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.
This shit haunts me sometimes. I remember hearing somewhere that the Taliban actually offered to deliver OBL to the US if they would promise not to invade and we were like “get fucked, idiot”. How many people’s lives did we needlessly destroy, regardless of nationality, both in Iraq and Afghanistan? What else could have been bought besides misery with the nearly four trillion between those two wars?
I didnt know about any of this. The article I read mentioned they offered to put him on trial prior to 9/11 too for his other crimes in the 90s. America is literally the idiot bully who yells over anything you say and then eventually punches you in the face while you are confused.
He also died of natural causes.
Been invisible for a decade and wouldn’t you know it, a few months before the presidential elections “we got him”.
Somehow they showed no footage of him being heroically killed by the brave GI Joe’s.
They go trough all the trouble of taking his body during a dangerous raid in a hostile country, but somehow they decide all on their own to throw his body from the ship.
LOLTF is the point of that link?
1 It doesn’t mention Bin Laden
2 Wikipedia is a garbage sourceAnd does any of the FACTS and official explanation I mention sound reasonable?
Then I have a bridge to sell you.
Iirc what they offered was to put him on trial. Which is lol worthy.
Oh, okay. Hmm, yeah, that seems sus.
Yeah, brown people shouldn’t receive due process.
before that it was the mujahadeen trained by SEALs/special operations, turned taliban.
Man, am I glad that never backfired.
Still, we got Charlie Wilson’s War out of it.
trillions of dollar
That’s a lot of dollar.
Like in the first episode of Beverley Hillbillies: “They offered me 125 dollars for the bog. But I don’t know what kind of dollars. I know gold dollars and silver dollars, and even those newfangled paper dollars. But what is a million dollar?”
2.3 trillion went missing in the 00s and no one ever found it. Maybe that’s money being used to achieve what’s happening now in USA… Maybe it was stolen and used to help overthrow USA with criminals… Maybe American strings are being pulled by organized crime intertwined with politicians and businesses that are too naive to believe that could happen them in their country or are extorted and pressured to follow along. And when some senator is murdered that’s just the strong arm of the boss manipulating some victim to kill showing what can happen if you don’t go along with their idealistic games.
What’s happening in America now isn’t new. It’s a long game. Careers are chosen for its completion. Corrupting the system that’s used as our foundation.
Legal modern Mafia.
The money isnt “missing”. It was spent somewhere somehow by DHS/Pentagon. They are just so bad at basic math they don’t know what exactly it was spent on. But if we keep giving them more money I’m sure they’ll get better at…eventually.
Books are where it’s at!
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.
Whenever I hear an inconvenient theory I turn off critical thinking and assassinate the person’s character in my mind
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.
President Trump, who announced the “very successful attacks” on Truth Social, told Axios in a brief phone call that “Israel is much safer now.”
Because america is special?
Because yanks have always thought that they’re somehow special, that things will be different when they do it
Books are where it’s at!
Definitely
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 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.
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.
About as strong as the yellow cake memo was for evidence of WMD’s in Iraq.
What’s america problem with socialism in other countries? It’s none of the united snake business
Simple, socialism/communism is opposed to fascism/capitalism.
Can’t have that.
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.
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.
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
“Invade Afghanistan, you will regret it,” is one of history’s NCDish lessons. Like:
- Don’t invade Russia in winter.
- Don’t let Germany get too economically depressed.
- Don’t let the Chinese people get too unhappy with their govt.
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:
My goddamn brother in law, gung-ho air Force dude, is trying to get his Gen Z kids to enlist because it worked out so well for him. He enlisted during the magical late 90s so he wasn’t shipped anywhere. Hardest thing he had to do was pushups and whatever hazing the other soldiers put him through.
Throw another 20 years at it
Hell, throw another 100 years at it, it wouldn’t make a difference
Doesn’t even matter which country invades, it won’t hold it for long.
Even Alexander the Great only briefly held it for 25 years after defeating Darius III
The people didn’t want us there and we weren’t interested in forcing ourselves on them like some kind of brutal Soviet satellite state
The rampant unchecked corruption was way worse than we thought and it was a major consideration for pulling out
Can’t help people who are unwilling to help themselves
The war in Afghanistan was never about helping anyone. 🙄
not about helping anyone
Cancer is how americans show love.
That and bombing your village.
Initially, no. I’m still baffled that we bothered staying at all. Later on it transitioned from it being primarily a combat mission to a combat mission plus a side humanitarian effort
When it was beyond clear that the people weren’t interested in our way of life at all, then they waited 10+ years and pulled the plug
Had to make sure the contractor companies got theirs first
People weren’t interested in gifts brought by colonizers. It’s not our way of life, it’s the fact that we forced it on them at the end a gun.
Not really. We presented opportunities and they rejected them.
