The Taliban won because of their unblinking fervor...

[Tom Rinaldo]

...with embedded beliefs hermetically sealed off from reality.

That is why our own Democracy (and all of the rights we enjoy under it) is so at risk. There is no doubt we have the numbers here, but our enemies are fanatical and unyielding. How, when, and where do we counter that?

[Joinfortmill]

1. Determination based on principle and values.

[Demsrule86]

6. I have principles...but my most important one is this 'Thou shalt vote

Democratic always'. That is what will save us. Roosevelt voters gave us huge margins in Congress and the presidency as well...not always but enough to keep the righties at bay. Once we lost them, we needed a new generation to step forward. But it didn't happen. We argued among ourselves...small p vs whoever...and it culminated in 2016 where many who are allies or even some who were Democrats did not vote for Hillary Clinton. The courts were ignored. An evil wicked man was elected and now our Republic is on life support. we must fully support all Democrats in every election in order to stop the Republicans from destroying everything that is good about this country. This fight will be won or lost at the ballot box and the Republicans are winning right now. It could take years.

[Botany]

2. The Taliban "won" because we won every battle but could not win the occupation.

We "lost" that war when Donald Rumsfeld let bin Laden walk away @ Tora Bora in late 2001 & early 2002.

[Tom Rinaldo]

3. No. It's true that they could not defeat U.S. troops in combat. Defeating the U.S. wasn't their goal

just like occupying Afghanistan wasn't our goal. Bin Ladin wanted to defeat the U.S. but the Taliban wanted to impose their version of Islam on Afghanistan.

I'm not interested in discussing here what the U.S. could have or should have done differently in Afghanistan. The Taliban won control over most of Afghanistan before the U.S. invaded there. The Taliban marched into Kabul while we were withdrawing without having to fire a shot, despite the U.S. having trained and armed well over 300,00 Afghan central government forces. The Taliban were not/are not popular with most Afghan citizens, yet they control that nation today. They never gave up, Afghan resistance to them did.

[Botany]

7. If we had killed bin Laden @ Tora Bora after we had removed the Taliban from power ....

... and then left the country we would have been seen as the good guys.* Very likely
the country (it is not really a country but a collection of tribes many of whom live in
small villages of less than 100 people with a >60% rate of illiteracy) would still have
wound up as some kind of Islamic hell hole for women.


* by some of the Afghani people

[abqtommy]

4. That's part of it but let's not neglect the corruption that was the Afghan

government.

[Tom Rinaldo]

5. Yes, corruption undermined resistance to the Taliban, but it still misses the point

While the Taliban no doubt received some direct aid here and there from Pakistan and wealthy Gulf State religious fundamentalists etc., the Afghan government received well over a trillion dollars in support from America. Even if half of that or more went directly into the pockets of corrupt power brokers in Afghanistan, not all of it did. Arms were bought, schools were built etc. Lacking the full direct backing of a Super Power, The Taliban remained at a huge financial disadvantage in the Afghan Civil War. They had essentially already won it 20 years ago, on a more level playing field ago before the U.S. invaded.

At some unknown tipping point American money might have paid for the loyalty of the Afghan people in directly opposing the Taliban themselves, even accounting for corruption. Maybe if we had spent 3 trillion, or 4 trillion, or 5 trillion, that might have been enough. But the Taliban didn't need mountains of money to win.