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.
i like this lemmy trend lately of reminding everyone who the baddies are
In our defense, President Ghani abandoned his country and forces and allowed the taliban to take over. The ANA and ANP defected as well, which didn’t help matters any. He felt like he had no chance and didn’t want to add to the violence. Seeing the ana and the anp operate first hand, yes, they would have been obliterated.
When I was there, the locals appeared to want us there, but also were supplying Intel to the enemy. They knew when the taliban was going to attack, and when we patrolled. I get it, they wanted to stay alive and all.
I know people think we shouldn’t have been there but look at our exit, and how the locals clung to the planes after take off. They were afraid of retribution from the taliban but for 20 years, they had someone to watch over them.
However, the taliban takeover was inevitable. We could have won that war, but we said fuck it and left. Why? Because it wasn’t worth it anymore. And the US population thought they knew better. It lost or never had their approvaI. met a lot of cool Afghani locals. Hope they’re alright.
Just my 2 cents while I was over there for a year. And fuck the taliban. USA shouldn’t send any type of aid there. We left enough there as it is. They don’t call that area the “Graveyard of Empires” for nothing. If they want to live in the stone age, let them. They don’t need anymore outside influence.
it’s the journey that counts?
The friends we made along the way <3
You actually think they were there to stop the Taliban?
Absolutely. The plan was to do in Afghanistan what we’d done in Saudi Arabia and Egypt and Argentina and the Philippines.
We wanted a local aristocracy beholden to the US business interests with a police force willing to brutalize dissidents. Taliban wasn’t that thing, so they needed to be supplanted.
Problem was, the Afghan aristocracy that the US aligned with were more vile than the Taliban and rejected by the public at large. So the US spent 23 years killing everyone who refused to submit to them.
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/who-responsible-taliban
maybe there is more to it…
Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
I might take this with a large grain of salt. My man is a neocon’s neocon.
If you dig into Afghanistan’s history, particularly with regard to the Soviet Union, there were a lot of parallels between the quasi-socialism of the Soviet occupation and the quasi-liberalism of the American occupation.
In both cases, the occupying army tried to subvert self-determination of the Afghan people. Trying to claim The Taliban as a product of US policy against the Communists or a product of Islamist policy against the Christian Nationalists really misses this as an ongoing effort by Afghanis to secure their own brand of domestic nationalism.
Get down to “Who is responsible?” Rubin doggedly insists that (a) US support for the Taliban in the '70s was worth the price, entirely to keep Communism out of Pakistan. And (b) we are the victims of imperfect policy rather than our own hubris.
Both beliefs are ultimately misguided, even if his history is a fun read.
but can we agree OPs title is useless? the reminder does neither help nor explain anything. no one won anything. there is no likeable party.
Don’t forget the money and weapons you gave them before.
I forget, which movie was this from?
The Greatest US warrior of allThe first was for himself. The second for his country. This time it’s to save his friend. 😉
I think the text is doctored, in the OG film it’s not so explicit. Feel free to correct me though, I’m working off “I heard it somewhere”.
There is some debate about who doctored it yes.
Can’t mistake the message of the movie thoThe movie is Rambo 3 and you are correct. The real dedication is to the “Gallant people of Afghanistan”.
TBF, withdrawing was a Trump era decision that Joe Biden simply didn’t stop. Trump also released 5,000+ Taliban Fighters just before. I feel like if we didn’t elect people like Donald fucking Trump then the outcome might have been different, it really seems like he was intentionally causing these problems.
I remember Bush had withdrawal plan he started putting in action, then Obama had one, then Trump had one, then Biden had one
At every stage, the US lost more and more territory. By Biden, they’d been hedged into Kabul like the US was backed into Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War.
The idea that we could have just camped out and refused to leave was politically impractical and logistically incredibly difficult. And why would we have been there, except to periodically fling bombs into neighboring territory?
We’d lost the war a decade earlier and simply refused to admit it. By Biden, it was a farce. We didn’t control the country in any meaningful way.
They never had control, they outsourced a lot of the fighting to the warlords they paid, without them they would have been thrown out a lot earlier
Trump absolutely didn’t have a plan unless the plan was to fuck everything up.
I’m sure another 20 years would have been enough
As long as it took. They had a democracy, they had international trade, they had human rights. You can’t put a pricetag on that. The USA was protecting something worth protecting for a change.
They had a democracy, they had international trade, they had human rights. You can’t put a pricetag on that.
Around $2.3 trillion.
How hard is it for you to understand they didn’t want your racist violent military or your corrupt puppet regime ruling them?
Afghanistan has international trade now, and not only that but they also manufacture solar panels and other stuff for local consumption or export.
Your comment is a combination of racism, chauvinism and white saviour complex. Worse, you think you are doing good. Even worse, you are eager to do it all over again in another country against its people’s will.
I’m sorry that you’re on the faction opposing women in education, driving, or any form of authority. I’m sorry that you prefer an actual theocratic dictatorship. I’m at a loss that you didn’t notice the immediate tariffs, sanctions, and funds being frozen when they took over.
I’m on the faction of “it’s none of your business how Afghans govern themselves and you have no right to enforce your norms on them”. If the puppet regime had any real support it wouldn’t have collapsed in weeks.
