I had a similar experience, except in the Army "Reserves", in Iraq, and asking my "stupid" question to our Major instead of a Lt. Col. My rank didn't survive the deployment, as I was attached to another unit at the time and asking questions put me high on his shit list. I guess I was lucky my home unit was kind enough to return the stripes before my inglorious departure a few after that deployment.

You are 100% right that folks who don't toe the line, don't make much past E4, although there are a few older NCO's who still maintain their integrity, and take care of their troops.

I don't know if there is such a thing as a "just" war, but I do know we were not fighting one, and the military we have today is an overpriced facade of what it claims to be.

I think it's more of a situation where, no one at that level is going to change anything, so just talking about the absurdity is frowned upon just for the simple reason of negatively effecting moral, and negatively impacting your next promotion review.

Independent thought? Bah! I found the Army to be highly political, everything anyone with rank did was intended to bolster their reviews in the eyes of their superiors. And being a hard charger, always on mission was an easy way to do it. I started to type some stories, but suffices to say, there's a lot of stupid stuff in the military.

Spot on. I don't think the military is a place for people who think too hard. I don't want to make blanket judgements though because I met a few excellent people that earned my respect and I'm happy to know them.

You've got to be in the right job and the right unit. In my experience (~12 years across a handful of units and tours), infantry units are about ten thousand percent less political than POG units. Also Guard units are much more easy-going. I was not the only Mensa member in my last unit, and most of my best friends I met there. Being in the infantry in the Guard is a specific kind of environment, mostly college students and police officers. There is a tolerance for free-thinking and independent thought that is totally rare anywhere else in the Army.

I was in an infantry unit, Marines. In general politics weren't a thing, if you mean American politics. Internal politics on the other hand are a big deal and it's astounding what people will do to one another to get promoted.

That's what I meant, internal political cruft. All the units I was ever in had some of this to a small degree which is unavoidable in any organization, but I'd work with some other unit that was like some kind of dystopian hellhole of contant internal strife. I don't know if it was just POG behavior in general or units with women or what, but every time I got a peek into how other units work, it was astonishing. Nothing even close to that in any of the Guard infantry units I was a part of over the years. In fact I'm thinking about reenlisting just to deploy with my old unit one more time. I can't imagine doing that in any other universe with any other unit.

I'm glad you found a good unit. My company probably wasn't that bad, but bad enough. Part of the problem I think is that careerists naturally have a certain conflict of interest that affects how they treat their troops.

Yeah, I think probably the very nature of the Guard works against that pressure, since there is no "fast track" in the Guard. There is somewhat for officers, but enlisted folks have no such luxury. I mean, in the Guard, it's college kids, police officers, and guys coming off of active duty that need to serve the two or four remaining years of their enlistment. Almost everybody with military career ambition joins the active service instead of the Guard. So it's a lot more laid back in general. And these are literally people you'll spend a decade or more serving with. Guys that live near you and have families in your community. So it's a lot more tight-knit than active duty units. It's an older crowd, too. So while it can be cliquish to some degree, it definitely isn't like a lot of units I've seen which are heavily partisan and cliquish, and then made even worse by people with ambition that are willing to screw you to get ahead. The only other place in the military which I would consider equally laid back like the Guard is Special Forces. The best working relationships I ever had were with Special Forces units (and other Guard units). I suppose because they have nothing to prove, there's no friction like there is in regular Army units. Or Marines. I spent a lot of years deployed working with a lot of different folks. I like working with Marines, but they have the same issue as regular Army units, with cliquish behavior and people willing to step on others to get ahead. I totally know what you're talking about.

Well spoken. I made it to Sergeant - I was actually promoted my last week, which was a surprise to everyone. Apparently I was the only person in the company to complete all the prerequisites for promotion that quarter. A nice "fuck you" on my way out the door.

What I personally think he should have said was this:

"Good question Son. Glad you asked. See, the US needs to maintain a military sphere of influence between the resource rich regions of the former Soviet Union and the heavily populated regions of South East Asia. Additionally we would like something of a base between an emerging China and Russia, Pakistan and Iran. You've played "Risk" right? It's a strategic thing see. The terrorism angle is all bullshit. That's just to sell the war to the public. There. Happy now? Great, go pack your bags."

