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Today marks the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. These were "a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks [...] against the United States of America on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001."
Of the 2,977 people who died, 2,605 were U.S. citizens and 372 non-U.S. citizens (excluding the 19 perpetrators). More than 90 countries lost citizens in the attacks, including the United Kingdom (67 deaths), the Dominican Republic (47 deaths), India (41 deaths), Greece (39 deaths), South Korea (28 deaths), Canada (24 deaths), Japan (24 deaths), Colombia (18 deaths), Jamaica (16 deaths), Philippines (16 deaths), Mexico (15 deaths), Trinidad and Tobago (14 deaths), Ecuador (13 deaths), Australia (11 deaths), Germany (11 deaths), Italy (10 deaths), Bangladesh (6 deaths), Ireland (6 deaths), Pakistan (6 deaths), and Poland (6 deaths).
It was a tragedy not only for America, but for the world.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Opportunist on Saturday September 11 2021, @01:08PM (3 children)
There was no job to be done. It took Russia only 10 years to finally realize that, the US took as usual the special kid length to figure it out.
You cannot "win" Afghanistan. There isn't anything you can do about this. Afghanistan is a hodgepodge conglomerate of warlords and chieftains who bicker with each other unless you give them an external force to bicker with. That's it. And even if you can somehow get some warlord to side with you, it basically means that the rest of the bunch immediately starts to hate on you because you threaten their power base.
How the hell do you want to "get this done"?
You can waste as much or as little military budget as you like on it, it ain't my money, enjoy and have fun, but really "getting anything done" there isn't exactly an option. It's a great distraction from internal troubles, that's what it did reasonably well for both, Russia and the US, but in the end, there's cheaper ways to distract from internal problems.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 11 2021, @04:10PM
The Taliban had managed to slash opium production, so yeah there was a job to be done.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 11 2021, @04:48PM (1 child)
You certainly can't "win" Afghanistan if your goal is to turn it into a 21st Century Woke paradise. The Biden administration's biggest stated concern with the Taliban after our withdrawal was that their government didn't have enough women in it. Jesus! EVERYBODY is in for some REAL pain... Not the "First World problems" of the faculty lounge...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Opportunist on Saturday September 11 2021, @06:22PM
You can't "win" Afghanistan without accepting that a different culture has different values. You think you go to a country and they'll welcome you with open arms because your way of life is the best thing since sliced bread. It may be for you. Ok. But other people have other ideas of what's good for them.
Yes, that may even be wrong. But that doesn't mean that you can go there, replace their culture with yours because "yours is better" (and I don't even want to discuss whether it is) and expect them to like it.
In my country, universal healthcare is a thing. And we treasure it. It's one of those "from my cold, dead hands" things quite similar to the US' 2nd amendment. Anyone even pondering to think about taking it away can pretty much kiss his political career good-bye. Yes, we think it's the best thing since sliced bread. And we honestly think that you're stupid that you don't want it.
But that doesn't meant that it could or should be forced upon you. You don't want it. Ok. We don't get it, we really don't, because to us, it's pretty much a given that it IS the superior way to do it, but hey, it's your country. It's your decision.
And that's pretty much what is the case with Afghanistan. And, bluntly, a lot of other places that you try to meddle in. You can't win by trying to force your way of life onto these people. Before you can do something like that, you might want to try to understand the mentality of a people. Else you'll just be seen as some kind of invader who tries to push a doctrine that the people you try to "bless" with your superior ideology don't even understand, or understand why it is supposedly better than what they consider good.