Sunday, April 30, 2023

The collapse of Credit Suisse

 

1. How an international institute that once was brand of Switzerland, the reliable trustworthy Banking industry of the world, collapse?

a) How the Union Bank of Switzerland along with other controlling Authority FINMA ( Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority)  failed to evaluate such tremendous collapse? 

b) Just a month before the collapse, UBS. issued the stress test report that indicates the good financial health of the Bank with $50 Billion equity, how is it that just a month later, CS bid amount was just $3 Billion? 

2. Switzerland has loose control, or advocate of deregulation or privacy of accounts holders, is it good strategy to grant such freedom to such big Managers especially in perspective of 2008 global financial crisis? 

Wednesday, October 24, 2018

Banking Needs a Customer Experience Wake up Call

"The "Improving Customer Experience in Banking" report shares the results of a global survey done to determine the CX maturity of banks and credit unions. The findings show that most organizations are not prepared for the future of increased consumer expectations.

The financial services industry has been impacted by the increasing use of technology from smartphones to wearables. This transformation in methods of transacting has enabled more personalized engagement, allowing customers to engage  engage in seamless banking across channels. This has also increased both the potential and complexity of creating a positive customer experience.
Unfortunately, according to the 85-page report, Improving the Customer Experience in Banking, the objective of delivering a positive customer experience has become secondary to other bank priorities, resulting in a transactional banking relationship for the customer. For financial organizations to change this dynamic, and meet the evolving needs of today’s customers, there are five areas that have emerged as crucial priorities:
  1. Move focus of digital engagement from cost reduction to experience enhancement.
  2. Leverage advanced analytics, machine learning and contextual engagement to provide a highly personalized experience.
  3. Allow the consumer to engage with their bank on the channels they prefer at the times they want to engage.
  4. Transition advisory and sales activities from being reactive to being proactive.
  5. Engage end-to-end throughout the customer journey, from shopping to account opening, to onboarding and through relationship expansion.
Our global research of banks and credit unions for this report was intended to better understand the ‘CX maturity’ of financial institutions and to provide a benchmark for future strategies. We would like to thank Deluxe Corp., who sponsored this year’s report development and distribution. Their partnership and commitment to improving customer experiences for financial institutions enabled us to collect insights never provided in the past.
Improving the customer journey and providing a positive customer experience (CX) was ranked as the number one trend, as well as top strategic priority, in the survey of global banking leaders for the 2017 Retail Banking Trends and Predictions report. Unfortunately, the research into CX maturity in banking found that many of the industry’s initiatives are unsupported, misdirected, underfunded and poorly measured.
Here are the key takeaways from the report, Improving the Customer Experience in Banking:
  • While all FIs believe that improving CX is a significant priority, the importance is significantly less at smaller organizations.
  • Only 37% of organizations have a formal CX plan.
  • The customer experience objectives at most organizations focus on internal benefits (selling and cost cutting) and not customer benefits (simplicity, ease, responsiveness).
  • Despite research that shows digital experiences drive satisfaction, FIs focus too much on products and branch engagements.
  • Investment in CX is increasing at most organizations, with more investment committed over the next 3 years.
  • Most firms have seen only a modest impact of their CX initiatives.
  • The biggest challenges in CX efforts are with data analytics, technology and getting a complete customer view.
  • Measurement of CX efforts varies widely, with revenue measures mostly missing from the mix.

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

The comments section is closed.
AngieAlexandria, VA
One day in Iraq I overhead an American civilian contractor state that he hopes the war will never end. He was making a significant amount of money that I could barely comprehend as a Marine. In Afghanistan, I heard other American civilians boast of how they were paying off their houses and kids' college tuition in two years. As I looked around, I came to the conclusion that many Americans were making so much money (and for the most part, on relatively safe bases) they did not want the war to end. These were "average joes." I can only imagine the amount of money the politicians and owners of the companies with the contracts were making. It surely made me sad that these folks did not care about the young men and women being blown to pieces just to pay off their mortgages. Screw the budget and lives lost; it is all about their big suburban homes. A new middle class born. The real reason the war continues. Don't get me started on the Colonels and Generals only focused on the next promotion.
Ted RallNew York
As I wrote after coming back from Afghanistan in December 2001, the US adventure in Afghanistan was doomed from the start. We were never going to win. We will never win. And this isn't just because of the country's reputation as the graveyard of empires.

Hand it to the British: they tried three times and failed to subjugate Afghanistan. But they gave it everything they had. Whatever their numerous faults, these colonizers did colonialism right. They came, they stayed, they settled in.

From the start, our strategy has been to set up an unpopular puppet regime, underfund it so it can't even pay its personnel, much less bribe people into supporting them, set up bases near the major cities, and hope that the rest of the country sorts itself out. Even with the surge, that basic strategy has never changed.

It's an idiotic war fought with an idiotic strategy based on an idiotic assumption (that Afghanistan had something to do with 9/11; that was Pakistan).

No Americans should have fought there. No Americans should have died there. No Americans should have killed any Afghans there.

What a total waste.
Mark ThomasonClawson, Mich 
Wars are to be won.

That requires a clear objective, and we don't have one.

It requires a plan to get to that objective, and of course we don't have that either.

What do you do with a war that has no objective, no plan, and so can't possibly be won? Get out.

Obama tried to fix that, to get an objective and a plan for it. He made that a major point of the first six months or so of his Presidency, and he returned to it from time to time. He failed. It defied his best efforts.

That is enough. If it could not be done then by him, it can't be done now by Trump and his team. So, just get out.

Anything else is just a waste of lives and money. In fact, it is murder. Killing just to kill is murder, even if we call it war. Verdun was murder. Afghanistan is murder.
Anne-Marie HislopChicago 
Another factor is a lack of a national draft. Without the requirement that young people from all walks of life and all levels of the economic ladder participate, much of the American public easily becomes blasé about war. Oh, sure we flag wave. When a soldier from our home town or high school is killed, we feel terrible, offer support, pull out those flags. Inertia quickly sets in again; we get busy with 'life.' After all, it's not our son or daughter or spouse or sib who died; it's not our loved one who still might die "over there" or come back forever changed.

Things will not change until a significant part of the American voting public has a stake in war. We should have a draft covering males and females - no college deferment (call it a "gap years" program on the government) and no out for heal spurs (remove the spur at gov't expense, then swear them in. Unless we change how many have skin in the game, we will not move from having endless wars which are on almost no one's radar.
Michael ByrnePhnom Penh
I spent a year in Helmand Province, 2010-11. There were 30,000 Marines in Helmand at that time, along with several thousand British troops and a Dutch battalion. The "burn rate" was one billion dollars a year. During my time there were about 230 British and American combat deaths, mostly from IEDs.

Afghanistan has ranked at the bottom of Transparency International's corruption index for as long as they've kept score. The simple truth is you are wasting your time trying to do business with a corrupt government. All the improvements to roads, schools, and irrigation systems changes nothing.

Much of Afghanistan is dominated by tribal culture. The tribes battle for control of land, water, and poppy. Not much else matters to them.

The enemy to improving conditions in Afghanistan is not ISIS or the Taliban, but corruption combined with the deeply rooted tribal culture. We've been fools to think our counter insurgency efforts would succeed.
Johnathan SwenekafOroville, CA
Because there was no clear goal or plan of action past day one in Afghanistan, we are stuck there. Everyone seemed to think there were myriad reasons for going and fighting, from elimination of the Taliban to the capture of bin Laden. The opening up of markets for the natural resources and even freedom for women and education for children were bandied about by famous intellectuals as good reasons for going. Now, none of then are even mentioned anymore, because none of them have been successful. War unplanned and overvalued as a solution to these issues gets us 15 years older and 750 billion dollars poorer.
ScottWChapel Hill, NC 
"As with budget deficits or cost overruns on weapons purchases, members of the national security apparatus — elected and appointed officials, senior military officers and other policy insiders — accept war as a normal condition."

Brilliantly stated. Sadly, few Americans will pay much attention to this column, much less the legislators who fund these immoral enterprises. Most have become numb to never ending war.

Immoral & disgusting.
Trevor DowningStaffordshire UK
No one can ever win in Afghanistan, it is a tribal country and always has been. We the British tried in the 19th century and failed, the Russians couldn't win in the 20th.
Kevin RothsteinSomewhere East of the GWB 
The "Stone Age" was not the Afghans' "normal state".

Our foreign policy misadventures in Afghanistan, begun under Carter and continued under Reagan, are to blame for Osama and the Taliban.

Forgetting something existed does not work. Eventually, the pernicious affects of amnesia come back to bite a person in the derriere.
ScottWChapel Hill, NC 
I used to believe what you say about the draft, but upon further reflection, I don't think a draft would temper our lust for never ending war. Remember Vietnam? We have a wall listing over 57,000 names of people this Country sent to their premature death during days of the draft. As with everything American, the rich and privileged found ways to dodge service--think "W" who got lost in the National Guard and Cheney who had "better things to do" with his 5 deferments, and Trump had 5.

My 60 years has taught me Americans are stupid and naive when it comes to war. A vast majority supported the Iraq war, based upon lies about WMD. Even if there were a draft back then, my guess is a majority would still have supported attacking the country that had nothing to do with 9/11.

Just go to a sporting event and view first hand the unhinged nationalism stoked in our country by the military as jets fly over. Sure there are a few who think about the victims on the other side of those fast flying bombers, but most cheer wildly.

Sadly, there will always be parents willing to encourage their sons (and daughters) to make the ultimate sacrifice no matter what the supposed cause. We don't have to directly face the consequences of our never ending wars, much less ever see the results on the nightly news. It is sanitized and propagandized.

