You Voted for This, Because 'Mean Tweets'?

[MarketIfTouched]

"The Taliban is not the south — the North Vietnamese army. They’re not — they’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability.
There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of a embassy in the — of the United States from Afghanistan.
It is not at all comparable."

-President Biden 8-July-2021
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-roo ... ghanistan/



I was never more disappointed in my fellow citizens as when they decided to vote for President Biden because his opponent wrote 'mean tweets'.

[D1984]

"The Taliban is not the south — the North Vietnamese army. They’re not — they’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability.
There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of a embassy in the — of the United States from Afghanistan.
It is not at all comparable."

-President Biden 8-July-2021
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-roo ... ghanistan/



I was never more disappointed in my fellow citizens as when they decided to vote for President Biden because his opponent wrote 'mean tweets'.

I voted for Biden (reluctantly...I would've preferred Yang, Bernie, or Warren in roughly that order) but not because I cared much about Trump's tweets.

The fact is, however, that no matter whether Biden or Trump was POTUS (or for that matter, a hypothetical, say, Hillary, Yang, Warren, Rubio, Bernie, or Jeb presidency) the Taliban were going to take back most/all of Afghanistan within a short period of time once we withdrew UNLESS the Afghans were willing to stand up and fight them. Judging from what has happened so far (including in some cases where Afghan government forces abandoned their positions when less than a dozen or so Taliban showed up) I'd say that the Afghans weren't willing to fight for their country against the Taliban. If so, so be it. Why should we waste another single dollar or spill another single drop of American blood for a people who by and large won't even fight for their own country? To paraphrase LBJ: "Why should I send American boys to do a job that Afghan boys won't do for themselves?".

[SomeDude]

"The Taliban is not the south — the North Vietnamese army. They’re not — they’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability.
There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of a embassy in the — of the United States from Afghanistan.
It is not at all comparable."

-President Biden 8-July-2021
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-roo ... ghanistan/



I was never more disappointed in my fellow citizens as when they decided to vote for President Biden because his opponent wrote 'mean tweets'.

I was never more disappointed in the voting machines or the fake ballots than when they voted for Biden's earpiece.

[glennds]

Why should we waste another single dollar or spill another single drop of American blood for a people who by and large won't even fight for their own country? To paraphrase LBJ: "Why should I send American boys to do a job that Afghan boys won't do for themselves?".

20 years ago the thesis was not being involved permitted the country to become a safe harbor and breeding ground for terrorists.
And having just been struck by them, we were sensitive to it. So taking the Taliban out of a position of control ostensibly made the US safer.
I'm not saying the thesis was correct, but that's what it was.

[dockinGA]

I didn't vote for either of the clowns we were given as options to lead the free world, so let's just get that out of the way. And each have a hand in the complete disaster of what's happening. My fear is that we will soon think that keeping a few thousand US troops almost permanently stationed in that 'country' kept an uneasy peace in the region and was worth every penny we were spending. And honestly, at this point, given all the other items of runaway spending we're doing that we can't pay for, this was just a drop in the bucket. There is no good answer here, but I think the status quo will almost certainly look like the best decision in hindsight. Sometimes it's best to just do nothing.

[glennds]

I didn't vote for either of the clowns we were given as options to lead the free world, so let's just get that out of the way. And each have a hand in the complete disaster of what's happening. My fear is that we will soon think that keeping a few thousand US troops almost permanently stationed in that 'country' kept an uneasy peace in the region and was worth every penny we were spending. And honestly, at this point, given all the other items of runaway spending we're doing that we can't pay for, this was just a drop in the bucket. There is no good answer here, but I think the status quo will almost certainly look like the best decision in hindsight. Sometimes it's best to just do nothing.

Funny you would say that. Last night Google led me to a map that shows US military presence around the world. It was enlightening to see how many more troops we keep in places like UK, Germany, Spain, Italy and of course the big ones being Japan and S.Korea. Then compare the pared down deployment in Afghanistan toward the end and the low casualty stats (I think 1 casualty in the past 12 months or something like that. Makes you wonder whether the lesser of the evils was to leave things alone. Even if for no other reason than to save face rather than start with a Taliban controlled country, spend 20 years and $1T, then retreat, and leave behind a Taliban controlled country.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/u-s-mi ... s-country/

[Xan]

A very critical take from the Trump withdrawal agreement, at the time:
https://time.com/5794643/trumps-disgrac ... l-taliban/

[Kbg]

Leaving Afghanistan was a bipartisan foreign policy decision. Trump started the exit, Biden finished it.