I agree, leaders ought to be able to handle these hard questions and still inspire. I'd expand your "answer" to include

"We know this is a tough mission which why we train hard. As leaders it's all of ours goal to get as many of you home alive as possible."

Believe it or not, they do train with techniques to (for example) charge machine gun positions without losing anyone; grenades, covering fire, and leap frogging. Unfortunately people will die, but a well trained team can do a lot.

We do train to do that but I never assumed that we'd ever not lose anyone in that kind of combat. I'm certain that casualties would be high while assaulting a machine gun nest. The interesting thing is that we haven't done that kind of fighting in many years, probably since Viet Nam. Now we patrol the streets of the third world and get hit by snipers.

I mentioned China in another comment and I think you're correct.

Afghanistan actually made more sense than Iraq since the Taliban were harboring Al Qaeda. So when 9/11 happened, it made sense to go after them. Iraq never made sense on the other hand.

Maybe on this surface level. But the intervention was and still is a nonsensical mess. Killing and locking up/torturing people left and right, whether pro or anti-taliban. Making new enemies from potentially pro-american tribes. Empowering some tribes against others, causing grief, resentment, rebellion and instability. Helping people with retribution against old rivals. The current conflict is already longer than the Soviet-Afghan war. Already 10x more civilians died than in 9/11. Really what's the purpose? It hardly can be justice at this point. In 2001 there were 45000 taliban fighters, US killed 60000, now there are around 60000 taliban. Clearly this is not a way to get rid of taliban, if that is the goal.

I'm reading this at the moment:

https://www.amazon.com/No-Good-Men-Among-Living/dp/080509179...

More sense than Iraq, but less sense than Saudi Arabia.

The sooner the rest of the world can get on to solar, wind, hydro, and modern atomic reactors (not the old dangerous kind, but properly supervised, maintained, and "waste reducing" ones that produce only a small bit of the really bad stuff) the sooner we can de-fund terrorists.

Taliban and Al Qaeda had been at each other throats especially post 9/11. There has never been love lost between them. It had been personal decision of Mullah Omar to put islamic solidarity over realpolitik.

Some clever policymaking - mixing military threats with financial incentive - could result in catching most of Al Qaeda possibly Bin-Laden included and avoid 16 year war. But B-1 coming with vengeance after mountain caves looked better on TV and as propaganda spin post 9/11.

But they dropped the ball due to the obsession with Iraq and let him get away

That's certainly one perspective.

As a mil. Brat to an enlisted infantryman and former AF cgo, i got to see the policy design and implementation at scale. Many were very much dedicated to the mission, but many were also dedicated to greasing up thag contractor for a nice cushy connection when the punch out, were checking their boxes for a transition to their ivy league of choice, or pushing for highly competitive programs like weapons school or a PhD at MIT/Harvard.

But at the end if the day, everyone is dedicated to doing what their function in the greater organization is. The role of the armed forces is to faithfully execute the mission handed to them by their civilian commanders. We are an arm of foreign police (DIME, Diplomacy, information, military, economic pressure). The POTUS has every bit of power to pull us out, and that is where the cynicism should be directed.

The last secaf fought SO HARD to kill the mil-congressional-industrial complex, but there is too much inertia. The american military machine is a complexed component of American Society.

"Sir, what are we really doing there?"

Wading through the knee-deep shit and blood that is a political quagmire. But I can't imagine a man who is entrusted with inspiring people to go out and die for said quagmire is allowed to say that.

These infantry officers really buy their own bullshit. I've never met one who didn't. It's like religion - the cost of facing the music is just too high for some people. Cognitive dissonance etc.

Did you ever see a historical chart showing the supply of heroin coming out of Afghanistan? It stopped in 2001 but ever since the USA got there it's been growing steadily. Heroin is a huge business with many dark and powerful players.

Read the McSweeney's column "In These Deserts: War Stories From Afghanistan" written by a former Army officer. It's absolutely heartbreaking.

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/column-1-the-misundersta...

