Submission Statement
Between 2001 and 2021, under four U.S. presidents, the United States spent approximately $2.3 trillion, with 2,459 American military fatalities and up to 360,000 estimated Afghan civilian deaths.
After the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, approximately $7.12 billion worth of military equipment was left behind, according to a 2022 Department of Defense report. This equipment, transferred to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) from 2005 to 2021, included:
Weapons: Over 300,000 of 427,300 weapons, including rifles like M4s and M16s.
Vehicles: More than 40,000 of 96,000 military vehicles, including 12,000 Humvees and 1,000 armored vehicles.
Aircraft: 78 aircraft, valued at $923.3 million, left at Hamid Karzai International Airport, all demilitarized and rendered inoperable.
Munitions: 9,524 air-to-ground munitions worth $6.54 million, mostly non-precision.
Communications and Specialized Equipment: Nearly all communications gear (e.g., radios, encryption devices) and 42,000 pieces of night vision, surveillance, biometric, and positioning equipment.
The total equipment provided to the ANDSF was valued at $18.6 billion, with the $7.12 billion figure representing what remained after the withdrawal. Much of this equipment is now under Taliban control, though its operational capability is limited due to the need for specialized maintenance and technical expertise.
The United States has provided at least $93.41 billion in total aid to Afghanistan since 2001. This includes:
Military Aid (2001–2020): Approximately $72.7 billion (in current dollars), primarily through the Afghanistan Security Forces Fund ($71.7 billion) and other programs like International Military Education and Training, Foreign Military Financing, and Peacekeeping Operations ($1 billion combined).
Humanitarian and Reconstruction Aid (2001–2025): Around $20.71 billion, including $3 billion in humanitarian and development aid post-2021 and $3.5 billion in frozen Afghan assets transferred to the Afghan Fund in 2022. Pre-2021 reconstruction and humanitarian aid (e.g., $174 million in 2001 and $300 million pledged in 2002) adds to this, though exact figures for the full period are less clear.
If the British Empire couldn't dislodge the Afghanis in the 1800's, and the Soviets in the 1970's and 1980's, why would the USA be able to do it?
"Invade Afghanistan, you will regret it," is one of history's NCDish lessons. Like:
Iran feels geographically close enough to inherit the curse for sure.
Iran has been invaded quite a few times with rather satisfying results for those doing the invasions.
And most important:
Because yanks have always thought that they're somehow special, that things will be different when they do it
Why tho, they lost everything from Korea, Vietnam to running in the night from their last base in Afghanistan.
Shit I'm wrong, they heroically beat Grenada
This is correct.
And we didn't learn our lesson from the Vietnamese, because most people here aren't able to read above a third-grade level.
Well, with Vietnam, we literally did a fucking false flag to give ourself a pretense.
I really can’t blame 9/11 Truthers that much, the fact that the Gulf of Tonkin shit happened is fucking insane. Vietnam won its independence fair and square, we should have stayed the fuck out.
Don't forget the attack on the Liberty.
I started viewing 9/11 videos at the time to laugh at these guys but there are 100's of things that are too wrong with it.
Most of it wiped of the web and plenty of crazy stories planted to muddy the waters and delegitimise serious efforts by association.
Really, don't dig deep or you'll be one of us.
Or the lies about throwing babies out of incubators during the Gulf War.
Or when they orchestrated the toppling of a Saddam Husein statue.
Or the Jessica Lynch fake rescue story?
Glad the impartial free and democratic press don't do stuff like that anymore.
Remember this guy? 🤣
Not trying to salvage America's involvement in Vietnam, but I wonder if at the time there was genuinely strong evidence that communism would go unchecked if US didn't try. It is probably with hindsight we think that the communist world turned out not to be as united as one would have presumed.
What's america problem with socialism in other countries? It's none of the united snake business
I guess - even if Domino Theory was true - why the fuck was that our business? The people of Vietnam overthrew their colonial oppressors, wanted to create their own government and we said “nah, you don’t get to do that.”