The only way to end war is to elect legislators who oppose it. Sadly, there are few brave enough to take on the Pentagon.
Occam's RazorbackNextico
Defense contractors are making tons of boodle here. War is profitable. Why stop the goose that lays the golden eggs? The grunts on the ground? Cannon fodder is always and ever, cannon fodder. Oh well...
MarkColumbia, Maryland
Wars cannot be won unless one side is willing to sign a surrender document. This is rarely the case. If the losers to do not surrender, the winners have to occupy the country forever with hundreds of thousands of troops, or install a strong puppet government favorable to the winning side. Even if a surrender is signed, as it was in our Civil War, the losers can resist the outcome through various means. Formal slavery ended in the South, to be replaced by virtual slavery. The Cold War was a stalemate, ended only because the Soviet empire crumbled from within. The Koreas are still technically at war. The list goes on. We point to WWII as an example of how to conduct a war, but we had to occupy Germany and Japan for about 7 years afterwards.
DrDonutdr-donut
There is no reason to expect that any third party can deliver stability to Afghanistan. As an historian one searches in vain for successful interventions in Afghanistan. The Soviet Union was brought down in part as result of its failure there. Two of my students died there since 2011. How is Afghanistan an existential threat to the United States?

G. E. Patrick Murray, Ph. D.
Emeritus Professor of History
Valley Forge Military College
S.D.KeithBirmigham, AL
"Once, the avoidance of war figured as a national priority. On those occasions when war proved unavoidable, the idea was to end the conflict as expeditiously as possible on favorable terms."

Considering our history since the fin de siecle, I wonder, when, exactly, the avoidance of war figure as a national priority?

Maybe we don't feel existentially fulfilled without which we are killing people and destroying things and pinning medals on chests. With a short interregnum after the unmitigated disaster of Vietnam (about twenty years), that's pretty much been our history since about 1898.

The overwhelming evidence of what we've done, not what we've said, is that we don't avoid war as much as seek it. It seems war is hard-wired into the American DNA. Or, at least, war is hardwired into the DNA of a certain subset of the American culture--mostly the portion that benefits thereby, i.e., the Military-Industrial Complex--and the rest just go along, happy to have heroes and sacrifices to cheer, as it makes them feel ennobled of spirit to be supporting such an important endeavor as killing people and destroying things.

In that regard, maybe Afghanistan is not so bad a thing. At least it placates the MIC, giving it an excuse to seek ever-greater portions of the treasury, and it placates the noncombatants, providing heroes and touching moments of reunion for their television viewing pleasure. What it doesn't do is accomplish much else.
Teg LaerUSA
We should accept that outsiders have no business *trying* to manage the region. Our business began and ended with bringing bin Laden to justice. Trying to remake the region into our own image is, was, and always will be a fool's game and a weapons dealer's windfall.
William Alan ShirleyRichmond, California
Stuffing the gluttonous coffers of The Lords of War and the insatiable .1%, with our 11 nuclear aircraft carriers, 900 military bases in 130 countries of the American Empire, we can kiss off the sales job of "winning the hearts and minds" of people who still stone or burn to death young lovers for eloping, in what Pentagon planners now refer to as the ‘Long War’, up to the year 2080, projecting waging perpetual war against an ‘arc of instability’ from Europe to Africa to the Middle East to India through Afghanistan and on down to South East Asia and terror cells around the world.

The Military Industrial Complex has no expectation of winning nor intention of getting out. Afghanistan is a cash cow and they are going to milk it dry.
RitaMondovi, WI
Let's be honest. The never-ending war by the U.S is, to greater and lessor degree, present throughout the Middle East and for far longer than the aftermath of 9/11. Continued warring for access to resources - mostly fossil fuel in the face of climate change puts us all at the mercy of those relatively few who wish to increase this insane activity, rather than halt it. One way or another, sooner or later, we will be forced to live within our means. The Soviet Union learned that lesson the hard way.
Don Shipp,Homestead Florida
History can be a great teacher. Alexander, Cyrus, Ghengis Khan, and Tamerlane failed to subdue Afghanistan. England's "Great Game" struggle with Russia over Afghanistan in the 19th century culminated with the near annihilation of an British army of 16,000. Afghans don't identify with a country, they identify with a tribe, ethnicity, or a warlord. A quote from Edward Girardet's classic book on Afghanistan "Killing the Cranes" that captures the reality of that insurmountable obstacle for the United States. "In Afghanistan there is not one Afghanistan, there are a thousand Afghanistan's". Another insoluble problem for the U.S. is the rampant governmental corruption which has destroyed any trust the Afghan's had in their government. Girardet again, "You can rent an Afghan, but never buy him"..."You may think you have them in your pocket, but they have taken your jacket." The historical and cultural reality of Afghanistan makes it a "forever war" with any prospect of American "victory"impossible,
JackMichigan
In my exuberant youth, after being heavily recruited by the US Marines, I announced to my father that I was going to join. A WWII vet, he had only one thing to say to me: "Remember, they sacrifice Marines". Well, it seems nowadays they sacrifice everybody. And for what?
Pierre GuerlainFrance
I have great respect for Andrew Bacevich, a very articulate historian. The idea of a permanent war is not new (C. Wright Mills used it in the 50s) and also the fact that the military-industrial complex benefits from war (permanent or not).
Yet in the case of Afghanistan it is now clear that the consensus in 2001 was misguided: fighting the terrorists and tracking down the killers should not have involved attacking the country known as "the graveyard of empires".
American tax payers are being fleeced and all the funds needed for infrastructures and environmental protected are diverted by useless military spending (made worse, of course, by the recent Trump administration décisions).
The rest of the world would also benefit from a more peace-oriented US spending more to stop global warming and protecting its forests and waterways.
Not likely with the warmongers around Trump but maybe after disaster strikes reason will reappear. What is good for the US (a greener more equal society) is also good for the world.
janyeMetairie LA
What would happen if the US just left Afghanistan? How would this affect the world, the US in particular?
Edward SmithConcord,H
People wonder why as a Libertarian, I view Democrats and Republicans as two sides of the same coin, and this ongoing war shows what I am talking about.
StoneNY
ScottW...I'm also 60, and I remember the trepidation felt when walking to my local Post Office to sign up for the draft on my 17th birthday, only months after the Vietnam war had officially concluded. I had skin the the military game that was being played, dying in Southeast Asia seemed plausible...today my nephews probably couldn't find Yemen, Afghanistan, Somalia, Syria or Iraq on a world map without the help of Google.

If involuntary soldiers filled the ranks of today's U.S. military, there's no way that we'd be financing and pursuing endless war.
Richard LuettgenNew Jersey 
If Afghanistan becomes “perpetual”, it will be a far more profound mistake than Vietnam for sheer destructive mulishness.

But, most of us didn’t need the caption below the picture to know which was the Afghan solider and which the American.

The author gives many good reasons why Afghanistan remains such a mistake, and I’ve used them all myself, here and elsewhere. But it all comes down to this: when considering other societies as abysmally failed as Afghanistan, the only ones that come readily to mind are Haiti and North Korea. Cuba is a shining example of success by comparison. WHATEVER are we still doing there, and WHY?

The only real justification we ever had was punishment of the Taliban for their support of Qaeda for 9/11. After bombing them into an earlier version of the Stone Age that always was their normal state, we should have called it “mission accomplished” and simply done what Biden eventually proposed we do: put a cordon sanitaire around the whole mess and bomb the bejeezus out of anything within it that moved threateningly. Why Obama failed to take that very good advice is anyone’s guess. The Taliban never will be uprooted or permanently defeated, their regrouping and renewed pressure after every “surge” will be perpetual; and, in the end, they’ll win.

Trump is my president: I supported him here (and still do) and I voted for him. My own advice to him: bring our guys home for good and begin, finally, the process of forgetting that Afghanistan ever existed.
jrhampOverseas
Early in the deployment in 2003 to implement the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) initiative in Gardez, Paktia Province SE Afghanistan. After meeting many of the local tribal leaders in and around Gardez, Khost and other smaller villages...all of us who had experiences around the world concluded that no initiative and regardless of the money spent would make changes to the tradition Afghan way of life.

It was disconcerting to make arrangement to meet..then on the way back to our compound..the locals would shoot at us or lay IED's along the way. In short, the locals wanted to take, but give nothing back in terms of sustained peace with emphasis on some facets of reconstruction and development post war.

None of this has transpired since 2003..some 14 years ago...or almost 3 times the time we fought during World War II.

The bottom line is Afghanistan as a country...Afghanistan as a mission to bring peace is and will be a total failure..under any metric of measurement.

In my modest opinion and in hindsight...the best option would of been to allow the Northern Alliance to have lead in controlling the north..and telling the Pastuns..they should terrorist training camps return..then US air power would once again lay waste to those targets.

We would be trillions ahead, saved nearly 2400 Soldiers and avoided nearly 20-22,000 WIA who required evac.

I like many others went onto Iraq..another failure..then onto what is now South Sudan..same! So it goes!
CathyHopewell Junction NY
If you send troops to war without a specific goal, a specific definition of what is a win, without a government to hand the country to, you don't have a war, you have a quagmire.

We have fought quagmires in the lat half century. We go in, fight, destroy the government, but are stuck in permanent occupation or have to cede the "win" to a government as bad as the one we defeated. Quagmire.

Afghanistan is a quagmire. They do not have a stable government to take over. They have had lawless territories for most of their history, protected by impassible terrain. They are ripe for strongmen - warlords or Taliban.

When you can't win, you shouldn't try to occupy. The British failed. The Russians Failed. But we somehow think we will prevail. Right.
jdVirginia
I can think of two reasons we're still in Afghanistan. First, somebody's profiting from it, be it companies providing supplies or contractors in combat-support roles. Second, no political leaders or top brass military have the guts to say we have been defeated and it's time to admit it and cut our losses. Americans are so enthralled by our vaunted military that we cannot face the truth in Afghanistan, echoing our experience in Viet Nam.
DominicAstoria, NY
$750 Billion spent or wasted on Afghanistan since 2001, and we are currently having a ferocious domestic debate as to how best kick 10 million - possibly more- Americans off of their health insurance.

