The tragic mistake too many Afghans made was not failing to believe in themselves, but believing in the United States.
-
-
Show this thread
-
It appears the only lesson America absorbed from the Vietnam, War was how to depoliticize a state of permanent warfare through the judicious use of proxies and indiscriminate bombing. Through 20 years and $83B, Afghanistan was never a major political issue in the United States.
Show this thread -
You'd think two other big lessons from the Vietnam War (have a plan for saving the people you fought with, make your war memorials less tacky) would have stuck, but we didn't even get those.
Show this thread -
US military institutional memory lasted about as long as it took for the last soldiers to serve in Vietnam to retire. A further implication of that is that the military is now incapable of fighting a war where it does not dominate the enemy side and have total control of the air
Show this thread -
I guess on the plus side, we can reboot the Rambo franchise. On the minus side, I see a lot of people adopting the "hard-nosed" stance that our only alternatives were granting Afghanistan statehood or botching the evacuation so that everyone who worked with us would be killed.
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
-
-
If you're arguing that many AFG troops & lower-ranking officers are often competent, go ahead. But the higher you go in the AFG leadership, the more incompetent & corrupt it gets. Plenty of blame to go around.
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
-
-
-
Wonder how much was spent trying to equip and train the local army, versus actually rebuilding Afghanistan. Only found USAID numbers, but vast majority of that went to security for the whole 20 years. Why? Shouldn't providing that be the main reason you station forces somewhere?
-
It should be but that's not "American" enough for many. If you want to defeat ISIS and the Taliban you need the people on your side. Rebuilding the infrastructure the Soviets destroyed would have helped attain that goal: roads, markets, sanitation, potable water, housing, etc.
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.