Everything we are seeing now is A) to sell news and B) for posturing/CYA

Love or hate Biden, his statement “One more year, or five more years, of US military presence would not have made a difference if the Afghan military cannot or will not hold its own country." is spot on.

[glennds]

Leaving Afghanistan was a bipartisan foreign policy decision. Trump started the exit, Biden finished it.

Everything we are seeing now is A) to sell news and B) for posturing/CYA

Love or hate Biden, his statement “One more year, or five more years, of US military presence would not have made a difference if the Afghan military cannot or will not hold its own country." is spot on.

Making a foreign policy decision and executing a foreign policy decision are two different things.
Biden will own the execution of this decision even if it was Trump who made it.

[Kbg]

Leaving Afghanistan was a bipartisan foreign policy decision. Trump started the exit, Biden finished it.

Everything we are seeing now is A) to sell news and B) for posturing/CYA

Love or hate Biden, his statement “One more year, or five more years, of US military presence would not have made a difference if the Afghan military cannot or will not hold its own country." is spot on.

Making a foreign policy decision and executing a foreign policy decision are two different things.
Biden will own the execution of this decision even if it was Trump who made it.

A big amen brother, execution is always the hardest part by far. What doubly sucks is the opposing side is deliberately trying to screw you up. And, on top of they they usually A) don't tell you what their plans are, and B) gasp, they no kidding lie a lot/try to deceive you.

Monday morning quarterbacking is easy, tell us what would you have done differently?

Also, please in your response answer this question: Was the country your poured 1T, most of it going to the military, expected to collapse in a couple of week. Or if that one is too tough because you aren't an expert, tell us if you are going to be in a car accident within the next six months and where?

[glennds]

Leaving Afghanistan was a bipartisan foreign policy decision. Trump started the exit, Biden finished it.

Everything we are seeing now is A) to sell news and B) for posturing/CYA

Love or hate Biden, his statement “One more year, or five more years, of US military presence would not have made a difference if the Afghan military cannot or will not hold its own country." is spot on.

Making a foreign policy decision and executing a foreign policy decision are two different things.
Biden will own the execution of this decision even if it was Trump who made it.

A big amen brother, execution is always the hardest part by far. What doubly sucks is the opposing side is deliberately trying to screw you up. And, on top of they they usually A) don't tell you what their plans are, and B) gasp, they no kidding lie a lot/try to deceive you.

Monday morning quarterbacking is easy, tell us what would you have done differently?

I must have missed the part where I was money morning quarterbacking. I have speculated whether the cost/risk of staying is lower than the cost of leaving. And I drew a distinction between the decision to leave and the execution of it. I noticed you and Kriegs took a position in the other thread on this subject, with which I have not disagreed but said time will tell.

What would I have done differently? Well let's see. If the original premise was sound, namely that Afghanistan under control of the Taliban was a safe harbor and breeding ground for terrorists, which in turn is a threat to U.S. national security, then yes, exerting our influence there was a valid thing to do in light of having been attacked by terrorists.
But if we are to exit, logic says it should be either because we (i) have now concluded that our original premise for being there was invalid OR (ii) the threat has been resolved and Afghanistan is no longer a safe harbor and breeding ground for terrorists. If we can't say either of these things, then what's the reason for our departure? Because it's a forever war, and we've lost our will to stay committed? Is that the message to send to the world? Or should we care?

Our last administration adopted an isolationist policy, that we should not be the police in the rest of the world. This was a radical departure from post-WWII activist doctrine that was been in place for 65 years.

On the execution part however, I am not too bashful to say planning for the exit should have made provision for those that assisted the US during the occupation, knowing the personal risk to those people of eventual retribution from the Taliban if we just abandoned them.
Does it take a monday morning quarterback or a crystal ball to consider that, or might it be basic common decency?

But I do find it interesting that according to Gallup, in 2001 nine out of ten Americans were supportive of the Afghan war.
Today, I would speculate that 90% of those supportive recall themselves being in the 10% camp.

Also, please in your response answer this question: Was the country your poured 1T, most of it going to the military, expected to collapse in a couple of week. Or if that one is too tough because you aren't an expert, tell us if you are going to be in a car accident within the next six months and where?

