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Comment by mirekrusin | Hacker News Reader

Evil empire is the one that lost.

Alternatively, "empire" is synonymous with "evil" because a benign entity cannot be competitive enough to reach empire size.

I was pondering this when listening to stories of the fall of the Aztecs and the Inca empires (Fall of Civilizations podcast - some great hours-long stories there!). Officials from the Spanish empire came by and caused these meso- and south american empires to fall.

The empires that fell were indeed already warmongering, and dominating their part of the continent due to fighting successful wars and/or alliances. In that sense, it was "only" an empire taking down another. That viewpoint is however just the politics of the history. We can't forget how it affected the people.

You mean ie. Empire State Building can be referred to as Evil State Building?

So, did the US win in Afganistan?

Our entire reason for invading Afghanistan was essentially to kill Bin Laden, so yes?

I mean, considering he was found in Pakistan, close to their security forces ( ostensibly allies of the US) while the US military was pumping literal trillions into trying to control the neighboring tribal country. All the while desperately (and until yesterday) denying the fact that the Saudis had anything to do with a terrorist attack concocted by a Saudi and executed by Saudis.

I guess it’s a win, but in that case I think the entire concept of the pyrrhic victory needs to be renamed…

The Taliban offered to turn over Bin Laden for trial in any country other than the US weeks after the attacks [1][2]. If there reason to invade Afghanistan was solely to kill Bin Laden surely they'd just take the Taliban up on their offer.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/10/15/b...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/17/afghanistan.te...

For trial, it's unlikely they would have sent him somewhere likely to kill him. In my opinion, they were offering a sort of justice but the US was interested in revenge.

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