Afghanistan I do sorta get why the US got involved. I think it’s impossible to “win” there, but I get the involvement. But Iraq was a completely retarded situation. Funding goddamn terrorists in Syria was retarded too. Regime change is retarded in general, aside from the dramatic events like WW2. It never works. Land war on the other end of the world serves only one purpose: just to show that the US government is a dangerous psychopath who will fuck you up at the slightest provocation, or sometimes even without one. Experts in geopolitics (ie George Friedman) call this “projecting power”. A secondary goal is to destabilize regions so that other countries are affected and they don’t consolidate their power and threaten the US interests. A good example are Georgia and Ukraine: crises were created out of nothing to keep a festering boil on Russia’s ass. It’s actually not a bad strategy, but it does tend to backfire, and when it does, it costs a ton of money.

> A good example are Georgia and Ukraine: crises were created out of nothing to keep a festering boil on Russia’s ass.

I'm ukrainian, can you tell me more? You know how maidan started? It was a peaceful protest and if cops simply ignored it, nothing would happen.

Instead they did this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-talnbWQDpI

This caused a bigger protest and response was the same. And etc and etc.

At some moment they started to kidnap protesters from the hospitals. Then one of protesters have been found dead near the river. Another found in the wood with plastic bag on his head and they took out his intestines.

> created out of nothing to keep a festering boil on Russia’s ass

There been reasons for it.

You know, I've been a pro-russian ukrainian all my life. I didn't liked ukrainian language(I'm from russian speaking part) and still can't speak it. But when russians started it propaganda campaign I started hate EVERYTHING about russia.

Unlike Russia Today russian speaking propaganda was much dirtier and much more retarded. One they showed a magnet from speaker on TV and said that it was a bomb with HIV dropped by ukrainian aircraft.

So... I wanted to say: fuck your "good example". Because isn't good for non-retarded person.

I’m Russian, but I don’t live in Russia, so I’m not exposed to “Russian propaganda” (you do seem to be exposed to the Ukrainian flavor of it though). I also commiserate with what happened on the Ukrainian side, and in every election where Putin ran I voted against Putin. I dislike the man, and think he will be harmful to Russia in the long term.

That said, you also can’t deny the involvement of the US Department of state in those events. The fundamental geostrategical priority for Russia is to maintain control (or at least good relations with, see Belarus) of the buffer regions around its densely populated regions. This stems from geography and topology: there are no mountains to protect the West of Russia from a land invasion. This is inviolable geostrategic principle that Russia, having learned the lessons of WW2, will just not let anyone touch.

That is why there are “tensions” when your neighbor begins discussions of entering NATO with a bit of USDS help. NATO means (eventually) foreign military bases and tactical nukes within 100km of Rostov-on-Don and Taganrog. This is fundamentally unacceptable to Russia, which they have been saying again and again to everyone who would listen years before things turned ugly. It’s not personal, it’s a question of national security for them. The US would have done the same or worse if Russia got Mexico to enter a military alliance with it.

Again, I sympathize, but I really can’t see how, given the progression of events, things could have turned any differently.

> you do seem to be exposed to the Ukrainian flavor of it though

What makes you think so?

> That said, you also can’t deny the involvement of the US Department of state in those events.

Can you deny existence of life beyond our planet? Neither side can prove or disprove both statements.

> That is why there are “tensions” when your neighbor begins discussions of entering NATO with a bit of USDS help. NATO means (eventually) foreign military bases and tactical nukes within 100km of Rostov-on-Don and Taganrog. This is fundamentally unacceptable to Russia, which they have been saying again and again to everyone who would listen years before things turned ugly. It’s not personal, it’s a question of national security for them. The US would have done the same or worse if Russia got Mexico to enter a military alliance with it.

Yes. Sounds if any neighbor make any decision, which russia won't like it grantees that glorious russians soldiers will happily jump to fight US forces there.

> NATO means (eventually) foreign military bases and tactical nukes within 100km of Rostov-on-Don and Taganrog.

So now we have damn nukes in Crimea. Russia moved them closer to NATO countries. I guess they need entire Moldova to secure those missiles in Crimea.

> The US would have done the same or worse if Russia got Mexico to enter a military alliance with it

Cuba? It wasn't good for it, but not as bad as here.

I see your point but at the same time my country has American nukes in it and we're not scared.

Of course that's a ridiculous comparison given current tensions, but you're assuming that Russia and the USA / NATO somehow have to be enemies by definition and the rest of your argument follows from that. Why would a Russia-Mexico alliance need to be scary? Why would a USA-Ukraine alliance need to be scary? Hey, can't we have Entire-Northern-Hemisphere alliance?

