Afghanistan

[Dill]

(08-26-2021, 08:39 PM)Matt_Crimson Wrote: 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.

To the first bolded, not exactly. Maybe better to say Biden was, perhaps, not LEFT enough. There were some 3,500 troops left when Biden took office, along with over 10,000 contractors (mostly keeping the Afghan AF flying) and another 5,000+ coalition allies. Had Biden prioritized getting civilians out first, maybe that force was enough. I speculate part of the problem here, though, might go back to two decades of "privatization." Much of the military has become dependent upon non-military support. I suspect it was difficult to remove civilians without to some degree reducing combat effectiveness/strength.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/08/20/trump-peace-deal-taliban/

Biden could not have announced that he was still pulling out, but was re-introducing more troops only to insure orderly withdrawal, because that would break the agreement with the Taliban, re-igniting the war. REALLY hard to protect allies and citizens then. I think that is what he means when he says he had "no choice." He probably didn't if he wanted to pull off the withdrawal. So he had to start with what Trump left. There has been no "outright abandonment" of US civilians and allies. Thousands, probably the majority of US citizens, have been withdrawn, and thousands of Afghans as well. The Taliban have tolerated a small increase in troop levels, clearly speeding up the US exit, not occupying the country. The problem is the remainder of civilians are still having difficulty getting to the airport. The collapse of the ISA has created that problem. Determining the cause of that collapse will be central to clarifying responsibility for the collapse of security during the withdrawal.

As to the second bolded, the Taliban stopped attacking Americans, per the Agreement--which by the way shows some discipline in chain of command. So they definitely kept that part of the agreement. As for the rest of the agreement, de-escalate the violence against the ANA and neutralize Al Qaeda, they realized the first few months after that there would be no penalty from the mighty and "unpredictable" Trump if they ignored that. There was no mechanism for enforcement. Americans would not punish them for continuing to assasinate judges and reporters etc., or even integrating some Al Qaeda into their command. To confuse matters more, Trump's last Sec. of Defense now says the withdrawal promise was only a "ploy" to get the ISA to accept a coalition gov. dominated by the Taliban, which would allow a small remainder of coalition forces to remain in the country indefinitely. Jeezus. The Taliban sharing gov. and allowing US troops to remain??  
https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2021/08/trumps-pledge-exit-afghanistan-was-ruse-his-final-secdef-says/184660/

Even more telling, Trump had bypassed the ISA in direct negotiation with the "terrorists," and then forced the ISA into the humiliation of releasing 5,000 Taliban prisoners, in increments of 100 per week--keeping an agreement they had never agreed to. Talk about abandoning an ally. Useful timeline for withdrawal errors -->https://www.factcheck.org/2021/08/timeline-of-u-s-withdrawal-from-afghanistan/

I agree Biden's execution of the withdrawal was flawed, but it was a segue from one flawed executive policy to another.