I would like someone to clarify just what our mission was

[Sogo]

in being in Afghanistan. I understood 20 years ago that it was in retaliation for the Taliban giving safe harbor to Bin Laden and Al Qaeda and to capture/kill Bin Laden.

When did it become something else?....which now sounds like (according to Andrea Mitchell's questioning of Blinken today) protecting and liberating all Afghan women....

[gratuitous]

1. To save Dick Cheney's deferred compensation from Halliburton

And make a shit ton of money for other defense contractors. Didn't you see the banner behind Dubya on USS Abraham Lincoln?

[doc03]

2. Tweety got a woody that day watching W. nt

[sprinkleeninow]

11. Mesmerized by the codpiece... eom

[Midnight Writer]

18. Still waiting to hear the details of Dick's secret meeting.

All we have seen is the map of a proposed pipeline. 20 years later and the meeting is still so hush-hush that America is not allowed to know who attended or what they discussed.

I think there is a good chance we would have invaded even if 9-11 never happened.

[winetourdriver01]

3. Real Mission

Apparently the real mission for the MIC (Defense Contractors/Pentagon) was to grift the American tax payers just as hard and for as long as they possibly could. That mission was remarkably successful.

[Sogo]

4. Yeah. I guess they "won" the war.

[Hoyt]

5. Why don't you ask Hilary Clinton why she's concerned?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/hillary-clinton-afghanistan-flights-women-b1908161.html

“Hillary Clinton has been arranging charter flights out of Afghanistan for at-risk women, reports say”

“ Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who previously warned of the “huge consequences” of withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan, has now reportedly attempted to charter flights out of the country for the country’s at-risk women.”

[Sogo]

6. Fine. A private, charitable act.

But NOT the responsibility of the US Government. Am I wrong?

[Hoyt]

8. Ask Obama why he stayed.

[brush]

12. Busy getting us out of Iraq, maybe?

[tulipsandroses]

7. That's the lie they have used to keep us there

Meanwhile 76% of Afghanistan women live in the rural countryside. They don’t live in major cities like Kabul.

They were not seeing liberation that city folks got. In fact we probably made life more difficult for many of them since a lot of bombing and fighting occurred in the rural areas. Whether you agree with it or not, women were not allowed to work in most instances. But those women lost their husbands, fathers, sons. If they were totally dependent on men to take care of the family.

What happens when many of those men were killed? Some women lost entire families. The folks in the rural areas are dirt poor, some places don’t have safe drinking water. Was Andrea concerned about those women?

[Under The Radar]

9. Just read the history of the Trans Afghan Pipeline on Wikipedia

Pay close attention to the dates, and owners.

[BlueCheeseAgain]

10. At the time...

... it sounded like it was to set up a stable, broad-based government. We didn't want to leave a power vacuum after initially deposing the Taliban.

Unfortunately, we lost focus by invading Iraq, and then it turned out to be much, much harder than expected to set up an entirely new country. (Maybe we should have realized that at the time.)

[brush]

14. Yes, we chased the Taliban out and got Bin Ladin. That was when to get out...

W, however, had also gotten us in another and way more resource depleting invasion of Iraq that took focus off the relatively small dust-up in Afghanistan, compare to Iraq that is. That consumed our nation's attention for years and Obama's time in getting us out of there.

Two hot messes, thanks to W.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

13. Per the entire M$M 'The Mission' is retroactively defined as 'Whatever Biden Is Failing to Do' (nt)

[Texaswitchy]

15. I remember something about no boots on the ground.

Worked out well.

[ProfessorGAC]

16. Revenge

And many, irrespective of political tilt, were volcanically angry about 9/11.
Al Qaida needed to pay. The Taliban harbored them, and "you're either with us or against us". So, they had to pay, too.
But, as heads cooled, the "sales" point became liberating the Afghan people, especially women & girls, because only for right wingers was revenge a good enough reason.
Nation building ideas was marketing.
When bin Laden gave 43 the slip, some insiders started thinking dollar signs.
So, more marketing came into play (democracy, freedom, blah blah) to sell reasons to stay.
Once we got bin Laden in Pakistan, we should have started a "no deadline" withdrawal, taking anybody with us that wanted to go.
But, all in all, Afghanistan was about vengeance. Any other reasons were marketing plans.

[48656c6c6f20]

17. I think a bigger point that needs to be made

Is why isn't congress being held accountable? This is what happens when you let a president(s) declare and run the war. We still haven't learned.

[stillcool]

19. some things just don't change...

From Smedley Butler "War is a Racket"

"I spent thirty-three years in the Marines, most of my time being a hlgh class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism.
I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1910-1912. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City [Bank] boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the rape of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street.
In China in 1927 l helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.
I had a swell racket. l was rewarded with honors, medals, promotions. l might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate a racket in three city districts. The Marines operated on three continents."
General Smedley Butler, former US Marine Corps Commandant, 1935

Afghanistan, 1979-92:

Everyone knows of the unbelievable repression of women in Afghanistan, carried out by Islamic fundamentalists, even before the Taliban. But how many people know that during the late 1970s and most of the 1980s, Afghanistan had a government committed to bringing the incredibly backward nation into the 20th century, including giving women equal rights? What happened, however, is that the United States poured billions of dollars into waging a terrible war against this government, simply because it was supported by the Soviet Union. Prior to this, CIA operations had knowingly increased the probability of a Soviet intervention, which is what occurred. In the end, the United States won, and the women, and the rest of Afghanistan, lost. More than a million dead, three million disabled, five million refugees, in total about half the population.
https://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/US_Interventions_WBlumZ.html