# Why the Hell are we still in Afghanistan?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hell-are-we-still-in-afghanistan/510416>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [September 17, 2009, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hell-are-we-still-in-afghanistan/510416 "2009-09-17T06:10:14Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 9

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**Author:** ![Dick\_Dastardly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c4cdca/32.png) [@Dick\_Dastardly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dick_Dastardly)\
**Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hell-are-we-still-in-afghanistan/510416/161 "2009-09-28T00:07:14Z")

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> [@Camus](#):
>
> That video is one of the more simplistic and deceptive “history” videos I’ve seen. Not only does it gloss over the first, second, and third British-Afghan wars as just being colossal British defeats (bit more complicated than that), the narrator states that through U.S. financial and military aid, the U.S. essentially created the Taliban and Al Queda. Hardly. The mujahideen fighting the Soviets (aka the “godless communists”) was a cause celebre throughout the Muslim world, with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in particular giving plenty of aid and providing a steady supply of foreign fighters. In fact, the Taliban did not appear as any kind of organization or military force until after the Soviets had withdrawn and civil war had started. It was the Pakistani ISI that continued to supply and assist the Taliban, seeing them as a force that could be co-opted and manipulated into being pro-Pakistani (especially since so many fellow Pashtuns live in the border regions of Pakistan).
> 
> As for Al Queda, there is some evidence that Bin Ladin and others who formed the inner circle had their first meeting in 1988, just before the Soviets withdrew, but Bin Ladin himself only seemed to concern himself at all with the US during Desert Shield/Desert Storm, when US forces became (then) permanently based in Saudi Arabia.

How were the three times the Brits had to get out of Afghanistan not just straightforward defeats?

And if we pulled out of Afghanistan tomorrow and AQ came back with the Taliban, why would that be such a bad thing for us compared to keeping on in Afghanistan?

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**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\
**Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-hell-are-we-still-in-afghanistan/510416/162 "2009-09-28T04:35:46Z")

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Deja vu all over again.

[US threatens airstrikes in Pakistan](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6850838.ece)

> [@](#):
>
> The United States is threatening to launch airstrikes on Mullah Omar and the Taliban leadership in the Pakistani city of Quetta as frustration mounts about the ease with which they find sanctuary across the border from Afghanistan.

Remember Cambodia? Our leaders clearly don’t.

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