I began writing this a response to another poster but it ended up being so long I thought it might be better in its own thread.

I have deliberately not Googled anything. I wanted to simply write things as I personally remembered them, so I fully accept that some facts and dates might be off slightly. I don't claim this as a true and accurate representation of the timeline of events. Merely events as I personally recall them, with some personal opinions, told from my own British perspective.

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The wars after 9/11 weren't conventional wars that we'd been used to in the past. Normally a war would start with one state doing something which was a clear declaration of war on another state. Afghanistan, loosely called a country, did not declare war on the US. It was a splinter group - Al-Qaeda. Sure, they were using Afghanistan as a training camp, but they weren't an official army of an official country. The US weren't sure how to deal with this new type of conflict. Up until then everyone was used to having a clear enemy who wore clear uniforms, who represented a clear nation with clear objectives and made themselves visible and ready for combat. That's how war games were traditionally played out.

9/11 changed all of that. Here we had a guerrilla group with their own ideology, wore no uniforms, based in difficult mountainous territory that only they could navigate with no clear border between it and its neighbour Pakistan, and the ability to both fight as soldiers, yet mingle with civilians as the need arose. Even those that offered their services to help the invading forces could not be fully trusted, as spying, being a double agent and espionage were rife.

It wasn't difficult for the US to get support for invading Afghanistan, both from the general populous and international governments, with many countries willing to do their bit to support the effort. It was clear to most that Afghanistan posed a dangerous threat that needed to be dealt with, despite everyone being fully aware that many had tried to conquer Afghanistan in the past, yet none had ever succeeded. Conquering cities such as Kabul was not a particular problem for the US and its allies, but the mountainous regions very quickly posed a very different challenge. Those countries less friendly to the west were not particularly impressed when the big cities fell so easily. It hardly sent a warning about America's might to anyone. It was a bit like the 6ft school bully and his mates stealing candy from the small, nervous new kid in school. The US needed a much bigger target to pick on if they were ever going to regain any kind of respect from the international community.

Hence Iraq. There was already beef between it and the US after the first Gulf War that Bush's father started. It was too late to blame it for 9/11 - that wouldn't wash as it had never realistically come up before in either speculation or conspiracy as to who was to blame for 9/11. So they had to come up with another reason - They decided to go with the fact that they were harbouring weapons of mass destruction. Despite the huge scepticism surrounding this claim, in many ways it didn't matter. It was something that couldn't be proved outright as a lie, (you can't prove a negative) and with a much bigger military, coupled with the fact it was a defined nation with a defined army who wore uniforms, no real friends to step in to help it, oh, and plenty of oil to boot, this was the perfect opportunity for the US to fight a real conventional war and really show the world not to mess with the USA. A proxy war of sorts, if you will. And the amount of oil up for grabs would more than pay for it.

Doing it alone would cause too much of a diplomatic headache, so they made several attempts to pass resolutions with the UN, none of which worked. Knowing that they were the world’s only superpower and thus, there was nothing anyone could realistically do to stop them, they decided to go ahead anyway. But they would still have to have some sort of international cooperation, so they invited the likes of the then UK prime minister, Tony Blair, over for tea and biscuits and wooed him with how much of a superstar he'd be in the US if he agreed to support them. They took him to rallies where people chanted his name akin to a 1960s Beatles concert. He eventually broke and agreed, but knew he had to somehow convince the UK parliament, as they would not be quite so easily swayed.

During his flight back to the UK, at some unknown point, and it's still unclear who came up with this idea although it's speculated that it was overheard from an Iraqi taxi driver, it was decided that putting forward the threat that Saddam could launch WMDs aimed at the UK within 45 minutes would be enough to frighten the UK parliament into submission. Despite that claim being immediately questioned by many, it was enough to scare the UK parliament into agreeing to go to war with Iraq, alongside the US.

This resulted in one of, if not, ‘the’ biggest protest rallies the UK had ever seen. Some estimates suggest as many as two million descended on London on one Saturday afternoon in what was dubbed the 'Stop the War Coalition'. In the biggest demonstration that peaceful protest simply does not work ever, the UK decided to go ahead anyway, with Tony Blair barely even passing comment on the protest.

The war went ahead and as expected, Iraq fell like a house of cards in a very short timeframe, although the evil genius himself, Saddam himself, managed to flee and remain at large for some years after but this was largely inconsequential. Saddam was never directly linked to 9/11 in the way Bin Laden was so catching him did not have quite the same priority, although clearly, catching him still needed to be done.

The US had flexed its muscles in front of a global audience and easily defeated a reasonably large nation state with no-one brave enough to come to its aid and was now in charge of the vast oil wealth emanating from it which, everyone knew, was the real prime objective anyway.

