What are your feelings as the Taliban reclaim Afghanistan after 20 years of US involvement?

I was telling a friend recently, theocratic societies are very difficult to replace. Simply put, when the penalty for defection is literally HELL, excommunication, etc., an occupying force will be hard pressed to make way towards a different approach to government. The tribal society of the region makes thing even worse, because they are patriarchal, meaning that the eldest male makes the rules for the household. Regardless of how effective the Hearts & Minds programing has been on teens and young men, they'll still defer to the wisdom of the patriarch, who has spent 30+ years under European occupation being told (first by the Soviets, then by NATO) that they're dim witted cave dwellers who don't understand how people need to be governed.

My first thought goes to the Gold Star families.Next, to my brave brothers and sisters that once again were forced to fight another political war.A war that cost lives,destroyed marriages,crippled thousands of soldiers,and made a mockery of the United States.My history book (the Bible)alludes to the fact that the Middle East will always be in upheaval.Now that we're out stay out !

I am literally welled up. I am 53 years old. I served right out of high school. I did two tours in the gulf of Oman , pre desert storm 1987 to 1990. I crossed trained as a FMF Corpsman in Pearl Harbor Hawaii. I gave my all and I even saved a shipmates life. We were there aboard the USS Jason AR-8. Came under fire a couple times. I felt proud to be there paving the way for future operations. An explosion over the ship release a gas that rained down on us requiring us to Don our gas masks. Hey I new the risks. My loyalty out weighs fear of whatever dangers I would face. I always tried to keep a good attitude for me and my shipmates. We were there to help Iraq. My main tranning was Dental Tech. We did help. Our ship along with other did Hands Across America giving food to the impoverished when we stopped in Pakistan. We took a field dental unit to Orphanages across Pakistan. Now I hear that Pakistan has a stronghold and location where Taliban Train and live. That Pakistan has been helping Regimes like Taliban the whole time we were and have been helping them. I wish the end result could have been better for that region and country. Nothing changes for that part of the world. I am truly saddened for losses to our Military. I greatly appreciate the efforts to try and give Afghanistan a leg to stand on to protect themselves. I am greatly saddened by what I believe was an irrisponsable way of pulling out of Afghanistan. Why did we forsake the Afghanistan civilians that helped save our soldiers lives. Just dissapointed that our Government cant find a better way to honor us that have served for democracy. Instead we are all Left on both sides stunned by the lack of organization to pull out of Afghanistan responsably. I send the prayers. Nameste

Heavy day for all the Veterans who made it home and our Brother and Sisters who Did not make it back, What does it say about there sacrifice?? and to top it off we leave behind equipment that could possibly used against out own troops some day.

I spent years of my life in service. I divorced my husband and lost custody of my children for all 6 years I was enlisted. I watched as 7 of my friends were either killed by the enemy or at their own hand from the PTSD of having seen the destruction and not being able to reconcile it in their brain. I myself watched untold horrors occur daily as if it was normal that people just kill each other for far off ideals and aspirations like freedom and justice and equality. I was physically and mentally injured and now have been reduced to living a life subsisting off of the disability paychecks that the government that failed us all feels obliged to provide me. I feel like a cheap whore who sold my soul for college and retirement benefits and any exit I could find out of poverty and an abusive marriage. I sacrificed years of relationships with my family and friends. I sacrificed my entire life because I believed that there were enough Afgani people who wanted change to make it happen. I was in-country when Osama was killed and felt the retribution. I was at Jalalabad when 18 insurgents invaded the complex and destroyed our fuel and ammo refuel station on the airfield. I was there when my Apache pilots, all of them friends, launched hellfire missiles at people running mortar strikes along our perimeter and listened to the screams as locals ran for cover. I was present when 3 C-17's in flight formation bombarded an entire mountainside just outside of Bagram because a small contingent kept sending mortars and bombs from the caves somewhere inside. I still remember the way the ground shook as they all died even from miles away. I was attacked by a group of men outside of the DFAC because I was brash enough to want to go to chow alone on my birthday to get a piece of cake. I knelt in front of 38 steel coffins, 2 of them containing the remains of friends I went to AIT with, when one man took the lucky pop shot that blew out Extortion 17. I have all this bullshit clogging up my brain already and now. . . Now it feels like it was all for nothing as I sit here stateside and helpless to do anything to help. No fanfare. Nothing to be proud of. No action to take. No orders to follow. Civilians calling me stupid for enlisting because "the war was only ever about oil" and that I should have known better. I missed 6 years of my children's lives only to be reduced to this. I feel so lost and defeated and enraged and angry and depressed and anxious and sad and betrayed and numb all at once. I feel like there's this ball of angry venomous snakes coiled up in my stomach and I don't know what to do with them. How is anyone supposed to live like this? How do I find the will and strength to carry on like everything is fine? How am I supposed to mourn 6 years of my life lived in futility? How am I supposed to reconcile 13 months of violence for nothing? No one can tell me because no one knows.

LCDR Osker Dugger, I am a Veteran of both Viet Nam and Desert Storm. And was deployed in both operations. Leaving politics out I am very happy that we are getting out of a no win situation. Just like Viet Nam we spent millions of dollars and sacrificed thousands of American lives for a war that was not ours. Only to have the host country resume the status quo once we pulled out. The question should be how long must we send our sons and daughters on foreign soil to fight a war that can't be won? After 20 years of US Military involvement the Afghan military and/or people should be able to defend themselves. The military should never be used as mercenaries.

