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[Lord Shonus]

A big part of it is that the US commanders in charge of the original Afghanistan operation (all the way up to Rumsfeld) took the wrong lessons from Germany and (especially) Japan. In both those nations, it really was as simple as "crush their military, then sit on them for a few years while you get a democratic government going". This lead US leadership to think they could easily do the same in Afghanistan, especially since the Afgani in the streets wasn't an enemy of the US in the first place.

The fundamental problem there was that both Germany and Japan had centralized governments and had some pre-WWII democracy attempts. Installing democratic governments to replace the fascist ones became largely a matter of keeping things quiet while you got the people on-board with the program.

Afghanistan didn't have that. The government system before the Soviets was fundamentally a tribal one, and they've never had real centralization of power. To accomplish the intended goals, the US occupation (yes, other countries were involved, but it was more a US operation than anybody else) would have had to construct a centralized government structure ex nihilo  before any democratic government could take control. Instead, the US tried to simply restore the old mujahedeen factions to power, leading to a corrupt and ineffective government and military.

Afghanistan would have turned out better if it had been an old-school imperialist landgrab ending in annexation. Any case where this is a true statement means you have one monstrous clusterfuck on your hands.

[Random_Dragon]

True. Seems reasonable now that you mention it, and would also explain the difference between the Afghani government's performance and how Iraq has fared.

[nenjin]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Afghanistan

Figured I'd drop this in here for some reading material. TBH I'm a little too tired to synthesize something out of all of that. Suffice to say though, the country has and continues to have a turbulent history. When you nation build in chaotic places, you get chaotic outcomes. I feel like we should have kept our commitments to help along the lines of the other European nations rather than taking a primary role where we committed more and stayed way longer than anyone else. But because they were providing sanctuary to Al'Qaeda after Sept. 11th, we decided to have ourselves a little war and try and prevent another hardline Islamic state from establishing itself. 20 years later, we're pretty much right back where we started in that regard. There's probably guys in the Taliban who started as foot soldiers in 1996 running things now.

[Loud Whispers]

We definitely shouldn't have been there, though, and we extra definitely shouldn't have been propping up the kid raping sacks of shit we did while we were there, just as one "well, maybe that was a mistake" among a pile of them.

There were some serious, serious problems with the groups we were supporting in that country, and it's turned around to bite... well, not us, really, but all the folks we fucked over when we invaded to begin with, and all the folks about to get ruined now that the shit we were holding up is collapsing like the rotten house of cards we helped make it

It's like when the Russians told NATO where all the Taliban opium fields were, but NATO didn't act on this as they argued there wasn't any valid alternative for employment to local Afghans "yet". It's like accepting a thousand evils as necessary in the vain hopes this will somehow translate into a functioning moral government, whereas this only props up a moral vacuum which demands implosion; supporting corruption, child trafficking & child abuse, opium trade does not a country make

[feelotraveller]

While on the other side the spokesman for the Taliban's political office is able to say, in entirely good faith:

"We have reached what we were seeking, which is the freedom of our country and the independence of our people."

Quoted for truth.

(Sure, there's lots of other shit going on, but think about what it might have been like to be an Afghani fence-sitter.)

He went on to say:

""We will not allow anyone to use our lands to target anyone, and we do not want to harm others."
"We do not think that foreign forces will repeat their failed experience in Afghanistan once again.”

[McTraveller]

Fun fact today: To convert cost of Big Money Thing in the US to a meaningful metric, in the US, take the dollar amount in billions, multiply by 3, and that's basically the cost per person.

So that massive $10B savings over 10 years... that's a whopping $3 per person per year.

$1 Trillion? Well that's $3000 per person - over 10 years, that's a mere $300 per person per year.  It sounds like a huge amount but it's surprisingly not.

[Rolan7]

10 years I've been trying to cancel this $25 a month subscription I never even asked for.  They didn't deliver me any of the bombs or planes and stuff, and forgot to give me the passwords for the spy drones.  Also everyone hates me a lot??

Also I had to pay for someone else's subscription too because they were a retired infant in this scenario

Anyway sure sucks that we're the only serious country that can't afford universal health care, or we might have saved a lot of money overall through preventative care.  At least our infrastructure's in good shape!  :'D

[McTraveller]

Oh we can afford "universal health care."

Most people in the US just don't want it.

Well, more specifically, the prevailing US worldview is to feel like you are empowered to make their own choices about health care, rather than "having it dictated by the government," coupled with a desire to think that you're getting the most out of their money without feeling like your are paying for someone else.

[None]

It's easier to love thy neighbor with Hellfire missiles than with healthcare, after all.

[Ziusudra]

rather than "having it dictated by the government,"

And so instead, we get it dictated to us by private companies who answer only to share holders.

[Frumple]

Oh we can afford "universal health care."

Most people in the US just don't want it.

Well, more specifically, the prevailing US worldview is to feel like you are empowered to make their own choices about health care, rather than "having it dictated by the government," coupled with a desire to think that you're getting the most out of their money without feeling like your are paying for someone else.

I mean, this isn't even true. There's like supermajority support among the US population for a public option, near as I can remember and tell from checking. It's just the GOP is using it as red meat horseshit and actively sabotaging efforts to instate it.

Most of the people in the US want universal healthcare. There's just an asshole minority getting in the way of it, and it's not enough of a make or break issue for enough folks to railroad it over the jerks

[McTraveller]

I don't think most people in the US want "universal health care." What the majority in the US wants is "low cost health care without having to pay premiums or my taxes going up."

Note even what you said - the supermajority wants a public option - I guarantee if that wasn't an option but was mandated then you'd get different poll results.

That's the thing with polls - you can usually word them in a way to get whatever result you want.  Polls suck.

[StrawBarrel]

America needs to stop being bad at health care.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Universal_Health_Care_july_2018.png
I'm shook.

[Dunamisdeos]

People want healthcare that isn't tied to their jobs, because people shouldn't have to choose their specific workplace based on whether or not they die if they or their children have a medical problem, and also not get absolutely fucking reamed by private for-profit premiums. And I think that 100% of the populace is aware that we have our current system specifically to cater to for-profit insurance giants.
 
If someone has a better method for that than universal healthcare both I and the entire rest of the civilized planet would like to hear it.

[Micro102]

Cut out the private companies and healthcare becomes cheaper. There aren't any CEOs taking huge paychecks, or accountants running the numbers for each company, or lawyers for each company, etc. etc.