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President Biden is right to withdraw from Afghanistan

The Washington Post describes the scene in the capital of Badghis province after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan:

Many of the Taliban’s advances have faced little to no resistance in the wake of the United States’ withdrawal. Without close U.S. support, specifically airstrikes, Afghan forces have been unable to hold territory even in parts of the country far from the Taliban’s traditional heartland in the south.

“It was exactly like a dam breaking down,” said Abdul Aziz Beg, a member of the Badghis provincial council who was in the city when the assault began. Beg said the breach was triggered by the deputy police chief deserting his post. After he fled, the Afghan police staffing key checkpoints protecting Qala-e Nau abandoned their positions, he said, allowing Taliban fighters to easily enter the capital.

Conservatives have used this—and similar scenes elsewhere—to criticize President Biden's decision to withdraw completely from Afghanistan. This is pretty rich considering that it was one of their presidents who got us stuck there in the first place and another of their presidents who promised to withdraw but never had the guts to do it.

Biden says he trusts the Afghan military, but this is obviously just happy talk. Like all of us, he knows perfectly well what's going to happen next. As this article makes all too clear, after 20 years of American assistance the Afghan military is still so feeble that the Taliban can practically stroll into cities and take over. They will continue to do this, and by the end of the year they will control most or all of the country.

This is an enormous tragedy on many levels. But it's plain that the Afghan government is fatally impotent and its military is inept. It's equally plain that the United States has tried everything it reasonably could and has had no success in turning this around.

It takes some guts to order the US withdrawal knowing that it means Afghanistan will fall to the Taliban within months. This is why no previous president has done it. Kudos to Biden for recognizing reality and following through on this regardless of the political hit he's bound to take for it. It's the right thing to do.

87 thoughts on “President Biden is right to withdraw from Afghanistan

  1. sfbay1949

    This was always going to happen when we left. Today, yesterday, 10 years ago, 10 years from now. Better to just be done with it. The Afghan government clearly has never had any interest in actually trying to govern the country. And the Afghan military has just been collecting paychecks for 20 years. I would guess many of them are Taliban. I'm glad it's over.

    1. Rich Beckman

      "This was always going to happen when we left. Today, yesterday, 10 years ago, 10 years from now"...a hundred years from now, possibly a thousand years from now.

      All that was really necessary was to destroy the terrorist trainging camp(s). Why we took over the place was always a bit of a mystery to me.

      1. golack

        You break it, you bought it....

        Actually, once bin Laden escaped early on, remember Tora Bora, we had to go in to find him. ...then take our eye off the prize and topple a different leader...because we missed bin Laden???
        Besides, we'd be liberators, we don't have to nation build.

      2. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

        We never took over the place.

        We dropped the ball by November 2001, & not even two Surge initiatives (2006, 2009) could recover it.

  2. frankwilhoit

    It is not the right thing to do, because there was only one right thing to do, and that was not to go in there in the first place. That done, there were no longer any right things to do, or ever again. So your argument is necessarily that this is the least wrong thing to do, and that argument cannot be engaged, because it is speculative. Time will show -- quite a long time. Look how we are still paying, and paying prices that still continue to rise, for mistakes made 100 and 150 years ago, and in some cases by other people. If history is written by the winners, mistakes are redefined out of existence by the winners and the losers alike.

      1. frankwilhoit

        Mistakes can only be prevented. Once one mistake is made, everything after that becomes a mistake as well.

        We are paying an unaffordable price, increasing day by day, for the end of Reconstruction.

        We are paying an unaffordable price, increasing day by day, for the failure of the British Government of the day to crush Alfred Harmsworth like a bug, instead allowing him to transform the media into a rival parallel government. Not even our mistake, but we are paying for it.

        We are paying an unaffordable price, increasing day by day, for the 1911 decision (by Winston Churchill) to convert the British Navy from coal to oil. Not even our mistake, but we are paying for it.

        I do not think you thought I said nothing. I think you thought I said nothing that you agreed with.

        1. Special Newb

          "Mistakes can only be prevented. Once one mistake is made, everything after that becomes a mistake as well."

          This is flat wrong but you do you.

          1. frankwilhoit

            Oh. come on. Do you think those things didn't happen? Do you think we are not, in fact, still paying for them? Those would be disagreements.

  3. cld

    Most Afghans are extreme social conservatives so they have no defense against still more extreme social conservatism, they have no option but to go along with it because there's no backing up, and any alternative is heresy and treason; and an argument for expediency will only work in a settled state, or with plenty of firepower.

