America's Failure in Afghanistan: 20 Years of Occupation | Animated History

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I was deployed to Afghanistan for most of 2011. We were in the process of drawing down and handing over responsibility to the Afghan Army. We handed a base over to them and within a week it was gone. They sold off the materials and abandoned the base. The idea that we were going to install a national democratic government was a joke.

It’s wild to think that the war had gone on long enough that people who weren’t even born when 9/11 happened were fighting in Afghanistan

I was training ANA in 2011, and one day we went out to inspect their ammo storage and the guard had died from exposure. The ANA leader had no idea why his guard died after 5 days in 100F+ weather and only given 3 bottles if water and 2 MREs.

“Conquering the world on a horseback is easy; it is dismounting and governing that is hard” - Ghengis Khan

Remember: taking something is much easier than holding it.

As an American vet this War just makes me mad. So many of my friends died, got injured, or suffer severe PTSD for a War we could never win and eventually lost. In my opinion, the Boomer Generation needed their Vietnam and that is what they got. I hope future generations of Americans can find years of peace.

Such a fools' errand. I was in college when we invaded Afghanistan, and was a 40 y/o parent when we withdrew. Incredibly sad.

20 years, wow, once the Taliban said "you may have the watches, but we have the time" so True

Rambo 3 becam much more interesting as the US floundered in Afghanistan. In the movie, Col. Trautman says to the Soviet commander, “We had our Vietnam! Now you’ll have yours”. We went into that war knowing there was no way to win.

Who else is still happy that Armchair Historian is still up and running? Love the content!

I was deployed twice to Afghanistan. 12-13 and 14-15 with the 101st. I was there at the ceremony in Kabul for the ending of ISAF and the beginning of Resolute Support. I've been to the prison on Bagram airbase and watched their legal system. BTW, I was infantry. And in 2021, right before I got out, I helped with the refugees coming off those planes here in the US. In 15, we all knew how this was going to end. Exactly as it did.

"We didn't lose, we merely failed to win" -90% of Americans

Since we’re all posting our experiences with Afghanistan I’ll tell you all an interesting story. I was in Afghanistan in 2013 and among the things I noticed was how incompetent the Afghan police and military was. 8 years later I was on vacation to visit a friend of mine in Toronto, Canada and I took and Uber from the airport. The driver was originally from India (which btw the Indian government supported the U.S.-backed regime in Afghanistan) and we got talking about Afghanistan. The Indian driver was from Punjab province, a border region and he had friends who worked in the Border Police (Indian version of the U.S. Border Patrol). The Indian Border Police had actually helped train the Afghan Police (I had read that somewhere but this guy had actually had friends who had helped with this mission) and the driver’s friend had said he couldn’t belong how incompetent the Afghan recruits were! Many couldn’t read or hold guns properly, the idea they were going to be law enforcement officers was outrageous (mind you Indian police aren’t always known for their competence but compared to Afghans they were the best police in the world)! A few days later I heard Kabul had fallen and they were evacuating via the airport…

My dad hates himself for what he did in this Country. "I defended Poppy Fields from Farmers. I didn't kill militants, I killed upset people."

As a Vietnam vet I knew it would play out exactly like Nam from day one and it did. It was carbon copy.

Having been born in 2000, the war in Afghanistan was always a background part of my childhood (I'm British, btw). I still remember seeing the regular reports on the news about soldiers killed in action, and footage of coffins draped in Union Flags being unloaded from planes - the words "Helmand Province" and "Camp Bastion" are, I think, permanently etched into my brain. Of course, being so young, and never knowing different, I didn't truly understand the war or it's significance. Only years later, as we pulled our own people out, did I really begin the grasp the truth.

Modern history is always a great topic to cover especially one that was so significant in a lot of our lives

The PTSD scene in Rambo reminds me of Afghanistan “Nothing is over, nothing you just don’t turn it off. It wasn’t my war You asked me I didn’t ask you I did what I had to do to win but they wouldn’t let us win”

The author forgot to mention that casualties of Afghan army and police inflicted by Taliban were more than 70 thousand KIA, + the Coalition's casualties and PMC's casualties. US and the Coalition forces would have suffered higher casualties if Talibans had not been forced to spray themselves to fight Afghan government forces.