I’m at a loss that you didn’t notice the immediate tariffs, sanctions, and funds being frozen when they took over.
Who placed the tariffs, sanctions and froze the funds? The US government and its allies being sore losers. You may want to take another look at this:
Previously, Afghanistan’s trade volume did not exceed $850 million annually, but after the return of the Islamic Emirate, exports surged to $2 billion. In 2024, Afghanistan’s total trade reached $12.42 billion, with exports at $1.803 billion and imports at $10.619 billion. In comparison, in 2023, Afghanistan’s exports were $1.884 billion and imports were $7.71 billion. This shows a 4% decrease in exports and a 38% increase in imports in 2024 compared to the previous year.
https://www.bakhtarnews.af/en/afghanistans-total-trade-achieves-12-42-billion-milestone-in-2024/
It became their business many times over the decades starting when it became a strategic territory in the proxy wars between the west and the east. Surrendering to authoritarianism might seem like a cool idea until you’ve given up everything and allowed everyone to suffer. Some fights are unavoidable.
How other people govern themselves is everyone’s business. This isnt a difference of opinion it is brutal totalitarianism. People are killed and you hide behind it being a difference of culture. It isnt acceptable. That said the US are shitbags.
I disagree with you on the former and it reeks of white-saviour-complex, but I agree with you on the latter. One out of two, isn’t bad.
Try to meddle in other countries’ business, try to force your norms on them, and you will be met with resistance. If your values are so much better and universal you wouldn’t need to force them on other nations through military and economic coercion.
Edit: I guess you are from the UK. You claim to care about people getting needlessly killed, but if UK troops do it it is okay?: Afghanistan: UK special forces ‘killed 9 people in their beds’
LOL this guy again, Eglin Airforce Base?
“Being frozen” The US vulgar thieves stole it.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/16/afghanistan-money-biden-white-hosue-usLmao, that money never belonged to the theocracy.
sure thief
LOL
When the first installed puppet got a bit of remorse when he saw the butchery of the US they replaced him with a literal American, Ghani.
They pulled a reverse Jolani, they made him grow a beard and wear traditional clothes since the locals knew what he was and disliked him.
https://thegrayzone.com/2021/09/02/afghanistan-ashraf-ghani-corrupt/And same as the US he stole all the money and gold he could get his paws on.
This from a country left in ruins and misery after what the US did.
Democracy my ass.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/16/afghanistan-money-biden-white-hosue-us
LOL cope
Trump is deporting afghan collaborators who came here after that war.
doubt
Good, they are traitors to their country
L take. please look up how the taliban treats their own people. they are a regressive ruling class and are extremely cruel to their own people. especially women and children.
they didnt betray their country, they didnt want to live under an archaic group of power grabbing religious fanatics. there is a difference.
please look up how the taliban treats their own people
Okay, but then look at how the Heroin smugglers and child sex traffickers that ran Afghanistan under the US treated their own people.
I don’t need to do shit.
Looks like you don’t know anything about it except what your propaganda fed you.
They VOTED overwhelmingly for the Taliban in the first elections held under US invader occupation regime.
OC that wasn’t to their liking so they annuled it and redid them without the Taliban.
The american way of democracy.
Are people who leave the US now in the wake of the Trump Administration also traitors to their country?
Absolutely not.
Ridiculous comparison.
Did a foreign army invade the US and those US citizens collaborated with them, helped them interrogate and torture Americans and plenty more?As of 2022, there were about 195k Afghan immigrants in the US. The vast majority of them coming in after 2010. Did they all help torture people?
Can you count? You invaders and looters were there until 2021.
Plenty of collaborators until the last minute.
Did you forget when your regime goons shot dozens of them in a panic when the last planes left Kabul and a crowd of traitors wanted to join?Are you saying all those refugees showed up in 2022?
I’m saying I have enough of you propaganda trolls.
Your ‘are you saying’ and other transparent fallacy tactics are boring and lame.
You’ve been dealth with and you’re doinf a lousy job. Eglin should fire you.
Better luck somewhere else.
We learned that the Taliban can be right here in your own backyard, and the most important thing is the oil deals you make along the way.
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.
LOL
Is this text AI generated? The civilian death toll in the “submission statement” is about 6x higher than accepted numbers and about 100K higher than all total deaths in the entire conflict.
IMO (AI or not) slop like this just “floods the zone with shit” while doing noting to help the progressive cause.
This is in the first paragraph of what you linked:
The Cost of War project estimated in 2015 that the number who have died through indirect causes related to the war may be as high as 360,000 additional people based on a ratio of indirect to direct deaths in contemporary conflicts.
I shouldn’t need to tell you that that is a completely different statistic. You don’t need to muddy the waters of truth to make the point.
and the USA claims healcare for its citizens is unaffordable
We’re also cutting Veteran benefits, which has been a recurring thing.
Never get involved in someone else’s civil war.
-the world seeing the Spanish Republic bombed to dust by Nazis and Italian Fascists in 1936-1939
Please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you’re used to.
What about starting them? Is that allowed?
No, only coups and revolutions
Booooo
and how long did it take the USA to have a actual Dicktator
You show me a boat filled with dildos made from potatoes, and I’ll show you a dictatorship.
go fly your kite in Non USA countries, good luck with that
Uh, sir? This is a Wendy’s.
0 days
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.
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.
