# Have we morally failed Afghanistan? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 14, 2021, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-morally-failed-afghanistan/948636 "2021-08-14T00:47:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2021, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-morally-failed-afghanistan/948636/81 "2021-08-16T04:05:21Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > They’d be wrong to be opposed to even considering essentially annexing a country in an Afghanistan-like scenario on ideological “But that’s wrooooong” grounds, IMO. I appreciate your efforts to represent how _you think_ “woke social justice types” think. Unfortunately, I believe more effort is required if you want to get it right. Because on the one hand you’ve highlighted a pretty good reason why such efforts at annexation are maybe not something we should do. But then you’ve specifically discounted the possibility that “woke social justice types” (again, the words you chose to use to describe your envisioned opposition) might base their objections in those _perfectly reasonable_ grounds. No, it has to be “But that’s wrooooong” grounds. Sure. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2021, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-morally-failed-afghanistan/948636/83 "2021-08-16T06:52:47Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > I often think of it this way: the year _before_ 9/11, many of us in the West were decrying and denouncing the Taliban’s atrocities against women, against cultural and historic heritage, against social progress. > > _And no major or minor power anywhere was lifting a finger to force them to stop_ . > > “It’s terrible, but it’s not in our security interest.” In what has to be one of the biggest historical ironies, as Kabul capitulates, Afghanistan’s strategic importance has never been higher at any time since the 1980’s. In the era of resurgent Great Power competition, Afghanistan sits right next to Chinas restive west and the Russian bases in Central Asia. The US was involved heavily in Afghanistan when it was the definition of a strategic backwater and runs when suddenly it would have been a nice place to have. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2021, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-morally-failed-afghanistan/948636/84 "2021-08-16T07:27:18Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > “Hollow Army”. A lot of that force was “ghost troops”, either entirely fictitious to inflate the rolls and budgets, or not to be counted on if it was time to be home bringing in the crops or taking care of the family business. Whenever the US/allied advisors were not around to watch, training and the logistics chain got sloppy @Martini_Enfield I can echo this. Over the past decade and a half, I have met “Afghan soldiers” in Islamabad, Karachi, Dubai, London and Istanbul. Not deserters. They were enlisted soldiers on the rolls who never showed up or only had basic training and left Imagine you live in Oruzgan. You need a job. The local ANA commander/Governor owes his position to being an ex-warlord and he oversees a complex network of affiliations and patronage. He gets you enlisted, but you have no interest in well, dying. So he garnishes 1/3rd of your salary and you use the people smuggler route to Dubai. Win win. The Commander/Governor gets to show troop strength and you are truly on the rolls and present, yessiree, all signed and proper. Even if instead of manning your post, you are driving a taxi in Dubai. Your family gets extra income, you don’t die and the foreign partner can report a rosy picture to their capitals. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2021, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-morally-failed-afghanistan/948636/85 "2021-08-16T08:49:45Z")
Thanks @AK84 - that certainly helps put some stuff in context. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2021, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-morally-failed-afghanistan/948636/86 "2021-08-16T08:56:33Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > I appreciate your efforts to represent how _you think_ “woke social justice types” think. Unfortunately, I believe more effort is required if you want to get it right. Just remember this the next time you see other posters speculating about conservatives/Republicans/Trump supporters. Same shit, different day. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2021, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-morally-failed-afghanistan/948636/87 "2021-08-16T09:06:15Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > Just remember this the next time you see other posters speculating about conservatives/Republicans/Trump supporters. Same shit, different day. What’s also amusing is my observations are based on real-world conversations I’ve had with people about the issue. Their objections are ideological - “Colonialism is a horrible thing” - not strategic. Those same people also spend an inordinate amount of time wringing their hands over LGBTQI+ and women’s issues, and apparently don’t see any problem with being opposed to the one thing that was keeping those other things in existence there. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2021, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-morally-failed-afghanistan/948636/88 "2021-08-16T09:29:40Z")
This is what I was saying in my earlier comment about conflicting values, just in a less confrontational way. I don’t really think they are wrong about either of those things. The problem with colonialism is that even if the colonial government is more competent and less corrupt than a native one would be, they are still going to be running that country for their _own_ benefit, and not that of the inhabitants. And I think @AK84 and @Alessan are right. If America was being ruled by Japan or even Germany, the people there would soon start thinking Trump wasn’t so bad after all. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2021, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-morally-failed-afghanistan/948636/89 "2021-08-16T10:12:01Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > Those same people also spend an inordinate amount of time wringing their hands over LGBTQI+ and women’s issues, and apparently don’t see any problem with being opposed to the one thing that was keeping those other things in existence there. It is possible to simultaneously believe that the Taliban mistreats women horribly and that indefinitely propping up a corrupt and incompetent vassal government that embezzles our money, enables institutionalized pederasty, and rigs elections to benefit the wealthy elite, in the name of protecting those women, is unacceptable. Ends != means. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2021, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-morally-failed-afghanistan/948636/90 "2021-08-16T10:15:57Z")