Great question. So great, in order to answer it, I would beg to see the intelligence we presumably had on the question. Was the two week collapse a complete blindside, or was there intelligence that attributed some meaningful % of likelihood to it? Do you think military outcomes are as random as car accidents? Or are they analyzed using the most sophisticated game theory, considering knowns, unknowns, intelligence and dozens of other inputs?

Question for you - Would you know whether the decision to leave and the manner in which it was executed squared with the advice of the Pentagon?
Of course we live in an age where no news can be trusted, but the get-out-of-Afghanistan decision from the White House coincided with a time when Esper was fired as Secretary of Defense and supposedly a leadership purge happened at the Pentagon. You and I will probably never know who was the tail and who was the dog, but I am suspicious of a White House pull-out announcement made on November 17, 2020 (in the midst of election chaos), calling for substantial withdrawal by "mid-January", a mere 60 days and total withdrawal by May. Trump was on record saying we "should" be out by Christmas. What does that tell you?

Question 2 - What advice did Biden get from the Pentagon and Intelligence community regarding staging of the withdrawal?

If you only get to choose one or the other, what's worse, the so-called never ending wars that 90% of Americans supported at the outset, or the vacuum we leave behind after withdrawal?
In Vietnam, withdrawal didn't make us any less safe. So we can now say the never ending war would have been worse in Vietnam.
Time will tell on this one.

Thank you for the discussion.

[barrett]

Was talking to a Lebanese American friend this morning. He spent the first 22 years of his life in Lebanon and was a member of a Druze security force that was attempting to keep the Christians and Muslims from killing one another early in the the civil war there. Anyway, his take is that the main concern of the US right now is an Iran that is beyond our ability to contain, and that the desired outcome in Afghanistan is to have a hostile Sunni neighbor that shares a long border with Shia Iran.

Too cynical?

[flyingpylon]

What would I have done differently? Well let's see. If the original premise was sound, namely that Afghanistan under control of the Taliban was a safe harbor and breeding ground for terrorists, which in turn is a threat to U.S. national security, then yes, exerting our influence there was a valid thing to do in light of having been attacked by terrorists.
But if we are to exit, logic says it should be either because we (i) have now concluded that our original premise for being there was invalid OR (ii) the threat has been resolved and Afghanistan is no longer a safe harbor and breeding ground for terrorists. If we can't say either of these things, then what's the reason for our departure? Because it's a forever war, and we've lost our will to stay committed? Is that the message to send to the world? Or should we care?

My question, to those of you here who supposedly know more about this than I do, is why were we dicking around there for 20 years? I mean, we have the most powerful military on the planet, so why didn't we go in there, take over the country, set up a new government that was not "a breeding ground for terrorists" or whatever and then GTF out, in say 3 years total?

I don't know any more than you, but it seems obvious that what you describe was not actually the objective there.

[yankees60]

My question, to those of you here who supposedly know more about this than I do, is why were we dicking around there for 20 years? I mean, we have the most powerful military on the planet, so why didn't we go in there, take over the country, set up a new government that was not "a breeding ground for terrorists" or whatever and then GTF out, in say 3 years total?

For probably the same reasons that Russia gave up in the 90s and finally left as we just did?

[sophie]

I gather that the original point of the thread was whether Trump would have done better. It's hard to say of course. I will just say that from a policy standpoint, Trump did a LOT better than Biden - who has been consistently a hot mess from Day 1.

The question of whether policy should outweigh personality in a voting decision was beaten to death in the runup to the election. Several forum members, many of whom are no longer active, decided that personality should outweigh policy, regardless of the potential cost. It would be interesting to hear from them about whether they've changed their minds in view of recent events. i.e. let me put it this way: how many deaths and ruined lives are Donald Trump's tweets worth?

[glennds]

Several forum members, many of whom are no longer active, decided that personality should outweigh policy, regardless of the potential cost. It would be interesting to hear from them about whether they've changed their minds in view of recent events. i.e. let me put it this way: how many deaths and ruined lives are Donald Trump's tweets worth?

Ah, you must be talking about Technovelist. Yes, I have wondered whether he's changed his positions. Excellent point!

[SomeDude]

I gather that the original point of the thread was whether Trump would have done better. It's hard to say of course. I will just say that from a policy standpoint, Trump did a LOT better than Biden - who has been consistently a hot mess from Day 1.

