Apparently, This Is Meant to Be A Serious Argument
It’s true — Time really is using a graphic image of horrible abuse by the Taliban that happened during the U.S. occupation as a reason to stay there forever with, presumably, no cost/benefit analysis whatsoever. One thing that has chacterized both wars is policymakers and analysts who seem to have no idea how difficult effective state-building is; effective authority isn’t something you can establish because you really want to. Staying in Afghanistan out of the belief that if we spend enough money and kill enough people an effective Weberian state will control the whole country and wipe out any Taliban influence is just nuts. And the same inability to understand this leads to further policy errors related to the War (On Some Classes of People Who Use Some) Drugs.
Apparently no children are being brutalized here in America, so we might as well ship more resources than we can afford to the other side of the world.
No, you’re brutalizing them by proxy here in Mexico. Our best defense might be to let that violence “slip over” into the United States, which is usually the U.S. rationale for the U.S. sponsored use of state violence to solve a social problem (not enough agricultural jobs) here.
Even if, by an expenditure of an incredible amount of blood and treasure, we could make a better Afghanistan, the question would arise whether it made sense to save Afghanistan at the expense of bankrupting ourselves.
Well, with one of the very few republicans who voted against the authorization of another 37.1B in funding for the war in Afghanistan being blasted by his democratic challenger for not supporting the troops, I think the bankrupting part is pretty much a sure thing.
Even democrats (except maybe Bernie Sanders, Russ Feingold, and a few others) at this point would rather cut spending for schools and health care than for wars.
102 Democrats voted against the latest funding authorization for Afghanistan. I hesitate to call that “a few.”
I didn’t say a few democrats voted “nay”.
I said that, if presented with the choice of cutting domestic welfare spending and foreign warfare spending, they would choose welfare spending.
Military spending has become sacrosanct.
[...] I’d just add that the misuse of this image—because it’s an image of a young person, with all that involves—is especially offensive. [...]
I remember being one of the very few people that didn’t support invading Afghanistan, supporting Bush “War President” and all the like.
There is literally no reason to stay in Afghanistan other than supporting the narcoterror racket. Which I believe is good enough for a bipartisan consensus in Washington.
I was resigned to the invasion, but didn’t support it — I remember thinking “Graveyard of Empires, don’t do it, don’t do it. Ah, fuck, we’re gonna do it.”
Right on.
Does this mean you support withdrawal of all US troops from Afghanistan as soon as logistically possible (presumably a few months)?
Withdraw them yesterday if at all possible please.
Obama: Pull out now, like your father should have!
First applied to LBJ way back when, but works today.
Time has not had anything serious to say for decades.
[...] [...]
It’s a serious argument, if not necessarily a persuasive one to you. With the US in Afghanistan (sadly, not effectively *occupying* it), the Taliban is powerful, but not as powerful as it was before 2001. It controls some territory and is an insurgent force elsewhere. If the US were to leave, the Taliban might well take Kabul and some other cities, and that would be very bad for those Afghan women foolish enough to trust the West.
Things are very bad, in large part because Bush foolishly invaded Iraq, but things could still be worse.
Thank goodness our forces were there, to prevent this tragedy and others like it from happening…..What? We didn’t? Never mind.
…..the Taliban is powerful, but not as powerful as it was before 2001. It controls some territory and is an insurgent force elsewhere.
I understand the Taliban live there.