Of course this is not currently realistic, and I'm not actually suggesting all our leaders just hug and be friends. But the only reason that I can see that things are like this is because just about everybody, all the policymakers as well as friendly internet commenters like yourselves, just assume it has to be like this. That makes it sort of a self-fulfilling cycle. Russia and America have a cold war because they have a cold war.

There are plenty of countries in NATO that are about as undemocratic as Russia, or less culturally similar to the founding NATO countries than Russia. If Turkey can be in NATO, why can't Russia? Renaming "NATO" should be the blocker, right. Momentum is the only reason that I can see why these two sides need to be sides.

Really, I don't see why we need to be enemies other than ego tripping politicians doing a penis size contest.

But I'm probably missing something.

What you’re missing is 20M+ Russians were killed in the last world war. That kind of causes deep seated trust issues. You’re also utterly missing any understanding of geopolitics. May I recommend “Flashpoints” by George Friedman and “World Order” by Henry Kissinger. This will open your eyes to how the world works, and why things are the way they are.

And you should be worried if there are US nukes in you country. That means you’re now in other ICBM-capable countries’ targeting computers, likely for no other reason. When shit hits the fan you’re gonna get nuked. Congratulations.

> May I recommend “Flashpoints” by George Friedman and “World Order” by Henry Kissinger.

Kissinger, seriously? I find it typical for neorealists to assume that if you're not also a neorealist, you "don't understand geopolitics". Cutthroat policy making for its own sake.

Kissinger, yes. Dude knows his geopolitics. The book is _really_ good, once you account for Kissinger’s well understood biases.

>What you’re missing is 20M+ Russians were killed in the last world war. That kind of causes deep seated trust issues.

20M+ _Soviets_, not Russians.

And USSR started that war ON THE SAME SIDE as Hitler, so they can blame themselves for 'trust issues'.

Mostly Russians. And 20M is the “official” number. There are independent estimates that put the casualties even higher.

USSR was never “on the same side” as Hitler. It was never a part of The Axis. Stalin was just hoping that capitalist swine would take each other out and then he would roll in and take over. Same as the US was hoping Hitler would fuck up Russia and much of Europe so they could roll in and take over. As far as the spoils of war, the real winner was the US. Britain gave up its last ambitions of being a naval superpower and handed over its navy bases to the US. The US was propelled to the superpower status with relatively little loss of life, and became the dominant industrial power as well. Weakened USSR was denied power in Western Europe. What’s not to like?

Much of the world considers making a deal to carve up Poland as being "on the same side". You don't, but lots of people do, so terms need to be spelled out clearly if you're going to communicate.

The alternative to not “carving up Poland” was to not sign the mutual non-aggression pact and essentially enter into war with Germany before it thoroughly fucks up Britain and France. Britain and France would be quite delighted if Hitler pursued that course of action. I’m pretty sure theyd even withhold any meaningful military assistance to help things along while Hitler makes his run on Russia, for the same reason Stalin did. In fact they sorta had done that already by refusing to enter into a pact against Nazi Germany.

You can’t reason about geostrategic considerations in terms of moral high ground. Those dudes were dealing with a very dangerous and volatile situation, and the decisions they made were literally matters of life and death for their respective peoples.

That’s not to absolve anyone of guilt, but if you’re going to be an armchair quarterback, do yourself a favor and study history a bit more thoroughly. At that negotiating table any of us today would have made the exact same choice.

Sounds like the point you're trying to make is that they did indeed agree to carve up Poland, but it was the least worst option, and in your opinion does not constitute "being on the same side". That was a reasonable contribution.

Your passive aggressive comments and your snide smug "look at me everyone, I'm so clever" childish put-downs; grow up. You actually managed to express a coherent and sensible opinion, and then blew it at the end; you just couldn't quite be an adult about it, and you transformed your whole comment from "rational discourse" to "petulant child".

>USSR was never “on the same side” as Hitler.

Really? When they were parading captured Poland or conspiring to divide Europe - they were on different sides?

>Weakened USSR was denied power in Western Europe.

Not weakened, far from it. And it was denied _capturing_ Western Europe. Basically they were saved from horrors of soviet 'communism'.

>The fundamental geostrategical priority for Russia is to maintain control (or at least good relations with, see Belarus) of the buffer regions around its densely populated regions.

