What do we have to show for 20 years of nation building?

Jul 1, 2021, 7:25 PM

So after 20 years, over $2 Trillion in US debt spending, 2,300(+) American troops killed, 20,000(+) American troops wounded/injured, the Afghanistan military that the US built and trained is incapable of standing on its own as US forces pull out.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sebastienroblin/2021/06/30/one-month-700-trucks-afghanistans-us-military-vehicles-fall-into-taliban-hands/?sh=427283a46c21

By this time next year we can reasonably expect the Taliban to have assumed total control of Afghanistan. This is the same outcome we would have had if we had left Afghanistan 18 years ago except we would not have thousands of American lives lost and trillions of dollars wasted. For the last 20 years the active duty prevailing General Officer party line (which was also supported by the elitist DC foreign policy establishment and the typical "warhawk" politicians) was to continue feeding American lives and dollars into this colossal failure. Why? Probably because perpetual war is good for the military industrial complex - they make money hand over fist overcharging us for their high tech crap. The intel community also loves war - they get all kinds of funding and authorization(s) to develop new gadgets they can then use to spy on all sorts of people - not just middle east terror cells. Most 3 and 4 star Flag Officers love perpetual military conflict - ensures they have big budgets while on active duty and lucrative jobs as a board member, advisor, or consultant to the military industrial complex making loads of money upon retirement.

We need start firing Generals who fail in their warfighting responsibilities while also taking a serious look at limiting what 3/4 star Generals are allowed to do in retirement (trust me - they make enough in military retirement that they don't need to be consultants to the MIC). We also need to consider that we have two generations of GO's that went along to get along with a failing strategy in Afghanistan. Where are the GO's who offered anything but a standard "nation building" strategy? Oh... that's right the officers coming up through the ranks that would have offered disengagement strategies long ago were never promoted to the General Officer ranks because the prevailing GO's only promote those that think like them thus ensuring the overall strategy never changes. This is what we get when we don't fire Generals for their battlefield failures - more failure...