What point is it to speak of dollar values when a nation is already morally and compassionately bankrupt?
FredBaltimore
And so we, as a nation, have arrived at some bizarre combination of 1984 and Brave New World. We are at war with (insert enemy here). We have always been at war with (insert enemy here). Now take some more drugs and go shopping. As is also typical of coverage of America's wars, there is no mention of the death and destruction the people of Afghanistan suffer.
PadmanBoston 
Over the past 15 years, nearly 2,400 American soldiers have died, and 20,000 more have been wounded, three-quarters of a trillion dollars have been spent in Afghanistan since 2001. Still things are getting worse. It looks like America has run out of all options other than sending more troops to fight the war and more American soldiers getting killed. This is the only option keeps coming back and forth. Unless the root cause for this prblem, namely Pakistan is handled this war will go for ever. Pakistan has been playing a double game effectively with US and the Talibans for years now. US has not challenged Pakistan's behavior in any serious and consistent manner. Pakistan has skillfully presented itself as the key to peace in Afghanistan and in the war against international terrorism, while threatening the Americans that turning away from Pakistan would result in "nuclear terrorism" and American aid money is pouring into Pakistan. Opium business is thriving under Taliban in spite of America spending 8.5 billion dollar. It is good that Americans have forgotten about this war and President Trump wisely did not remind Americans during his inaugural address.
BrockDallas
We should have declared victory and got out in 2006. Here we are more than 10 years later with no clear strategy.
Jean BolingIdaho
No foreign nation has ever won a war in Afghanistan. Ever. The real problem is that everyone, including the Afghani, will be left with ashes.
Doug DoldeCalifornia
Just get the hell out NOW. This war benefits no one other than military contractors
Vernon RailMaine
I greatly appreciate Mr. Bacevich's thoughts on this very serious national issue. Every few years there is one well-informed and lone voice amongst us that courageously, but vainly, attempts to warn us to restrain our misplaced belief in military solutions. Whether it's Mr. Bacevich, or Joseph Stieglitz ( Trillion Dollar War) or Dexter Filkins (The Forever War, 2008), Americans allow themselves to be churned into a non-critical body that is either incapable or unwilling to effectively control our jingoistic impulses, which are masterfully manipulated by political/ military/ industrial interests.

The history of nations that have allowed themselves to be dominated by a professional military class should serve as a sobering reminder of this dangerous arrangement.
RogerBrisbane Australia
The writer suggests the main reason US forces remain is that "...members of the national security apparatus...accept war as a normal condition." Partially true: the Pentagon is often quoted as ready for "The Long War" which guarantees sufficient funding for the foreseeable future. But that is only part of the reason, in my opinion.

Consider the geopolitics of the whole region around Afghanistan and its strategic position between Iran and Pakistan. US forces, with a permanent foothold in Afghanistan, are performing a similar function, and more, to those forces in South Korea and to those in Okinawa. Not to to mention other US forces dotted across Africa and Europe, about which we rarely hear about.

Afghanistan, however, is categorically crucial for the USA. First, to act as implicit brake on Iran's ambitions in the Middle East; second, as a safe base from which to launch Special Forces into various adjoining countries, as and when required. From the time pf Alexander the Great to the British Raj, Afghanistan has been a perpetual killing ground and the indispensable key to maintaining control of the entire region, right up to the Chinese border.

There is, I suggest, little probability that the USA will ever leave Afghanistan IF it wants to maintain military supremacy and dominance, not only there, but throughout the rest of the so-called free world. The British recognized the strategic value of Afghanistan in the 18th and 19th centuries. So also USA now.
jgbrownhornetCleveland, OH
I don't completely agree that Afganistan was a total waste. We should have left after we destroyed the Taliban the first time, shortly after 9/11, knowing full well the Taliban would just go back and take over Afganistan again in a few years. Our strategy should have then been one of containment, like we do (sort of) in North Korea.

We have to stop trying to remodel South East Asia on our own image and seek out a George Washington of the East to take over the land. Just stop.
J. T. StasiakHanford, CA
To quote Henry Kissinger on irregular warfare: "The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if he does not lose." The veracity of this principle was demonstrated by the Chinese Communists in their war against the Nationalists and colonialists; by the French in Vietnam and Algeria; by the Soviets in Afghanistan; and by the Americans in Vietnam, Lebanon, Somalia, and now Afghanistan and Iraq.

Our enemies have noted and understood all these historical examples and have applied them effectively and successfully to their war strategy. Some American Generals seemed to understand and apply them, (Petraeus, Mc Chrystal), but for some reason they seem to keep getting prematurely purged. Our Presidents (Johnson, Clinton, Bush 43, Obama and Trump), Congress and most senior military leaders seem to have difficulty grasping this concept.
Phillip UsherOakland, CA
One thing the Russians definitely have over the US. They had the good sense to get out of Afghanistan.
Richard A. PetroConnecticut
The "graveyard" of empires, as Afghanistan has been called, will never be "peaceful". Alexander couldn't do it, the British Empire couldn't do it, Russia couldn't do it and now it's our turn to fight a "war" that is unwinnable.
Much like the "War on Crime", the war in Afghanistan is merely a catch phrase for, as in both of these "wars", there are no clearly stated "goals" defining their "ends" but there are certainly many agencies and arms manufacturers who benefit from money dispensed to fight these "wars".
The tribal nature of most of the country and the complete compliance of one of our "allies" in allowing enemy combatants to flow freely from one country to the other compounds the difficulties. I refer to Pakistan home to both Al Qeada and the Taliban when it's convenient for the two groups.
I don't understand why admitting "defeat" is so difficult especially when we can't define when we've "won" this thing. Meanwhile, young Americans come home in body bags with no end in sight.
A sad way to spend the precious capital of volunteer soldiers and Marines.
Get out of there and do it soon.
AaronOrange County, CA
As long as there are troops either at home or deployed.. 77% of our federal tax dollars will continue to fund the US Military and all of their DOD contractors. Our tax dollars support and subsidize all of their food, housing, healthcare, and pension. It's the greatest living entitlement program we have and it is also a brilliant example of how Socialism works! Because that is what our military is- One Big Socialist Community. If it works for them- why not work for us?.. at least the healthcare part.
FunkyIrishmanThis is what you voted for people (at least a minority of you)
Too many people\corporations\political entities are making money or gains.
It's that simple.

Imagine If the press did their jobs and put the bloodshed on TV. every night, including the grim reality to servicemen and women ( along with their families ). The hardships and sacrifices they are making ,and for what ?

If it was in front of us 24\7 and not out of sight and out of mind ( just the way certain people want it to stay ), I am still not sure it would make even a tiny dent in our psyche...

*shrugs shoulders
Doug BroomeVancouver
After several futile campaigns the British Empire ended all attempts to conquer the Pashtun hill tribes, withdrawing to a purely defensive posture on the Northwest Frontier of the Raj.
The Soviet Empire likewise acknowledged defeat by the Pashtuns.
The Afghans are playing the U.S. for fools, and have not yet started on the Greatest Fool in U.S. politics.
The American Afghan war will last for eternity if you let it. Just get out, get out entirely, and get out forever. The Brits and Soviets can tell you that's the only "solution."
ClydePittsburgh 
Until we reintroduce the draft or create a system in which there is mandatory military service for all young men and women, this will likely not change.

If we did demand that, GOP lawmakers, who are so happy to send other people's sons and daughters off to die in a distant desert, would change their tunes immediately.
Pottree Los Angeles
the never ending conflict in Afghanistan is many things, but it is not a war, with nation fighting nation. more than anything, it is an ongoing business of the most disgusting sort. there is no possibility of "winning" because there is no actual opponent, unless you consider corrution and greed the opponent - one that fights on both sides.

We Americans are willing to be taken as the worst kind of marks by the Afghans because we have equally vile forces here at home happy to use the conflict for their own selfish purposes.

In the process, real people get hurt and killed, but there's a lot of money sloshing around, so who cares about the victims?

woukd be have had to endure draconian budget cutsat home if we weren't committed to such titanic waste abroad, fighting an impossible battle?

I feel rooked and at the very least, I want my money back isn't going to cut it. too much damage has been done. doing even more, forever, is no solution.
EdAustin
Politicians are happier with the status quo (war, Americans occasionally dying there) than they'd be getting out. They should be honest. Massive waste of money and blood, American and Afghani. Yes, punish the Taliban. The rest? Misguided. We are not the first -- Britain and Russia weren't the only ones before us either.

Get out.

Take responsibility!
vehmetro detroit
But did we actually stop attacks? And for each dead AQ leader, we see more springing up as replacements.

Had we actually stayed out of Iraq and focused completely on Afghanistan, maybe we could have fostered permanent change. But a halfhearted effort is worse than none.
AKSIllinois
Thank you, Andrew Bacevich, for this and for all your writing on how for our security establishment and government war has become "a normal condition" and not the last resort of diplomacy.
When my nephew was killed in Afghanistan in 2012 on his fourth combat tour, I found it mind-boggling that we were still at war there, eleven years after 9/11. That we are still at war there five years later, sixteen years after 9/11, with more deaths, and no real improvements or end in sight, is obscene.
Yu-Tai ChiaHsinchu, Taiwan
George W. Bush went into Afghanistan without studying what had happened to the Soviet Union, which spent ten years there and could not win the war. It was only exemplified by Svetlana Alexievich's Zinky Boys.

After fifteen years we are still struggling with the war without a solution.

Yes, apparently there is no one can pull the troops out immediately. It is not a task which can be accomplished by the Defence Department alone.

It has to solve the social problems in Afghanistan, before solving the military problems. It has to be started from education.

Nevertheless, we must have a plan to get out Afghanistan without leaving problems as we did in Iraq. We certainly do NOT want to face another ISIS.

It takes a team including military, socialist, education experts and may be others to accomplish it.

