> I'm not interested in intervening with infantry and all the necessary materiel unless it's to defend ourselves from grave danger.

Grave danger was cited by the President, and concurred in as justifying war by Congress, in both of the long wars commenced under Bush.

> True, but they gave him blanket authorization for use of military force (open ended) rather than a declaration of war)

The Supreme Court has long recognized exercise of Congress’ war powers without magic words as legitimate declarations of war, and also recognized conditional declarations of war (including, again, those without magic words) as declarations of war. Magic words may be relevant to the application of other domestic law (because Congress may have chosen to make them so), but it does not change the fact that any time Congress, with or without magic words, and unconditionally or conditioned on some other fact (including a Presidential determination) “authorizes” war, it is in fact exercising its Constitutional power to declare war. In fact, it first did so in regard to the Congressional authorization for the Quasi-War of 1798-1800, which was the very first Congressional exercise of its power to declare war.

> Not everyone wants democracy right now.

Have you looked up polls of Afghanistan’s citizens on whether they want a democratic election process, whether they preferred life under the Taliban, etc? They overwhelmingly preferred the state of things under the US’s support and overwhelmingly support democracy. They can’t fight for it because they fear being shot or beheaded by Taliban terrorists. To read their lack of resistance as a rejection of democracy is to deny everyday Afghanis their agency just because they want to survive to see tomorrow.

Twenty years of support was not enough? Did they need 100? If it doesn’t work within 2-5 years, it’s not going to work. Cut your losses and run.

Maybe there was some support for this in some areas of Kabul, but certainly not in the countryside.

> If it doesn’t work within 2-5 years, it’s not going to work. Cut your losses and run.

That seems very arbitrary. I would say twenty years is not enough, because a longer time period would mean that older, experienced Taliban fighters and organizers would be too old to continue their activities or just dead. It also isn't enough time if we haven't done a good job managing our efforts there, and we needed better leadership and accountability around our efforts to establish the new government and their military (more at https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/08/how-americ...).

I cannot understand why you think 2-5 years is the magic time to judge an effort like this by. Do you think that's true for everything in life? If a company can't IPO in 2 years they should just cut their losses and run?

> Maybe there was some support for this in some areas of Kabul, but certainly not in the countryside.

What's your evidence for this? Every poll I could find on Google suggests there is broad support for democracy in Afghanistan.

Phone-based polling is a challenge in poorer nations.

> True, but they gave him blanket authorization for use of military force (open ended) rather than a declaration of war), this open-endedness allowed Obama! to use the same AUMF to engage in further conflict.

If anything, your points here only go to demonstrate how irrelevant the nominal power of congressional authorization is, in the current political climate (and for most of the history of the republic.)

What makes it mostly irrelevant is that almost any representative voting for caution will be tarred with the "soft on America's enemies" brush, marginalized, and quickly removed from office. That's democracy in action, and it has been that way, for the most part, since the founding of the nation.

What kept the USA in Afghanistan, and the USSR before, was a form of sunk cost fallacy (in blood more than dollars), in which nation-building became more of a prayer for a non-catastrophic exit than an arrogant goal of a self-appointed elite.

> I'm not interested in intervening with infantry and all the necessary materiel unless it's to defend ourselves from grave danger. Especially avoid stupid the boondoggle of "nation-building". Not everyone wants democracy right now. It may come later.

This short sightedness might cost more in lives globally and money loss from trade and resources being restricted.

While it seems crude, the way we used to do it, the way the Soviets used to do it, the way China does it now, seems to work best for this kind of interest. You invest in a despot let them have their little fiefdom and you let them run what's theirs and you get to take what you think is yours.

Nation-building is hubris. Work with someone local who fits hand-in-glove.

Is the unstable "stability" worth 6T and thousands of soldiers' lives and many tens of thousands traumatized? Not to mention the losses from the locals. What was the human cost of Saddam in power vs the cost after toppling him?

> While it seems crude, the way we used to do it, the way the Soviets used to do it, the way China does it now, seems to work best for this kind of interest. While it seems crude, the way we used to do it, the way the Soviets used to do it, the way China does it now, seems to work best for this kind of interest.

Aside from ethical issues, the inevitable case is what they think is theirs and what you think is yours end up conflicting, which is how that strategy fell apart with the Soviets in Afghanistan. And with the US and Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Among other places.

Bringing Saddam Hussein and the invasion of Iraq into the discussion is a distraction, as this is most clearly regarded as a separate conflict launched under the cover of an invasion of Afghanistan which was, unlike that in Iraq, a response to an actual attack and continuing threat. In addition, and per my previous comment, the acquiescence of Congress further demonstrated the limitations of its nominal power to veto such actions.

It’s smart because the despot has already found product-market fit.