I wasn’t talking up propping up a puppet regime, more openly saying “We’re going to run the country ourselves and for all intents and purposes it is now under the administration of the Coalition Powers” ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2021, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-morally-failed-afghanistan/948636/91 "2021-08-16T10:17:24Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > The problem with colonialism is that even if the colonial government is more competent and less corrupt than a native one would be, they are still going to be running that country for their _own_ benefit, and not that of the inhabitants. There needs to be a word that describes a situation where they’re running it for _everyone’s_ benefit - both the “colonial” power _and_ the inhabitants. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2021, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-morally-failed-afghanistan/948636/92 "2021-08-16T10:18:05Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > I wasn’t talking up propping up a puppet regime That’s what we did for 20 years, though. > [@](#): > > “We’re going to run the country ourselves and for all intents and purposes it is now under the administration of the Coalition Powers” I sincerely doubt the rest of NATO would have been up for establishing a permanent protectorate in Afghanistan even if the US was and if it wouldn’t have been an egregious violation of international norms/laws/treaties in the 21th century. And even if it was, it would’ve been much more resource-intensive, both in terms of money and boots on the ground, than the forever war we did get. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2021, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-morally-failed-afghanistan/948636/93 "2021-08-16T10:19:10Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > There needs to be a word that describes a situation where they’re running it for _everyone’s_ benefit - both the “colonial” power _and_ the inhabitants. “White man’s burden”, perhaps? ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2021, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-morally-failed-afghanistan/948636/94 "2021-08-16T10:19:45Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > There needs to be a word that describes a situation where they’re running it for _everyone’s_ benefit - both the “colonial” power _and_ the inhabitants. “Paternalism”? ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2021, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-morally-failed-afghanistan/948636/95 "2021-08-16T10:24:45Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > There needs to be a word that describes a situation where they’re running it for _everyone’s_ benefit - both the “colonial” power _and_ the inhabitants. The “woke social justice types” think they know what is best for everyone else, too. Do you agree with them? Would you be happy for them to be forcibly in charge, ‘making the world a better place for everyone’? ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2021, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-morally-failed-afghanistan/948636/96 "2021-08-16T10:29:37Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > enables institutionalized pederasty Well, that’s one way the Taliban will improve things. It’s America’s allies who are engaging in pederasty. Under the Taliban rule there’s a death penalty for abusing boys. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2021, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-morally-failed-afghanistan/948636/97 "2021-08-16T11:26:13Z")
Another way I’m thinking about this: For over a decade, the American military leadership and the conventional-wisdom of the foreign policy establishment have been telling us, year after year, that progress was being made and there existed the possibility of a real exit from a stable Afghanistan that could defend itself and remain a US ally, at some point in the future. _These were monumental lies._ Maybe there’s a slim possibility they were well-meaning but monumental statements of incompetence. Either way, it’s good that we now know this as a fact. We know, as a fact, that the US military leadership was either catastrophically incompetent or monumentally dishonest (or both) about Afghanistan for the past 10 years or more. We didn’t know that as a fact before. This is a very important thing for the American people, and the world, to know, and it required a true exit from Afghanistan to confirm this. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2021, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-morally-failed-afghanistan/948636/98 "2021-08-16T11:27:20Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > 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. But you cannot characterize the US military as having failed in the face of the enemy. There is only one yardstick for success or failure in the face of the enemy: whichever side’s teenage boys are standing on the ground with guns at the end of the day. The US failed, fucking absysmally. [They famously slunk out of Bagram air base in the middle of the night without even giving notice](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57682290), and now they’ve commandeered Karzai International because there’s no other way to evacuate Americans. Of course you can argue that the Americans left because politics forced them to leave. But if they’d had been successful in their missions, then nobody’d be asking them to leave, now would they? We wouldn’t see their 20-year “training mission” collapse over a weekend, now would we? They’re failures; there’s no other way to cast it. In this light it’s just absolutely gross to crow about our brave US boys who were failed by forces beyond their control, while libeling Afghans as cowards and traitors. What were these underpaid undertrained pastoralists supposed to do when the US quit paying them and withdrew air support? The country literally has almost no economy thanks to 40 years of war. It’s just unbelievably stupid and delusional to presume they were going to suddenly pull off the Battle of Saratoga. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2021, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-morally-failed-afghanistan/948636/99 "2021-08-16T11:30:11Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > For over a decade, the American military leadership and the conventional-wisdom of the foreign policy establishment have been telling us, year after year, that progress was being made Also known as the Friedman Unit. > **[Friedman Unit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_Unit)** > > The Friedman Unit, or simply Friedman, is a tongue-in-cheek neologism. One Friedman Unit is equal to six months, specifically the "next six months", a period repeatedly declared by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman to be the most critical of the then-ongoing Iraq War even though such pronouncements extended back over two and a half years. > The term is in reference to a May 16, 2006, article by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) detailing the repeated use by columnist Thomas Friedma... ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2021, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-morally-failed-afghanistan/948636/100 "2021-08-16T11:36:19Z")
The fact is we do not have the right to tell everyone else in the world how they are supposed to live. We had a military presence there for 20 years but, before our withdrawal is even complete, the Taliban is running the country again. What does that tell you? I could care less that the Taliban is running the country again, and I adamantly oppose spending another single dollar or another single young American life trying to impose our will on those people. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2021, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-morally-failed-afghanistan/948636/101 "2021-08-16T11:47:58Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > We failed them, but they are governed by corrupt folks who view governing as a way to make money. That’s because we were attempting to replace that with governance by corrupt folks who view perpetual low-intensity foreign war as a way to make money. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-morally-failed-afghanistan/948636.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-morally-failed-afghanistan/948636.md?page=6)