Invading your neighbours is ok, if you'll just call it 'good relations'?

>That is why there are “tensions” when your neighbor begins discussions of entering NATO with a bit of USDS help.

Invading Ukraine was not a 'tension' and had nothing to do with NATO. Russia used another pretense.

Invasion of Donetsk and Luhansk has never been proven. Crimea, sure I will concede that. For the record, I don’t approve of it, even though Crimea has been under Russia’s control for hundreds of years, and was only given to Ukraine by Khrushchev in the 50s.

Yes. Some knowledge of history helps in these conversations. Crimea has been under Russian control in some form for hundreds of years and is the home of their most important naval installation. Under political pressure from the West, the felt that their position there was threatened.

Anyone who thinks America wouldn't do the same given the circumstances is mistaken. We're not the "good guys" in the world.

Russia don't exist for 'hundred of years'.

Why you people are repeating the nonsense?

We've banned this account for repeatedly violating the site guidelines.

Facepalm. Russia is 1155 years old.

> Invading your neighbours is ok, if you'll just call it 'good relations'?

It is irrelevant. Sane people should recognize that if Russia decides that any of its smaller neighbors are dangerous to Russia from Russia's point of view, Russia will smash those neighbors and absolutely no one is going to risk a fight with Russia to defend such neighbors. You may not like it. I may not like it. Anti-Russian faction of the US may not like but that is the world that we live in. Until this world changes ( and with time it will ) Russia's neighbors are better not do bidding of others who seek to "advance democracy" or do whatever the hell else they want to do which would antagonize Russia. It just won't end up well for those neighbors.

This already happened once. The year was 2008 and a not very much in touch with a real world, educated in the West, Georgia's President bought hook, line and sinker into senile assurances of McCain and other members of the "Democracy for the World!" cabal. Saakashvilli decided to smash what Russia considers its enclave in Georgia (that had a de-facto autonomy inside Georgia, had a very large Russian majority but none the less had as much effect on Georgia's government as a village of 200 in West Virginia that claims to be special an independent from Washington, DC has on those going to Jean George in NYC) during the opening days of the 2008 Olympic Games in China. Putin was at those games. The calculation was rather simple it seems - there was no way Russia would respond militarily. That would be a total PR disaster, right? Well, there's this famous Russian proverb "Гладко было на бумаге, да забыли про овраги" which loosely equivalent to "No plan survives reality". Russia refused to play by the PR war rules. Instead of letting Georgia have those enclaves, Putin sent Russian paratroopers to deal with a Georgian army. So instead of the opposite side being a loose band of self-defense forces, it was Russian rapid deployment detachments. Georgian attack was repelled, their supply lines were cut, forces inside the enclaves were smashed and by the day number three the regular Russian army was deployed to use an overwhelming force against Georgia. Saakashvilli went to ask for help from the US, which he absolutely expected to get, especially since Russians started exterminating his troops. McCain and other clowns mumbled something on TV but at the end calculation was simple - US was not going to go to war with Russia over Georgia.

The same happened with Ukraine. Russia has strategic interests and billions of dollars invested in the Crimea and its ports. One needed to be really naive not to realize how Russia would respond to an attempt to squeeze it out of Crimea. That should have been especially obvious in after seeing Russia's response to Georgia in 2008. Unfortunately, the smartest people in the room did not learn from Saakashvilli's mistakes, so Russia took Crimea. The US did not go to war with Russia over it because it is not the war the US could possibly win. At most it could have delivered some significant damage to Russia. That damage, however, would have paled compared to the damage Russia would have delivered to the NATO counties in Europe. So no one was going to go to war with Russia over Ukraine. No one would go to war with Russia over any other former Soviet Republics.

Luckily, contrary to the scare mongering peddled by some rather insane people, Russia does not really have any interest in starting war with those who don't threaten it.

Give it another 30 peaceful years and Russia would change, just like entire Eastern Europe would. Over a long term, Starbucks and Spotify are must more effective weapons than Apache helicopters, especially since those helicopters need to be shipped from the United States.

It's also highly immoral. Destabilization and war in foreign lands results in devastating consequences for the civilian population. The US Government has a lot to answer for, and likely never will.

