Why i think hearts and mind is bullshit

America can easily win in afghanistan if you just don't care what the media and people think it's war it isn't pretty and america has the most advanced and the biggest military in the world with a budget of 600 - 700 billion

>Polish intellectual

The truth is usually simple, but hard for the liars to say: If the war in Afghanistan was really a war, we could win it. We could destroy the agricultural "infrastructure" easily and let the country starve.

Obviously, that isn't the goal. Growing poppy fields is the goal.

We were ordered not to fuck with the drug crops. When someone did they got attacked by drug runners, not Taliban.

I fought for awhile in Afghanistan under an CJTF. We slaughtered shit loads of people.

sorry. I was larping in a slide thread (while saging)

is it because thats the only thing they are allowed to grow there because of some sanction?

We don't need to win. We need to say, "look you guys fucked up and let the Taliban conduct strikes against us from here. The penalty is you give up 2 bases with a couple thousand marines at each. Anything comes within 5 miles it gets wasted. You manage your own affairs, but if you start fucking it up again the marines are going to roll out and destroy EVERYTHING in their path." Then you keep your word. Boom, peace in Afghanistan.

or you know the us can just win and civilized that fuckin backward country and install a free democratic government preferably a us puppet

Not sure if op is baiting or retarded.

NO BRO AFGHANISTAN'S GONNA BE A DEMOCRACY JUST GIVE IT ANOTHER 16 YEARS

The point of Hearts and Minds was, at the end of the war, to have an American ally installed as Afghanistan's government. You can't do that if everyone's dead, or if they're pissed you slaughtered their civilians.

"America" can't win and will do nothing to change this state of affairs. There are lots of poppy fields much wanted by big pharma and other characters. Having an ongoing military action maintains a large flow of capital into the military machine and further more justifies it. Further more having an ongoing active military operation on that side of the world excuses normally unacceptable levels of foreign and domestic surveillance. For the powers that be winning this war is counter productive to their ends, a status quo that keeps the right pockets full and the people begrudgingly tolerant off the creeping bureaucratic chains closing in around them. Sorry user, we were never there to win a war, just to fight one.

or maybe the us should just annex afghanistan i mean that country has a lot of natural resources soo thats a big bonus

Pic related is like the perfect waifu desu.

having a never ending war isn't great so what if the war stop?

Pretty hardcore country made up of tribes that all hate eachother and everyone else.

Very difficult to conquer, as there is no one people or even a real country.

fucked up solution is to "reduce" those tribes if you get what im saying

Yeah I mean obviously the easiest solution is to choose a tribe and back them, have the rest eliminated. But fuck we tried that with the Taliban. It sorta worked for a while, but they didnt finish the elimination part of their deal. Instead it all kinda fell appart.

what if we don't support any tribe and we do the eliminating ourselves? the us has huge amounts of troops weapons and bombs

Yes of course, again an easy solution. The easiest. But there are reprecusions to such actions, and the potential fallout from loss of trade and global anti americanism alone would be difficult to contend with. We would gain the resources, but using them effectively would be harder than is desired. Cooperstion is still the best for the usa long term.

Okay retard, what happens when your own soldiers no longer follow orders because your forcing them to commit crimes against humanity? What happens when the media is blasting horrific video 24/7 to show how horrible things are? What happens when people stop joining the military because its reputation is horribly tarnished? What happens when unrest foments back home and the population starts to act out against the government? What happens when people all over the world join terrorist groups to stop the Great Satan?

Optics are an important part of war.

im not saying we should commit crimes againts humanity but do just enough to win