The question of whether policy should outweigh personality in a voting decision was beaten to death in the runup to the election. Several forum members, many of whom are no longer active, decided that personality should outweigh policy, regardless of the potential cost. It would be interesting to hear from them about whether they've changed their minds in view of recent events. i.e. let me put it this way: how many deaths and ruined lives are Donald Trump's tweets worth?

For a lot of them the deaths and ruined lives were the goal. Most of the others were fake votes.

[Kbg]

1. But if we are to exit, logic says it should be either because we (i) have now concluded that our original premise for being there was invalid OR (ii) the threat has been resolved and Afghanistan is no longer a safe harbor and breeding ground for terrorists. If we can't say either of these things, then what's the reason for our departure? Because it's a forever war, and we've lost our will to stay committed? Is that the message to send to the world? Or should we care?

2. On the execution part however, I am not too bashful to say planning for the exit should have made provision for those that assisted the US during the occupation, knowing the personal risk to those people of eventual retribution from the Taliban if we just abandoned them.
Does it take a monday morning quarterback or a crystal ball to consider that, or might it be basic common decency?

3. But I do find it interesting that according to Gallup, in 2001 nine out of ten Americans were supportive of the Afghan war.
Today, I would speculate that 90% of those supportive recall themselves being in the 10% camp.

4. Great question. So great, in order to answer it, I would beg to see the intelligence we presumably had on the question. Was the two week collapse a complete blindside, or was there intelligence that attributed some meaningful % of likelihood to it? Do you think military outcomes are as random as car accidents? Or are they analyzed using the most sophisticated game theory, considering knowns, unknowns, intelligence and dozens of other inputs?

5. Question for you - Would you know whether the decision to leave and the manner in which it was executed squared with the advice of the Pentagon?
Of course we live in an age where no news can be trusted, but the get-out-of-Afghanistan decision from the White House coincided with a time when Esper was fired as Secretary of Defense and supposedly a leadership purge happened at the Pentagon. You and I will probably never know who was the tail and who was the dog, but I am suspicious of a White House pull-out announcement made on November 17, 2020 (in the midst of election chaos), calling for substantial withdrawal by "mid-January", a mere 60 days and total withdrawal by May. Trump was on record saying we "should" be out by Christmas. What does that tell you?

6. Question 2 - What advice did Biden get from the Pentagon and Intelligence community regarding staging of the withdrawal?

If you only get to choose one or the other, what's worse, the so-called never ending wars that 90% of Americans supported at the outset, or the vacuum we leave behind after withdrawal?
In Vietnam, withdrawal didn't make us any less safe. So we can now say the never ending war would have been worse in Vietnam.
Time will tell on this one.

Thank you for the discussion.

Sorry it's late so these will be brief. First, thank you as well for the discussion. Good return fire.

1. i. I think the premise has changed...going there in the first place was about Al-Qaeda primarily but as I mentioned to send a message to governments beyond Afghanistan. AQ isn't really there anymore. (Not saying there isn't a small handful who claim to be AQ, IDK). ii. Fatigue and cost. Do you want to sign on for another 20 years and a Trillion dollars? I don't. It's obvious as of this evening we got pretty much got nothing for it except for booting AQ. There's a phrase in international relations/political science called "interests." These change over time and I think both Trump and Biden decided it was no longer in our interest as a country to stay and not worth the continued cost in terms of funds and lives. I completely agree with both administrations. So some egg on our face. It's fine...it will wash off.

2. No argument from me on this one. Reading the news though, I don't think anyone expected the collapse to be as quick as it was...a couple of weeks was in no one's play book.

3. I'd be in that camp. See response #1

4. Oh man...I could type a lot of words on this topic. Certainly more sophisticated, but I've seen quite a bit of flat out wrong in my time. I'm firmly in the HB PP philosophy camp/principles on this one. No one can predict the future when it comes to the big strategic stuff. My experience has been even if someone or the majority of the intel folks get it right, that doesn't mean anyone will listen. There are several books on this phenomena. As Eisenhower said (which I agree with) it's not the plan that matters it's the planning (e.g. no one gets it right usually, but going through the drill helps you to know how to react as things unfold). Hopefully the planners have thought about "what if the bottom totally falls out on this thing?" and are now figuring out the best ways to do whatever the mission is.

