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That is how they justified it to themselves. But what the US was actually doing in Afghanistan was spending two trillion dollars to (unsuccessfully) spread not-the-Taliban, in order to punish the Taliban for harbouring Osama Bin Laden pre-9/11. The not-the-Taliban the US spread included a bit of liberalism, but rather more drug dealing, bacha bazi, Pashtunwali, and stealing of US aid money. This was not a problem, except for the Afghans, who quite sensibly brought back the Taliban at the first reasonable opportunity.
I remember the pre-9/11 days when the treatment of Afghan women under the Taliban was a big deal (a fake petition against it was the first big viral fake e-mail) among Blue Tribers who wrongly considered themselves to be elites (undergraduates at top universities and suchlike), while the actual Blue Tribe elites of the US Deep State was turning a blind eye because friends of friends of the Taliban were on our side against Iran. Counterfactual (but obviously true) premise: The US would not have bombed Afghanistan without a 9/11-scale Al-Qaeda outrage. Conclusion: The US did not bomb Afghanistan for feminism.
The US power elite remains entirely comfortable with the treatment of women, gays, and journalists in Saudi Arabia for crissake. Because the al-Saud keep the oil flowing and hand out the DC largesse on a grand scale.
Hey, what's wrong with the Pashtunwali?
Ask the Afghans (very much including the women) who would rather live under the Taliban than under Pashtunwali. But my understanding is that Pashtunwali is a goatfucker culture honour code similar to the Albanian Law of Lek and is bad because it institutionalises all the pathologies of goatfucker cultures, including blood feuds, bridal kidnapping, goatfucking etc.
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So why did they force the king of Afghanistan to abdicate, instead if putting him on the throne?
I wouldn't say the US forced him to abdicate - he was couped in the 1970's by his Prime Minister. But if the question is "why did the US not put Zahir Shah on the throne as part of their policy of building not-the-Taliban?" then per Wikipedia the answer is that Pakistan vetoed it. That the US deep state still (wrongly) considered Pakistan an ally who might have a better sense of Afghan politics than they did was obvious if you were paying attention in the noughties.
I wouldn’t necessarily say that their assessment of Pakistan was wrong. They knew Pakistan was unstable and unreliable, but it was a much better option to keep Pakistan a nominal ally and de facto neutral, then to let them tip over into being an adversary.
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Then you'd be wrong, and that's not the question. They forced him to renounce all future claims the throne.
Please, no.
Maybe, but given this, and the decision to rebuild Iraq as a democracy seems to indicate ideological commitment, and your theory that it was all cynical is far from obvious.
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