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We're fifteen years into nation building (and probably narcotics trafficking) in the "Graveyard of Empires", and Afghanistan is still f#@$ed up. Not to worry, it was f#@$ed up long before we invaded after the 9/11 attacks. We demanded that the Taliban government turn over Osama bin Laden, and they had the nerve to ask us to provide evidence of his guilt prior to extradition. Being the "Rule of Law" nation that we are, we invaded Afghanistan pursuant to the Paperwork Reduction Act.
Nevertheless the invasion worked out fine. In a mere decade we nabbed Osama! Yup, we got 'em. Well, we sort of got 'em. We didn't actually grab or nab him prior to ventilating his face, neck, chest, remaining torso, and about everything else Osama owned with bullets. Then, we nabbed his body and gave it a burial at sea because that's a Muslim tradition.
It's not really a Muslim tradition according to Muslims, but Barack Obama said it was. Who cares, really, we KIA'd that bastard! (Osama, not Obama.) At least we're kinda sure that we killed him. He (Obama, not Osama) released the photo of Osama's corpse to the world. So, what if it was a fabricated photo? Obama is bringing a manufacturing job back to the USA!
I know, it all seems kinda sketchy, but what we can be certain of is that Osama was found shacked up in a windowless three-flat which reflected that all five of his wives shared a particular disdain for housework. That we are positive about. For sure, dirtbag, for sure.
Oh, yeah, and we are also damn sure that the unkempt dark hulk of a building in which Osama was ripped to shreds by flaming (Made in the USA) lead was located in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Which you will know, assuming that you're reasonably competent in geography, is not in Afghanistan.
Oops! We invaded the wrong country. Our bad, but we got the right guy, probably maybe, for sure!
Another thing we're pretty darn sure about is damn few Al Qaeda honchos were ever killed or captured in Afghanistan. It seems most of them had a Pakistan mailing address and Pakistan is one of our partners in the War on Terror. Weird, huh?
Maybe they're partners like Saudi Arabia is in the fight against ISIS? It sure seems like all our partners in the Middle East are inclined to work against our partnership's stated goals. That's weird, too. Oh, well.
So, we are still there (Afghanistan, not Pakistan) occupying the wrong country years later. We're fighting tooth and nail against the Taliban, who are not terrorists, so I'm not sure why we're fighting them, but we are. Oh, well. It seems that along the way to invading the wrong country and maybe bagging the potential mastermind of 9/11 we will have spent somewhere between $4 to $6 trillion dollars* on this imbroglio, but who is counting? That may seem an expensive entry fee for an ass kicking contest with the varsity team of Pakistani madrassas, but we're the away team and it's always pricey when you wander down the Silk Road to the "Graveyard of Empires". That works out to be about $40,983.61 per US taxpayer, but like I said who's counting?
Here's the bad news. It looks like the match is going to end up a draw. How unAmerican is that? Anything that can end in a tie is inherently against American principles. Draws are expensive in the global cops and robbers game. Thanks for playing! So, the reasonable and mature way to respond to this expensive disappointment is to affix blame. The problem is that there is so much to go around, yet predominantly it all has a mailing address in the United States with a 20500 ZIP code. They don't care. We don't care. It's a thing of ugly.
And now for the really bad news, the only time when a vastly superior force fights for this many years and the conflict ends in a tie is when that vastly superior force is fighting against (and been killing) the indigenous people (not insurgents). Oh, well. The shit we're blowing up looks great on the T.V.!
Current Conflict Status
Courtesy of Wikipedia
Areas in red are controlled by Afghan Army (United States armed and funded)
Areas in white are controlled by the Taliban (Probably Saudi funded, another one of our Middle East partners.)
* $4 to $6 trillion dollars includes total costs such as economic impact of wounded and lost life value. Like real costs, not just the costs we want to count to justify bullshit like this war.
