If you think the war in Afghanistan is winnable, I have a wall to sell you that Mexico will pay for.

[Snake Plissken]

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2016/09/12/report-wars-in-iraq-afghanistan-cost-almost-5-trillion-so-far/

He have spent roughly 5 trillion dollars on Iraq and Afghanistan. To date we have recorded 23,984 enemy deaths in Iraq and roughly 90,000 in Afghanistan, so we're spending roughly $8 million dollars per enemy kill and it costs the Taliban about $20 to manufacture and deploy and IED which kills 2 or 3 of our troops and does millions of dollars in damage, plus it's on their home turf which they are defending with their lives from an occupying force

[underpants]

1. Yeah but all those other people were losers

The Afghanistan area has been invaded many times in recorded history, but no invader has been able to control all of its regions at the same time, and at some point faced rebellion. Some of the invaders in the history of Afghanistan include the Maurya Empire of ancient India, Alexander the Great of Macedon, Umar, an Arab Caliphate, Genghis Khan of Mongolia, Timur of Persia and Central Asia, the Mughal Empire of India, various Persian Empires, the British Empire, the Sikh Empire, the Soviet Union, and most recently a coalition force of NATO troops, the majority from the United States, which entered the country in the first-ever invocation of NATO's Article 5 "an attack on one is an attack on all" following the September 11 attacks in the United States.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasions_of_Afghanistan

[Snake Plissken]

2. And even if you beat all the odds and win, what exactly do you win?

A third world country in the middle of nowhere, that has been blow back into the Stone Age, in needs a trillion dollars to rebuild , and will be overrun by the Taliban as soon as you leave.

[Heartstrings]

3. Bodybags

You win bodybags......

[Midnight Writer]

5. There it is. After 16 years, what exactly is our goal? What is a win and how will we get there?

We have gone from "Getting Osama" to deposing the dictator to breaking the Taliban to "protecting women's rights" (remember that one?) to defending against ISIS to not giving the terrorists a homeland and now full circle to taking their stuff while we occupy them.

How much will it cost in blood and money to achieve...exactly what? What is our "National Interest"?

Would Afghanis be better off without us? Yes, it would certainly be a brutal, oppressive place, but would that be worse than living in a perpetual War?

[SHRED]

4. And that article is a year old

Wow

[C Moon]

6. My feeling is that Trump is now going to restart the Bush-Cheney approach to ruining the U.S.

Bannon's approach was failing, so Trump is listening to those who want to pump money into the military.

[JI7]

7. we can't win. i think Obama's position was mostly to not let it become what it was before for Al

Qaeda which resulted in the 9/11 attacks. so keep some people there to help prevent that or to monitor things.

but he knew there wasn't much chance for actual improvement.