The worst is to sit on our hands, doing nothing, but spending billions of tax dollars there with no results.
Mary Ann HerzogMilwaukee
I wrote about this on FB suggesting that the reason we went to war was to kill Bin Laden. That has been accomplished. We cannot prop up this's government. We cannot be there indefinitely. We need the treasure and our men home. The fact that it has lasted as long as it. Has indicated we have lost.Please get everyone out. Russia has come in. If they want to take care of the Middle East as they have shown let them. It is a cesspool of human suffering that just cannot be fixed. Get rid of ISIS. Continue with our interests in Arabia and quit wasting money.
Harding DawsonLos Angeles
We have fallen so far into the abyss of what we used to be, that we barely notice how vacated of principle the United States is.
ZekesuhlHigh Falls, NY
As an avid successful Draft CONFRONTATIONALIST and Draft counselor and part of the team that first picketed and leafletted the notorious WhiteHall Street induction center from which I was thrown out by a screaming ninny and as a result of which ejection NYCLU forced the Commander to write me an apology and as someone who once having publicly burned ALL my draft cards tried to lead a demonstration to BURN MY DRAFT BOARD I now find myself in 100% agreement with a NO EXCEPTION Draft where one is drafted into that remaining 'fighting force' component that has not been outsourced. Furthermore those who are drafted must be drafted for a specific conflict and must serve in harm's way and only after a one or two year stint, if they wish to remain 'IN' , be allowed to drift back to garrison or other non-front line positions. p.s. I have read EVERY one of Col. Bacevich's books !
drspockNew York
The oft quoted phrase from General Butler, "war is a racket" certainly applies to Afghanistan. With an all volunteer army and a dramatic increase in "civilian" support systems to troops in the field this war has become a money machine for big defense contractors.

And those same big defense contractors hire those same generals who who earn ribbons in Afghanistan and lucrative consultant contracts when they retire.

Just prior to the invasion an American oil company was negotiating with the Taliban over a huge potential pipeline deal. While the project has since been shelved, you can bet that it hasn't been forgotten.

These American wars, Iraq, Afghanistan and now Syria each have at their core economic ambitions that have nothing to do with our security and everything to do with potentially enormous profits in oil and gas. We are like the European powers of the 17th century battling over trade routes, plantations and empire.

The war will only end when the American people wake up and demand it. Or when it's clear that the the defense contractors and the fossil fuel giants have squeezed every drop of blood and oil they can get out of that ground and decide to move on to the next war.
Note that the president did mention Iran in his speech and the oil giants have already cozied up to central Asia.
Maturin25South Carolina
We're still there for Bagram AFB, close to Iran and Pakistan.
KaariMadison WI
Due to vast mineral riches in Afghanistan ( google this) the US won't be leaving that country any time soon.
DavidLos Angeles
The Afghan perpetual war works very well. A gift that keeps on giving for the military industrial corporations, private security firms and all government agencies involved. Like Israel's Gaza policy .....correctly called just - "mowing the lawn".

The US military has not won a war since 1945 ( Kuwait here defined as a "war exercise") Any college would have fired the football coach with a losing record like that. But let's pour in another 50 billion or so on top of the 700 billion we spend a year. Perpetual war is our new normal .....what could go wrong with that?

Great article.
LynnNew York 
We trained and armed and turned people like Bin Laden into local heros to kick out the Soviets.

When the Soviets withdrew, we could have invested in resettlement, education and development, returning Afghanistan to the trajectory of education and development that it was on a half century ago. But that would have been "foreign aid" -- Reagan withdrew, leaving people in refugee camps with devastated infrastructure and the armed extremists his policies strengthened.

The first price we paid for jumping in for military action while ignoring the soft power of good deeds was 9/11. Those of us who opposed invading Afghanistan in response were few in number and ridiculed. (Is there a way to read old NY Times comment boards?).

The second price for refusing the penny wise investment in education and infrastructure is the ongoing destruction of lives and treasure, paid both by us and the Afghanis.

Republican voters and commenters who rail against "foreign aid" eagerly pay the far larger emergency bills of blood and treasure abroad, while squandering opportunities to invest the funds and patriotic young lives in a positive vision of the future here at home.
TomMoretzUSA
Afghanistan has always been a tribal, backwards place. That isn't an insensitive, colonialist mentality - that's the truth. Don't be fooled by pictures of women in mini skirts in the 1970s. Yes, Kabul may have been nice a few decades ago, but that city was the exception, not the rule. Even at the height of Afghanistan's prosperity, the rest of the country outside of Kabul and other major urban centers were not that much different from how they are today.

We should leave, and let the Afghan people control their own fate. If the majority want secular, Western style democracy, then they'll have no problem achieving it. If not...well that's unfortunate, but it's their country, not ours. Let's worry about our own people.
The Last of the KrellAltair IV

america will be in afg forever

when your kids and grandkids ask you what became of their future, tell them its buried in the afg desert
PRantNY
The Taliban, is not like the North Vietnamese Army, it's far more like the Mafia in Italy. It get's it's funds from extortion, bribery and narcotics. The Government there does not exist as a legal force or anything else. If someone is getting robbed, either a tribal elder is contacted or a the person handles it himself with his family AK-47. The people are rural, agrarian, and have some goats or sheep and may grow some narcotics. No amount of bombing is going to change the dynamic Any Taliban leader killed will just be replaced with the next in line.

The whole point of the war is to perpetuate the myth that Americans can change the situation and, of course, keep the war machine churning.
John L.Cincinnati, OH
In the novel "1984," the object of war was not to win, but to have it be a permanent state of affairs.
The Last of the KrellAltair IV

The Pentagon pays an average of $400 to put a gallon of fuel into a combat vehicle or aircraft in Afghanistan.

The statistic is likely to play into the escalating debate in Congress over the cost of a war that entered its ninth year last week.

Pentagon officials have told the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee a gallon of fuel costs the military about $400 by the time it arrives in the remote locations in Afghanistan where U.S. troops operate.

“It is a number that we were not aware of and it is worrisome,” Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), the chairman of the House Appropriations Defense panel, said in an interview with The Hill. “When I heard that figure from the Defense Department, we started looking into it.

-

The U.S. military consumes 22 gallons of fuel per soldier, per day. And each gallon costs $45 or more to haul to the battlefield.

That’s according to a new Deloitte study, flagged by our friend Paul McLeary at Aviation Week.

Actually, $45 per gallon is a lowball estimate; according to the Navy, it’s more like $300 to $400.
TomKansas City, MO
Why is this war still going on? Follow the money into the pockets of paid off Politicians with a Defense Contractor in their backyard. Afghanistan does not have a corner on corruption. What do the American People possibly have to gain by staying there? Absolutely nothing. End this Tragedy.
Rodrian RoadeyePottsville,PA
It's the costs of these perpetual conflicts that have Osama Bin Laden smiling in his grave. He has said that the best way to destroy us was economically, causing us to implode. He will go down in Muslim History as the greatest martyred war hero that they ever knew because admit it or not, his plan is succeeding.
conordublin
"Americans have the watches, we have the time" A quote atrributed to a captured taliban fighter.
The Last of the KrellAltair IV

New data shows that America’s war in Afghanistan is costing taxpayers roughly $4 million an hour, despite the Obama administration’s drawdown of troops leaving only 10,000 soldiers in the country.

The cost of deploying just one solider in Afghanistan is approximately $1 million a year, ... Unique to Afghanistan is the additional cost of as much as $400 a gallon to deliver fuel to troops moving through mountainous terrain.

Even so, the $700 billion price tag for the Afghan War is misleading, according to NPP, as it doesn’t include a full accounting of all the costs of the war. Missing is potential future spending on medical care for wounded soldiers and veterans. Additionally, the budget doesn’t include interest payments on national debt resulting from war spending.

https://www.rt.com/usa/273457-afghanistan-war-costs-usa/
Ruprecht jonesKansas
Once again the Times seems to believe that the last eight years under Obama did not occur and that the war started with Trump's election. Obama had nothing to do with the mess in Afghanistan. Trump inherited the war and it seems bizarre that he should be expected to have dealt with it and everything else on his plate in less then two months. More ludicrous and mindless anti Trump analysis from the Times
cosbyNYC
Keep funding Pakistan so it can fight us in Afghanistan and we can see this nonsense carried on for another 10 years. The FP establishment never seems to learn.
Tom ,Retired Florida JunkmanFlorida
Boondoggle. def. work or activity that is wasteful or pointless but gives the appearance of having value.

Is there any redeeming value to this endless conflict ?
The answer is a resounding NO.

Our best and brightest soldiers are battle tested in the most harsh environment on the planet, other than practicing the art of non-winning warfare there is absolutely no redeeming value to our presence there.

James Michener in his book Caravans spoke of the Afghani's in the 1960's when the book was written. At that time he wrote " the people of Afghanistan will fight you unmercifully and with every bit of energy they can muster, they will fight you until either you or they are dead".

The former Soviet Union discovered this during their decade of attempting to control the Afghani's as they sent their son's home in body bags, one after the other in a constant stream of death and dismemberment.

NO ONE HEEDED THESE SIGNS

Now our son's and daughters are caught in the same meat grinder. Their hopes and dreams dashed in an endless series of useless slaughter. The human cost are high, the economic costs are beyond comprehension.

This is a useless battle in a pointless situation.
PaulBellerose Terrace
Your hopes for Trump are separated by a wide gulf of the reality of your boy's request for a $54 billion increase in military spending, greater than the entire Department of State budget.
Once budgeted, the Defense Department spends every dime, and then some.
ScottWChapel Hill, NC 
History proves the draft or mandatory military service would make no difference in America's thirst for war. The last anti-war candidate, George McGovern, lost every state but Mass. to Nixon in 1972 at a time when there was a draft and the futility and evil of the Vietnam war was becoming common knowledge. The pro war candidate trounced the anti-war candidate. Lesson learned--a President will never lose for taking us into war based upon a lie, but will never win by trying to prevent needless death. Think "W" who won by 3 million votes after lying us into war.

No--run from the military as far as you can as your child's life is NEVER worth the supposed cause drummed up by a President and Legislators worth dying for.

Sorry, our civil liberties are not protected by killing people in nations most Americans could never find on a map. If anything, our wars are creating terrorists aimed at inflicting harm on our country, thereby giving Legislators the excuse to dial back our freedoms.