At some point during all of this, it emerged that during an interview with the BBC and a UN weapons inspector, an off-the-cuff remark was made that the claim WMD's could be deployed within 45 minutes was 'sexed up'. It apparently appeared as a single sentence as a quote from an Iraqi taxi driver, in a lengthy report, and was deliberately taken out of context and used by Tony Blair and his press secretary Alistair Campbell as justification to the UK parliament as to why the UK should go to war in Iraq alongside the US. The BBC made a big story out of this and immediately, the British government put huge pressure on the BBC to name their source. They refused (as all journalists have the right to) but after several days, a weapons inspector by the name of Dr. David Kelly voluntarily came forward and said he 'might' have been the source although he did not clearly remember saying it.

Dr. David Kelly was immediately hauled towards a government Foreign Affairs and Select committee to explain his actions. Two days later he was found dead, having apparently committed suicide.

With both Afghanistan and Iraq now largely under US control, apart from the outer regions of both countries where enemy forces had retreated to, the media began to lose interest and it stopped being a daily headline news story. This of course worked in the allied occupations favour. Media attention is great when you want to portray to the world how tough you are, not so great when you're looting the country of all of its natural resources.

Eventually, as expected, Saddam was found hiding in a hole like a rat. Emerging like any other pathetic hermit, it was difficult to compare him to the general he once was. After introducing him to the noose which would of course, would have been undignified to film officially, but people still needed conformation he was dead, so arrangements were made for someone to 'accidentally leak' a recorded video filmed on a mobile phone - unofficially of course - and he was finally laid to rest, and a new Iraq began to emerge.

Afghanistan on the other hand, continued to be a problem for the allies, as it had been for countless armies that had tried to conquer it before, dating back several hundred years and which involved countries such as Mongolia, the British, Russia, and now the US. In fact, it remains to this day unconquered. By anyone.

It’s probable that the fact this country could never be conquered was realised very early on, but there was no turning back now. The US had regained some of its prestige through Iraq and wasn’t ready to let that slip so easily. So they were stuck between a rock and a hard place and made the decision that they had no choice but to remain. Once that decision had been made, they might as well at least try to build some kind of nation.

Twenty odd years of investment, a trillion dollars spent on equipment, troops, training and paying the Afghan army later, and it became clear that nation building simply would not and never could work. Afghans are not American. They find it difficult to not only follow orders, but even understand what those orders are, even through an interpreter. They lack the agility and intelligence to be trained as soldiers. They know that the Taliban are never too far away, despite the protection of the US, and are still incredibly fearful of them. Double-crossing and spying is rife and accepted as part of the culture. Those, along with many other challenges, made it impossible for the allied forces to build a nation even slightly resembling a western one.

I personally believe that this was realised many years ago but pulling out of Afghanistan would be such a monumental challenge, that no president was prepared to take it on. Instead, despite the cost, it seemed easier to continue kicking the can down the road and passing it on to the next president to deal with. Trump was the first to begin baking the potato, then throwing the hot potato at Biden when it was his turn.

This brings us up to recent weeks, with the rest, as they say, being history…

Does a post always have to have a point?

ofparadise wrote:Impatience and a reluctance to play and plan the long game -- For some reason, all 3 presidencies, have been equally impatient and there seems to be an 8-year mental limit on most of the strategies. I believe that that culture needs to change.

The problem is Afghanistan needed to become a country. Outside of Kabul, most Afghanis consider themselves a culture, with their affiliation to their village and loyal to their family. A takeover of the country was needed - a rebuilding from the ground up. Something that would have taken 10-100 times more, and in the era of political correctness, impossible.

The British turned India from a subcontinent into a country through political and military force during a different era.

US combat troops were sent in to train locals how be a country, except they are tip of the military spear, so they train those skills to the troops on the ground. But troops on the ground also need logistics, support, and leadership to fight effectively, none of which were created during that time - because it would be perceived as ‘colonialism’.

Pray tell, how does one change the ‘culture’ of a presidency from beyond a 4 or 8 year limit?

Maybe do away with terms? Have a President for ‘life’ just like Cambodia, who won’t have ‘impatience and reluctance and plan the long game’? Go Communist?

Democracy may be imperfect, but it’s one of the better ones around.

Being Politically correct and building a nation are conflicting goals.

bong.kuit wrote: ↑Sat Aug 28, 2021 10:01 pm

newkidontheblock wrote: ↑Sat Aug 28, 2021 9:10 pm
[ignorant drivel]

"The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence. The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." (some guy that wrote books)

Apparently it's all about being politically correct. Haven't you heard?