Because our shenanigans in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and dozens of other countries happened so long ago...Is that your argument? The United States is directly responsible for worldwide violence just within the last decade. I'm not talking about Thomas Jefferson here.

The government consists of individuals. George Bush. John McCain. Barack Obama. We'll likely never know who all of the people are that influence these terrible policies.

> For the life of me, I can't understand the strategic purpose of invading Afghanistan. They're not even the ones who attacked us on 9/11.

The Afghan government at the time offered sanctuary to Al Qaeda, refusing to hand over its members after they had declared war on the U.S., attacked USS Cole, hijacked four civilian aircraft and crashed them into the World Trade CEnter & the Pentagon, killing thousands; the strategic purpose of invading Afghanistan was to demonstrate to every country that shielding those who commit acts of war against the United States is itself an act of war against the United States — and that being in a state of war with the United States is an unhealthy condition.

What's the strategic purpose of staying in Afghanistan? 'You broke it, you fix it': having invaded, having destroyed the previous government, it is our responsibility to build a functioning government. Additionally, we desire to prevent the resumption of conditions similar to those which enabled the rise to power of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the first place.

> the strategic purpose of invading Afghanistan was to demonstrate to every country that shielding those who commit acts of war against the United States is itself an act of war against the United States — and that being in a state of war with the United States is an unhealthy condition.

It demonstrated that doing anything other than saying "how high?" when asked to jump by the US is unhealthy—if an only if you don't have nukes, anything resembling real air defenses, or a special economic relationship with the US. If any of those are true than you can just do whatever.

I would submit this wasn't a lesson worth spending so many lives and so much money to teach, seeing as everyone already knew that (see: the 80s and 90s). If we wanted to send a novel message we'd have hit countries that matter, and/or pumped all those Afghanistan and Iraq war dollars into renewable energy.

So, it was either a huge strategic blunder or was mostly for the purposes of directing anger away from said countries that matter while probably also hitting the Afghans for mostly-unrelated and unstated reasons. Or it was both.

I think that's a pretty good analysis.

Nothing is certain but IMO the whole Al Qaida narrative is questionable. Now, it looks like we're there for heavy metals / opium / contracting $$$ and to possibly block China from exerting further influence in the region.

> the strategic purpose of invading Afghanistan was to demonstrate to every country that shielding those who commit acts of war against the United States is itself an act of war against the United States

In hindsight (actually, even it seemed even at the time) it was probably better to offer a more mature presentation to the world community about what we knew about Al Qaeda, why we believed some of its associates to be in Afghanistan, etc.

Rumsfeld and Bush didn't across as authors of some thought-out strategy; they seemed like buffoons. Underground fortresses? [0] Watch this drive? [1]

As it is, most of the world now doesn't believe that the US had any idea what it was doing. We also now know that some well-connected Saudis were directly responsible for some of the planning of the attack.

So I don't think that this "strategic value" panned out in the slightest.

0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGhGHxw0mSo

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCm9788Tb5g

> what we knew about Al Qaeda, why we believed some of its associates to be in Afghanistan, etc.

I was living in Spain and no one needed the US to explain why they "believed some of Al-Qaeda's associates were in Afghanistan". I'm not sure if you didn't watch the news through that time or what, but the Taliban were very upfront about having Bin Laden.

E.g.: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/taliban-wont-turn-over-bin-lade...

They were up-front about having Bin Laden, but not about harboring "Al Qaeda" - a phrase which Bin Laden didn't use in any public media appearance until a month later.

They wanted evidence that Bin Laden had anything to do with the attacks (which of course he denied).

Why not deliberatively and carefully provide this evidence to the world instead of rushing into a war? What's the strategic value there?

> Why not deliberatively and carefully provide this evidence to the world instead of rushing into a war? What's the strategic value there?

Alternate view: what was to be gained by deliberatively and carefully providing further details on their intelligence sources for general explanations they'd already offered, when it was palpably obvious the Afghan government had no intention of changing the position they'd held for the last three years that there was no way they were going to betray Bin Laden to Libya, never mind the United States? Where was the advantage to engaging in a war of rhetoric with an government committed to protecting somebody that openly called upon his fellow Muslims to bomb the US, a government whose leader compared the notion of giving up Bin Laden to "the end of Islam" and was obviously going to dismiss any evidence presented as insufficient. (even more obvious with the hindsight of what happened a couple of years later when flimsy presentations of evidence harmed the US case for war in Iraq even before it became clear most of the evidence wasn't true)

It's difficult to argue the US action in Afghanistan solved much (though there are certainly people who have benefited as well as those who have suffered as a result) but it's even more difficult to argue they were in a position where they could show that fatwas against the US and series' of attacks culminating in flying jetliners into buildings didn't have any consequences if you weren't a government but had the tacit support of one.