I will never trust or believe a President who makes the case for war. Never.
flschmid1Grand Rapids, MI
Nine out of ten people I talk with agree that we need to get out of Afghanistan (and Iraq). So, why are we still there? Part of the reason is that we lazy Americans (myself included) don't get off our fat butts and call and email and write our elected officials and say "ENOUGH...get us the hell out of there".
Michael RichterRidgefield, CT
The photo accompanying the article is telling.

An Afghan and American soldier apparently guarding the Governor's compound at Kandahar: the Afghan slouched, his body at ease, his automatic weapon dangling carelessly from his body, far removed from his hands; the American soldier sitting erect and alert with his hands either on or adjacent to his automatic weapon, ready to fire if necessary.

When are we going to cry enough and stop this carnage of American blood, finances, and effort; and get the hell out of this corrupt and medieval country?
TomBoston
Three quarters of a trillion dollars since 2001! Wow! What a place to trim some expenditures, to help build roads in the United States, help out Puerto Rico, pay for school lunches, fund medical research, and a whole host of other worthwhile projects. We "got" Bin Laden. Let's get out of there, NOW.
JD FisherSanford NC
There is a way out. Load up our stuff we can carry, blow up the rest, and come home. We should have done this years ago.
bwisePortland, Oregon
Simple -- 1984 fear justifies a perpetual state of war and war expenditures.
ARVirginia 
This is what happens when the world's richest country has both an all-volunteer armed forces and a serious problem with income inequality. It's a terrible combination. Years ago, I talked to a guy who attended what I guess was a not very good public high school in New York City. He was a student there in the 1990s, before 9/11, and even at that time he told me that military recruiters constantly prowled the hallways of his school in search of fresh potential cannon fodder.

I can only imagine how much worse the situation is today. Income inequality and an all-volunteer armed forces waging permanent war--these two things are far from unconnected. In fact, the worse the former the more likely a rich country is to have the latter.
Deirdre DiamintNew Jersey
You can't win a war in a country where the war is the GDP. War brings billions to a country that even after we have spent trillions still has no infrastructure. Where does it all go?

How many NYC, Paris, Istanbul and Berlin apartments have been purchased? How
Many Swiss bank accounts? How many hedge funds supported? It is not in Afghanistan
Tom KrebsbachWashington
Consider the two possibilities to end American involvement in Afghanistan.

A president could decide he wanted to thoroughly defeat the Taliban. That would require a massive investment over a short period of time of boots on the ground and weapons systems. There would be a huge outcry from the public.

Or a president could decide to cut our losses and get out. Then he/she and the party he/she represents would be criticized as the ones who lost Afghanistan, even though it is not really winnable. No leader wants that claim to be leveled against them.

Therefore we have stalemate and the low-grade war continues ad infinitum along with its death and continual dribbling out of wasted investment. It would take a true leader to really end this war. Such leaders do not exist in the US now.
John NeelySalem
When the US attacked Afghanistan in 2001, we did so after an ultimatum that could not be complied with. The demands were so extreme and the deadline so near that compliance was impossible.

Our purpose was to do as much damage as possible to Al Qaeda. A second purpose was little understood by the American people: we also tried to kill the established Taliban government. Our effort was partly frustrated by Pakistan which, presumably tipped off, flew many Taliban leaders out of Afghanistan before our attack.

What we attempted was well understood by the Taliban and by Pashtuns more generally. They will remember and will fight our occupying force for generations, if needed. This should not be surprising. What is surprising is that they have not made counterattacks upon our homeland.

All this because of a secondary decision in 2001 to add Taliban targets, since we had many more bombs and missiles than required to obliterate the few Al Qaeda installations.

Or was it secondary? The ultimatum was considered necessary, since we planned to attack the government. Had we targeted Al Qaeda only, there would have been no warning or ultimatum. And Al Qaeda would not have been warned (setting aside the Pakistan leak). In short, we gave up surprise in order to attack the government. Could it be that regime change was our primary goal and that the attack on Al Qaeda was a pretense? A pretense which will haunt us far into the future.
SmileyBurnetteChicago
The quagmire.
Just like VN.
When it eventually "ends, "with a whimper, not with a bang," I suspect that most Americans will either be unaware or totally indifferent. Especially Millennials.
High school students, data shows, cannot locate countries on a map.
I daresay, most Americans do not know the locational or identifying differences among the multiple nations "over there" who are at war with "terrorists."
And what is the threat to the U.S.?
Money ("trillions") spent overseas is money not spent in America. Eisenhower was correct in warning of the "military-industrial complex."
KevinBoston
American is the only country that wages war on the other side of the world (Viet Nam, Iraq & Afghanistan) and receives nothing in return...Russia doesn't do it...China doesn't do it...they have smarter leaders.
C. MorrisIdaho
This is the American empire; An empire of mistakes, wars unending because there is no way to end them, an empire of stupidity backed by power, an empire of political cowardice, indifference and apathy.
LBJrNew York
USSR in Afghanistan.
"Bring down that wall."
USA in Afghanistan.
"Build up that wall."

I don't really have a point. Just an observation.
"American spending to reconstruct Afghanistan now exceeds the total expended to rebuild all of Western Europe under the Marshall Plan."
I wonder if we'd have had a better result if we just paid them to play nice.
Ed BaurFt Bragg, CA
The war is a success. It is a sterling success for the military industrial complex warned about by Ike. The generals all are thin and handsome with chests full of ribbons and metals and they have something to do. More money for the military contractors all over the United States. Money in communities. Blood, waste, money, waste, happy military leaders, waste . It is a huge success for a limited number of individuals and institutions.

The horror!
Nora WebsterLucketts, VA
Just leave. Our reason for invading Afghanistan was that the taliban was harboring OBL. We lost him at Tora Bora but eventually offed him in Pakistan.

Our attempt to convert Afghanistan into a 21st century democracy with Western values was a nonstarter.

We are pouring money and lives down a rat hole.
ando arikeBrooklyn, NY
War and the weapons of war are among the United States' largest and most profitable exports -- perhaps our only growth industry. And to judge by the trend for the last quarter-century, we shall see more war, soon, in the near future. Perhaps nothing more is to be expected from the U.S. -- what a sorry, pathetic end.
Pablo BHouston TX
Thank you, George W. Bush.
And thank you for Iraq and ISIS too.
JazzZyxIllinois
"We are a country that has never made a bullet, and yet we have never run out."
- Hamdullah Mohib,
Afghan Ambassador
Douglas McNeillChesapeake, VA
Continuing to fight an unwinnable war demeans the 2,400 lives lost and the 20,000 lives forever altered just on our "side". Twenty-two thousand four hundred families rankle at their sons and daughters being labelled as trivial or unimportant and so do I (cf. pettifoggery).

The idea war is a normal condition is an insane perversion of a proud heritage of military service and our supposed Christian values. When Americans were dying at a fierce rate from automobile accidents, we did not just throw up our hands. We passed seat belts laws, improved traffic flow, attacked drunk driving and the carnage fell.

We have done our best and all our combined military might cannot fix this Humpty Dumpty country. I do not wish to give another folded American flag to a family at graveside with the paltry "Thank you for your service" to accompany it. Not for this.

I would tell the Afghan government and people this: if you do not want your country, we do not want it either. We leave you to your djinn. If your country again becomes the exporter of violence to the world, we will tell you now and warn you again just before we end the export trade with nuclear annihilation one province at a time.
Lance RutledgeBrooklyn, NY
Andrew Bacevcih always seems to have a much more astute and clear-eyed vision about how things are going with our biggest military endeavors. I never hear such valuable assesments from those in power, including the military and politicians. They just, don't ever seem to be listening to the right voices. It really is disheartening to watch this country make the same mistakes over and over again, and waste so damn much money, which could be used to invest in the well being of our own country. But there are people and companies profiting from the never ending wars, and I suspect that's what keeps them going.
JaqueChampaign, Illinois
One major factor contributing the never-ending war, is the next door neighbor Pakistan. It is hard to figure out what interest of Pakistan is served by keeping Afghanistan unstable. I hope it is not the military-industrial complexes of both US and Pakistan that is keeping the war alive.
Vincent CampbellRandolph
I served in Afghanistan in 2008/2009 and realized back then it was a no win situation. while the US and NATO were motivated to finish the job, the government was not, and as elaborated on in this story the government is incredibly corrupt. While the average person on the street is a hard worker who just wants a better life for their family, when will our largess end? Despite our losses it's time to pack it in and leave. as long as the US is willing to support the Afghan government and do much of the heavy lifting there is no incentive for the Afghan government to take care of their own problems
Nelson N. SchwartzArizona
Instead of spending billions "training Afghans" why not have the Afghans train us. We may learn something.
ChristoforoHampton, VA
This quagmire was easily predicted by anyone with a working knowledge of history - except for the American Exceptionalists who always seem to think we can make up the rules as we go - and be successful. Bin Laden & Co could have been much more efficiently "taken out" with a little patience (NOT an American trait) and a SEAL Team and some surgically placed cruise missiles - no Iraq or Afghan wars needed with all the accompanying debt, but all "water under the bridge" now, as they say. The only question I have is - from where are we getting all this heroin with which we're killing ourselves?
DartFlorida
I reached the point years ago, that I switch of any news item about A and I war talk.

I also don't listen to the other side because most people know little of the issues and they simply root for their team: its the Dems vs. the Repubs....as if we were at camp where its Redbirds vs. the Bluejays teams.

I read analyses and fact-check the few issues I'm most interested in. Many TV "journalists" don't.

I can't be an exception... Or most people more or less tune out
war stories from A and I.
Paul LeightySeatte, WA.
I agree with the underling premise of this piece by Colonel Bacevich. Time to declare victory and get out.

