The Taliban have WON in Afghanistan... (really?)

I got a number of 111,000 but this includes civilians (31,000) - so this makes roughly 80,000 on the Afghan side. US deaths are listed at 2372.

What is the point of this question ?

 

I started becoming aware of the influence of the Establishment propaganda machine during the Reagan years and following the coverage of the covert actions in central america. I read stuff like Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent - the political economy of the mass media" and "Necessary Illusions - thought control in a democratic society. While I don't agree with some of Chomsky's politics - his academic rigor and description of how the machinery works was very instructional. I was also influenced by having a close friend get taken in by religious cult .. I spent some time studying how the process of mind control works - and learned the basics of how its done.

The difference between back in the late 80's, 90's and from Sept 11, 2001 however, is day and night.

While there was spin - making us out to be the good guys more so than we should have been - and demonizing the bad guys - in the central american conflicts - and this did help to shape and influence the minds of average Joe - it was nothing like the concerted efforts that started after 911.

What is interesting is that prior to 911... under the proposed doctrine penned by the likes of wolfowitz .. they stated at the time that the US public was not yet ready and that it would take some external event of some magnitude to shock the public to the point of being willing to accept the some of things these folks wanted to do.

After 911 happened the full out attack against individual liberty was launched - including freedom of information, freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

 

I stand for a woman's rights in the USA. Do you feel the same about Saudi Arabia? We belong no where in the mid east at all. The afgan people do not want us there. The Iraqi people did not want us there. our invasion of iraq cost them to lose almost 1/2 million people. That is 5 times as many as he killed in his war against the kurds and in his enslavement of his own citizens. We had the taliban on the ropes in 2003 but then pulled out to fight iraq who was less complicit in 9-11 than the Saudis were. Iraq was the natural buffer against Iran and they were draining each other dry. Iran once they no longer feared iraq was free to export thier revolution to the rest of the mid east.

We spend 4 bill every month in afghanistan and we are a less influence than we were ten years ago.

 

I am no fan of Saudi Arabia.

Iran is soley responsible for their actions if they sent people and arms around the middle east that is their fault not in any way the fault of America.

 

No fault of america? Who disposed the elected government and put the shah on the throne for 20 years of police brutality

 

Not America, the CIA coup failed.

 

In addition to all of that something astounding happened that (although the illegal American occupation of Vietnam had been timidly noted) the WMD lie, invasion, occupation, torture, and intentional devastation of a Irak's infrastructure had been unmasked.

The removal of world balance (post-Soviet Union) left Washington with a free-range to commit any atrocity at all with hardly an earnest cover story as an excuse. The U.N. forbade the U.S. from invading Irak, but they did so anyway all the while criticizing the U.N. for being weak and threatening to leave the Union as a consequence. And has the U.N. brought Bush, Cheney, Rumself & co. to trial? No. The bully has successfully intimidated the headmaster into silence.

So, whatever reservations we might have about China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Al Qaida, etc. it looks as though one or more of them is all we have left to deliver us from ever-increasing world treachery that the U.S. is bent on perpetrating. To think that it's come to that!

 

You come across as being dreadfully ignorant of history.

 

So clearly a dominant performance from the US, and a massive failure from the Taliban who used to control the country- the capital.

Trying to figure out how Jazz thinks the US was defeated. lol!

 

You don't understand ,America is the bad guy.. no matter what we do we are the bad ones.. that's the only way evil leftists have a leg to stand on. They have to tell us how bad we are, that's the only way their revolution will succeed .

 

So we lead a failed coup against the guy who assassinated the previous prime minister and threatened to assassinate anyone opposed to him.
Your damn right we did and we were not wrong to do so. Do take your low horse and shove off.

The CIA coup failed, and the Iranians army siezed the opportunity.

As far as the Sha being a brutal dictator, well lets see the first thing the revolution did was take America hostages, then they fought and killed alk their opposition then they invaded Iraq, then they started their own domestic brutal oppression ,arresting and murdering people who questioned their reign.
Yeah so you have to be ignorant of history to think that we are the bad guys as Iran is concerned.

Iran displays exactly whats wrong with majority rule. It should end all debate on the electoral college and the importance of sticking to our constitution.

Well i guess it won't end debate on the electoral college because to leftists the Iranian revolution is their model.

 

I do not think there is any deliverance. China is even more totalitarian than the US - while they do not project internationally too much - YET - this is coming. The US as the police did manage to keep other nations from expressing their interests beyond their boarders. Unfortunately it was a "do as we say - not as we do" policy which eventually had to backfire.

 

The cia coup did not fail, they put the shah in power. And for 20 years he rant the most brutal dictatorship this side of Mao and Stalin.

 

I don't think relative casualty stats has ever been the benchmark for whether or not an Army was defeated. Sure an enemy may take heavy losses but if they win they win.

We have been in Afghanistan for 18 years - and the situation there is worse now than when we started in many respects. I do not see this as "winning". What exactly have we won ?

Whether or not one is winning depends on what the objective is. In Afghanistan - we don't even know what the objective is. When is the last time we got an update from the Pentagon on "This is our objectives in Afghanistan" - these were met - these were not.

On this basis I think the statement itself "we have won - we have lost" is silly. How can one measure something if there is no measuring stick ?

On the basis of the stated objective "Al Qaeda/ the global war on Terror" we have lost miserably. Al Qaeda/ISIS are stronger now than they were when we started. 10 years after 911 - and we are arming and supporting Al Qaeda in Syria and fighting along side them in Yemen.

We turned Libya into a Jihadist wonderland - pretty much giving Al Qaeda and those of similar ilk another state to operate out of. The War in Iraq did the same thing - we then spent how many years - how many lives - how much treasure - trying to rid Iraq of what we created.

Someone is perhaps winning - but it is not the US citizen - that's for sure. There are few in the Political realm that will make this argument - state this reality - Gabbard and Paul to name a couple.

Given the above - we must conclude that the stated objective is not the actual objective. While we can debate what the real objective might be - what is not debatable is that the objective was not the stated objective.

 

No, neither do I think China will be our saviour but I had to include it in the "possibilities" if for no other reason than they might take the U.S. down a peg or two making it easier for the theoretical saviour to do the job. As it stands (at this moment) it looks like Russia is best equipped to plough the bully off the hill. What the world needs is to knock the wind out of Washington and bust a few heads, not to destroy it, of course, but to thrust it into a position where the threat of destruction will be taken seriously.

 

I wanted to tell him that but what's the use?

 

Just look at Vietnam, Lebanon, and Somalia. The U.S. tried to throw its weight around and the result was the U.S. getting its hide tanned and thrown out of the country.

 

Please tell me how Russia is going to displace America. Russia could not even displace Germany as an economic or military power. They have about 1/2 of Germany's GDP. Their economy is so driven by oil that in 10 years as the world economy weans itself of oil what are they going to do then?

 

A coup succeeded but the CIA coup failed.

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nyt...eline.html?scp=1&sq=mossadegh%2520coup&st=cse

 

You need to read my post again.

 

We won in Afghanistan within the first 2 months when we dominated the capital, and ALL taliban/ALQ strongholds sending them into a full retreat underground and resulting into a last ditch effort to hide among civilians. The war was over a long time ago, I agree. I believe we should have left in 2003. The enemy has been completely crushed. America won by a landslide.

 

Have another drink, soldier.

 

No you lot lost the war. Your idea that they will just stand there and be droned to death or bombed by a stealth fighter.... <Rule 3> They had a strategy that the US just sucks at. Heck, even you think you won... while they are ruling there, and the US left.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymmetric_warfare