"They wanted evidence that Bin Laden had anything to do with the attacks (which of course he denied)."

What are you talking about? Bin Laden took credit for 9/11 immediately and it was pretty clear that they had their training camps in Afghanistan. Nobody denied that.

Iraq was a different situation. to go there the US had to make up things.

> Bin Laden took credit for 9/11 immediately

Do you actually believe this? If so, you are misinformed.

If you do continue to believe this: which misquoted video are you going to trot out for this claim? The 9/16 video? The 9/28 video? Can you tell me which credible Arabic translator regards either (or any) of these as "[taking] credit"?

Nobody seriously continues to maintain that Bin Laden "took credit for 9/11 immediately."

Perhaps you are talking about the November video (although obviously that's not "immediate")? Even if this video does show Bin Laden (which of course is very much disputed), the person in the video doesn't "take credit" in the typical sense of the phrase.

> What are you talking about? Bin Laden took credit for 9/11 immediately

Both my recollection and Wikipedia (admittedly neither being authoritative) agree that Bin Laden denied involvement for some time after the attacks (Wiki says he didn't claim responsibility until 2004). The Taliban denounced the attacks the day of and, separately, stated Bin Laden wasn't involved (which might seem weird, but there's some background there that makes it less suspicious than it seems, though of course it could have all been deception). They also volunteered that they'd turn him over if we turned up evidence that he'd been involved, on Sept. 13th (again, of course they could have been lying or stalling, just getting the events/statements straight)

The US demand (Sept. 14th) wasn't that they hand over Bin Laden, it was that they hand over all of Al Qaeda in their territory, all their intelligence on them, and Bin Laden. Given that there were a lot of fighters on their side of the civil war who'd been through Al Qaeda camps, this was probably impossible to do without losing the civil war, between the loss of manpower, the risk (I'd hazard it was a near-certainty) of opening a new and dangerously ill-defined front in the civil war, and the loss of said training resources/facilities. It was never going to happen, and we'd been considering covertly or overtly pitching in with the other side of their civil war for a few months prior (that part I didn't know until just a few minutes ago) anyway.

[EDIT] reading over the sequence of events and the public statements of both sides the Taliban comes off as even more reasonable than I remember them seeming at the time, which was already "fairly reasonable". Could have all been lies, of course, but if you just look at the public statements and the timeline of events—how quickly it escalated—just, wow. At the very least it was terrible PR management on the US' part that we came off looking like unhinged lunatics compared with such genuine shitbags as the Taliban.

Interesting. I didn't remember that his video came out only 2004. I thought it was much earlier. In any case there was not much controversy about the Afghanistan invasion. I don't recall much doubt about that. The real controversy was about Iraq later on.

Capturing one guy is a symbolic gesture anyway.

"Well, we had thousands of civilian and US military casualties, but we got Bin Laden! It was totally worth it!"

I asked the question ~2009. What never made sense to me is that with unsecured borders, what's the point of invaded a poor country of goat farmers? Ok yeah, so Al Qaeda supposedly attacked us and they were allegedly being harbored in Afghanistan. But the guys in the planes were Saudi. Why didn't we invade Saudi Arabia? (That's a rhetorical question). If someone wants to come here and hurt us, they can do it pretty easily. Invading Afghanistan doesn't solve that problem. The whole thing is a joke.

Now I'm aware of a host of reasons for us to be there, none of them good. Of course we're in Afghanistan for some purpose.

Yeah, by '09 there was clearly no reason. When they originally sold the war they played up Al Qaeda's size, power, and level of infrastructure (specifically in Afghanistan) so, assuming you believed that[1] the original invasion kind of made sense.