PS: I would most heartedly recommend his book. 'America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History'. For the specialist and general reader alike it is a terrific primer on the area and our involvement there.
DaveEverywhere
We need to acquaint ourselves with the notion of "sunk costs". I'm sure that our genius businessman President is familiar with this concept. It means when you are analyzing an investment, you disregard the costs you have already incurred as a reason to continue to pour additional funds into what is probably a losing effort. So, if you have put a million dollars of investment into a project that has a small or negative return, you don't pour in more to save the costs already incurred.

We have a hard time with this concept when we talk about military intervention. If we have already spent a trillion dollars for no visible impact in Afghanistan, it's absolutely the wrong to take the approach that we need to pour in more money because of the cost (in dollars and lives) previously incurred if our chances of success aren't good. Afghanistan is a money pit, a sump of cash and the lives of American service men and women. I believe that an host assessment of the Afghan situation leads inevitably to the conclusion that nothing we do there will make the situation appreciably better. It's a tribal society and were trying to hold back the tide by pretending that we can somehow knit a democratic republic out of this.
rich gSunny South Florida
I just typed a long thought comment and lost it so I will just say "get out of Afghanistan" no longer our fight.
BirchNew York
There is no one who has better chronicled the perpetual and disastrous American war machine than Andrew J. Bacevich. There is little sign that the Congress will ever say no to more war. Trump, of course, offers to waste even more money on a so-called Defense Department that does little to actually defend our country. They couldn't even defend their own office complex on 9/11, but we keep lavishing them with more and more funding. The title of the Department should be returned to to what it was before: The War Department, because that is all they do - make war on other countries.
hen3ryNew York 
It is a never ending war. Why aren't we drafting people to serve in it? Why hasn't Congress focused on this as a major issue? Repealing the ACA is peanuts compared to sending people in harm's way whether it's in Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, or anywhere else where there's military action occurring. I would think that the GOP, with their mantra of saving money, would have looked at the cost benefit ratio on this and decided to do something to make our participation more effective. Sending the same people into a war zone is not an answer. At some point some of them are irreversibly harmed, physically or psychologically. In addition, it's not fair to send the same people back when we have a large enough population that a draft could make a difference. It is patriotic to serve one's country. I would expect to see more GOP representatives encouraging their family members to serve in order to set an example for the rest of the country.
cathyMountain dale
I do NOT accept was as a "normal" condition. I am quite ashamed of this country. The "cops of the world" invading and policing whenever and wherever we want. The human species is a colossal failure.
donald surrPennsylvania
Like all of our military involvement in Asia, the perpetual war in Afghanistan seems to serve no other purpose than to stimulate profitable sales of weaponry. The public is conned into believing that these Asian wars are somehow necessary for OUR national security and supply of vital imports. Neither, of course, is true.
Beatrice<br/>
Is this "the new normal" ?
A war in perpetuity ?
3/4 of a trillion $$$ ?
2000+ killed ?
20,000+ wounded ?
An unknown # of PTSD & TBI yet to be diagnosed ?
"A large-scale government project to bestow favors, distribute largess & satisfy ambitions" ?
Is this the new definition of "infrastructure project" ?
Colonel Bacevich is asking us questions & I haven't heard any reasonable answers yet.
TomPa
Trump is not and never will be my president but there is finally something I can agree with Richard about.

bring our guys home for good and begin, finally, the process of forgetting that Afghanistan ever existed.
KarlosTJBostonia
The American Military should leave Afghanistan to the anti-human anti-civilized degenerate mongrels who cannot think their way to freedom and life.

So long as Afghans believe their lives and freedoms are to be subject to the delusional utterings of a 7th century tribal witch doctor, then they will forever be stuck in the 7th century. American soldiers should not be tasked with building soccer fields or schools or hospitals for a people who believe in "honor killings" or stoning women for the crime of being raped by men who cannot control their teenage urges.

Bring the troops home. It's what Obama should have done, and didn't. Blaming Trump for Obama's failure to comprehend what the American Military is for - defending American lives and American freedoms - is just deranged.
daniel r pottersan jose ca
it's almost like no one ever knew that alexander the great was the first of many military persons that could not win a war in that country. you see the world needs a few things. one of the most important things the world needs is an independent and free Afghanistan. it's the rest of the world that just cannot see that. Afghanistan is a supplier of the base for pain medication worldwide. through out history people in pain have relied on the medications that come from that part of the world. it is wrong for any other country other than afghanistan to think they should control the world's pain medication.
PatrickNew Jersey
The answer to why we are still at war is simple but seemingly difficult for society to acknowledge, accept or address. We are not just at war in Afganistan, we are at war all around the Middle East. We are at war because war is a very profitable business. In the last decade the government has spent trillions of US tax dollars waging war in the Middle East. Money that has flowed from the US Treasury directly to those corporations who’s business profits from either from war or indirectly from military occupation. Not like it’s rocket science. It’s why war has continued in Afghanistan and Iraq while expanding to 7 other countries and why it will never end unless the American public decides that perpetual war and worldwide militarism is an unacceptable pursuit for our nation. It’s that simple.
JohnSt. Louis
The Chinese have a $5 Billion operating copper mine gained with $25,000,000 bribe to Afghan Interior Minister.

We were rewarded with coffins.
CAkey west, Fla &amp; wash twp, NJ
The Middle East is still a quagmire and there is no good end. It is definitely impractical to pour even more revenues into this black hole but the Republican love nothing more than increased military spending and decreased diplomacy.
This is still an unwinnable war, it is long past time to pull out and declare our desire not to pursue this dead end.
Doug GiebelMontana
And our tainted leadership will never permit a return to the draft. Young men and women who hope for a path to education and employment will be recruited to do the endless serving, fighting, hurting and dying in an endless cash-making, profiteering machine. Politicians from both sides of the aisle will continue to seek office and keep getting elected based on war-mongering propaganda. Where some of the framers saw danger in their new nation's possible foreign entanglements, today's power- and money-hungry politicians find unlimited opportunity. The cost in deaths, injuries and dollars expended, the global disruption resulting from our invading the Middle East will never be fully known. The Valley of Death continues to devour a world addicted to slaughter of innocents, while the guilty revel all night long.
Doug Giebel
Big Sandy, Montana
Jerry MLong Prairie, MN
The war is run by outsiders, the US on one side and the opposition in part by Pakistan. We need to abandon this war and let the locals get back to killing each other. Without US help the war will slowly wind down.
usarmycwoTexas
Ms Hislop, this draftee (who eventually served 36 years on active duty) agrees with you. But no chance of it happening, as we both know.
Preventallwars.orgGateshead, UK
This Andrew Bacevich piece on Afghanistan's never-ending war could as well include all 21st-century wars from Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Ukraine, Global war on terrorism, etcetera.

The are identical reasons for this new trend of un-ending wars:
Irreversible 21st-C factors -widespread information technologies usage with their reliable camera, internet/social media contents; 24/7 TV coverage of all wars; easier military secrets hacking; more disparate peoples legally in same nations and armies; very reliable air travel; mass refugees migration; global terrorism; etcetera- ensure wars and their dark consequences can no longer be 'hidden' or 'sanitized' to an inquisitive world by any military power.

These factors are yet ignored by the creators of armed conflicts, their compliant populations and World Press. But unfailingly, they render all wars, not only Afghanistan, as 'un-winnable' and frustrating contests.

Until the world appreciates this newly established trend, it will continually moan of routine recurrence of wars; and any available absolute war preventive measures cannot be accepted.

And since no effective checks against their exclusive war-creation privileges currently exist anywhere; national political leaders (creators of almost all wars) will continue with their plans for fresh conflicts. And ironically, they and their close family members would always be shielded from the aftermaths of their arranged conflicts by their respective suffering populations.
MytwocentsNew York
It would be much cheaper for the US to withdraw from all wars in those countries, and then ban all visas from these countries and of anyone who travels there.
Amy HaibleHarpswell, Maine
I am sick of war. I am sick of the culture of war. I am sick of the mindset that says it is okay to attack in order to defend. I am sick of the worship of death. And I am sick to death of the costs of war. Let us worship life, art, peace, dialogue, relationship, differences, the earth and all she does for us. Let us worship a new greening of this planet. Let us celebrate knowledge and life in all its forms. Let us create like our Creator and turn away from any idea that all "man" can do is destroy. Let us gather together and create a new world that looks on war and says "that was in the past. No more do we kill each other for territory, ideas, "faith", resources, belief, skin color, or differences of any kind." Let us turn our energies from war to one of celebration and joy in our shared being. We are all of us sick to death of war.
BruceUSA
To the extent that Islam continues to control Afghanistan, we can expect to be at war in Afghanistan. The ideology of Islam is about subjugation of humanity and disregard for individual rights. We can choose to let it fester or we can seek to contain it. Or we can seek to defeat it. Ultimately, islam demands our subjugation or death, so ultimately, we must choose to oppose Islam or be consumed by it.
AlanSarasota
Only the defense industry is happy with Afghanistan. Our soldiers are worn out, our commanders seem not to care, our legislators in Washington just keep wanting more money from the weapons lobbyists. Time to cut bait and stop flushing money down the toilet.
FXQCincinnati
The reason we ignore the quagmire in Afghanistan is that we don't want to hear what we all already know, but just cannot accept. Afghanistan is what it is and has been for centuries, and no foreign power can change it. The thought of walking away from three quarters of a trillion dollars without much to show for it is hard. The scare of creeping Islamic extremism taking over countries reminds me of the communist hysteria we experienced with Vietnam. We, the American public, both Democrat and Republican, know this is not a conflict we should be in anymore. Our best shot of getting out of there was with Obama, but like many issues, he just gave great speeches, but inexplicably did the opposite. Trump won't change anything, so expect another $35 billion per year (2015 costs) to be sunk into the corrupt warlords coffers. Meanwhile, millions here are at risk of loosing health insurance, and we can't even replace a major bridge in my area that would cost $2 billion connecting vital interstate commerce. The Russians were smart and got out. Hopefully, we will some day do the same.
DeKayNYC
Sorry, but I don't see what the problem is. War is big business and as American as apple pie. I'd suggest we've created a happy win-win situation in Afghanistan.

