Afghanistan True or False?

@canadry, as flawed as the US occupation was, Afghanistan had some very positive development in the past 20 years. Even if you look at human rights abuses, the things America did in Afghanistan over 20 years don't hold a candle to the things the Taliban can do in a month. If you haven't read any Khaled Hosseini books, I highly recommend them, as they are very eye-opening.

^Exactly. My point wasn't that America hasn't done terrible things, my point is that it doesn't make sense to say that America is as bad as the Taliban. For one thing, I think you're overestimating the deaths in the war; most reports say about 46,000 civilians and 67,000 military/security officers died. For sure, that's a lot, but much less than 250,000. And yes, America caused many of those deaths, but so did the Taliban, in suicide bombings and mass shootings. At the very least, America did some things to help Afghanistan. Between 2001 and 2011, primary school enrollment jumped from 21% to 97%, including millions of girls. Child mortality dropped by 50%, life expectancy increased by 10 years, and women became politicians and professionals. The Taliban didn't do good for anyone, least of all women. I think the fact that hundreds of thousands of Afghanis risked their lives to board flights to America after the Taliban took over says a lot about how bad they are.

None of that was meant to be ranty or rude, I'm just trying to state facts. I don't want to turn this into a long thread so I'll stop here, but if you don't know much about the Taliban, I definitely recommend reading more about what they were like in the '90s (or, as I said in the beginning, reading a Khaled Hosseini book).