<story><title>U.S. Signs Peace Deal with Taliban</title><url>https://www.npr.org/2020/02/29/810537586/u-s-signs-peace-deal-with-taliban-after-nearly-2-decades-of-war-in-afghanistan</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mythrwy</author><text>I think these things are more possible than people believe.&lt;p&gt;If it were truly an existential threat the US would remove the Taliban very quickly (that doesn&amp;#x27;t imply a safe orderly society would result).&lt;p&gt;But Afghanistan, like Vietnam is an optional and non-essential conflict at this point with unclear definitions of victory. Maybe &amp;quot;victory&amp;quot; is packing up and going home at this point.</text></item><item><author>heymijo</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;to increase the military presence to a level that they could effectively remove the Taliban&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is easier said than done, if it is possible at all.&lt;p&gt;Having recently taken a dive into the U.S.&amp;#x27; involvement in Vietnam, this argument rings eerily similar the one that got us into and led to our escalation in Vietnam.</text></item><item><author>dx87</author><text>For the Bush administration, they ignored initial recommendations to work with the locals after the initial invasion, creating a lot of unemployed, angry, young people with military training.  For the Obama administration, they ignored recommendations to increase the military presence to a level that they could effectively remove the Taliban.  Forces were kept low so they could keep saying &amp;quot;we&amp;#x27;re bringing the troops home&amp;quot; during speaches.  It was like quitting an antibiotic treatment too soon; we eliminated the low hanging fruit, but the Taliban that remained had even better training, and could point to our prescence as a recruiting tool.</text></item><item><author>paulryanrogers</author><text>What were these recommendations that got ignored?</text></item><item><author>dx87</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s probably for the best now, but it shouldn&amp;#x27;t have needed to come to this.  In &amp;quot;Call Sign Chaos&amp;quot; by Jim Mattis, he talks about how the Bush and Obama administrations both repeatedly ignored the recommendations of military and intelligence officials.  The Bush administration was too cavalier and thought they knew best, the Obama administration was too weak and wanted to score political points by not providing the force that was required.  When I was in the Marines, they told us that we shouldn&amp;#x27;t need to be there, but politicians from the 80s&amp;#x2F;90s left things such a mess after trying to stop the Soviets, that now we had to go try and clean up the mess created 20 years prior.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mturmon</author><text>&amp;gt; ... the US would remove the Taliban very quickly...&lt;p&gt;No, no, no.  The Taliban were broadly distributed throughout Southern Afghanistan, and they had a cross border sanctuary in Pakistan.&lt;p&gt;For its own reasons (Kashmir and the regional rivalry with India), Pakistan didn’t want to alienate the Taliban, and their military and ISI thus had extensive relations with the Taliban.&lt;p&gt;The US did not have enough leverage to get Pakistan to shut down the Taliban on its side of the border, and likewise did not want the destabilization of a nuclear state with borders on China and India that would accompany violations of Pakistani sovereignty inherent in large scale bombing.</text></comment>
<story><title>U.S. Signs Peace Deal with Taliban</title><url>https://www.npr.org/2020/02/29/810537586/u-s-signs-peace-deal-with-taliban-after-nearly-2-decades-of-war-in-afghanistan</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mythrwy</author><text>I think these things are more possible than people believe.&lt;p&gt;If it were truly an existential threat the US would remove the Taliban very quickly (that doesn&amp;#x27;t imply a safe orderly society would result).&lt;p&gt;But Afghanistan, like Vietnam is an optional and non-essential conflict at this point with unclear definitions of victory. Maybe &amp;quot;victory&amp;quot; is packing up and going home at this point.</text></item><item><author>heymijo</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;to increase the military presence to a level that they could effectively remove the Taliban&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is easier said than done, if it is possible at all.&lt;p&gt;Having recently taken a dive into the U.S.&amp;#x27; involvement in Vietnam, this argument rings eerily similar the one that got us into and led to our escalation in Vietnam.</text></item><item><author>dx87</author><text>For the Bush administration, they ignored initial recommendations to work with the locals after the initial invasion, creating a lot of unemployed, angry, young people with military training.  For the Obama administration, they ignored recommendations to increase the military presence to a level that they could effectively remove the Taliban.  Forces were kept low so they could keep saying &amp;quot;we&amp;#x27;re bringing the troops home&amp;quot; during speaches.  It was like quitting an antibiotic treatment too soon; we eliminated the low hanging fruit, but the Taliban that remained had even better training, and could point to our prescence as a recruiting tool.</text></item><item><author>paulryanrogers</author><text>What were these recommendations that got ignored?</text></item><item><author>dx87</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s probably for the best now, but it shouldn&amp;#x27;t have needed to come to this.  In &amp;quot;Call Sign Chaos&amp;quot; by Jim Mattis, he talks about how the Bush and Obama administrations both repeatedly ignored the recommendations of military and intelligence officials.  The Bush administration was too cavalier and thought they knew best, the Obama administration was too weak and wanted to score political points by not providing the force that was required.  When I was in the Marines, they told us that we shouldn&amp;#x27;t need to be there, but politicians from the 80s&amp;#x2F;90s left things such a mess after trying to stop the Soviets, that now we had to go try and clean up the mess created 20 years prior.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Spearchucker</author><text>The Russians also thought victory in Afghanistan was possible. Their humiliation was absolute.&lt;p&gt;The US&amp;#x27; mistake was not capitalizing on Russia&amp;#x27;s failure, choosing instead to make exactly the same mistake.</text></comment>