President Biden Defends his Decision to Withdraw American Troops From Afghanistan

 With pictures and video of Afghanistan citizens, mostly men, clinging to air transports departing Kabul International Airport all over social media after the Taliban swiftly retook control of the country after American and Allied-N.A.T.O. troop withdrawals, President Joe Biden spoke to the American People and again defended his decision to end the United State's longest war.

Borrowing the Harry Truman phrase, "the buck stops with him," Mr. Biden acknowledged that he and his National Security Team were surprised with the ease and speed of the Taliban offensive to retake all of Afghanistan.

He also listed several reasons justifying his decision to withdraw all American forces. They included:

• The mission into Afghanistan-getting Bin Laden and decimating Al Queda was accomplished ten years ago.
• The United States was not meant to stay in Afghanistan to nation-build.
• The previous Trump Administration negotiated the deal that brought the Taliban back into legitimacy and, in the end, power.
• The Afghan Government and military forces were corrupt and mostly fled at the first sign of hostilities.
• The need to reposition American military and intelligence resources to the terrorist and geopolitical threats that exist in 2021.
• Not giving China and Russia any regional advantages by pouring more American resources into the Afghan quagmire.

Perhaps Biden's most on-point statements during his address were:

"American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war, and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves...We gave them every chance to determine their own future. What we could not provide them was the will to fight for that future...Here’s what I believe to my core, it is wrong to order American troops to step up when Afghanistan’s own armed forces would not...So I’m left again to ask of those who argue that we should stay, how many more generations of America’s daughters and sons would you have me send to fight Afghanistan’s civil war when Afghan troops will not? How many more lives, American lives, is it worth? How many endless rows of headstones in Arlington National Cemetery? "

The President is totally correct in that remark. Why should the United States bravest fight for a cause in a faraway nation when most of the people in that country will not defend themselves?

Moving forward, Mr. Biden said he has deployed six thousand troops to:

• "...assisting in the departure of US and allied civilian personnel from Afghanistan, and to evacuate our Afghan allies and vulnerable Afghans to safety outside of Afghanistan."
• "...provide assistance to move more SIV eligible Afghans and their families out of Afghanistan."
• "...expanding refugee access to cover other vulnerable Afghans who worked for our embassy. US non-governmental agencies or US non-governmental organizations, and Afghans who otherwise are at great risk, and US news agencies."

Mr. Biden said that this mission, called Operation Allies Refuge, would be "short in time, limited in scope, and focused in its objectives: Get our people and our allies as safely, as quickly as possible. And once we have completed this mission, we will conclude our military withdrawal."

The President also cited Afghanis wanting to stay in their country and the former Government not wanting to "trigger a crisis of confidence" with a mass exodus as partial reasons for not starting the process of flying Afghan civilians out sooner.

Unfortunately, while acknowledging that his Administration did not anticipate the rapid Taliban takeover of the country, Mr. Biden did not admit that his people, as bipartisan lawmakers have maintained, dropped the ball in setting up the Afghan refugee program earlier.

As mentioned in an earlier piece today, while Joe Biden probably made the right decision in removing American troops,  how successful this military mission to evacuate the remaining American personnel and Afghanis that worked for the United States and other Allied/N.A.T.O. forces will partially determine whether the withdrawal from Afghanistan is largely a success or an unmitigated disaster.

Another factor in determining if the Biden decision was the right one will be whether or not terrorist organizations like a version of Al-Queda again find a home in Afghanistan and use it as a base to launch terrorist attacks like another 9/11.

Like so many focal points in history, time will tell whether Biden made the right call. Now it is just a matter of how soon history will render its judgment.