re: #369 SidewaysQuark

To be honest, I think the whole problem with Afghanistan is that we followed the politically correct route of allowing a damaged culture to vote in their own leaders in the wake of a military takeover, when the damaged culture was the whole cause of the problems there in the first place.

Sorry, but given what Afghanistan did to us (that is, unapologetically providing sanctuary for the terrorist organization that attacked us), we didn’t “owe” them an immediate democracy. We should have installed a 100% secular puppet state and worked on unpropagandizing the masses before handing the reins of power back to them.

It would be instructional to look at all of our (NATO) casualties arrayed against the detailed mission they were performing. We leveled the Taliban rather cheaply, then took a lot of hits in the “nation building” phase. At most, we should have gone in, jacked them up, and split—with a promise to return if needed.