How the U.S. hid an airstrike that killed dozens of civilians in Syria
The US record in Afghanistan is arguably even more ridiculous (and psychotic) than in Iraq.  We went in with a pretty good justification (Taliban refusal to hand over Osama bin Laden for his central role in 9/11 terrorism) - although to be honest, the argument for doing the regime change op in Saudi Arabia was far more robust, as members of the Saudi government aided the hijackers and Saudi Royal family members were a key funding source.<p>Everything since then has been ridiculous.  Getting in bed with heroin-shipping warlords because they were anti-Taliban?  Not that the Taliban got over $100 million from the USA in 1999-2001 for opium poppy eradication efforts, which were quite successful, although TAPI pipeline talks didn't go as well in this period.<p>The whole 'Special Forces' fetishization is also pretty ridiculous.  The best of the best of the best, la-dee-dah.  Lots of nightime raids, which only pissed off the local population and made them quite willing to hand over power to the Taliban without a fight this year.  Didn't 'US leaders' learn that from Vietnam?  If the locals all hate you they're not going to support your remotely installed puppet government.<p>Oh, and the "Afghan Army Training Program" - at a cost of something like $10 billion to train and equip 350,000 Afghan  Army members who'd be the nucleus of the new independent government...  all that cash just went into Dubai bank accounts, didn't it?  Or McMansions in Kabul. Gross blatant corruption (and the 'infrastructure projects' oh god... for a million bucks you get a chain of ten subcontractors backed up by one guy digging a ditch with a worn-out shovel... get used to it, that's coming here now).<p>American foreign policy in the 21st century - what an absolute disaster.  Reminiscent of say, France and Britain in the Middle East from oh 1945-1954.  Similar long-term results are to be expected.