I'll be the first to say we should never have been in Afghanistan.

[conuly]

Our goals were nebulous and ill-defined, our methods alternated between bad and worse, with a soupcon of criminal stupidity, and we never had any moral justification for being there in the first place.

But the least we could've done is tried to manage a more orderly pull-out, evacuating those people we endangered before the place collapsed.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57933979

https://apnews.com/article/business-kabul-3bf5dcb07bb97ab8851cadce9336574b

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/15/politics/taliban-kabul-afghanistan-explainer/index.html

Comments

[baranduin]

Yes.

[silveradept]

Yes. The best course of action of action would have been not to go, but since we went, we had a responsibility to the people that helped out to make sure they also got out safe.

[elainegrey]

+1

[sabotabby]

Agreed. I protested the hell out of it at the time but leaving the people we fucked over there is unconscionable.

[kengr]

Alas, that would have interfered with getting out as soon as those in power wanted.

Also, it'd require major loosening of immigration rules to let those folks move *here*.

In short, it wouldn't be convenient, so we're dumping them in the fire.

[dine]

SO much this

[malada]

Of course, we were told by *experts* that our well funded and well trained Afgan state would hold up for a least a few months.

They folded in weeks... days for that matter. We didn't have time for an orderly pull-out.

I remember after Vietnam fell there was a flood of Vietnamese and Lao refugees who settled locally. Let's make room for the Afgans.

-m

[thewayne]

Completely agree.

There's a problem with trying to establish democracy and order in areas that have been completely tribal for centuries: it just doesn't take without underpinnings. Some reforms can be done, but the lower the literacy rate, the less likely it is to stick. And the rural literacy rate in Afghanistan is frighteningly low.

IMO.

[cellio]

Yeah, that sums it up. We left people out to dry and that's not how we should behave. Optimism, obliviousness, thoughtlessness, disregard... doesn't really matter which. We owed them better.

[lightbird]

This. OMG, we never learn.