What Has Been Achieved

[Bazile]

After 20 years in Afghanistan , the US has pulled out .


The Taliban has retaken large swathes of the country

What has been achieved ?

[Jackdaw33]

Nothing, really, apart from the unnecessary loss of servicemen's lives. Britain, three times in the 19th century, the mighty Soviet Union and now the mighty US have all failed in their attempts to tame the Afghan tiger. It appears that people still do not learn from history.

[david small]

The Taliban will take control of the country. Those that suppressed them will be hunted down. A stable infrastructure fully supported by the US and NATO to educate and support Afghan national’s would have been more helpful. There will be many regrets about the mishandling of the options once available.

[fender62]

some girls got educated and thats a good thing, not for that got blown up by the taliban isis? a while back, some infrastructure i would assume, other then that nothing but loss for all concerned, and it will revert back to the taliban once the government falls, and they will sadly...it will become another shedhole worse then it already is.

[Sunk]

100,000 Afghan deaths.
3 Republican elected Presidents.
Bargain.

[Bazile]

They got Bin Laden - afterall that was the reason the US went in ,following 911

[Sunk]

// They got Bin Laden //

It has cost the UK taxpayer £50Billion.
And the US taxpayer $2.6Trillion.
Bargain.

[Bazile]

I'm saying that was worth it .
I'm saying that's all they got .

Things like the right of women to get an education is just going to be reversed

[Bazile]

'im not saying '

[Bazile]

'im not saying ' - for the first sentence

[andy-hughes]

As others have advised, we do not learn from history.

Why did Vietnam not teach the Americans the simple lesson - the indigenous population only needs to wait for the invader to go home, and they all do.

[youngmafbog]

//It has cost the UK taxpayer £50Billion.//

And if we were not there we would have saved all that are you saying?

[youngmafbog]

I think very little has changed.

However it looks like the Chinese are going to have a go now, this time by building their cross Asia road to there. Good luck to them, although I guess they wont be hampered by Human rights vultures waiting at every corner.

[Untitled]

“ I guess they wont be hampered by Human rights vultures waiting at every corner.”

errr yes China is not “hampered” by human rights… and that’s not a good thing.

[Untitled]

Not an awful lot achieved sadly… the invasion was motivated by a desire to “do something” after 9/11. Not a terribly useful sentiment.

[davebro]

If bombing doesn't work and boots on the ground doesn't work how do you deal with threats from rogue elements that are being harboured by foreign countries?

[andy-hughes]

davebro - // If bombing doesn't work and boots on the ground doesn't work how do you deal with threats from rogue elements that are being harboured by foreign countries? //

You talk to them.

Since it's obvious that military action is encouraged by generals because war is their job, then they have to be ignored because time and again their methods have proved not only completely useless, but horrendously costly in terms of money and human lives.

We have to get a dialogue going - and it's no use saying that they don't want to talk to us, we have to find a way to encourage them to exchange views and ideologies and see if we can find a way to peacefully coexist.

If I was sitting in a cave in Afganistan minding my own business, and an American soldier walked in and poked a rifle in my face and told me that I was now embracing democracy because his government had decided it was good for me, and he was going to dynamite my home unless I agreed, just how keen do you think I would be to come around to his point of view?

If however, someone came along and said they would like to talk to me, and try and explain some of the reasons why my parents and grandparents hate his culture with a degree of commitment he cannot begin to imagine, then maybe I would start to think about it.

But human nature being what it is - one of those scenarios is going to fail from now until Doomsday, and the other one has a chance of success, a slim chance, but a chance nonetheless.

It's not rocket science is it?

[youngmafbog]

//You talk to them.//

The Taliban? Are you serious?

[douglas9401]

Deary deary me.

[andy-hughes]

I am absolutely serious.

Given the consistent and sustained barbaric murderous behaviour of successive western governments, engaging the Taliban is going to near impossible.

That is not to say that it can't be done, and more importantly it is not to say that every effort should not be made to make it happen.

[Khandro]

Zilch, at a cost thousands of lives & 80 billion US dollars.