Has Biden Made the Right Choice in Afghanistan?

[DGuller]

I wonder if punitive strikes are an option as a way of getting out of Afghanistan without completely losing face.  You let Taliban know if that if they behave badly, you'll aid their enemies with stuff like drone strikes for the express purpose of fucking them up, and if they don't, then you'll forget about that part of the world.  We have to get the fuck out of there, but it's still not a good thing to have Taliban triumphantly do Taliban things.

[grumbler]

One lesson I take from history is that bad guys are almost invariably better fighters than good guys.

[grumbler]

The State Dept is releasing statement about their efforts to negotiate with the Taliban.  That makes no sense to me if serious as it is pretty obvious that a negotiation strategy that opens by ostentatiously abandoning your biggest source of leverage is suboptimal.

From which I conclude that either:
1) Biden screwed up big time, OR
2) The Biden people determined that negotiations would never achieve anything and decided to ditch, and the talk about negotiations is just fig leaves.

Negotiations have been ongoing for at least eight years.  North Korea will denuclearize before the Taliban make concessions that would move them forward into the 12th Century.

[Valmy]

I mean we went in there to get Osama Bin Laden. Last I checked he is dead. The idea we were going to build a functional state was a doomed venture from the start. I was against it then an I am against it now.

We should have left in 2002 and left the Northern Alliance to it. But as it is we should allow anybody afraid to remain in the country to immigrate to the United States like we had to do with South Vietnam in 1975. Maybe somebody we will learn to not do this kind of foreign nation building.

[Josquius]

So. How can we get a two state solution working?
Or it'll have to be a permanent one Afghanistan, two governments, constant war situation?

[Valmy]

So. How can we get a two state solution working?
Or it'll have to be a permanent one Afghanistan, two governments, constant war situation?

They will have to work it out. They had it worked out before the Soviets moved in. More foreign interference has clearly not been the answer.

[The Minsky Moment]

Negotiations have been ongoing for at least eight years.  North Korea will denuclearize before the Taliban make concessions that would move them forward into the 12th Century.

ibn Rushd was around in the 12th century; you've under-rated how far the Taliban have to advance to reach that level.

[The Brain]

Fools Rushd ibn?

[The Minsky Moment]

I mean we went in there to get Osama Bin Laden.

And to dismantle the government that hosted and protected him.

[grumbler]

They will have to work it out. They had it worked out before the Soviets moved in. More foreign interference has clearly not been the answer.

  Uh, no they didn't.    If there was a month in Afghanistan's history when an Afghan politician could find an affordable life insurance policy, it was probably in the late 1960s, under the king, when foreign aid was plentiful enough, and corruption widespread enough, that everyone could dip their snout. 

Other than that, the motto was War Never Changes.

[Razgovory]

Yes.  Well, I hope so.  It's a shitty situation that will look much worse when Kabul falls to the Taliban.  I do wonder how much damage the Afghan and Iraq wars have done to our democracy.  We are sort of in a shitty situation ourselves right now.

[Berkut]

Maybe somebody we will learn to not do this kind of foreign nation building.

Yeah, it really has worked out terribly for everyone every single time.

Excepting, of course, the times when it hasn't.

[Valmy]

I mean we went in there to get Osama Bin Laden.

And to dismantle the government that hosted and protected him.

Well then we probably should have gathered millions of men for the genocide we needed to commit in Pakistan if that was the goal.

[grumbler]

I mean we went in there to get Osama Bin Laden.

And to dismantle the government that hosted and protected him.

Well then we probably should have gathered millions of men for the genocide we needed to commit in Pakistan if that was the goal.

OBL was in Afghanistan at the time, not Pakistan.    Unless you are arguing that US policy should have been a pre-emptive genocide in Pakistan so as to leave OBL no line of retreat.

[Jacob]

Is it the right decision to withdraw from the graveyard of empires? Yes, absolutely. No amount of sunk cost fallacy will change that or result in more palatable results. The price is non-trivial, of course, especially for Afghanis not aligned with the Taliban, but it's not one that should be borne by the US and whatever allies are still involved.

Did the US lose? Yes.

The 9-11 attacks were intended - among other intentions - to provoke the US into a massive reaction that would weaken its legitimacy, bleed it of resources that could be spent elsewhere, and heighten internal divisions. IMO the attacks were successful in that, and the invasion of Afghanistan figures heavily in that.

Luckily for the US and it's allies, the US is solid enough that it can absorb the material losses from it's Afghanistan adventures.

On the other hand, there are indications that China may be getting more involved a bit in Afghanistan.

EDIT to add: I think going into Afghanistan was required, given the situation, but that the attack needed a better exit strategy.