  4. DFPaul

    Kind of amazing that this isn't viewed by pretty much everybody as a giant failure of the US military. They had 20 years and all the money they wanted, and we're getting pushed out by peasants with machine guns. Why do we pay so much in taxes to fund the military if they can't achieve a pretty simple goal in 20 years?

    1. bbleh

      Pretty simple? Tell that to the former Soviet Union, the UK, and and and. See also “graveyard of empires.”

      This was not a military failure; it was a political failure, from its inception through its inexcusable prolongation.

    2. sfbay1949

      DFPaul, we're not getting pushed out by peasants with machine guns. Other Afghans are either walking/running away or being pushed out by peasants (who are Taliban) with machine guns. The country is simply reverting back to the state it was in when we invaded and occupied the country for 20 years. It's decades past time to leave.

    3. cld

      There are some things the military simply cannot do. It can go places and blow stuff up, and anything else, --not much.

      The problem was expecting the Afghans to turn on a dime and be some other kind of people, but to do that at the point of a gun would have been a national failure.

      The only thing a military can do in this circumstance would have been outright conquest and occupation and annihilation of the local civilization, like the conquest of Mexico.

    4. rick_jones

      Kind of amazing that this isn't viewed by pretty much everybody as a giant failure of the US military.

      It is not the job of the US military to build a nation. Their job is to defeat and/or suppress other military forces. Creating a stable nation is up to the rest of the US government.

      1. KenSchulz

        Creating a stable Afghan government is up to the Afghan people. And apparently the kind of stability that most of them (or at least a passionate plurality) want is the suppression of art, music, sports, free expression, any deviation from strict conservative Islam, education in any subject other than the Koran, and anything else that their religious leaders disapprove.

      2. DButch

        See "Marshall Plan", that the US rolled out as it became clear after WWII in Europe that western Europe didn't have the resources to recover in any reasonable time. And most of them had experience with democratic (or at least, less authoritarian) governments in living memory. Afghanistan was and is a far more difficult case - and the Bush Administration didn't actually care. Subsequent administrations may have cared, but simply couldn't figure out any practical course, and stayed out of inertia and fear of political consequences.

    5. KenSchulz

      It’s not a military problem. You can’t make millions of Afghans passionately want a multiparty liberal democracy, and be willing to risk their lives to achieve that.

    6. Lounsbury

      It is not a simple goal, that is why.

      It may seem simple, but that is merely ignorance, like thinking sending a spaceship to Mars is simple because you can draw some lines on paper and it's easy....

      Short of the US being willing to essentially commit genocide, there was never a simple path, as every intervention by outsiders in Afghanistan since the early 1800s has learned. British Empire, Soviet Union and now USA.

    7. kahner

      occupation and nation building isn't what the military is designed to do. we spend way too much on the military, but this isn't their failure, this is a failure of the bush administration in deciding to invade in the first place. and to a lesser extend of each subsequent administration for failing to withdraw earlier.

  5. Clyde Schechter

    "Conservatives have used this—and similar scenes elsewhere—to criticize President Biden's decision to withdraw completely from Afghanistan. "

    Yes, _some_ conservatives have done this. But there is a substantial and growing fraction of the conservative community that favors this withdrawal, indeed, thinks it is long overdue. And I wouldn't say that liberals are behind the president on this. They may not be openly criticizing him much, but it is no secret that many Democratic politicians are opposed to the withdrawal.

    Let's also not forget that Trump ordered an Afghanistan withdrawal, that was supposed to be completed by May 1. He didn't actually pull it off, perhaps because he didn't really mean it, perhaps because he could not overcome opposition to withdrawal within his own administration.

    Anyway, my point is, that this issue is neither a left-right nor a Rep-Dem division. Most people of any of these persuasions want us out of Afghanistan as soon as possible. But among professional politicians and the chattering classes, there is substantial opposition to withdrawal from all ideological and partisan quarters.

    1. cld

      The Taliban are likely to make common cause with all our enemies and the next time a bin-Laden happens they'll be substantially protected, like the ransomware privateers in Russia.

      1. Spadesofgrey

        Lol, Bin Laden was a inside job. What Republicans won't tell you is, they all knew it was coming. The surprise was it actually succeeded more than once. That is why Bush was blown away. 3/4 succeeded, when 1/4 was the most likely.

        1. cld

          I'm anticipating the amount of friendly assistance Russia will provide on the one hand and China on the other will calm things down on an as needed basis.