This war (if it is one) creates jobs and provides stimulus to our economy. What's wrong with that? Lockheed Martin's stock is at an all-time high and, with the help of Russia, I'm betting it will go higher. Afghans surely are thankful that we've spent $8.5 billion to help (?) opium production reach an all-time high. [Note: there seems to be a typo in the article. Or, perhaps the author is confused; why on earth would we be spending billions to "battle" narcotics, only to have opium production increase 43% in the last year alone?] Opium creates jobs, and Afghanistan's economy really needs these exports. Apologies, but I see a success story here. Let's give ourselves some credit.

I have difficulty understanding the anti-business tenor of this article. Are we really at "war" with the Taliban, or is this term just used for marketing purposes? War makes for exciting news, business is boring. If the Taliban is our enemy or business partner or business competitor -- or all three -- who cares so long as business is good? As the author correctly states, nobody.

And, then there are the commenters shouting for victory. "Wars are to be won"! Really? Whatever you wish to call our engagement with Afghanistan, our objectives there are indeed clear, and they are being accomplished quite handsomely and for the benefit of many.
Bob WessnerAnn Arbr, MI
Gee, weren't we paying attention during the Russian adventure into Afghanistan? Like all our other middle-east efforts, what's the post battle plan? Might as well toss out there, remember Vietnam? The only consistency is the lining of pockets in the military-industrial complex.
UAW ManDetroit
No way trump is going to end the great american cash cow known as Afghanistan.
fortress Americanyc
Islam has been at war with the infidel, and itself, for 1300 years, since it's Day One, and the US has been at war with Islam, since T. Jefferson invented the US Navy to fight Barbary pirates, ie, North African pirates. (Conceptually, at war with Islam since US's Day One, the British Navy had protected American shipping prior to that.)

The US Marine Corps hymn memorializes that round of war, "shores of Tripoli," anyone? We now have East African Islamic pirates, no music for it though, yet. But not much change otherwise.
=
Re 'when will it end?' - We do not think of 'when will we no longer need police to stop crimes,' we accept that we need police forever.

A-stan is that same issue.
=
The view here, is that Obama was a ditherer, and by inclination or by temperament, an incompetent war leader, for example, throwing away a victory in-Iraq, a quiesce, and now we are fighting Iraq for a third time.

So blame The Long War on (1) Obama (2) Mohamed.

A-stan gave is Osama; Obama gave us ISIS, there can be no doubt, were we to slack off, that the war would come here, as it does anyhow, the domino theory, as it were, along with the infiltration theory.
=
We'll see if T has a plan, the issue is containment, thank you George Kennan; and THAT is eternal. This war will go until; the heat death of the sun, and longer if we colonize exoplanets.
FSMLives!NYC
What was astounding in how many people on the Left, including this newspaper, whole-heartedly supported the war in Iraq, as if it Muslims would wlecome us and it would not be a quagmire.

Funny how not too many people old enough to have come of age during Vietnam supported this war and there is no doubt that few younger people would have supported it if there was a mandatory military draft.

And, by the way, everyone around you remembers exactly who supported this war *and* the Arab Spring, so kindly hang your head in shame and learn from your mistakes.
RufusSF
This is a forever war. People who view war classically - with a beginning and an end, with a victor and a loser - consider this war to be stupid. But this war is not stupid. Some of the *tactics employed* have indeed been stupid (this has been a bipartisan effort...), but the war needs to be fought, just more efficiently and economically. We need to wise up and not allow the enemy to spend $10, and thereby cause us to spend $1 million.

If you live in a climate with termites, you can understand this. You are in a perpetual war with termites. You can never win. But if you choose not to fight the termites, your house will be destroyed. You cannot ignore termites. Nor should you overdo it, thereby adversely affecting your health and also wasting money. But you need to keep the termites at bay.

As long as the enemy is willing to send their fighters to a God-forsaken battleground far from our homes, we should thank them, and eliminate them thoughtfully.
drdeanstertinseltown
The article is correct on all points, but somehow not quite forceful enough. Some quotes come to mind: "Afghanistan, the graveyard of empires." (Some opine that the USSR collapsed because they spent too many resources fighting in Afghanistan, although it's really more because Reagan bankrupted them when they tried to match our military spending in the 80's.) After Vietnam, and the wonderful current NYT series on serial blunders made during that conflict: "Never fight a land war in Asia."
Op-Eds have been written on how much better our money would have been spent on education and infrastructure (both of which are sorely needed here), trying to win over their minds. The fact remains that regardless of how much we spend over there, it's futile. It's a thoroughly backwards country trapped in a time warp from centuries ago. Family and tribal loyalties matter far more than any nationalist sentiments. Eradicating opium is the height of folly, that's their cash crop.
Wasn't always like that. 90% Sunni, thank our Saudi allies for exporting their Wahabbist fundamentalism there through their madrassas. Before, hippies used to travel there for the beautiful geography, cheap opium and hashish, and wonderful cuisine and hospitality. Those days are gone, it's just another on a long list of utterly failed Muslim states. Things won't get better in our lifetime, and probably not for many generations, if ever.
The Saudis don't get enough blame for all the problems they've caused.
Ken NytChicago
Surely I am not the only person who sees this "war" as having no relationship to our national security? Surely I am not the only person who sees the main support coming from the countless contractors and suppliers earning billions of dollars from this "war". Surely others realize that it will never end until the money dries-up. And with our glorious leader looking to increase the military budget (at the expense of the domestic support budgets) there is no end in sight for at least four years.
John Brews [*¥*]Reno, NV
"war has become tolerable, an enterprise to be managed rather than terminated as quickly as possible"

Sounds like defeat to me. Guess that's the point, eh?
Paul A MyersCorona del Mar CA
Several structural factors support endless war:

1. Every military assistance mission in the Greater Middle East has been a failure. Nevertheless these missions support arms exports despite their practical futility. The Congressional committees provide no meaningful oversight of military assistance missions.

2. Massive corruption is accepted as a "cost of doing mission" in the Muslim world. Since endless war, not the promotion of future stability, is the overall goal, corruption keeps the client state dependent.

Overall, the acceptance of corruption probably presages the eventual complete collapse of American foreign policy in the Greater Middle East. A half-billion people will eventually throw the rascals out--Americans included, as happened in Iran after its revolution.
SChicago
Let's be honest. Americans can never succeed when there is an opposing force just across the border supported by Pakistan. Tackle that first. Cut all funding to Pakistan, and only then will there be peace.

Next, Afghanistan's population must learn to transcend tribal identity and deep rooted misogyny, and this will only happen when there is a concentrated push to educate boys and girls. A long road ahead, but this has to be lead by Afghanis. Other rich Muslim countries should provide financial help, though it is very doubtful they will step up.
CalebBrooklyn, N.Y.
"Adjusted for inflation, American spending to reconstruct Afghanistan now exceeds the total expended to rebuild all of Western Europe under the Marshall Plan."

Unbelievable!

In the words of Major Clipton, "Madness! . . . Madness!"
PaulWhite Plains
Wasn't it President Obama who said that the war in Afghanistan is the war that had to be won? Why isn't he being held to account for his failure to do so?
sfny
As always, follow the money.
If not being attacked, war is usually an investment of treasure for an end result of land, water or natural resources. I'm only guessing it is about the natural resources and the private companies who want them.
Remove our military from Afghanistan, Iraq and say a big no to Syria.
We have no business remaining or being in any of these countries.
Prof.Jai Prakash SharmaJaipur, India. 
After the changed geopolitical profile of power players that involves a new coalition of China, Russia, Pakistan, and Iran, and hell bent on neutralising US in Afghanistan, neither the US is left with any ally and interlocutor in Afghanistan nor by implication, any role there. It's high time call it a day in Afghanistan and save American resources and lives from being wasted.
gbzar1Washington DC
First, unlike the Vietnam War, there is no draft, ergo no mass public protests to end the conflict. Second, there is no accountability for failure, no political price to pay, no military careers cut short. Third, follow the money. Three-quarters of a trillion dollars have lined the pockets of military contractors, consultants, (US) government aid workers (who get posted for a year for double their salary and get 5 R & Rs), and corrupt Afghan officials. The notion that waste, fraud and abuse on this monumental scale has been known tolerated for so long while politicians cut social safety nets and health insurance is a testament to greed, apathy and, frankly, stupidity.
PaulBellerose Terrace
Afghanistan has not earned the sobriquet "the graveyard of empires" without good reason.
Declare victory, disengage, and leave them to their own devices.
JamesSt. Paul, MN.
Follow the money. Somebody is profiting from our continuing war in Afghanistan, and they are earning sufficient profits to contribute generously to individual members of Congress-----so that Congress keeps things as they are. The same could be said for almost every foreign policy decision made in the past 20 years. This is the new era when corporate profits drive and define our mission in the world.
ThomasFt Collins, CO
Blah blah blah- blame Obama... another who learned nothing from 'Nam (or doesn't even remember it). Even the Russians were smart enough to bail from Afghanistan...
PawHardnuff
The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous.
Nathan Szajnberg MDPalo Alto
No more American lives for Afghanistan.
Let's get out!
margaretatlanta
The clear objective is to make money for military contractors and war
profiteers. We have no other reason to be over there.
LSChicago
"What are we to make of the chasm between effort expended and results achieved?" You could ask the same of health care.
GeraldUS
Oh, what we could have done with that $78 billion at home. The scale of the waste of our resources is astonishing; the loss of American lives is unconscionable. Where is the Democratic leadership when you need it?
HotelPutingrad
Perpetual war is the clear objective.
New Haven CTNew Haven
Let's not forget that before the US started fighting in Afghanistan the Russians were there - and despite the Russians fighting with no moral constraints (they were accused of genocide) they couldn't win either. I'm sure the military industrial complex is satisfied with the status quo however. Time to get out.
Michael HigginsShalimar, Florida
We entered Afghanistan to get Bin Laden. Mission Accomplished. We have stayed there to enrich the Military-Industrial Class. Eisenhower's warning has come to pass.
Rebecca Rabinowitz.
George Bush et al. dropped the metaphorical ball in redirecting crucial military resources away from Afghanistan and into our useless, fraudulent invasion of Iraq, wholly unrelated to 9-11. Among other things, it is time to end the AUMF, which has served as a craven fig leaf for all manner of reckless military misadventures, and whose time has long since come and gone. Congress needs to do its Constitutionally-designated job, which it has steadfastly refused to do in this regard, even in the face of requests from President Obama. The partisan nature of those refusals is on full display - they could blame him for everything without putting any of their tender skins in the game. We need to depart from Afghanistan - after we have rescued all of the citizens there who have helped us, at enormous peril to the lives of their families and to them. The pages of history are replete with failed military incursions into this forbidding nation - and NONE has succeeded. Our blood and treasure is not worth the dubious, ostensible "successes" we have gained. We have no credible business sending our troops there any longer. 3/13, 8:35 AM
Dr. John BurchMountain View, CA
War is obsolete. Civil war. Conventional war. Nuclear war. All war. What keeps wars such as this one going is INERTIA, which derives from the military industrial complex and support from countries, such as the U.S., which find it so easy to get in, and so much more difficult to get out. Maybe the new Website, Alternatives2War will shed some light on this. God knows, our government sure hasn't!
WillyDNew Jersey
"Trump is my president: I supported him here (and still do)"

