Man, I made so many memes about it today. Many of the PoliticsTOO crowd’s reactions are here
imgflip.com/m/politicsTOO/tag/afghanistan
I’ve been disillusioned with this war for a long time. It had to come to an end eventually. It certainly wasn’t pretty and the collapse was ridiculously swift. However I think Biden’s decision to follow through with Trump’s withdrawal plan was basically correct.
The biggest mistake the U.S. made was this one: Defining the Taliban as the enemy. The Taliban didn’t attack us on 9/11. Al-Qaeda did. An important distinction. Yes, the Taliban are brutal and retrograde and harbored Al-Qaeda but as far as anyone knows are only interested in being brutal within Afghanistan’s borders.
The idea of turning this largely-illiterate, opium-filled society into a progressive modern one that knew how to practice democracy and respect women’s rights, etc., was always a pipe dream.
Ultimately it was always up to Afghans to choose their own future, and for whatever reason (bribery, intimidation, exhaustion), they overwhelmingly chose not to fight. So, now it’s over.
Final thought: an Afghan War anecdote that stuck with me is the fact that many Afghans had no concept of 9/11. They’ve never even seen a skyscraper. When asked to imagine it, the best they could do is imagine a 5-story building falling over, because that is the tallest building they’ve ever seen. So they never had any concept of why U.S. troops were even there. Let alone 20 years after the fact, when most combatants on either side hadn’t even been born yet.
History was made this week. We’ll be unpacking this one for a long time.
Caption this Meme 