| NightDragon83 said: Ummmm... we're talking about "civilians" who started attacking and killing each other, troops and even international reps because a book was burned. The mission to "win hearts and minds" was doomed before we ever set foot in that hellhole. Instead of invading and wasting billions looking for OBL and trying to bring the country to at least within the past 5 centuries of progress, we should have just turned the entire country into a glass parking lot if you know what I mean. |
The USAF weren't in theater looking for OBL. Intel had him near the Pakistani border or within Pakistani territory. It's not like there's a fence or anything separating the territories. The reason for the campaign was to overthrow the Taliban as the ruling party, which they did.
After that, the campaign should have been handed over to Civil Affairs, but the idea that Afghanistan is some sort of unified nation with a unified population under one banner that can be dealt with as a unified body is a myth, making the mission there one of those indefinite operations with no clear finish line. It's looking pretty clear that the longer the USAF is in there, the worse things are going to get as the situation regresses further into a "we don't want to be here and they don't want us here" and yet we still have this obligation to the Karzai administration even though his influence barely passes beyond the confines of Kabul.
All I have to say about that is the US obsession with nation building has got to be one of the most expensive national hobbies.