[1] personally, my suspicions that the claims that this organization was so huge and capable and dangerous, yet had only just now managed anything so big and had totally failed to achieve any of the more obvious follow-on attacks, smelled a bit of BS (that is, its size and capabilities were being wildly exaggerated) were confirmed when IIRC Rumsfeld went on the news with a diagram of some GI Joe playset-style giant underground base thing that couldn't conceivably have been built in secret due to its scale and equipment, and claimed that Bin Laden had "not one, but several" of these obviously-fantasy supervillain lairs hidden in Afghanistan. That they were clearly lying about the popular war that was an easy sell definitely colored how I received their later pitch on Iraq. Not that it mattered.

Here's that interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGhGHxw0mSo

It's shocking now to watch. How did anyone ever buy this? I remember being 18 at the time and thinking it was completely ludicrous. I wonder if anyone seriously believed it or if it was just the story that the media needed to hear to feel less sheepish about acting like this war made any sense.

Heh, we must be around the same age.

Man, I went to Wikipedia because I was curious whether the timeline and events I had in my head for the early let-the-inspectors-back-in demands and the later, infamous leave-or-die "ultimatum" Bush leveled against Hussein right before Iraq invasion was correct (there's very little about all that, and I found some material on the ultimatum itself but never the actual word "ultimatum", which is weird since that's what everyone called it at the time and a big deal was made of it) and now I'm all pissed off again that Bush & Co. aren't in prison for life, from reading all the war lead-up material, including some of the suspected-at-the-time-and-now-confirmed stuff about how they were planning to invade no matter what. Wow, there are some emotions I hadn't felt in a while. Nostalgic, I guess.

There are a lot of things that are shocking to watch with the perspective of time.

Like this article, from 1993, about the 'Anti-Soviet warrior' Bin Laden:

http://www.businessinsider.com/1993-independent-article-abou...

I find it fascinating.

Karzai thinks AQ is a myth, has never seen or heard reports of them in Afghanistan :

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/10/hamid-karzai...

> they were allegedly being harbored in Afghanistan

The Taliban never even attempted to hide the fact that they harbored Bin Laden. Not sure if that partially answers your question.

They did not refuse to hand over OBL, they wanted to see some proof.

Which was of course a-OK for the US, they did not want OBL, they wanted to invade.

I don't doubt the US was happy to go to war (and do doubt Bin Laden would have gone quietly if the Taliban had said "you're welcome to come and arrest him") but it's something of a stretch to imagine Afghanistan only wanted to "see some proof" even if that was one of their stated positions.

The Taliban had spent the last three years refusing multiple countries' requests to extradite Bin Laden for other bombings and was lead by a man married to one of Bin Laden's daughters who compared the notion of handing over Bin Laden as a betrayal akin to the "end of Islam"

Fair enough, I knew my position was 1 dimensional.

Although you might be correct on all your points, it glosses over the fact there might actually be no proof at all.

> The Afghan government at the time

There wasn't one.

You probably mean the Taliban, but while they may have been the largest of several de facto or putative governments in Afghanistan at the time, they were never the government of Afghanistan.

I interpreted what you quoted as a sly nod towards the Saudis, but maybe GP can clarify

Yeah that's what I was referring to.

The whole Al Qaida thing is murky with CIA engineering and scapegoating. Maybe I sound like a conspiracy theorist, I don't know. They were a pretty convenient foil for us to invade a whole bunch of countries that we had no business invading.

Dude, I think it is great you have left the army. I offer you another anecdata :

I have an American friend here in Groningen ( NL ) who has been living here for about 30 years now.

In the eighties he was stationed in Germany. Due to the thawing relationship between the US and the USSR a meet and greet between Russian and American soldiers was organised. He discovered they were ordinary guys, not monsters. They talked intelligence : both groups had knowledge about weapon systems of their enemies.

It opened his eyes, he left the army and stayed in our beautiful city.

The cold war too, was just 'a story line'.

This is a false equivalence. Yes, the individual soldiers shared commonality. But your implication that the Cold War was just a story line doesn't align with the facts. Read Solzhenitsyn. Look into Hungary 1956, Prague in 1968. To dismiss the Cold War as just a "story line" is the shallowest of arguments that flies in the face of history.

It's hard to develop a coherent picture when operations are shrouded in secrecy and, in some cases, covered by multiple outright deceptions. Sometimes all you're left with is speculation, and I don't begrudge anyone who tries to makes sense of it. The trend towards leaking in the information age is turning many conspiracy theories into facts.