Pakistan and the United States have betrayed the Afghan people | Hacker News Reader

Pakistan and the United States have betrayed the Afghan people

foreignpolicy.com

10 pointsactuator16 comments

And the betrayal began 20 years ago.

> And the betrayal began 20 years ago.

That was pretty good, not going to lie. I feel bad for my fellow Americans that are still stuck there. And sure, the withdrawal from Afghanistan was horrible; Biden could've and should've done a much better job with that. But there is a larger issue here: the fact that we should've never been there in the first place. Biden's speech sounded good, but it's a speech that should've been given 20 years ago.

I’m sure this won’t get upvotes, but I recall Ron Paul basically saying that the U.S. meddling in the region even pre Sept 11th was a mistake from day 1 and inspired hatred that fueled terrorism. Now I guess we see what happens when that hatred simmered for 20 years. And damn, Biden, consider the timing! This fiasco was not even a month away from the 9/11 20th anniversary…

Began before that when we armed the taliban

Unpopular opinion: the pushback the Taliban have gotten after all these years has forced them to reform quite a bit. And find a balance between government and rights. If that has happened like it so far seems, then I think it worked.

A kinder, gentler decapitation for all those who oppose us.

How is the US spending $2 trillion and sending over 100's of thousands of soldiers to defeat the taliban a betrayal?

Maybe if the Afghan people actually united in opinion to support their armed forces they would've actually fought against the taliban and defeated them.

US & West in general preach about democracy and want/encourage countries like Afghanistan to go that path. And yet US:

1. Ran away from AF without taking lot of ppl who helped them in last many years. (There are videos on net to see on this)

2. President says AF was never about nation building [1]. Then what was it about?

3. Dragged/nudged allies to pour their soldiers e.g UK.

4. Already knew many years ago that they have lost and yet they lingered on.

5. Installed Hamid Karzai/Ghani govt and then made a deal with Taliban (which were surrender talks)

6. Knew that Pakistan is playing double game and yet did nothing about it.

[1] https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Afg...

> President says AF was never about nation building. Then what was it about?

To “prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by" “those nations, organizations, or persons” who “planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons”, according to the law adopted authorizing the action.

Such a goal could only be accomplished by removing the Taliban from power. So, it really was about nation building the entire time.

> Such a goal could only be accomplished by removing the Taliban from power.

It could be a achieved by creating a sufficient perception of cost to attacking, or supporting attacks on, the US to discourage the Taliban from repeating its past bad acts with regard toward the US (other bad acts are explicitly out of scope of the authorization.) Specific deterrence is a widely recognized mechanism to prevent recurrence of bad acts.

That's the whole point. A president elected 21 years ago decided to make it about nation building. Future presidents had to deal with the reality of the situation. Biden was the only one who pulled the bandaid off and finished this mess.

This is not about what one president did in the past. 20 years mean multiple presidents, multiple terms and multiple opportunities for course correction.

This is about what a country as a whole has done. This includes folks from both side of the political divide.

Yes it's very complicated. But is the US as a whole really in the wrong?

Indeed what was their goal? It was to bring al-Qaeda to justice, prevent a future breeding ground for terrorists (people who purposely kill innocents), and then there was mission creep to build a democratic country.

Is trying to build a democratic country bad? This means letting their people vote for their future.

I don't think any of these are bad. It's just that mistakes were made in the managing of it, and it failed in the end. Everybody is playing monday morning quarterback.

Between the Afghan People and Taliban, there is a hindrance called the Afghan Govt, which is run as a criminal enterprise, looting the American booty. That's why it is a massive failure.

Because of the bad governance by the Karzai govt, and by the subsequent govt, Taliban doesn't have much opposition.

Yup I agree. The US failed to filter, but there's only so much that can be done. Maybe they should've turned the money spigot off earlier.

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