It is no less fair than how you and others would seek to characterize the actions of Afghans making life or death decisions under circumstances that we all have not and (hopefully) never will face.
Every failure was a result of unrealistic objectives, bad foreign policy and failed diplomacy.
Okay.
I don’t know of any instance in which cowardice or reluctance to fight on behalf of the troops was a contributing factor.
Okay.
What the Afghani standing army is doing in the face of Taliban is quantifiably different.
Okay
One can argue that it isn’t cowardice but rather treason/complicity - not wishing to kill those they ostensibly agree with - that is compelling them to lay down their arms.
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Nope. Not gonna cede that. How about just rational self-interest? Why does rational self-interest all of the sudden get discounted in circumstances like this? Honestly, at an individual level, it might even be downright humanitarian to just stop fighting, particularly if one considers that local conditions in disparate areas may have little or nothing to do with who holds power in Kabul, and the only question in the minds of people under such conditions are whether or not it’s worth dying to end up with the same local warlord or chieftain in command of that particular valley.
That’s just one alternative possibility. I would encourage you and others to exercise a little more imagination, empathy, and maybe even compassion to consider whether there might be yet more alternatives that don’t amount to treason/complicity or cowardice. And then consider that whatever you or I might come up with as possible explanations, it we cannot possibly know what is actually going through the minds of people directly confronted with this unfolding tragedy.
But you cannot characterize the US military as having failed in the face of the enemy.
Can’t I?
Was there not an enemy in Afghanistan? Did that enemy not manage to hold out until the US was sufficiently exhausted with the situation as to abandon the entire country? Did the US military not fail to effectively transition from combat operations, to stability operations, to peace?
Anyway, I quite honestly don’t understand what makes self-preservative action “in the face of the enemy” somehow more reprehensible/blameworthy than actions taken with calculation from perfect safety.
It’s easy to say “Gosh, look at all those guys who don’t want to die. What a bunch of cowards/traitors/co-conspirators/take-your-pick!” on the one hand and, “Hey, we only invaded their country. We don’t owe them anything. So let’s all go home, have a nice steak dinner, and talk about how backward and cowardly those Afghanis are.”
We chose to be in Afghanistan, and we chose to leave it as we did. They were born there and for the most part do not have that option to put distance between themselves and the threat.