What Did the U.S. Get for $2 Trillion in Afghanistan?

[925boy]

Smart people would ask: 'What did the US learned from Afghanistan?'.

Why cant America be that "smart person"??

 

[Hakikat ve Hikmet]

The effects of Soviet-Afghan war were felt at home. That's not the case with US.

What is President Trump then????

 

[ziaulislam]

They allowed Al-Qaeda to use their land as a base for a global Islamic war.

Lessons abounds. For US, yes, Afghanistan is a lost cause. For the rest of the world, the US military is an expeditionary force never seen before in history.


Yup. We can afford it.


Yup. Really.


Never mind the fact that Osama bin Laden, in an interview with Robert Fisk, said he never took anything from the US during the Cold War. Robert Fisk is no friend of the US.


You talking about Islamic terrorism? I agree with you on that.


Do not concern yourselves with what we lost. Instead, focus on what you lost, which is magnitudes more than our loss.

and for US citizens at home, trillions of money lost that could have spent on infrastructure that is in disarray since 1970s boom, poverty ...
newsflash..for the first time the average life span in USA has gone down due to poverty...
people are going to Canada in caravans just to get their medicines...
sure a few billion of stimulus has given US economy a small boom but 2 trillion stimulus would have surged it pass anything in the world..

lesson learned were clear, korea, syria and iran knows US cant do anything..hell they openly say USA cant wage war..just read the news..

USA credibility to wage war has been hurt rather than strengthened..
we marked a redline, syria crossed and what did we do..fired a few cruise missles

 

[925boy]

Free supplies of dugs to USA and europ.. as we all know war durgs and politics are best business in the world

US also allowed heroin to flourish so it could flood Iran and destroy the health of its population. Former head of Iran's border police mohammad Naqdi joked about it years ago.
Countries use drugs to destroy competitors. Just as China turns blind eye to fentanyl exports to US..go figure.

And what I gave was a genuine answer. We got nothing or at best very little in the short term, but in the long run, we learned more than you can digest. And that is what other countries are afraid of.

And you were LYING to the US population the whole 18 years of the war. If you were doing well in your WAR ON AFGHANISTAN, why would you need to lie lie lie about it???? HUUUH?

If its about learning why couldnt u learn from Russia defeat in Afghanistan. It is US failure. No one would spend trillions just for sake of learning.

Admitting loss isnt part of American culture- Americans just TAKE it, and live with it. Good example? reparations for slavery. nuff said.

 

[gambit]

Why cant America be that "smart person"??

A vital component of 'smart' is experience.

 

[925boy]

Speaking of learning...The circumstances are not the same.

They are definitely the same- just replace USSR with US and its a similar situation and dynamics.

Keep in mind Afghanistan was used as a base for Islamic terrorism, whereas, during the Cold War, Afghanistan was a strategic goal for expansion

Afghanistan today is STILL a hotbed for terrorism so WTF are you talking about? we even have ISIS that US or NATO OR GCC sent from IraQ adn SYria to Afghanistan, so Afghanistan is like the OIC of terrorists.

But ultimately, not just US but the world learned that Afghanistan is a lost cause.

LMAO. now instead of saying US you are saying the world, its like you misplaced each word for the other one. THis is what you mean to say :

But ultimately, not just the World but the US learned that Afghanistan is a lost cause.

THe world never cared too much about Afghanistan in the first place until US invaded so what lesson does the world have to learn?

From now on, if Afghanistan is used for anything hostile, the country and the people will suffer the wrath of retaliation again. But of course, Islamists do not care about such trivial matters.

LMAO. this is how Americans talk tough when they've already lost. You've given them your wrath for 18 years and they can still take more. ha ha ...

A vital component of 'smart' is experience.

so after 18 years of this afghan "experience", what did you actually learn? and i mean for you to tell me what behaviors of yours changed from that learning, because the ultimate sign of true learning is change in behavior.

 

[TNT]

Because the goal was greater than anyone tried.

The goal was greater but been tried

I thought that is one of life's major philosophical issue.


Because the goal was greater than anyone tried.