5. I am now not with the government and was not at that time...so zero inside knowledge. I'm not sure what it tells us. I would not be in the least bit surprised if the Pentagon advice was to "keep going we can do this." I know for a fact that was the advice many, many, many times. But I'm sorry...this one completely fits within that definition of insanity where you keep doing the same thing that isn't working. Again, I agree 1000% with Trump and Biden's decision to end it.

6. Yep, time will tell....see my comment on HB :-). There could be a vacuum. As John Huntsman said in his very short campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. IHuntsman said. "...internationally we're in places I believe we should not be, spending one out of every six Defense Department dollars on Afghanistan. And I'm here to tell you that America's future is not going to be won or lost in the prairies of Afghanistan. It's going to be won or lost based upon our ability to compete in the 21st century crowds of Pacific."

Pure speculation on my part but I think this thing went down something like this.

US - Let's really end this thing and put the date out so everyone will know we are actually leaving.

Taliban - Hmmm, interesting. We just got a hall pass. Let's kick it in gear and see what happens. The worst that could happen is we go back to how things are now.

Taliban - Holy crap, this thing is a total house of cards!

US - Holy crap, this thing is a total house of cards!

[yankees60]

Pure speculation on my part but I think this thing went down something like this.

US - Let's really end this thing and put the date out so everyone will know we are actually leaving.

Taliban - Hmmm, interesting. We just got a hall pass. Let's kick it in gear and see what happens. The worst that could happen is we go back to how things are now.

Taliban - Holy crap, this thing is a total house of cards!

US - Holy crap, this thing is a total house of cards!

Many, many thanks Kbg for providing us posts like this one. Always highly valued by me...

[Kriegsspiel]

1. But if we are to exit, logic says it should be either because we (i) have now concluded that our original premise for being there was invalid OR (ii) the threat has been resolved and Afghanistan is no longer a safe harbor and breeding ground for terrorists. If we can't say either of these things, then what's the reason for our departure? Because it's a forever war, and we've lost our will to stay committed? Is that the message to send to the world? Or should we care?

2. On the execution part however, I am not too bashful to say planning for the exit should have made provision for those that assisted the US during the occupation, knowing the personal risk to those people of eventual retribution from the Taliban if we just abandoned them.
Does it take a monday morning quarterback or a crystal ball to consider that, or might it be basic common decency?

3. But I do find it interesting that according to Gallup, in 2001 nine out of ten Americans were supportive of the Afghan war.
Today, I would speculate that 90% of those supportive recall themselves being in the 10% camp.

4. Great question. So great, in order to answer it, I would beg to see the intelligence we presumably had on the question. Was the two week collapse a complete blindside, or was there intelligence that attributed some meaningful % of likelihood to it? Do you think military outcomes are as random as car accidents? Or are they analyzed using the most sophisticated game theory, considering knowns, unknowns, intelligence and dozens of other inputs?

5. Question for you - Would you know whether the decision to leave and the manner in which it was executed squared with the advice of the Pentagon?
Of course we live in an age where no news can be trusted, but the get-out-of-Afghanistan decision from the White House coincided with a time when Esper was fired as Secretary of Defense and supposedly a leadership purge happened at the Pentagon. You and I will probably never know who was the tail and who was the dog, but I am suspicious of a White House pull-out announcement made on November 17, 2020 (in the midst of election chaos), calling for substantial withdrawal by "mid-January", a mere 60 days and total withdrawal by May. Trump was on record saying we "should" be out by Christmas. What does that tell you?

6. Question 2 - What advice did Biden get from the Pentagon and Intelligence community regarding staging of the withdrawal?

If you only get to choose one or the other, what's worse, the so-called never ending wars that 90% of Americans supported at the outset, or the vacuum we leave behind after withdrawal?
In Vietnam, withdrawal didn't make us any less safe. So we can now say the never ending war would have been worse in Vietnam.
Time will tell on this one.

Thank you for the discussion.

1. The mission morphed into nation-building, which was not our original premise for military action in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the way the mission changed over the years led to a dead-end, so it's not bad to "uncommit" to a dead-end. It's not a great look, but it had to happen.