It sickens me to my core. This makes me think of Viet Nam all over again. I thank all those who served over there and pray for those who died that they may rest in peace, I also pray that the Creator of all things help everyone who is suffering restore some peace in their lives.

Bright Blessings to all.

Going in to get Bin Laden was a correct move. Once that mission was accomplished, we should have learned long ago from the errors of every other country over the millennia who have tried and failed to conquer them. Their terrain is their biggest asset to repel invaders. If the Soviets couldn't conquer them when they invaded 40 years ago, why did we think we could impose democracy on them? Democracy imposed by an outside force isn't really democracy anyway!

This was not inevitable. I don't want to hear that again. Trump drew down from 10,000 to 2500 without an issue. This is was a mad dash to have everyone out before the 9/11 anniversary. Biden withdrew without conditions or air support. He wanted to make a giant speech how he got us out. Fuck this! Someone needs to pay

You asked for my thoughts so here goes. Sorry guys. But please understand that I started my journey on 29 June 1971 and finished on 5 July 2009. I have tried to pay attention through my military service and through my formal education.

I have to look at what’s going on from a couple of different perspectives. The personal and the professional. On the personal level, this hurts. This will be long and I’ll probably have several spelling and grammatical errors so please forgive me in advance. I spent a couple of tours in both Kabul and Bagram (as well the Green Zone in Baghdad and at Speicer in Tikrit). Knowing the results of the Taliban taking control is deeply troubling; beheadings, rape, child marriage, Burqa’s and Niqab forced on women, losing the chance for education for women, playing sports with women’s heads while on horseback because the women failed to cover their ankles; this is what the AF women have to look forward to. As for the men; forced induction into the cause of the Taliban, the return of the extremist organizations safe havens, interpreters and security personnel we left behind murdered after they and their families are publicly tortured; I could on and on and on but everyone here knows what’s coming. We’ve all studied it and seen it first hand.

From a more professional view as both a soldier and student of political scientist; we seriously screwed the pouch. We started this action with a goal of bringing justice to Al Quida. We got OBL in 09. Our mission was complete. I said as much in the spring of 09 (and made a lot of enemies at the time). At that point, if we were going leave, that was the time to do it. Without telegraphing our punches, we should have quietly started to withdraw using our controlled airfields and been out within a year bringing all our support personal with us. I understand that one of the most difficult military maneuvers is retrograde operations. Nobody in leadership seemed to understand the capabilities and dedication the enemy has during the planning phase of this retrograde operation. And this has greatly reduced our standing throughout the world as a military force willing to support those who have supported us. The politics of this is a full condemnation of our politicians by itself which I’ll skip (I’m writing too much as it is). (A thought that keeps going through my fury little brain is, at the end of WWII we left a stay behind force that effectively is still in both Europe and Japan. If we were bringing down a government in AF, shouldn’t we have considered the long term need of a stay behind force there also? If for no other reason AF boarders Iran and Pakistan.)

As good as combat arms in our military are, no army can ever conduct a successful campaign without intelligence and logistics. Just read about the Red Ball Express “Know your enemy”. And on top of everything else that is true in the world we live in, we have reduced the size of our military so badly that we are completely dependent on contracted organizations to supply intelligence and logistics. Our internal capabilities are almost nonexistent. In the 90’s we coined the phrase “the incorporation of the US Army”. If I had my way, we’d go back to a 17 Division 750,000 person army with the concept of company cooks and company clerks being put back in. I’d also love to see us meet Regan’s goal of a 500 ship Navy. That way we could support from within without being dependent on corporations. These latest events show a complete failure of our intelligence and logistics community in underestimating the enemy capabilities. I almost believe that many of our leaders still believe that we were fighting nothing more than cave dwellers that could never defeat the superior US military fighting force with all its technology. That’s almost sadly hilarious when I think about the movie Gardens of Stone and the pronouncement of the young soldier who declared the NVA could never defeat the US Army; they were using bows and arrows against our superior technology. 50 years later it seems our senior leaders believe the same thing. The French lost to the Vietnamese by hand carrying ammo and heavy weapons up mountains to attack at Dien Phen Pho (please excuse my spelling). We’ve learned nothing since that conflict at the senior leadership level. The Taliban is a dedicated force fighting for their religious beliefs and nothing will stop them. They will use every brutal, internationally outlawed method of conducting warfare they want to use. They haven’t put themselves in any kind of moral box to restrict their meeting their end goals. We have. I don’t believe the current leadership has considered the dedication of the forces we’ve been fighting. And, what we’ve recently seen is only going to get worse. AF is a land locked country and supporting our forces is principally through the Air and over land using convoys. Once those options are off the table, we have no way to conduct any type of military operation. The way we left Bagram AFB was horrible. It provided the signal that now the real war can take place and that there was no one left to stop them.

My conclusion is that we need a complete overhaul of senior military leadership starting at the Pentagon and JCS level. They have sadly failed in their mission of knowing their enemy and capitulating to politicians on the conduct of warfare for their own personal gains. If I’m harsh, its because I’m so sad and disappointed at what’s taken place and do not look forward to what’s coming.