The US led coalition established a system of voting, Afghans risked their lives to vote
Other Afghans threatened to kill them if they voted, and many followed through with their threats
The US led coalition built schools, some risked their lives to attend
Other Afghans threatened to kill them if they attended, and many followed through with their threats
The US led coalition provided food and healthcare, many happily accepted
Others Afghans stole food and healthcare supplies and kept them from being distributed to other Afghans
The US led coalition provided new critical public infrastructure, many Afghans were overjoyed by the increase in their quality of life
Other Afghans destroyed that infrastructure with explosives and killed many Afghans in the process
No one was forced to accept it, the end of a gun came from other Afghans
Voting in rigged elections forced on them by the occupation for candidates forced on them by the occupation. Colonial schools that were meant to preach occupation propaganda to train up the next generation of compradores. Aid that is conditional on not being a resistance fighter against the colonial occupation and laying down their arms for their occupiers. And all of that infrastructure comes with strings attached and with debts that are expected to be repaid.
They’re not backward mud people, they were resisting colonial occupation.
Every gift from the Great Satan is poison.
Please, tell me more bullshit stories
They’re very entertaining
Colonizers are disgusting.
Sounds about one bad day away from this
Just wait.
In a few years we’re going to find out similar corruption occurred in Ukraine.
Not likely
How so?
It happened with every other war in recent years, and you’ll recall that Hamid Karzai got the Zelensky treatment, even making speeches in Congress, before it was found out he was personally benefitting from war funds.
One major reason is that even before the full scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ukraine has been hot on the goal of trying to join the European Union which has strict metrics against corruption which Ukraine has been striving to eliminate with EU watchdogs constantly visiting Ukraine to independently assess their effort.
By the end of which Ukraine will likely have far less corruption than the US
Yeah but think how much money grifters made off of it. That $40 trillion in debt had to go somewhere.
I mean yeah, all that, but did you even stop to consider how absolutely insanely wealthy we made like 7 people!?
God you people are so selfish with your wah wah thousands upon thousands have died! Think of the rich people for once!
:P
didn’t usa also train the taliban? because they didn’t want ussr to have afghanistan
They trained them, gave them weapons and assistance as much as they could.
Don’t believe the revisionist trolls bcs the name is different.
They were the same people with the same beliefs.
Just ask the trolls what Mujahideen stands for?
Or where they got the stinger missiles?We did.
There’s a whole joke about it in The Boys when the Soldier Boy character is revived.
No. The Taliban only got started after the Soviets left. But the US funded and trained the Mujahedeen which later created Al-Quaeda.
No, US funded what became Al-Qaeda, but the word Mohajed is usually used for a certain mix of Marxist and Islamist which is not common in our world anymore. The, eh, Islamic Republic of Iran in its ideology bears a significant trace of that though.
Couldn’t be more wrong, Mujahedeen:“one who struggles on behalf of Islam”, they are religious fundamentalists and the US knew it then and now.
As they still support ISIS or whatever scumbag proxy doing their killing for them.
It has certainly nothing to do with Marxism.I’ve literally told you where to look for an example. You are wrong. That this syncretism seems impossible to you means nothing.
In the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan local leftist-Islamist groups (with just a few al-Qaeda like ones) were against the USSR, while the secular-leftist government remnants were its ally (after they created the whole situation by assassinating the friendly dictator, it’s complex).
Mojahed has, yes, a rather wide meaning, but politically it’s associated with left-Islamist groups.
Shia fundamentalism is pretty socialist. Actually Islamic (including right and Sunni) fundamentalism in general has a lot about support nets, helping poor and such. They also have their own “not dirty” financial organization methods, like “Islamic banking”.
What had to be done to make political Islam the jihadi-Christian\Yazidi-beheading-ISIS-like-Caliphate-willing movement again, since the Ottoman empire, was a lot of work by western nations and a few small Arab monarchies. In Soviet times it was basically the western MO, to support-create-guide right-wing and fundamentalist organizations as opposed to the kind of movements USSR’s appearances attracted.
Of course, now they are trying to wash their hands.
Riiight, tell me, what does the word ‘mujahedeen’ mean?
And why are they trying to hide it then if it’s so on the level?
You americans sure love those name tricks.
Like this POS ISIS headchopper:
Nooo, he’s Ahmed al-Sharaa now and no longer from Al Quaida but totally harmless HTS.
Yes but actually no. Mujahideen (did I spell that correctly?) were CIA funded as they opposed the Russian invasion.
A lot of former Mujahideen fighters did end up in both Taliban and Al-Quebec (autocorrect tells me that’s the right spelling) after the soviet-Afghan war, including Osama himself. While allied, they are separate entities.
They are allies and with common roots, but saying Taliban was trained by CIA is an oversimplification. Some of its members were, yes, but that was long before Taliban was a thing.
Also, the paragon of Aged Like Milk:
Ehh, we’re here to bring you to Allah ya hosers.
Sorry, eh.
Hahahahahahahhqhahaa!!! Al-Quebec!
The French Canadian province would like a word
So it wasn’t these guys that ended up in Afghanistan somehow?