        2. Lounsbury

          Not only different denominations, the Taleban are specifically Sunni supremacists who oppress and/or liquidates Shia. This is like predicting the Saudis and Iran will become best buddies...

  6. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    Everyone is comparing Biden to James Earl Carter, likely because of the (D), but between skyrocketing inflation & withdrawal from an Asian quagmire, is Gerald Ford the better comparison?

    ... Oh, & tripping up the stairs to Air Force 1.

    1. rick_jones

      Tilt one's head just right and maybe squint just a little, and one could argue our involvement in Afghanistan started under the Carter Administration.

      Beginning in July 1979, the U.S. was providing advice and nonlethal supplies to the mujahideen rebelling against the Soviet-backed regime. After the invasion, National Security Advisor Brzezinski advised Carter to respond aggressively to it. So the CIA and U.S. allies delivered weapons to the mujahideen, a program later expanded under Reagan.

      https://theconversation.com/jimmy-carters-lasting-cold-war-legacy-113994

      1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

        The Brzezinski family has been messing with us for generations.

        Any chance Zbigniew & his daughter are remnants of a Polish Communist Intelligence Ministry op to take America down from the inside?

  7. bbleh

    Afghanistan will fall to the Taliban within months.

    Dude. It fell to the Taliban long ago (with material assistance from the CIA). For them, this is just long-delayed mop-up.

    1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

      The Northern Alliance is the Kathryn Garcia of South Asia.

      Wiley = Communists propped up by Soviets? Adams = Taliban propped up by Saudi & Reagan?

  8. Justin

    The Afghan people are miserable failures. I don’t think any of them should be allowed to evacuate to the US. Let the Taliban do whatever they want. I’ll enjoy the watching this despicable country descend into chaos. Losers! 😂

  9. cld

    Don, jr takes projection to the next fucking level,

    https://www.rawstory.com/trump-jr-cocaine/

    Speaking to attendees at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference Friday evening Donald Trump, Jr. focused on attacking Hunter Biden.

    Trump Jr. accused him of being a drug addict. Hunter Biden acknowledged his challenges with addiction in a memoir released earlier this year.

    "I totally understand addiction," Trump Jr. told the crowd. "It's terrible. We all know people that have suffered from it. It doesn't absolve you from being a total piece of garbage in every other aspect of your life."

    "It doesn't absolve you from selling access to the highest levels of government. It doesn't absolve you from selling out your country," he added.
    . . . .

    and then he added, 'And his nutcase girlfriend keeps volunteering to give lapdances to wingnut millionaires, like she's actually desperate for someone to take her up on it so she can prove how far out she is, we're through the looking glass here, people!'

    1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

      I am surprised Don, Jr., didn't elaborate his knowledge of addiction by throwing Uncle Fred under the bus, again.

    2. Jasper_in_Boston

      Projection indeed. Jr's GF worked as an exotic dancer while in law school. I'm a close friend of one of Kim's classmates. (There's nothing the least bit wrong with doing what you have to do to make ends meet when you're young and struggling -- let me be clear about that). Just pointing out the hypocrisy and, yes, projection...

      1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

        We need a genderswapped Magic Mike about Kimberly Guilfoyle putting herself thru law school as an exotic dancer.

        Where Magic Mike XXL opened with Channing Tatum pursuing his carpentry dreams, planing a table, only to be brought back to his dancing days when the Proustian Madeleine that is Ginuwine's "Pony" plays, Guilfoyle will be in the law library, reading up on District Court decisions on intellectual property, when "Girls Girls Girls" by Motley Crue starts playing on her Zune.

  10. Traveller

    As the former high-ranking Central Intelligence Agency officer Bruce Riedel wrote bluntly for the Brookings Institution earlier this year,

    "The war against the Taliban is impossible to win as long as Pakistan provides sanctuary and safety, training, equipment, and funds for the Taliban. We cannot defeat Pakistan, which is a nuclear-armed state and has the fifth largest population in the world."

    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
    In Military terms, this is really quite simple. I suppose there are diplomatic or other reasons for not calling Pakistan on this....more importantly they have indicated that no over flight permission will be granted.

    Remember, Afghanistan is a totally landlocked country....without over flight or other access....piftttt....the US has not only no role, it also has no means of enforcing its writ.

    Truth.

    Best Wishes, Traveller

    1. golack

      Thanks for noting that.
      There can not be any discussion of Afghanistan without Pakistan.
      As for funding, you can also look to the Saudis.

    2. Lounsbury

      Take a look at the map. Look at who Pakistan shares border with besides Afghanistan. Think of a certain expansionist power who should love to have an Indian Ocean port, etc.

