Why Were We In Afghanistan?

On this episode of Common Sense Soapbox, Seamus explains the costly errors behind America’s involvement in Afghanistan. Although the botched withdrawal and frenzied logistics are apparent, Bob, Ron, and Sarah are made aware of the systematic failure and shaky premises the war was based on.
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CREDITS:
Written by Seamus Coughlin and Sean W. Malone
Research by Matt Hampton & Tyler Brandt
Animation By:
Seamus Coughlin
Natasha Canepa
Jaime Velasquez
Caleb Black
Amazil
Produced & Edited by Sean W. Malone
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LINKS:

[laillahilaallah]

"Its not like we are on the verge if economic and social collapse"

Evergreene and deficit spending: "allow me to introducing ourselves"

[CptnCobblestone]

Highly underrated channel. We need more stuff like this content.

[fukumarkzuckerburg]

my issue with Afghanistan is _HOW_ we pulled out, but i agree that we should have left long ago.

[SoakintheSchadenfreude]

the raft springing a leak at the end would be a good touch.

[scooplerz]

I love that, in our pursuit of undermining Russia with their own Vietnam, we get stuck in a 20 year long war that we ultimately lost.

[Raptor]

"$2 trillion for Afghanistan's infrastructure and not a penny for our own." -US govt

[AlexJosten]

My issue with pulling out: we did it in the ugliest and worse way possible, we could have probably lost fewer lives, left fewer ppl behind, and not left all our equipment if we had organized properly and taken the necessary time

[elisehauck]

He is so good at informing people. It gives me facts and arguments.

[gavriloprincip]

I liked the "oh, nyet" caption! Классные мультики, продолжайте в том же духе)

[imperialbricks]

As soon as Bob heard the silence, he knew he was in for it.

[elisehauck]

Thank you for helping me inform people Seamus! I’m 14 and there are a lot of people who hate me for being a conservative and a catholic. God speed🙏

[rwberger]

"It's not like we're on the brink of economic and social collapse, right?"

Meanwhile everyone who has actually studied history is currently securing their bags because they know whats coming.

[UpstateGardening]

The people of Iraq actually wanted a regime change. Afghanistan doesn’t.

[fafhrdkreig]

Side note as soon as the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan we pulled our support if we had spent 10% of what we did in funding the mujahedeen to help rebuild we may have been able to prevent the Taliban from coming to power.

[spearshake]

Iraq was also partly responsible for why troops in Afghanistan didn't leave earlier. The US saw the chaos that occured once they left Iraq in 2011 and they had to return in any case to combat ISIS. That's why they decided to keep a military presence in Afghanistan a little longer. And boy did that turn out well...

[ilikedairyproducts]

What do you think about the Us defaulting on its debt?

[darthhodges]

I have one criticism. Your oversimplification of Vietnam and comparing it to Afghanistan. Vietnam actually ended the same way Korea did, with a stale mate. Except we actually got a signed peace treaty in Vietnam, so Vietnam kind of ended better. Then the next administration promised not to go back to Vietnam even though we had promised to defend the "democratic" South from the Communist North in said treaty. The North invaded and 2 years later, Saigon fell. The only troops we had in the country during those 2 years were embassy guards.

Vietnam was unpopular, expensive, and poorly handled, but it did initially achieve it's original goal of slowing the spread of Communism. We didn't achieve our goals in Afghanistan (democratic government) and left quick and dirty so in some ways the war in Afghanistan will be remembered by history as worse than the war in Vietnam.

[orusandornots]

I Was deployed twice to Afghanistan. Let me tell you something. All of us on the ground knew the Afghan solders were not even close to being ready. We were at least another 2 decades away from maybe having a stable country because for that you need patriotism to the country and all the Afghans cared about was their religious sect over everything. We needed to leave but there was a right way and a wrong way. We Had an outlined a plan for withdrawl years and years ago and we did it. We only had a couple thousand solders in country.

[charlesshelton]

As an Air Force veteran who was deployed to Afghanistan in 2018: I was feeling a raw mix of emotions as the news kept pouring in. I was somewhat exonerated that a war which started when I was in kindergarten finally started "drawing down".

I'm really angry that the ANA/ANP forces we stood up pretty much handed over the keys to the kingdom. I was extraordinarily p!ssed off when 13 of our comrades came home in body bags.

It will take an entire generation to fully recover from what happened. This was a slap in the face for us.

Now we are left wondering: what was it for?

[coltpiecemaker]

Ah, yes. the Common Sense Soapbox Cinematic Universe is all coming together...