Documentary = Afghanistan: The Price of Revenge

[Double Edge]

I'm not saying I'm not disgusted by the massive amounts of blood and treasure spent in Afghanistan. I am, thoroughly.

That blood & money was spent to defend a pot anywhere from two to three orders of magnitude larger.

It had to be long enough to show you were serious and that anybody any where in the world trying the state sponsorship thing thinks twice. Coming over, bumping off the errant administration and then returning does not have the same effect.

You created a couple of sandboxes where all the guys that did not like you could come over to play. Taking them out of other countries effectively. Draining the swamp. What long term effect this has for future jihadi recruitment remains to be seen.

Very few over here dispute the reasons behind the invasions, the occupation is another matter.

But in the larger scheme of things i don't think they were failures. I hope not.

The expectation is you should be insured for a generation or more.

[Deltacamelately]

Lashing out to merely 'extract revenge' without understanding the consequences of 'lashing out', and what the long term impact will be, is an irrational act borne out of an irrational emotional response.

That's your lawyerish fantasy world. Declaring war is not an irrational response as you put it. Every country has stated and calibrated military response doctrine and decisions like war making are taken accordingly. Attacks like 9/11 and Mumbai are actually Acts of War and warrants Declaration of War against the perpetrators. They are not Irrational Acts. That YOUR country Pakistan chose sides with the US, vindicates that YOUR commanders understood it VERY CLEARLY, that the belligerent was damn serious in declaring war. They DIDN'T consider it as an irrational act. Don't obfuscate facts.

[Officer of Engineers]

Taliban apologist.

[Agnostic Muslim]

Taliban apologist.

Right, so what does that make the US, European and Afghan government's arguing for 'dialog with the Taliban to bring about a negotiated end to the Afghan insurgency'?

[Agnostic Muslim]

That's your lawyerish fantasy world. Declaring war is not an irrational response as you put it.

Without a proper understanding of the consequences of war, the objectives, and exhausting non-military options to achieve said objectives it is those who 'demand war' that are living in la-la land and such a declaration of war is nothing but an irrational response.

[Agnostic Muslim]

Oh, they would. Translation: allow OBL to escape.

The top Al-Qaeda leadership escaped anyway, so if 'stopping OBL from escaping' was a goal of the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, instead of working with the Taliban to destroy AQ, then this is yet another example of how the US decision to go to war was a flawed and poorly thought out one.

[Agnostic Muslim]

That blood & money was spent to defend a pot anywhere from two to three orders of magnitude larger.

It had to be long enough to show you were serious and that anybody any where in the world trying the state sponsorship thing thinks twice. Coming over, bumping off the errant administration and then returning does not have the same effect.

You created a couple of sandboxes where all the guys that did not like you could come over to play. Taking them out of other countries effectively. Draining the swamp. What long term effect this has for future jihadi recruitment remains to be seen.

Very few over here dispute the reasons behind the invasions, the occupation is another matter.

But in the larger scheme of things i don't think they were failures. I hope not.

The expectation is you should be insured for a generation or more.

How exactly was the 'pot being defended against' two to three orders of magnitude larger than the estimated trillion plus dollars spent so far?

And if this was such a shining success of a 'deterrence policy', that brought 'all the guys the US did not like to come over to Afghanistan and play', how do you explain the rise of Al Qaeda and/or affiliated groups in Iraq, Yemen and Africa?

[TopHatter]

The top Al-Qaeda leadership escaped anyway, so if 'stopping OBL from escaping' was a goal of the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, instead of working with the Taliban to destroy AQ, then this is yet another example of how the US decision to go to war was a flawed and poorly thought out one.

:slap:

What FANTASY WORLD do you live on where the ultra-conservative Taliban are going to "work with" Western infidels to "destroy QA"?

Do you smoke metric shit tons of marijuana? Are you dropping LSD every 5 minutes?

Seriously man what the hell is WRONG with you??

[Mihais]

Right, so what does that make the US, European and Afghan government's arguing for 'dialog with the Taliban to bring about a negotiated end to the Afghan insurgency'?

Weaklings,imbeciles and traitors.

[Agnostic Muslim]

:slap:

What FANTASY WORLD do you live on where the ultra-conservative Taliban are going to "work with" Western infidels to "destroy QA"?

Do you smoke metric shit tons of marijuana? Are you dropping LSD every 5 minutes?

Seriously man what the hell is WRONG with you??

Reading the context of my posts more carefully would help - I can't conclusively say whether or not the Taliban would have assisted the US in dismantling AQ, my point is that the US never even tried to see if the Taliban would act on their public offer to help.

And by the way, the war lords the US supported after the fall of the Taliban were themselves largely composed of the 'conservative Mujahideen' that fought the Soviets, so one could just as easily ask whether US policy makers were 'smoking metric shit tons of marijuana and dropping LSD every 5 minutes' when coming up with the cluster-F*** of a plan to invade and occupy Afghanistan.

[Agnostic Muslim]

Weaklings,imbeciles and traitors.

And why not 'Taliban apologists'? They are essentially arguing for a similar approach to end the war that I argue should have been explored before starting the war in the first place ...

[Parihaka]

Reading the context of my posts more carefully would help - I can't conclusively say whether or not the Taliban would have assisted the US in dismantling AQ, my point is that the US never even tried to see if the Taliban would act on their public offer to help.

Sure they did. It would help if you read the posts here before spouting.

[TopHatter]

Reading the context of my posts more carefully would help - I can't conclusively say whether or not the Taliban would have assisted the US in dismantling AQ, my point is that the US never even tried to see if the Taliban would act on their public offer to help.

Besides what Pari said.... Where do you even get the idea that the Taliban would even remotely consider such a farcical notion?

You can't conclusively say the Taliban would've assisted the United States? Conclusively? The very fact that you even brought it up (and not as a sick joke) shows just how batshit insane you are.

[Agnostic Muslim]

Sure they did. It would help if you read the posts here before spouting.

When and how did the US engage in negotiations with the Taliban after their public offer (that their Ambassador in Pakistan is shown making on video, at a press conference) to engage with the US?

[Agnostic Muslim]

Besides what Pari said.... Where do you even get the idea that the Taliban would even remotely consider such a farcical notion?

In addition to my response to Pari, please see the press conference of the Afghan Ambassador to Pakistan in the first video.

You can't conclusively say the Taliban would've assisted the United States? Conclusively? The very fact that you even brought it up (and not as a sick joke) shows just how batshit insane you are.

Are you really having that much trouble understanding this point? How can I 'conclusively' claim anything about potential result from negotiations that never happened? What I do know is that the Taliban made a very public official offer to negotiate with the US which the US never explored.