Despite the claims of 3 million fake voters? Despite the assertion that Obama tapped the Trump Tower phones? Are you turning a blind eye to the blatant conflicts of interest toward his companies and interests? As well spoken as you are, do you honestly admire this dolt?

I'm sorry, Richard, but "your president" is destroying everything that was good about this country and you have become his tout. I don't know how you sleep at night.
RKansas
Let's also look at Afghanistan as part of a larger disorder the West has with involvement in the Middle East and around the world. The US has been involved for a long time in Afghanistan, from funding the Mujahideen against the Soviets in 1980's, to the current war that drags on. It is really one long involvement. It is kind of an addiction. For that matter, the West has been addicted to controlling the Middle East for a long time.
Beatrice<br/>
— To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.
- Macbeth (400+ years ago) "When will we ever learn ...... ?
CheekosSouth Florida
A "modern" army cannot defeat a ghost. The various Jihadist groups are fighting for a cause, speak the language, look like the local people and understand the culture. Most Americans understand none of this, and couldn't tell the difference between Malaysia and Mozambique--even with a world map.

Besides, the Saudis--people and charity--have been financing their own conservative Wahabe brand of Islam, which is not far off--with a few Draconian tweaks--from that practiced by ISIS, and others. Their common cause is to evict the Infidels from their land. In essence, they have taken 14th Century ideas--when people did not freely travel to distant lands--and packaged them to contribute toward their Caliphate.

All of our firepower and technology cannot defeat an army that wears no uniforms, can blend-in with the local people, and can sell their brand of ideas to seem quite similar to that of the local population.

When you add an ignorant person, who knows little beyond New York City, lacks either the curiosity to learn (what he doesn't know) or the willingness to understand: Voila--you have Donald Trump!

https://thetruthoncommonsense.com
Paul ArzoomanBayside, NY
Perhaps we have to accept that the region is not manageable for outsiders. I have to acknowledge that it is likely that once we leave the country for good, the usual power struggle will ensue and the most violent of the factions will control Afghanistan again.
Blue stateHere
Um, yes, so which party would like to get us out of perpetual war? Which party will not indulge the military industrial complex in its proxy war testing of new and likely unnecessary equipment? Which party will actually consider the needs of America's citizens before it considers the desires of war corporations for more profiting off of death and destruction? Come on, choose. We only have two parties. Choose. That's right, it is no choice at all. After the last election I will be stunned to see turn out exceed 25% of eligible voters. So many people will decide: don't vote; it only encourages them.
IchigoLinden, NJ
Why was there even a war in Afghanistan? Why?
Just to get one guy, Bin Laden?
Invading and occupying a whole country just to get one guy?
One guy who was only found 10 years later in another country? Why? Why?
UnpartisanDC
There are no good alternatives and sending more troops only delays the inevitable. Life goes on as usual for the average Afghan family whether they are under the thumb of the predatory State or the Taliban. Imagine what it is like to do business in Afghanistan - any successful business venture gets "taxed" to the extreme. Meanwhile the US Embassy is a bubble within the greater bubble of Kabul - completely cut off from reality. I lived in Kabul from 2011 to 2015 outside the wall and love the Afghans, their strong sense of family, and their resilient humor. They don't deserve their present situation and will survive through their family networks established abroad in Europe, Australia, the US, and Canada.
rudolfnew york
We don't have a plan or conviction to set the Afghans free; or from whom actually. The locals are scared, the Government is corrupt, the enemy has different names (Taliban, ISIS), and is it only America or is NATO (ISAF) still involved. Indeed this war has been going on for many years now but say around 2007 you could still walk around Kabul, get a bank account, enjoy the finest in food, or get a haircut. Now, stay inside where ever you are and keep a low profile. Obviously we are losing that war. Cal a spate a spate.
Ralph SorbrisSan Clemente
A few years before George McGovern died I had the privilege to meet and talk with him. I asked "what's your take on Afghanistan". "Leave before yesterday". He emphasized that you cannot solve political problems with weapons. Why do American and NATO countries have to pay money to participate in an ongoing civil war that only the Afghans can solve?
NewfieNewfoundland
“Islam's borders are bloody and so are its innards." -- Samuel P Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations
ZekesuhlHigh Falls, NY
Congress and the new "president" would pay attention if their children were sent to fight there. Maybe.
Earl W.New Bern, NC
One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. Afghanistan, Syria, NATO, and myriad other foreign entanglements do not represent compelling national interests for the U.S. and therefore do not deserve one more dime or drop of American blood. Spend the money wisely here at home or return the taxes to middle class families who haven't seen any real progress in their standard of living for a generation.
TullymdBloomington Vt
I have written several times over the past few years that we have lost this war. But if we are on the road to national suicide keep up the good work. Also we lost Iraq and our efforts is Libya, Syria and Yemen are failed as well. Just like Vietnam...utter failure.
DBakerHouston
Whatever price tag the the pentagon gvies us, double it.
DBakerHouston
We don't worry about our people, their people, or anyone's people. We just care about the military and more, more, more guns. What a farse.
Rodrian RoadeyePottsville,PA
Can you imagine what we are paying for Special Ops? The Soldier for Hire trade is booming.
ClaudiaNEW HAMPSHIRE
Oh, joy: Eternal war.
Oh, well, at least it's not my sons fighting it.
Do our "allies" in Afghanistan believe in educating girls, treating women as anything more than chattel, allowing anything resembling free expression?

We are in bed with some very unappetizing nasties and the only real motivation seems to be we have found some even worse people to fight.
We tolerate failed states in Somalia, Libya and who knows where else?
The whole notion of denying terrorists "sanctuaries" is so ludicrous as to be beneath addressing: Suffice it to say Berlin and Florida seem to provide as commodious a terrorist nest as anything in Afghanistan.
The Last of the KrellAltair IV

well since the mic controls your country they decide what has a benefit

dont they
Pottree Los Angeles
everyone knows this war was the bastard child of Cheney and Bush. by now it has reached majority and it's time to cut the apron strings. Trump just now happens to be in the big chair. it's only his fault if it continues.
Bruce NorthwoodSalem, Oregon
History has shown that in irregular army cannot be defeated.
Paul CohenHartford CT 
I highly recommend the following books by Mr. Bacevich: The Limits of Power; Washington Rules; America's War for the Greater Middle East.

I believe the wars continue without end and unnoticed by Americans because we no longer have a citizens army, called up for service when the U.S. resorts to aggression. Instead we have career soldiers that amount to a mercenary army. If citizens were drafted to fill the ranks of the infantry in response to 9/11 I guarantee you that the war would have ended many years ago. The pentagon learned their lessons very well from the Vietnam war.
EdOld Field, NY
Our effort in Afghanistan seems to be guided, and has been for many years, not by the prospect of “winning” as by the certainty of losing if we leave.
Mike RoddyAlameda, California 
Well said. A bigger problem than American inertia or even Afghan government corruption is the rent seeking at ground level. War is a scarce source of currency in the countryside in Afghanistan. Soldiers and engineers find themselves on a payroll, rather than picking poppies or fruit. It's been that way in Afghanistan for a long time, including in the wars against other invaders.

That's an excellent reason to stay the hell away, since it's a war we can never even hope to win.
MaxMA
War has been a "perpetual endeavor" practically since the nation's founding. Although officially-declared wars are fairly rare in our nation's history, hardly a year has gone by without some sort of military adventure, particularly after the US began to expand its influence overseas in the 19th century.

The reason for Afghanistan's fall from prominence is far simpler: no one has a way to win it. Like Vietnam, we've dug ourselves into a war we have no way of seriously winning, and anything we accomplish there will quickly fall apart without the continued presence of American troops; unlike Vietnam, though, there's not enough outcry to force a full withdrawal. Politicians love to talk about wars when they have suggestions for winning them, but when it comes to a losing war like Afghanistan they'd rather just pretend it doesn't exist and hope we'll all forget about it.
MarcNYC
"...The Great Game" is a term used by historians to describe a political and diplomatic confrontation that existed for most of the nineteenth century between Britain and Russia over Afghanistan and neighboring territories in Central and Southern Asia..."

- same game, different shills -
NorthernVirginiaFalls Church, VA
Who cares if terrorists use Afghanistan as a base again? How much worse off could it be than today?
None of the 9/11 attackers visited Afghanistan. Sure, the chief planner was there, but that plan could have been hatched and directed from a Starbucks.
In essence, pull out, leave the Afgans to themselves, and spend our nation's blood and money on our own infrastructure in our own country.
sfny
So we must stay there in order to hold this 'country' together? Expensive glue.
Just how long are we supposed to do this for? We've been in Afghanistan longer than any war ever fought in American history. Time. To. Leave.