Afghanistan and the Sunk Cost Fallacy

[Polishprince]

Watching interviews with Afghans the other night. They blame their corrupt government and not the US.
This is what happens when everyone in the country has guns.

Interesting. Maybe the Taliban will establish Draconian Style gun control to be more to your liking?

 

[evenflow1969]

Try and figure out how much you paid for that mess.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001–present)#Long-term_costs

$2,000,000,000,000 dollars How much of that is yours?

Too freeking much. The worst part of it the Brits did it first then the Russian s did it and we learned nothing. What a joke. Not only did we spend the money on arm s but also in a generation of opium addiction right here in the states. Those poppies ended up right here in our back yards. Not our fault those people are not interested in running their own country. Cut our losses and go home.

 

[Tommy Tainant]

Too freeking much. The worst part of it the Brits did it first then the Russian s did it and we learned nothing. What a joke. Not only did we spend the money on arm s but also in a generation of opium addiction right here in the states. Those poppies ended up right here in our back yards. Not our fault those people are not interested in running their own country. Cut our losses and go home.

We could have bought all of their poppy output. Its grown commercially in Australia for medical purposes. God knows why we didnt.

 

[evenflow1969]

We could have bought all of their poppy output. Its grown commercially in Australia for medical purposes. God knows why we didnt.

Those poppies have created a big freeking problem over here

 

[Polishprince]

We could have bought all of their poppy output. Its grown commercially in Australia for medical purposes. God knows why we didnt.

Fentanyl and other modern , synthetic forms of Smack don't use poppies in the manufacturing process.

It would have been a pointless effort to try and corner the market on poppies.

 

[frigidweirdo]

Too freeking much. The worst part of it the Brits did it first then the Russian s did it and we learned nothing. What a joke. Not only did we spend the money on arm s but also in a generation of opium addiction right here in the states. Those poppies ended up right here in our back yards. Not our fault those people are not interested in running their own country. Cut our losses and go home.

Yes, the Taliban at least cut out the poppies

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

We need to pull our military out of every foreign country.

Time for them to fight for themselves right?

Wrong.

This fails as a false comparison fallacy.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

So the South Koreans should fight for their values too.

Let's get out of that country too.

Afghanistan was a war entered into in bad faith – unwarranted and illegal, by a president more interested in winning reelection than ‘nation-building.’

 

[JoeB131]

Afghanistan was a war entered into in bad faith – unwarranted and illegal, by a president more interested in winning reelection than ‘nation-building.’

Oh, please. I'm as critical of Bush as anyone, but let's get real. Both sides agreed that Afghanistan was the right thing to do at the time, and Obama escalated and continued the war, calling it the war of necessity.

There was plenty of bad decision making to do around on that one.

 

[gipper]

Oh, please. I'm as critical of Bush as anyone, but let's get real. Both sides agreed that Afghanistan was the right thing to do at the time, and Obama escalated and continued the war, calling it the war of necessity.

There was plenty of bad decision making to do around on that one.

Read the thread and failed to find a post on the REAL reason our corrupt government spent 20 years a $2 Trillion in Afghanistan. It was all about enriching the big arms contractors. After all, they control Congress and the executive branch with their massive campaign contributions and lobbying.

 

[rightwinger]

What have we learned in Afghanistan?

That after 20 years and $2 trillion investment along with the most modern military equipment and training we still have an Afghan force that is unable to put up even token resistance to Taliban fighters.

It didn’t matter if we spent 30 or 50 years getting them ready, the puppet Afghan Government we created has no interest in defending themselves or fighting for their own freedom

 

[Blues Man]

Wrong.

This fails as a false comparison fallacy.

No it doesn't

There is no more need for us to have our military permanently stationed in foreign countries.

These people need to take care of their own security and we could use the money here at home

 

[Blues Man]

What have we learned in Afghanistan?

That after 20 years and $2 trillion investment along with the most modern military equipment and training we still have an Afghan force that is unable to put up even token resistance to Taliban fighters.

It didn’t matter if we spent 30 or 50 years getting them ready, the puppet Afghan Government we created has no interest in defending themselves or fighting for their own freedom

And the Russians learned that before we did yet we were still stupid enough to try it ourselves.

 

[Blues Man]

Afghanistan was a war entered into in bad faith – unwarranted and illegal, by a president more interested in winning reelection than ‘nation-building.’

As every other "war" since WWII was entered into.

 

[danielpalos]

Try and figure out how much you paid for that mess.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001–present)#Long-term_costs

$2,000,000,000,000 dollars How much of that is yours?

Yet, right-wingers complain about the cost of alleged illegals than they do to promote and provide for the general warfare. Why should we take the fantastical, right-wing seriously regarding taxes?

 

[danielpalos]

The Taliban were never going to just go away and embrace Democracy.
They actually live there and were going to lay in wait to exploit weakness.
Freedom, Democracy and Western values are not generic to Afghan culture and they do not seem willing to fight for them.

The Taliban are willing to fight for their values

Values can easily change in modern capital times. Upgrading their infrastructure could have meant a more active trading partner for us. Capitalism, what a concept.

 

[danielpalos]

We need to reassess the mission of our military. It hasn’t been involved in our nations defense in 200 years.
The mission today is to project our global power and protect our global interests
As such, we are now the worlds policemen sticking our noses into every remote conflict.

We all know "any regime can be bought" under Capitalism. Yet, the right-wing prefers a warfare-State to a welfare-State.

 

[danielpalos]

Unlike the Afghanistan Army

After twenty years of US presence? Sounds like right-wingers were in charge.

 

[danielpalos]

The "values" of the Taliban are that they refuse to allow their officers to engage in gay marriage and refuse to pay for the sex change operations for their enlisted men. Further, they allow the bakeries in their zones of operation to refuse to bake cakes for LGBTQ events and don't close them down.

Why do libs think that its ok for the Taliban to be so homophobic and transphobic?

They don't have our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.

 

[danielpalos]

Watching interviews with Afghans the other night. They blame their corrupt government and not the US.
This is what happens when everyone in the country has guns.

In my opinion, that typically happens in less developed economies. Simply helping with infrastructure could have given "our side more room to talk" and convince the local populations. The other side had nothing similar to compete with that. All their guns and gun lovers not withstanding.