone, get the politicians out of the way,and do not hamper the troops with ridiculous rules of engagement.
  Let them go in, do their jobs (kill people and destroy shit), and then bring them home, leaving nothing but bodies and scorched earth behind.

  • Ya’ll don’t remember 9/11? So ‘never’ being there is a hard argument to win. Leaving after we fulfilled our military goal is one thing- and then define ‘leaving’? No combat troops? Hold onto Bagram and provide air support? That model seemed to be working. Read VDH’s book Carnage and Culture. Either go in and use mass-produced violence to win a clear victory in the short term, or prepare to fight a multi-generational war. We don’t like multigenerational wars in the West- but other cultures it is standard - especially when faced with the industrial-scale violence that western countries can produce. The humiliation of the US by Iran with the Hostage Crisis lead to decades of IRG and proxies acting out violently against Western interests. Biden just gave second life to AQ/ISIS extremists.

  • Absolutely. War isn't about niceties. It is ugly without doubt. It should be so destructive so as to send a message to our enemies to deter any type of attack against us.
    Do what it takes to get the job done (ie, win this thing with minimal casualties on our side), then get the hell out and take our equipment with us. Sorry about any collateral damage, but that's what war is really like if we want to win and shut down our enemies.
    How do those that think otherwise believe we won WWII? Certainly not with "surgical precision strikes".