By Stephen Macaulay
In one regard, it is about symbolism.
Joe Biden will have the U.S. troops—about 3,000 of them—leave Afghanistan on September 11, 2021, the twentieth anniversary of the attack on the U.S. homeland by terrorists.
A primary reason why U.S. troops had been sent to Afghanistan (and Iraq, from which the U.S. troop withdrawal occurred in 2011) was because of the threat of terrorists to the U.S. homeland.
Have the terrorists been defeated? No.
Can the terrorists ever be defeated? Probably not.
So what’s the solution? Leave and cross your fingers?
There is a position that is being taken in support of Biden’s move that says that U.S. involvement has been going on far too long and so we’ve got to put a period at the end of that sentence.
One of the few cases where Lindsay Graham stopped being a lickspittle to the Former Guy was when said Former Guy decided that he’d pull the troops out in May. Graham knew then, as he knows now, that this is a short-sighted move.
War in the 21st century is a different thing. There aren’t clear lines. There aren’t people on both sides wearing uniforms with insignias.
It is hit and run. The other guys don’t play by the rules. They are terrorists, not “enemy combatants” in the traditional sense.
Biden had said as part of his justification for the forthcoming departure, “our reasons for remaining in Afghanistan are becoming increasingly unclear.”
There are still terrorists there. Terrorists who don’t like the West in general, and probably the U.S., in particular. Fairly clear, isn’t it?
Biden said that the U.S. went into Afghanistan in 2001 “to ensure Afghanistan would not be used as a base from which to attack our homeland again.”
He added, “We did that. We accomplished that objective.”
Huh?
Biden went on to say, “With the terror threat now in many places, keeping thousands of troops grounded and concentrated in just one country at a cost of billions each year makes little sense to me and to our leaders. We cannot continue the cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in Afghanistan, hoping to create ideal conditions for the withdrawal, and expecting a different result.”
Let’s see. There are other threats, too. So let’s pull out the troops from one place where the threat is theoretically no longer that scary and, what, put them somewhere else?
Or is this simply an economic move (“a cost of billions each year”), the Former Guy’s rationale for all things military?
What if something goes south in Afghanistan in, say, January 2022? What then? Put troops back in? How much will that cost, after the currently existing military infrastructure is dismantled?
Twenty years seems to be a long time to Americans. But “endless”?
There is probably not a good solution to the situation in Afghanistan. But leaving doesn’t seem like a solution. It seems like the lack of one.
It is also symbolic of the U.S.’s impatience.