“That’s why the Taliban is so deadly and effective — hapkido training. Where’d they learn that? From Steven Seagal’s fat ass. Why do you think Kelly Lebrock left him? 'Cause he’s Taliban.”
Call your rep, ask for Israel to pay reparations
And yet, I’ve seen people on here criticize the withdrawal. Like, how much longer did you wanna stay, dawg? Another 20 years so the proxy we set up would last another week?
People didn’t criticize the withdrawal itself (at least non-monsters didn’t). People criticized the fact that in so many years there was no robust infrastructure built. They broke whatever was there before them, fucked around for decades, achieved jack shit, and left leaving power vacuum.
People didn’t criticize the withdrawal itself (at least non-monsters didn’t).
I mean, I’m not going to disagree with characterizing these .worlders for example as monsters, but it’s not as if it was a fringe position.
We have 10,000 troops permanently stationed in the UK. Another 12,000 permanently stationed in Italy. Another 25,000 permanently stationed in Korea. 35,000 permanently stationed in Germany. 52,000 permanently stationed in Japan.
We should have established a similar, permanent presence in Afghanistan. Come back to me in 80 years, after their economy looks like South Korea’s, and we can start to discuss a drawdown.
You should mind your own business and stay TF out of other countries
Come back to me in 80 years
On the one hand, props for putting a number to it, on the other, Jesus Fucking Christ.
You realize that all the countries’ governments you listed have at least consented to us being there, whereas Afghanistan specifically said they wanted us gone?
Just going full Genghis Khan over here. As if the brazen conquest wasn’t bad enough, you want to condemn our grandkids to the continued subjugation of their grandkids. Absolutely insane.
Ehhh kinda. For many of those countries, the troops were a leftover of occupation, it was a choice but kind of a forced one, you don’t want to upset your overlords.
In the EU, with the increased independence as the organization grew, calls to send the American troops home became stronger and stronger.
I’m not trying defend those deployments, I hate the military as much as anyone. But the fascist I’m arguing with is trying to use those deployments as a justification for a hostile, century long occupation with the goal of forcibly erasing their culture through force. All I’m saying is, those are not the same thing.
Ask the women and girls of Afghanistan if they want us gone. The women and girls who are no longer allowed to attend school, and can look forward to generations of total subjugation.
Why do you hold the opinions of their oppressors in such high regard?
You say they asked us to leave. They dont have a government with sufficient legitimacy to even make such a request. They won’t have one until several generations of school kids have been raised to believe their mothers and sisters are actual people, not just some weird furniture.
When the first generation of co-ed Afghani school kids are in nursing homes and hospice, we can start listening to Afghan opinions about our continued presence.
Yes, permanent installations, influencing their economy and culture for decades. So that our grandkids see them grow into a nation more comparable to South Korea than North Korea.
These Afghan women married and gave birth to the men ruling over them. They’re at least somewhat complicit in this. They had 20 years to breed a more liberal generation of men, but they did not.
Taliban had such an easy time taking back control because nobody gave a shit.
Ah, yes. It is the slave’s fault that they do their master’s bidding. They are complicit. They could just overthrow the overseers. Instead, they provide them with the means of their own enslavement.
That’s you. That’s what you sound like.
The slaves didn’t raise their own masters.
The US backed Afghani government lasted less than one day because NOBODY wanted it. Only the Americans did. It’s not part of Afghani culture to send women to school and such. It’s like forcing Americans at gunpoint to eat salad instead of McDonald’s.
It’s not part of Afghani culture to send women to school and such
What bunch of bs. Before taliban created by the united snake , women was stupying and working In the 1980s, about 40% of doctors and 60% of teachers in Kabul were women.
You are like the racists settlers who was calling Indigenous people savages. Shame on you
I bet you don’t know the first elections after the invasion were already won by the Taliban after which the US decided they had to do it again without them participating.
What people do and their customs are not your business.
Why don’t you invade Saudi Arabia then?
Where they hang people every day.What people do and their customs are not your business.
I cast a mental vote on behalf of each and every woman in the country. Votes that they and you ignore.
Theybare subjected to a government they did not choose. That pisses me right the fuck off.
You pretend to care about women’s rights to justify and whitewash your gigantic large scale warcrimes. You bomb women, men and children indiscriminately.
Are you bombing the children of Iran and Palestine to promote womens rights too? I’m sure they’ll love you for it.
Now piss off, you make me sick with your holier-than-thou BS.
The only language you imperialist bastards will ever understand is force, thankfully, Afghans know how to speak it. May the message spread around the world.
This happened a lot around Afghanistan too.
If there’s one thing both sides love in this country, it’s permanent warfare, provided they can get the poors to do all the fighting and dying.
So many people are “anti-war,” except for the current one.
i like this lemmy trend lately of reminding everyone who the baddies are
Thousands of lives
Ya kinda are forgetting the lives lost on the Afghani side there buddy
americans never care about that
Let’s not forget that when Russia was fucking with Afghanistan, the yanks helped the mujahadeen
You know, those delightful fellows who would go on to become the Taliban…