Which kinda happened everywhere in decolonized states. There was still this paternalistic attitude of “well, you still don’t get to be a sovereign country, we’re going to ‘help’ you set up a government.” That’s why so much of Africa is a shitshow - because Europe and the US backed terrible leaders out of a hatred of communism. If a nation of people chose communism, what moral right did the West have to intervene?
It was continued colonial occupation. There’s no other way to describe it.
And even for colonialism turned out to not be perfect. Look at Surinam, they had a socialist somethinglution, broke away from Netherlands, and now they are in some association and basically like Britain's dominions, except Britain's dominions are almost fully settler entities.
Well yes, but at the same time on the other side of the Iron Curtain, they still do believe in exporting communist revolutions to other countries even if the member states have disagreements.
The domino theory has been influential in the West, and but it also go both ways and was also prevalent on the communist bloc but the reverse. After all, USSR also suppressed popular liberalising, but not necessarily anti-communist, movements in Eastern Europe.
About as strong as the yellow cake memo was for evidence of WMD's in Iraq.
To be fair, ALL Empires act the same, assuming they are Exceptional, until they decay.
Definitely
Actually, most yanks don't feel this way. Big business, CIA/FBI, Gov't wants resources, weapon sales, drug and human trafficking, all things to keep the rich ....rich. They use the two party system, which is really a uni-party system controlled by them, to keep the masses fighting amongst themselves while they proceed with war and taking away human rights under war-times.
I get you, but I'm not just talking about US military aggression
I'm talking about the whole absurd notion of American exceptionalism
I've known so many Americans who have been relatively educated and aware of the world outside of 'Murica, but even then they are shocked that the rest of the world does things differently, usually better, and that they aren't special to anyone other than themselves
If you live in a more civilised part of the country, and move in more educated and civilised circles, it's horrifying how ignorant the overwhelming majority of Americans are
Things being different is simply beyond their ken
And I understand your point, but you are generalizing also. I think it would be better to say SOME American's are like what you describe, and I would say, because it is usually a class thing within American society. Lower, middle, even some upper classes don't get to travel, or don't want to (or go on horrible isolated cruise ships,) outside the US and aren't exposed to the world they grew up in. Also, our education system, thanks to the rich again, has been destroyed. But, that doesn't apply to everyone, and when you generalize, it is offensive to many. There is an American pride that is built in to our upbringing, as in most places, but what might be unique here is the rich/corporate/gov't exploit that patriotism and use it as propaganda so it is easier to manufacture the selling of war.
Americans definitely all seem to be patriotic, like they say stuff like, "I'm as patriotic as the next guy, but was carpet bombing all those villages worth it?"
That's a defense mechanism. If you don't say "I support the troops" first, your opinion has no credibility because you're a hippie tree hugger. Sad, but that's how it is.
Did the soviets bring a mobile burger king?
No?
Then shut the hell up.it was obviously different.
As much as I dislike nationalism, certain section of right wing nationalists (specifically isolationists) made a point that foreign interventionism and invading other countries isn't being nationalistic.
The point isn't that they're nationalistic, it's that they're arrogant. They think they have something special, just because they're yanks
The reality is that their soldiers are actually quite shit
And that is encouraged through hijacking patriotism.
Hugely promoted in the US.
As a European it's mindboggling to see how much they push that.
Can't have an event without a ridiculously sized flag, sing the anthem, first ball thrown by some military dude, honor the veterans...
And then they have murder jets fly over a stadium.
Sickening.
Because america is special?
I don't think that's what they're after. It's oil and money somehow at the root, it always is.
It's Israeli hegemony. The entire point of American conquest in the Middle East is Zionism.
Really? Isn’t it famously petroleum and shipping lanes?
It's kind of a package deal; Israeli domination of the middle east also means domination of the oil and shipping.
Another facet is just good old fashion military industrial profeteering
Nah. Whenever I see Zionism used as a giant umbrella, I know that person is stirring up shit and/or is antisemitic.
Genetic fallacy
It's the other way around. Zionism is a tool, not an end goal.
Let's see how your critical thinking got you to that end result. Show your work.