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by surgical_fire 458 days ago
> Taliban would have had to be in a position of power.

They control the territory. The Taliban is in fact in a position of power. Doubly so now that it forced the US to retreat.

It is a weird definition of "victory", when the end of the war was a hasty and poorly executed retreat.
1 comments
kennysoona 458 days ago
> They control the territory.

Only after a voluntary retreat, so that is irrelevant since they didn't have power at the time of the treat, and were not a factor in the decision to retreat.

> It is a weird definition of "victory", when the end of the war was a hasty and poorly executed retreat.

Of course it was a victory. The Taliban were ousted within weeks and then the place was under US control for 20 years. If it wasn't a victory, the last 20 years would have been like the last year instead of what they were like.

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surgical_fire 457 days ago
> Only after a voluntary retreat

A voluntary retreat is not a victory. You are arguing it is, which is extremely odd.

> Of course it was a victory. The Taliban were ousted within weeks and then the place was under US control for 20 years.

If the victory conditions were to be bogged down for 20 years wasting resources in an occupation that netted no benefits, only to have your enemy be back in the following day when you do your voluntary retreat, those are the most retarded victory conditions ever spelled out.

It would be like claiming victory against the Nazis if after some years both the US and USSR left Germany, and in the following day the Nazis were setting up concentration camps again.

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kennysoona 457 days ago
> A voluntary retreat is not a victory. You are arguing it is, which is extremely odd.

If I come in to your country, invade it, and have complete dominion for 20 years, than I've successfully invaded your country. Victoriously.

If I then change my mind and decide to leave, after 20 years of having a provisional government because I got bored, then yeah, my victory still stands, and the rest is details and semantics.

> It would be like claiming victory against the Nazis if after some years both the US and USSR left Germany, and in the following day the Nazis were setting up concentration camps again.

If they had held dominion over the Nazis for the entire time they were there and left voluntarily because they felt all of a sudden it wasn't there fight, it wouldn't be wrong to do so.

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