>The discussion was more about if the military fumbled Afghanistan or if it was a political failure.
While I started off with the former, overall it is both.
>You haven't shown a military failure.
It has been demonstrated by Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam and others that the best way to defeat America is to engage in low tech guerilla warfare. We have lost every single one of them.
Even more embarrasing is that the Houthi are demonstrating that the age old adage of "Don't touch America's ships!" also isn't true anymore. Our Navy hasn't adequately responded to some deranged goat herders lobbing missiles into one of the world's biggest sea lanes.
>Eradicate Taliban. Complete.
Are you drunk? The Taliban is literally back in power ruling over Afghanistan with an iron fist.
>Remove terroristic sentiments. Not a goal,
Lest we forget, we waged "The War On Terror".
>Rebuild Afghanistan. Not an original goal
You can not remove hate until the people thereof can live comfortable lives, which is still not the case.
>Democratic standards. Not an original goal.
See above.
>Prevent future 9/11s. Current status is trending green.
I've lost count on the acts of terror we've seen across the west, America and otherwise.
You've moved the goal posts of this discussion. We've been talking about military success or failure.
Democracy (and "comfortable lives") was not a military objective. The military provided security for the State Dept and NGOs to pursue those goals.
Since 9/11, Afghanistan has not prosecuted any terrorist acts on the West in my recent memory.
The Taliban of 2001 was largely killed off. Yes, there are people in charge of Afghanistan today who call themselves Taliban, have some limited pre-9/11 leadership, but are largely a completely different set of people than existed back then and this occurred because of military action, not old age.
While I started off with the former, overall it is both.
>You haven't shown a military failure.
It has been demonstrated by Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam and others that the best way to defeat America is to engage in low tech guerilla warfare. We have lost every single one of them.
Even more embarrasing is that the Houthi are demonstrating that the age old adage of "Don't touch America's ships!" also isn't true anymore. Our Navy hasn't adequately responded to some deranged goat herders lobbing missiles into one of the world's biggest sea lanes.
>Eradicate Taliban. Complete.
Are you drunk? The Taliban is literally back in power ruling over Afghanistan with an iron fist.
>Remove terroristic sentiments. Not a goal,
Lest we forget, we waged "The War On Terror".
>Rebuild Afghanistan. Not an original goal
You can not remove hate until the people thereof can live comfortable lives, which is still not the case.
>Democratic standards. Not an original goal.
See above.
>Prevent future 9/11s. Current status is trending green.
I've lost count on the acts of terror we've seen across the west, America and otherwise.