08-26-2021, 08:39 PM
(08-26-2021, 06:31 PM)Dill Wrote: I'll agree with you that Biden has made his own mistakes here. He has diverted from some details of Trump's plan in important respects--e.g., the May 1st pullout. Would have been a BIGGER disaster had he adhered to that. He could have chosen NOT to make a full withdrawal. But did embrace the decision to withdraw, with apparent priority on US military personnel before Afghan supporters.
And I believe that's where Biden made his mistake. My gripes are not with the withdrawal in itself, because I believe withdrawing from Afghanistan was the right decision. But putting out military ahead of those who helped us was very distasteful and made us look worse than we needed to be perceived as.
Quote:1. Separate out the negatives which had to result from any total withdrawal, whether by Trump or Biden. Everyday on the news I hear people clamoring about how we have "betrayed our NATO/Afghan/regional allies" with the unilateral withdrawal, and how our international "credibility" has been diminished, and how women are going to be oppressed and murdered, and how families of interpreters are going to be left behind and killed, and how the US will now have no bases in the region in case it needs to return, and Al Qaeda may be able to reconstitute itself, etc. That's not on Biden or Trump so much as our "sovereign" (and fickle) American people who respond to politicians promising full withdrawal. NEVER FORGET--for at least 20 years!!
I partly agree and disagree.
I do agree that women being oppressed and murdered by the Taliban isn't on Biden or Trump. However, I don't agree that it's not on Biden for abandoning our allies and damaging our credibility.
Biden has said that Afghans didn't want to leave Afghanistan. While it's true that there are Afghans who did not want to leave, using such generalized language is dishonest and appears to be a deliberate attempt by the Biden administration to deflect responsibility. This lie that "Afghans didn't want to leave" has been perpetuated and spread amongst the public and further formed as justification for leaving our allies that actually did want to leave. What Biden and his administration fail to mention however, is the issues that came with trying to actually leave Afghanistan such as VISA processing issues, financial issues, limited flights etc...
The truth is, there are many who wanted to leave, but they did not all have the same opportunity or ability to do so.
Quote:2. Take a closer look at the Doha Agreement and its effects on the Islamic State of A-stan. It will probably take a year to get the full story on this, but that agreement, more than anything else, created the frame of reference in which Biden had to operate. It reduced military before civilian/contractor components with its accelerated military withdrawals, and most importantly, motivated provincial governors and former warlords in the north to begin their own negotiations with the Taliban, paralyzing central control of both governnment and military earlier this month when they, acting independently of one another, ordered their forces to stand down. It is not clear whether our intel forsaw this adequately or not. It is clear that those actions, more than any other, dictated the rapid fall of the government and disbandment of the military, which accelerated the withdrawal to its present chaos.
I do believe that the withdrawal of troops did allow for the enemy to make strategic decisions that would give them better footing to take/attack Afghanistan. But I don't think the Afghan army keeping control was ever going to be a for sure thing. I also don't believe that should have been our concern to be honest. I don't think "stability" is something that can be promised without a continued US presence.
I think the central question regarding all of this, is what amount of force was needed for either Trump or Biden to make a successful withdrawal. That I think is the big "if" in all of this. One narrative is that the military presence Biden was left with basically set Biden up to fail. Others say Biden was left with enough force to have withdrawn those who wanted to leave before getting our troops out and it would have been a much smoother withdrawal. I think it's something that could be looked at on a deeper level, but I have leaned more towards we left our allies to die when we should have stayed, until we successfully got our allies out. I don't even believe we should have gotten "everyone" out. I believe we should have gotten our citizens and allies out, and then our troops. Anyone beyond that should have been beyond our concern.
Quote:3. Review Biden's decisions from mid-July to the present separately from 1 and 2. That's where we'll locate the critical accountability, if you are one of those who agrees "20 years is long enough."* The decision to return Baghram to the ISA, for example, was justified as a consequence of reduced troop numbers. The big political metric we keep hearing in the news is number of troops left. Did that skew Biden from his duty to protect civilians and pull out translators and others who supported us? We left signifcant military equipment to the ISA--no plan for removing it as the gov. fell? As far as keeping Trump's "conditions" for leaving--that was already not possible by the time Biden took office, not without re-igniting the war.
This is not a full list of suggestions. My point is just the we ought to be assessing Biden and Trump in this fashion, which is more likely to produce an accurate account of what went wrong at what stage of the process.
*I am not one of those, so I think the whole mess falls back on the decision to totally withdraw. All who support that are "accountable."
Ahhh see. And here we are.
"Was Biden given enough" is basically your point here. At least that's how I take it.
That again I believe is the central question that will surround all of this and ultimately will sway people to one side or the other. Or people will go with the "We shouldn't have been there anyway" argument and feel that's justification enough in us leaving. I don't.
It's a complex topic to be sure, however, I wholeheartedly believe that Biden's execution of withdrawal was the wrong way to go about it and has damaged our credibility while simultaneously invigorating our opposition. As I stated before, we should have left, but we should have never left like this.
And the lack of consistency from Biden and his administration isn't helping. Biden claimed he couldn't change the deal because doing so would mean sending more troops, which in turn could cause the Taliban to turn on the deal. Now we've sent more troops in anyway because of what has unfolded.
And beside the fact that the Taliban weren't honoring the deal anyway, I fail to see how abandoning our allies looks better than sending more troops in to ensure getting our allies out before our military. I believe the desire to protect our allies and citizens rather than abandon them would have been received on a domestic and international level much better than abandoning them and then trying to rush back to correct what we did. And then Biden's administration later goes on to say that we had to get out as soon as possible because the Taliban said they wanted to control the airport as soon as possible.
So, now it seems like we're not only admitting that leaving our allies is better than making sure they get out. It seems like we're also admitting that what the Taliban wanted mattered more than what we wanted and we were willing to fold to their demands.
You make the point that, " As far as keeping Trump's "conditions" for leaving--that was already not possible by the time Biden took office, not without re-igniting the war. "
I'd argue, that the reignition of war should have been less of a concern than protecting our allies and citizens. I understand that such a thing would possibly risk more American lives if the Taliban saw our "re-invasion" as provocation, but I feel that scenario would have been perceived in a better light than outright abandonment and from a moralistic standpoint would have just been the "right" thing to do.