  11. D_Ohrk_E1

    Realism comes with a heavy price of rampant humanitarian violations. For our sanity, we prefer to ignore that part of the consequences of our actions, by way of referring back to the value of American lives over all others.

    As the tip of God's own spear, after all, American Exceptionalism can only ever be expected to protect the lives of conservative White Christian Americans; the rest of God's children are really just optional. If enough of them die, we might want to do something about it. Or not. White Christian American lives are more important, after all.

    1. Spadesofgrey

      Your not realism. I despise "white" Christian conservatives and "brown" Islamic conservatives equally. I suspect you pump your fist when a poor British, Scottish and Irish white girls are groomed and raped by Muslim men. Then we wonder why Labour is a dead political party.

        1. Spadesofgrey

          Like yourself??? You supported Muslim's raping white girls in London??? It's a large part of the reason Labour collapsed and why Social Democracy is unpopular.

      1. KawSunflower

        Who teaches " Your not realism" as
        correct use of the English language? And enough of the Eurocentric racism.

        But then you're evidently a troll, Russian or otherwise.

    2. KenSchulz

      Of course it is the obligation of the American government to value American lives above others. And it is the responsibility of any Afghan government to value Afghan lives above all others. If it were within our power to give Afghanistan a government which would protect the life, liberty and property of every Afghani, then we would have an obligation to do so. But it isn’t and we need to stop trying. We aren’t the world’s police and we aren’t gods.

      1. D_Ohrk_E1

        We have an obligation to accept the responsibility of our actions, even if we disagree with them. Diverting our attention by pointing to the relative value of one life over another is distraction away from our obligations. We allowed mission creep and that mission creep contained extended responsibilities.

        I would bind our actions by restricting AUMF to set goals, costs, and timelines, whereby the AUMF would automatically expire. That would prevent us from mission creep without Congress forced into accepting responsibility for that mission creep.

        1. Vog46

          D_Ohrk
          I agree in general with the expiration date of the AUMF
          But you started out with this:
          "We have an obligation to accept the responsibility of our actions"

          Then ended with this:
          "from mission creep without Congress forced into accepting responsibility for that mission creep."

          So WE have to accept as citizens the actions of our congress who abdicates that very same responsibility? Are we taking the onus off of Congress? Why? If they are the approving authority for force use then are the responsible party for ENDING that use of force.

          Or did I miss something?

          1. D_Ohrk_E1

            I guess I should have used clearer pronouns.

            What I mean when I said that "we" have to accept the responsibility of "our" actions, I mean to say that one administration has to bear the responsibility of the actions of the previous ones, as do current sessions of Congress relative to past ones. And as voters, we bear responsibility for voting in members of Congress and administrations, regardless of who we voted for.

            The discontinuity only exists in a political vacuum.

            We might say, "Oh well, I didn't vote for Trump, so I don't bear responsibility for what he did", but that's detached from reality. Or put another way, if we don't own it, then there is no point to reparations for slavery.

        2. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

          Is the 2003 AUMF a greater example of bill writing malpractice on the part of Hillary Climpton than even her 1993 Crime Bill?

  12. dilbert dogbert

    Look to the neighbors of Afghanistan. The Paks, Iran, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. It will be interesting to see how they mix it up in Afghanistan. The Indians might just have an interest. Hell even Russia could play a role. Fun Fun Fun.

      1. rick_jones

        I always get a chuckle looking at that part of the map. The corridor is a hoot. Reminds me of a gerrymander. And depending on the resolution of the map one is looking at, it may not appear at all.

  13. Jasper_in_Boston

    Not a popular view I'm sure, and a rare point of disagreement on my part with Kevin Drum, but I'd have advised Biden to stay. Not that there's a realistic chance the Taliban is going to be defeated any time soon, but because A) the stalemate, while not ideal, preserves a large number of human beings from a brutal tyranny, and B) said stalemate was costing the US very little.* Also, who knows what the future brings? Maybe in several decades civil society in Afghanistan will have been built up to the point it can start to seriously force the Taliban on the defensive. And, while the pullout may poll well now, I'm not so sure that's going to be the case a year down the road, given the footage and headlines we're going to be seeing.

    (*I realize once upon a time the US military footprint in Afghanistan was quite large, and was costing America a significant toll in blood and treasure; but this simply hasn't been the case in recent years).

