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America’s Foreign Conflicts Can’t Be Solved By Invasions, High-Tech Military Toys

U.S. needs to look at alternative ways to eliminate threats

Manny Otiko
3 min readJun 15, 2020
Marines in Afghanistan (Sergeant Joseph R. Chenelly, United States Marine Corps)

After the end of the Vietnam war, the top military brass allegedly promised to never again get bogged down fighting an insurgency. But that’s exactly what happened in Afghanistan, a war we have officially lost. And the cost was more than $2 trillion to U.S. taxpayers.

Afghanistan lived up to its nickname of the “Graveyard of Empires,” and slowed down the world’s most high-tech military force. The Taliban now control more land than during the beginning of the invasion. They managed to defeat U.S. forces by simply waiting them out.

How the Taliban won

Much of this is detailed in an exhaustive May 26 New York Times article that details the Taliban’s war strategy and the U.S. military’s failure to understand the enemy.

“The Taliban have outlasted a superpower through nearly 19 years of grinding war,” wrote Mujib Mashal.

America’s defeat in Afghanistan should raise some pertinent questions. Why do we need a huge, expensive military budget, if our armed forces can’t seem to achieve…

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Manny Otiko
Manny Otiko

Written by Manny Otiko

Manny Otiko writes about race, politics and sports. He has been published in Salon and LA Weekly. Follow him at @mannyotiko.bsky.social

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