Discussion: Afghanistan

There's several million articles on what happened and I won't even try to summarise them here. It's better to thank Jerry Coyne at Why Evolution is True blog, for hosting a discussion at his site. He links to Bari Weiss' Substack, which is widely read and I subscribe to. I think one can get through to the link even without having subbed. 

At time of writing (16:00 HKT) there were 88 comments at WEIT

Heeeeres... Jerry:

It’s a busy day today, though I have one piece of science to post. Right now, though, why don’t you talk about the focus of the news: Afghanistan?

If you go to Bari Weiss’s site, you’ll find seven diverse people, including ex-UN ambassador Nikki Haley (a Republican), discussing “Why we failed: the American exit from Afghanistan.” You don’t have to discuss the views in that piece, which range from “getting out was great” to “we should have stayed”, but there are a number of questions to discuss. For instance?

a.) Should we have stayed, even if that might mean an indefinite commitment?

b.) If “yes,” in what capacity should we have stayed?”

c.) Or should we have left Afghanistan earlier? If so, how much earlier?

d.) Was the Afghan army primarily to blame for the defeat by the Taliban? Or was it the corruptness of the Afghan government? Or both.

e.) Was the U.S. there, as many maintain, just to keep the money flowing into the pockets of defense contractors?

f.)  Why didn’t the U.S. military speak up earlier if they saw the war was unwinnable?

g.) What mistakes did the U.S. make in fostering this premature and hasty exit?

h.) Is this a serious blow to U.S. credibility, as a NYT op-ed maintained?

i.)  Is this a serious blow to Joe Biden’s credibility? Did his hunkering down at Camp David present a bad look for the U.S.?

j.) How did other Presidents, starting with W., screw up and contribute to this?

k.) Here’s the human cost of our incursion from the Associated Press:

THE HUMAN COST:

American service members killed in Afghanistan through April: 2,448.
U.S. contractors: 3,846.
Afghan national military and police: 66,000.
Other allied service members, including from other NATO member states: 1,144.
Afghan civilians: 47,245.
Taliban and other opposition fighters: 51,191.
Aid workers: 444.
Journalists: 72.

Not to mention the $2 trillion the U.S. spent prosecuting the war. Given that, as in Vietnam, we lost this war, was this a waste of life and of effort? In retrospect, was there any value in invading Afghanistan and propping up the country and it military?

And so on. Weigh in below [Click here to go to the article and discussion] and, with luck, I’ll be back escorting Milady Science.