Today (April 14, 2021,) President Joe Biden, the fourth American Chief Executive presiding over Military Involvement in Afghanistan, announced that he would not pass on that responsibility to a fifth American leader and said he would start the withdrawal of the remaining United States troops from that nation on May 1, 2021.
The President cited many valid reasons for this decision including:
- People that were born after the terrorist attacks on 9/11 are now serving in Afghanistan.
- American military parents and their children (remember they represent only one percent of the nation's citizens who have chosen the military as a vocation) have served in the close to the 20-year war.
- The main objective of the war: to capture, arrest, and kill the culprits responsible for the attacks on 9/11 (including Osama Bin Laden) was accomplished years ago.
- No matter how large the American military presence in Afghanistan is; be it close to 100,000 troops or the current complement of 3500, the geopolitical situation on the ground has not brought a durable peace between all stakeholders in that nation.
- After seven years, the Afghanistan Security Forces still have not been able to fully control their borders.
Toward the end of his presentation, President Biden rightly asked out loud:
"...When would be a right moment to leave? One more year? Two more years? Ten more years? Ten, twenty, thirty billion dollars more on top of the trillion we've already spent? Not now? That's how we got here...If we instead pursue the approach where America -the U.S. exit is tied to conditions on the ground, we have to have clear answers to the following questions. Just what conditions would we require to allow us to depart? By what means and how long would it take to achieve them if they can be achieved at all. And at what additional costs in lives or treasure. I'm not hearing any good answers to these questions. And if you can't answer them in my view, we should not stay..."
The President makes excellent and valid points and he has support in the pundit world like Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman from Washington Post.
What is the end game? When will the Afghanistan forces be able to fend for themselves? How much in American blood and treasure should be sacrificed until Afgan Security gets its act straight?
Despite the President's powerful arguments, he also has detractors with reasonable arguments from the Washington Post like David Ignatius, Max Boot, and the Editorial Board.
Granted these writers do not have the responsibility of safeguarding the country and it is always easier to voice opinions from afar but the detractors make the potentially historically correct point that leaving prematurely could cause Vietnam or Iraq-type blowback with a resurgent Taliban taking over Afghanistan. This takeover would, despite President Biden's commitment to continue to pursue humanitarian goals such as the advancement of women's rights, bring on a regression of the human condition in that country.
With regards to the American military presence, it should be noted that in Europe and Asia, American troops (probably three generations of families in some cases) have served since the end of World War Two and the Korean Conflict. No one in the non-Trump Zone political arena is calling for them to come home by September 2021.
Unlike World War Two, and Korea, it was poor (probably criminal) decision-making on the part of the Bush/Cheney Administration that brought this nation into the war in Afghanistan and later in Iraq.
Instead of a full war, they should have just sent the special forces in and captured or killed Bin Laden right after 9/11. The Obama/Biden Administration would do that after the Bush team let Bin Laden hitchhike to Pakistan.
Those people in the Bush Administration did not learn the lessons of Vietnam or the Russian occupation in Afghanistan and now another post-Vietnam debacle is likely in Afghanistan starting this fall.
Unfortunately like Vietnam or Iraq, there were no good solutions or answers in Afghanistan. Just different levels of bad after poor decisions to go into those countries in the first place.
Only time will tell if the Biden/Harris Administration made the right decision today.
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