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

When a country doesn't want to fight for itself, it's totally moronic for the US to try to make them fight. We gave them $millions in weapons and equipment, excellent training, and watched them run and toss their weapons as the Taliban advanced. Shame on those cowards.

Ron Paul was right decades ago, when he said we should get in, get it done, and get out. All military action should be like that But sadly, politics complicates things. Just…[See More]
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Hoo boy.

Well, I'm nobody, and my opinion doesn't matter. Still, I was there, and people I knew are probably dead, about to die, or are at least afraid of dying. Maybe that "entitles" me to a meaningless few lines on an open forum. For me, it's not so much that we should've left... as it is we should never have been there; at least not like we were. We should've used strength, technology and guile to assassinate those directly responsible for 9/11, those who funded them, and those in power who dared openly support them. No one wearing a US flag on their shoulder should've been involved with any of that (the Russians have one "on us" when it comes to these things). We should've stayed the hell out of the Afghan civil war... because that's what it is, on top of a thousand other local/tribal/drug wars that are constantly going on over there.

But... we went, we set up shop, we did a thing.

Because we are us, we naively expected these people to appreciate that we were spending treasure to give them a crack at being a free and secure nation. We blithely overlooked the fact that they do not even universally agree on the borders of said "country", or that there is any such entity beyond their local/regional affiliations. We gave their deeply-held traditional beliefs a passing nod, and then failed to understand that not everyone who questioned our western values is a "terrorist".

We trained them to do what we wanted them to do... the "cool" things that we wanted to do. Because there aren't enough "cool dudes" to teach them... we sent "normal" people; people like me, to train them. Because "we" were so excited to be getting to live a year away from our "usual" lives...to actually DO cool things we'd never get to do normally... we kinda forget to also teach them how to ensure their soldiers got paid, processed formal leave requests, and had confidence in their own chain of command. Because WE were so inadequate... we overlooked important nuances. Because our bosses were inadequate... we tried to create "consistency" across 12-month stints that barely allowed us enough time to even figure out "who was who in the zoo". Those trained by our best- the Afghan Special Forces and Afghan Commandos...seem to have put up an actual fight...but without any substantive support from the larger ANA that WE trained.

Part of me is angry because we (translation-I) failed them. The other part of me thinks if someone is bold/dumb enough to try and ride a C-17's undercarriage... they should be bold/dumb enough to pick up an AK-47 and fight like they're the third monkey on the Ark, and it's just started raining.

This was always the way it ended...unless we were willing to commit to a forever presence in Central Asia. Maybe that wouldn't have been such a bad thing... the Brits did it in India for a long time before they finally threw in the towel.

We needed to leave, but we should have gotten out all the Afghans that wanted to leave BEFORE pulling out the last of our troops. This was a disgrace and a utter failure of our intelligence community, including the Armed Services. So sad.

Sad, frustrated, and angry. As a Vietnam combat vet I predicted this outcome for Afganistan and Iraq. It gives me no solace the prediction came true. Since Korea our civilian leadership has misused and abused the American fighting man. All representatives should be required to read Baron Carl von Clausewitz "On War"! Hopefully we will never engage our forces in combat without a clear and defined path for total victory. The military is not a social experiment.
For all my younger brothers and sisters, you are my heroes and I love each and everyone of you in ways that none who have not been there can understand.

SSG Carlos Madden Big Army does not want to allow nor support Special Forces in working with the villagers as described in MAJ Jim Gant’s, “ONE TRIBE A TIME”!

The State Department could not control the rampant corruption of Afghan officials that stole money from Afghan Force payrolls, diverted supplies and gasoline, from Afghan Forces. Those poor people, trained by us or not could not prop up a puppet government if Beans, Bullets and some compensation did not filter down to the shooters!

Not surprised seeing how the motivation of the Afghan troops and commanders had less to do with loyalty to government and more to do with having a job and hopefully stability and status in society. Meanwhile watched too many US commanders not give a damn as long as they racked up stats to pad the resume. So much taxpayer $ wasted and lives both US and Afghan lost cause there was no consistent exit strategy.

We should never leave anyone behind. Why was our withdrawal better planned?

feeling frustrated and angry, again a mission unfulfilled, a senses of business unfinished, again

Biden and his staff, who were involved with this decision, should resign, IMMEDIATELY?!