The goal was great but been tried by other super powers in their times. I guess the US thought its power is too much and can achieve what previous couldn't. Little did they know they would be dragged thousands of miles away from home and beaten by shere patience and will of a vastly inferior force. I wonder what concrete lessons they would have learned from this.

 

[gambit]

And you were LYING to the US population the whole 18 years of the war. If you were doing well in your WAR ON AFGHANISTAN, why would you need to lie lie lie about it???? HUUUH?

The greatest liars are in your own Muslim world.

There are three levels of warfare...

Grand Strategic. This level is ideological. Essentially, it is about WHO you are going to war against and WHY you are willing to go to war in the first place.

Strategic. This level is political. Essentially, it is about actors involved. What is political is not the same as ideological. Politics requires compromises, not of one's ideological foundation, but of one's willingness to work with actors that may and do not shares the same ideological foundation in order to achieve common goals. A perfect example is the US-Soviet alliance in WW II in order to defeat Nazi Germany.

Tactical. This level is in the battlefields. Essentially, it is about taking that hill, blockade that harbor, taking control of X airspace, and so on. This is the military domain.

Any fool -- and this forum is filled with such -- can grand strategize and pat himself on the back about it.

Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda lied to the Muslims. They had no problems pointing out the whos and the whys the Muslims should war against. And the US just happened to be the largest target among many targets. Ideologically speaking, they were correct.

But bin Laden failed at the strategic and tactical levels, and failed miserably. He failed at creating alliances, especially when Al-Qaeda was, and still is, a stateless actor with nothing to contribute to other actors who are states. The result is that Al-Qaeda had to ally with a backward country called Afghanistan. ONE ally. Al-Qaeda had no problems with social media, exhorting Muslims around the world on the righteousness of its cause. But in the end -- the tactical level -- Al-Qaeda was, and still is, nothing more than a guerrilla force and no guerrilla force has won a war.

Today, because of that great lie, the Muslim world is in complete turmoil. You are divided into factions that are seemingly irreconcilable even at the ideological level. You squabble among yourselves like children over who gets the last cookie. Your leaderships are corrupt to the core. Other than oil production, you contribute practically nothing to mankind's progress. Your most beautiful cities are built on providing financial services to foreigners and not of industries.

So do not focus on our lies to ourselves. Look at your own which is far worse.

 

[zectech]

Two trillion in toilet paper dollars. Shows how worthless the dollar is. But since the Dollar is the 'world's reserve currency', made so by idiot 'world leaders', the loss of 2 trillion has no effect. China is footing the bill with their treasury note purchases. So the real losers is the dumb so-called 'world leaders' that still have Amerika as their tin god.

Has the US dollar collapsed over wasted resources? Has anybody replaced the dollar? Has anybody replaced the so-called 'worlds police'? Then the losers are always those who adore Washington, and that is the rest of the world. From Japan, to Canada.

How to defeat the US, stock gold and stop supporting their wars by taking the dollar. If trump ever tries to sanction China, sanction the dollar and get allies to sanction the dollar.

The Rial is worth gold and the Dollar is worth Indian s*it. The Rial should be the world's reserve currency or a gold backed Yuan.

 

[gambit]

THe world never cared too much about Afghanistan in the first place until US invaded so what lesson does the world have to learn?

If the Taliban rejected Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda in the first place, then most likely the world would still remain ignorant of Afghanistan. Learn anything?

 

[KungFuLee]

Two trillion in toilet paper dollars. Shows how worthless the dollar is. But since the Dollar is the 'world's reserve currency', made so by idiot 'world leaders', the loss of 2 trillion has no effect. China is footing the bill with their treasury note purchases. So the real losers is the dumb so-called 'world leaders' that still have Amerika as their tin god.

Has the US dollar collapsed over wasted resources? Has anybody replaced the dollar? Has anybody replaced the so-called 'worlds police'? Then the losers are always those who adore Washington, and that is the rest of the world. From Japan, to Canada.

