Maureen Dowd has a must read op-ed praising President Biden for his decision to end the war in Afghanistan. It’s worth reading. Hindsight is 20/20, and while I haven’t gotten to that part of his book yet, I’m sure President Obama regrets the 2009 surge. We avenged 9/11 nearly a decade ago when Osama bin Laden was eliminated alongside the bulk of the Taliban and Al Qaeda leadership most responsible for the attacks.
In retrospect, we’ve lost nearly 200 times the number of 9/11 victims during the pandemic. We could potentially lose millions more if we continue to do nothing to stop climate change. I said a prayer of thanksgiving today, that the war will end and that none of my students going into the military will have to fight in a war that started before they were born.
Seems like they are also pulling out of the Russian bounty story Afghanistan war: US spies doubt reports of Russian ‘bounties’ for troops – BBC News
Expect a lot of stories on the risks of pulling our troops out, and correspondingly little coverage of the risks of raising tensions with the second largest nuclear power in the world over a fake story.
I do worry about the former, I think that is part of the reason Biden got ahead of the story and declared a firm symbolic deadline. In many ways the Afghan War was even more foolish and wasteful than the Iraq War with the same kind of self perpetuating lies that mired us in Vietnam. The idea it was “the good war” ended once and for all when bin Laden was killed and Al Qaeda eliminated in the country.
Propping up a corrupt and illegitimate government the last decade has only delayed the inevitable Taliban reconquest of the country. The Taliban have morphed from an extremist Sunni group to a catch all opposition to the corrupt central government. In much the same way the VC and NVA morphed into an anti-American nationalist insurgency. Like the ARVN and South Vietnamese government, once the US withdraws it’s support, the Afghan government will collapse.
At least Iraq has a semi functional government now and can be used as a forward base for American troops and a buffer zone between Iran and Saudi Arabia. There is no strategic value to maintaining continued American presence in Afghanistan. At the end of the day keeping box cutters off of planes has done more to prevent another 9/11 than any of our wars abroad.
I’m torn on this. On the one hand I thought we reached the end of what we could achieve a long time ago. OTOH, the last thing I want to see is a resurgence of the Taliban – one of the most evil retrograde regimes of my lifetime.
Yeah it’s tough, but I have a feeling they were resurgent regardless of our actions. Hopefully the new government can include them without losing democracy or sovereignty. Hezbollah and Hamas ended up losing a lot of their support when they were forced to actually govern rather than just fight. Conversely, Sinn Fein has been a relatively successful governing partner in the north and south since Good Friday. One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, we’ll see if this iteration of the Taliban wants to build roads rather than blow up statues.
Either way, as long as they don’t kill any Americans in the homeland and sponsor terrorism against us, we can come to power sharing and a detente. When it comes to respecting democracy, human rights, and women’s rights they aren’t any worse than our allies in Egypt or Saudi Arabia. Realpolitik sometimes means choosing the lesser of two evils, and I’d rather invest in our country than waste anymore blood, time, and treasure trying to rebuild theirs.
The bounty story will end up in the same junkyard as the “yellow rain” and the “baby incubator” stories. The accusations change, but credulity and hysteria never do. Trump is a traitor | Blue Mass Group