ta20240528 3 hours ago

The usa couldnt handle Aghanistan. Now they are invading continental Europe?

As I said, still licking the car battery.

jack_tripper 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

>The usa couldnt handle Aghanistan

Reddit level argument ignoring the fact that the US's goal there wasn't to win anything since there's nothing of value there, it was to funnel taxpayer money to the military industrial complex for 15 years.

Pretty sure the US could have glassed Afghanistan off the map if they really wanted but probably wouldn't have been very popular decision.

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lossolo an hour ago | parent [-]

> US's goal there wasn't to win anything since there's nothing of value there

War is only a tool, dominating a country or region militarily is not the same as winning a war if you have not achieved its political goals. In Afghanistan, those goals were not achieved, which means the war was lost.

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Loughla 40 minutes ago | parent [-]

What were the goals for Afghanistan?

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lukan 32 minutes ago | parent [-]

Destroying Al Quaida and their host, the Taliban. Al Quaida might be gone, but I believe Taliban are in power today and the US left in a not so glorious way after giving up fighting them.

	▲	freehorse 9 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Not just "giving up fighting them": when the US decided to leave, the taliban were in a stronger position than they were before the US invaded (eg they controlled a bigger part of the country and had much less opposition inside afghanistan). The war was already lost long before the US decided to leave.

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dghlsakjg 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

In fairness, the US has a pretty good record when it comes to invading continental Europe. They already have troops and nukes on the ground in the Netherlands...

And they didn't exactly struggle with the invasion parts of Afghanistan and Iraq, nor in the getting of high status targets in those theaters.

Arguably, the ICJ in the Hague is actually a result of one of those successful deployments of US forces on the continent.

Still not sure what can be done about the car battery ingestion challenges, though.

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throawayonthe 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

i think it's one of those things where how/if they will do it doesn't matter, it's a "we make the rules" thing

if the situation is such that a US -> Netherlands land invasion (with somehow independent armed forces?) is imaginable, you're past the point of the US-ICC legal relations mattering (i'd go so far as to say there's no sovereignty to speak of here :p)

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YC9834689 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Most European countries barely have a standing military to defend themselves, they're completely dependent on the USA for defense through NATO. And their leadership is so docile and complacent that I can't see them being able to muster up a strong resistance to any incursion, most likely if there was an actual invasion of The Hague they would let America do what they need to and try to return back to business as usual as quickly as possible. Again, they're not the types to think beyond the status quo.