2. There was provision for that; even when I was there in 2010 we helped an interpreter fill out his special visa. AFAIK every deserving Afghan had a chance to get a visa. That said, there seems to be incompetence with whoever processed the visas (or lying/incompetence by the journalists who report it), as I've seen that Afghans who submitted their visas many years ago are having them denied now because whoever vouched for them has died. Also, I want to mention that not everyone who "worked with us" in Afghanistan is a good person who deserved a visa. A lot of them were pieces of shit who were just doing it for money. The guy that we vouched for was someone I would have no issues being my neighbor in America; that wasn't the case for others, so they didn't get special visas. What you're seeing in the news, with all the talk of "we're leaving people behind to be killed" and "we need to let in a shit load of Afghan refugees" is either uninformed or an information operation.

3. Ok. I don't agree. I think most people thought it was necessary at the time, and now most don't think it's necessary to be there.

4. I'm sure our intelligence community would love to still have access to the trove of info contained at the embassy in Kabul, but last I saw on the news, it was being destroyed in preparation for evacuation. This is a HUGE TRAVESTY. Unless that intel was already disseminated or stored offsite, then this is a massive failure. Maybe people refused to comply with Trump and prepare to evacuate when he told them to, or maybe someone (in the Biden admin, or a #resistance piece of shit during the Trump admin) told them not to, presumably because Biden didn't intend to leave Afghanistan? Maybe the Biden admin thought that the Afghan government forces could hold out longer and hadn't started packing their shit up? In the end, this was a huge fuckup.

5. See above. And like I said before, the military has been drawing down its presence for a decade. I don't think there were any fuck ups like with the embassy. The military executed the mission they were told to execute (turning equipment/bases over to the Afghans, destroying FOBs, etc).

6. *shrug*

As far as which option is worse, never-ending wars are worse. At least with "leaving a vacuum," as you put it... Hell, the Taliban are self-interested. Who's to say they won't tell AQ or some other terrorist group to GTFO if they try to set up training bases in Afghanistan again? I mean, do they really want to get ousted by us again? Like you said, time will tell.

[Kriegsspiel]

My question, to those of you here who supposedly know more about this than I do, is why were we dicking around there for 20 years? I mean, we have the most powerful military on the planet, so why didn't we go in there, take over the country, set up a new government that was not "a breeding ground for terrorists" or whatever and then GTF out, in say 3 years total?

With the most powerful military on the planet, it's reasonable to expect that it could go there and take over a country. But setting up a new government is not a military function, IMO. Setting up a new government completely antithetical to the populace, who are actively hostile, is pretty tough.

To answer your question, we (the military) was there because nobody told us to leave, they told us to try to nation-build. Militarily, we dominated Afghanistan, it's just that nation-building is retarded. Or rather, nation-building from scratch is retarded.

[glennds]

Can anyone come up with an example in modern history where nation building has actually worked?
I'm having trouble coming up with one. Other than post WWII where Japan and Germany were decimated and basically had no other options.

Forget modern history. How about any time in human history?

[Xan]

Can anyone come up with an example in modern history where nation building has actually worked?
I'm having trouble coming up with one.

Forget modern history. How about any time in human history?

We pretty successfully completely rebuilt Japan and Germany, no?

[Xan]

4. I'm sure our intelligence community would love to still have access to the trove of info contained at the embassy in Kabul, but last I saw on the news, it was being destroyed in preparation for evacuation. This is a HUGE TRAVESTY. Unless that intel was already disseminated or stored offsite, then this is a massive failure. Maybe people refused to comply with Trump and prepare to evacuate when he told them to, or maybe someone (in the Biden admin, or a #resistance piece of shit during the Trump admin) told them not to, presumably because Biden didn't intend to leave Afghanistan? Maybe the Biden admin thought that the Afghan government forces could hold out longer and hadn't started packing their shit up? In the end, this was a huge fuckup.

I'm really enjoying the insights provided by kbg and Kriegs. Thanks guys.

Kriegs, on the quote above: what intelligence info is physically contained in the embassy? Surely everything was constantly being backed up to servers in the US, right? Or are you talking about physical items that are somehow important for intelligence? I wouldn't think that any embassy would keep any information remotely of value only within the walls of the embassy in this age of Internet connectivity and encryption.

[glennds]

Can anyone come up with an example in modern history where nation building has actually worked?
I'm having trouble coming up with one.

Forget modern history. How about any time in human history?

We pretty successfully completely rebuilt Japan and Germany, no?

Yes, good point, but there the circumstances were post war, both countries were decimated, and both countries had initiated war against others. I guess I'm talking more about a situation where the nation building was initiated by the outside power, not the result of direct military provocation.