    1. pflash

      Jasper, I am sympathetic to this idea. Why not leave a force there permanently, just muddling along as we've been doing for some years now, if it allows a minimum of liberal development in a few cities? An option for a possible Afghan future. This withdrawal reminds of Obama's from Iraq, which was perhaps ill-advised in hindsight?

    2. colbatguano

      Our presence was only slowing the Taliban down a little. The country wasn't stabilized and the Afghan armed forces weren't improving. If we had stayed there would have come a point where would have had to put large number of troops back in to reset the situation with no sign of progress.

  14. Pingback: Ending This Now | Just Above Sunset

  15. ruralhobo

    The US goes in too fast and goes out too fast too. One thing this withdrawal proves is that Trump's betrayal of the Kurds in northern Syria was no anomaly; it's bipartisan US policy. The Afghan government was not even given the opportunity to negotiate from a position of strength; the rug was pulled out from under it for purely US domestic considerations. I think the message is pretty clear that only white countries, plus perhaps Japan, can count on the US. Is that a good message to send? No.

    I also disagree that the only options were to win or to get out. That's the black-and-white thinking that made the US presence in Afghanistan a fiasco. One might have gone for more "fuzzy" but realistic aims. Such as, holding or guaranteeing the cities and only the cities. (None of which, contra what Kevin says, is under Taliban control even today.) Since the rural and urban areas need each other, some means of exchange would have come about, even with Taliban-controlled parts of the countryside. And since it is the cities that bring change, good things the US did (not everything was bad) like education for girls would have spread from there, bit by bit. It would have been cheap and sustainable. Berlin was defended and guaranteed for much longer than the Afghan occupation. With enormous success. Then again, Berlin was white.

    1. Spadesofgrey

      What a dumb comment. Berlin was split apart and not in a war zone with little actual war around them. You really feel this is the same thing??? Mental illness is a bad thing. You need help.

      1. ruralhobo

        I am not talking of war zones but of some kind of territorial arrangement, as with West Berlin. Which, perhaps, was not subjected to war BECAUSE its safety and integrity were guaranteed. But my intention was never to compare the two except for one thing: time. That the Afghan war went on too long was only true because it was kept a war. Otherwise, prolonged military presence or guarantees aren't all that rare. See also Korea, South.

        The reason I think an urban-guarantee Afghanistan strategy would have worked is because I was there for a month and even that short time sufficed to see how loosely knit the country is, with coherence largely given by the roads leading to the city. Just an impression, perhaps. But not born of mental illness. Thank you for your preoccupation anyway.

      2. KawSunflower

        You are simply rude. People who use words the way that you do prove your projection. I see that the person you insulted has replied intelligently, & without the ugly language that demeaned only you, not the object of your attack

        1. Spadesofgrey

          Whatever. The urban nonurban divide was not there, yet the whiner whines and lies. Rudeness please, truth yes.

  16. Vog46

    When in 'Nam I had a weekend pass and we (several of us) went to Saigon. Our Medic, who spoke Vietnamese, just kept on chuckling as he talked to the people.
    They kept telling him the North Vietnamese were NOT bad people but that the governments of both were a little off their collective rockers. They thought the Geneva Accords of 1954 that separated the countries was a farce
    That was one of those WTF moments for us. Our outlook WAS stop the commies from invading. That then changed to why are we trying to stop something inevitable? Our mind set became stay alive until the war was over at that point.

    There is this belief that we know better than the folks on the ground. We had to convince ourselves that we would be seen as liberators in Iraq, and that EVERYONE wanted democracy. Not everyone wants that

    1. dilbert dogbert

      I was a US Army sponsored Saigon tourist in 1967. I took a lot of photos of the trip. Gave away the photos of the war part to the other members of the trip when I left that employment thinking the only way to protect the troops was to bring them home. Just flew over Saigon in Google Airlines viewing a place that looked like it was going gang busters.
      A friend was in 1st Log when we pulled out. His task was to pull out all the stuff we imported for 20 years in one year. WTF!

    1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

      When that story blows up -- Colombian commandos dispatched (by whom?) to assassinate the president of one of the few non-Hispanohablante countries in the Western Hemisphere south of the US/Canada, with support from Haitian emigres residing in Miami -- we will need UN Peacekeepers on the ground in Port au Prince & a war crimes tribunal at the Hague.

      Definitely think there was FALN involvement, as a release valve for pentup aggression since the negotiated settlement with the FARC & Colombian government.

  17. sonofthereturnofaptidude

    I'm sure that this decision will help cut at least a trillion dollars off the bloated US military budget.

    HA! Just kidding!

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