Afghanistan
Everyone is writing about Afghanistan now. I do not have any special expertise in the situation there, but it is now obvious that much of what we (the US and other allied nations) thought we had accomplished there was a mirage. The main question for us now is why did the experts seemingly buy into believing in this mirage for so long? An important subsidiary question is what kind of structural changes do we need to make to prevent this sort of delusion from setting in and being perpetuated?
2 thoughts on “Afghanistan”
Ron,
I found your description of our accomplishments in Afghanistan as a “mirage” quite profound. I call them “delusional”. The Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan realizing that they could not succeed there, what made the US think they could be successful? The US was egotistical thinking this country could succeed where the Soviets could not! It cost what? approximately 2500 lives of our troops for nothing? The lives of young men and women who will never know a future…regardless of how patriotic they may have felt about their service to this country. I understand the so called motive for this 20 year war, but what good did it do? Nothing in my perspective. I am angry about the whole mess. I am also angry about what appears to be the lack of planning to efficiently and thoroughly to evacuate our Afghan allies and their families. The whole situation was and continues to be a mess!
Part of the problem is that what “succeed” meant was really never defined and committed to. We did succeed in having a large part of a whole generation of young people educated and gave many girls and women the experience of relative freedom. I agree, the immediate prospects for these people are not good, but the Taliban may learn that their old methods will not work for long. In other words, we have to partially suspend judgement and see what happens now.
Comments are closed.