How to defeat the US, stock gold and stop supporting their wars by taking the dollar. If trump ever tries to sanction China, sanction the dollar and get allies to sanction the dollar.

The Rial is worth gold and the Dollar is worth Indian s*it. The Rial should be the world's reserve currency or a gold backed Yuan.

I am not going to comment the political side of your post, as I don't know anything about it. But I do understand finance and economic.

First of all, you can never defeat the US by just stocking gold, the world tried it in the 50s, it doesn't work. The evolution of financial technology would mean the world always going to need fiat currency because we learn from the last 75 years of world development, debt is essential part of national development. In other words, Debt is good.

What happen if we go back to use gold? First of all, gold can be own by private individual. Which mean if we use gold as a currency, basically your next door neighbour who own 12 24ct gold ring can actually have a say in your countries' currency status. Because he own part of it, it's like he own his own printing press and can print money now. Which mean if a country need to have complete control with their currency if they are using gold, they would need to criminalize gold ownership and return all the gold into the central vault. If so, how are you going to make this work? I mean what are you using to exchange the gold from civilian ownership? Give them paper money? Well, this is kind of a moot point because you are trying to replace paper money from gold. Give them paper money is pretty much like you give them toilet paper to exchange for their gold. So what can you give them in return? Or are you just going to take it from private ownership without compensation?

Okay, let's say you can somehow make it, all the gold in your country are now in your central vault. How are you going to pay stuff with the gold? The only way you can use the is you issue a gold bond or such. However, you need to remember, the world have set amount of gold (I think it is at 140,000 ton give or take) and you would have to link it with gold bond, which come back to the same problem the world facing in 1950 during Benton wood era. The gold in your vault actually limited your national development because unlike fiat currency, you cannot freely raise or decrease the circulation of gold in your country, simply because you have a fix amount of gold and the world have a fixed amount of gold. Which mean if you set an "exchange rate" on the gold bond (ie, how much ounce of gold to how much dollar) you will need to keep that rate, otherwise you will suffer from an inflation or a deflation that you cannot adjust. Which mean the rate of development is link to how much gold you own.

With gold, the concept of debt does not exist, as there would be no backing. Which mean you cannot carry on over your capacity. Which is going to mean wasting a lot of resources to because you cannot catch up with gold.

 

[xyxmt]

$2 trillion got them Ghani

 

[gambit]

I am not going to comment the political side of your post, as I don't know anything about it. But I do understand finance and economic.

Regarding his post about global finance...You should understand that this forum is filled with finance and economic 'experts' that would put the IMF and all the countries' central banks to shame. It is curious to me throughout the yrs on this forum that none of these 'experts' got hired.

 

[Manidabest]

there is alot US got outof it and it doesnt mean that everything has to have reward in monetary terms there can be many political and militarily , religious and strategic objectives to gain in long term.

 

[PradoTLC]

****** For US, yes, Afghanistan is a lost cause.******

RE: When you lied 247 to the world... what did you expect?

****For the rest of the world, the US military is an expeditionary force never seen before in history.*********

RE: Yes and you still lost.....like the Red Army

BTW Interesting comment for a losing side... reminds me of our Mullah Diesel...




******Yup. We can afford it.******

RE: Really?..ok like Aunt Martha on pension who racks up her credit card bill....

thank China





****Never mind the fact that Osama bin Laden, in an interview with Robert Fisk, said he never took anything from the US during the Cold War. Robert Fisk is no friend of the US.*****

RE: yes and those satellite phones came from thin air like ISIS...


*****You talking about Islamic terrorism? I agree with you on that.****

RE: What is Islamic terrorism?....


*****Do not concern yourselves with what we lost. Instead, focus on what you lost, which is magnitudes more than our loss.*****


Re: Concerned about your loss?... more like serves you right.

We lost alot thanks to your false crusade, but least we are in the right direction thanks to new leadership... too bad about yours who cant keep his war mongering Generals/industrial defense complex in check.

*****Because the goal was greater than anyone tried.*****

RE: Yes...defeating Ak-47 armed guys with sandals and toyota 4x4 is like taking on the German Army in 1940....