ScoobyDoo
NPC
This makes me sad.
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US Foreign Policy 3.0: We're The Mets of International Diplomacy
- Thread starter MissThundercat
- Start date
- Status
This makes me sad.
Handyman
Hug someone you care about...
Until it isnt. Something will mess it up that country is just a sinkhole. Sooner or later China will implode there too.
aparch
Acetaminamerican
Can someone who is slightly older than myself give me a quick summary of the Afghan mujahideen that met with Reagan in the White House in 1983... and explain to me why it was good for the US to get involved in backing the Afghani Freedom Fighters who turned into the Taliban?
What if we had just let the Soviet Union over exert itself quicker in the region?
Thanks, I'll hang up and listen.
What if we had just let the Soviet Union over exert itself quicker in the region?
Thanks, I'll hang up and listen.
ScoobyDoo
NPC
This is typically how things always work out for America post World War II. We should have hung up are warmongering while we were ahead.
dxmnkd316
Lucia Apologist
Handyman
Hug someone you care about...
Well obviously, that's true for literally everything.
Yeah but there especially. Some places just need to be avoided. Two of those were countries we chose to fight at the same time. (Iraq and Afghanistan)
aparch,
The Mujhadeen were fighting for "freedom" so the idea was America would look like the good guys helping fight back against the Communist Oppressors. Ronald Regan likened the Mujhadeen to The Founding Fathers and had them at the White House. They figured if the Mujhadeen won they would be indebted to us giving us a strategic ally in the area. Much like everything Reagan did though they never thought beyond step one.
IIRC what turned Bin Laden was that America had no intentions of leaving the region.
(I have barely read up on this and not in years so I may be completely wrong)
To add, the Mujahideen splintered into factions after the Soviets left. There was much infighting and Mullah Omar pulled many together into what became the Taliban. Other splinter groups formed the Northern Alliance and the war raged on, this time internally. Much of the Taliban ended up being of foreign origin - many saw it the same as many saw ISIS: a new caliphate.
It's easy and lazy to say the US Government armed and trained the Taliban but it isn't entirely incorrect. We trained a lot of people, and some of them became our enemies.
On the very bright side, the new weapons the Taliban has now acquired from the miserable failure of the Afghani government's collapse will be pretty much utterly useless within a few months without constant maintenance. I only hope that the US didn't leave them anything that the Russians or Chinese might find valuable.
Right -- I always thought what turned Bin Laden against the US was that the US remained in Saudi Arabia after the first Gulf War, and the fact that the Saudi royal family aligned themselves with the United States rather than Bin Laden during the first Gulf War -- After Iraq invaded Kuwait, Bin Laden offered to defend Saudi Arabia with his "Arab legion". The royal family decided the US was a better bet.
After the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, he went home to Saudi Arabia. Then went to Sudan, and was later expelled so he returned to Afghanistan where the Taliban let him operate freely. This was 1996, and it was when he issued his “Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places”.
Further thoughts.
The fact that the feckless and incompetent and corrupt Afghani government lasted less than a week after we began evacuating US citizens and Afghanis that helped us tells me that we should have left years ago. 20 years, $2+ trillion and thousands of American lives (not to mention the zillions of Afghani lives) is enough.
I heard a great analogy for this failure. "We didn't spend 20 years there. We spent 1 year. 20 times."
The fact that the feckless and incompetent and corrupt Afghani government lasted less than a week after we began evacuating US citizens and Afghanis that helped us tells me that we should have left years ago. 20 years, $2+ trillion and thousands of American lives (not to mention the zillions of Afghani lives) is enough.
I heard a great analogy for this failure. "We didn't spend 20 years there. We spent 1 year. 20 times."
Handyman
Hug someone you care about...
Part of that (albeit small) would seem to be Trump leaving them out of negotiations to end all of this. I mean Trump cut the deal with the Taliban and left the AFG in the cold. Talk about embarrassing he pantsed them on the world stage...for a group of terrorists.
And we had only 2500 troops there to facilitate said evacuation. Biden will take the bullets on this one but he's the first president to actually do the right thing.
French Rage
NICKERSON HAS [CENSORED]
Pre-1991 the biggest danger everyone was communism and we would support whoever was fighting the communists as long as they weren't communist. Post-1991 the biggest danger everyone is Islamic fundamentalists and we will support whoever is fighting the fundamentalists as long as they aren't fundamentalists or at the very least will pay us for weapons.
The hope is, if we do this enough times then western-style democracies will appear magically overnight in all of these places. https://www.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/25a96c2c-985d-431f-9237-06937678fa31
Kepler
Si certus es dubita
Kepler
Si certus es dubita
You really think the Chinese want a radical fundamentalist Islamic state on their border with the Uighurs? You really think the Russians want a radical fundamentalist Islamic state on the border with their Near Abroad client states?
Uh huh, sure.
Kepler
Si certus es dubita
To be fair, we've been raping Central America with impunity since the Monroe Doctrine, extracted all their wealth, hardly getting our hair mussed.
Our imperialism goes back to the first war against the Barbary pirates in 1801. We were born of this. It is inseparable from American identity.
All empires are the same.
ScoobyDoo
NPC
They want minerals. That's all that matters to them.
Aren't the Uighurs are all in concentration camps, I mean reeducation centers?
Kepler
Si certus es dubita
Every non-Han in China is looking for a liberation movement.
And even if China winds up with a stable Silk Road commercial relationship with whatever is left of Afghanistan as it crumbles, fine by me. We don't own Central Asia. We don't own their wealth. And we haven't done a lick of good with our imperialism.
And even if China winds up with a stable Silk Road commercial relationship with whatever is left of Afghanistan as it crumbles, fine by me. We don't own Central Asia. We don't own their wealth. And we haven't done a lick of good with our imperialism.
ScoobyDoo
NPC
I haven't heard Guam or the Virgin Islands screaming for their freedom lately.
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