America spent 20 years investing lots of blood and treasure to build an Afghanistan that could fend off the Taliban. Yet the world is watching things fall apart in just 20 weeks after President Biden announced a full withdrawal of all US troops.
But who would’ve thought this was possible? And don’t blame it all on Joe.
In fact, here is what I wrote over a decade ago in “Without [or Even With] More Forces, Failure in Afghanistan Is Likely” September 23, 2009:
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The die has been cast for this ‘good war.’
Accordingly, the US legacy there will be distinguished either by a terminally wounded national pride as American forces beat a hasty retreat in defeat (following the Russian precedent), or by tens of thousands of American soldiers being committed to Afghanistan’s ‘graveyard of empires’ as it continues fighting this unwinnable war (following its own Vietnam precedent). And more troops only mean more sitting ducks for Taliban fighters.
The US is fated to one of these shameful legacies in large measure because there will be no ‘awakening’ among Afghans as there was among Iraqis, which compelled Sunnis to join coalition forces in Iraq to expel al Qaeda’s foreign fighters. And nothing militates against such an awakening quite like the fact that the overwhelming majority of Taliban fighters are native Afghans.
Therefore, Obama would be well-advised to cut America’s losses and retreat ASAP; to let the Afghans govern themselves however they like; and to rely on Special Forces and aerial drones to get al Qaeda.
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No, it’s not quite Saigon, with helicopters airlifting people from atop a US embassy … yet. But there’s no denying that the Taliban’s triumphal march gives the impression that Americans are retreating in defeat with their tails between their legs.
That said, I now advise Biden to provide that air support I advised Obama to. The mission should be to introduce every Taliban to the notion of living dangerously. This, to make their lives far more deadly than the living hell everyone fears they intend to make of the lives of other Afghans, especially women.
This should give what little remains of the Afghan army a fighting chance – to not only defend the capital of Kabul, but also reclaim some of the territory the Taliban captured in a blitzkrieg that would make even Nazi ground troops jealous.
Again, more US troops is not the answer. After all, the untold story of the past 20 years has been US troops doing far too much fighting. That’s why Afghan “soldiers” have been folding up like cheap suits in the face of Taliban advances. They never imagined having to fight in real battles to defend their own country.
And with Biden deploying more troops to clean up this mess, I smell mission creep in ‘Déjàvualloveragainistan’.
Note: Pakistan spent much of the past 20 years providing the safe haven that enabled Taliban fighters to bedevil US efforts in Afghanistan. But it is now expressing concerns that the Taliban might’ve been radicalizing Pakistanis as much as bedeviling Americans. Karma…
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Failure is likely… Afghanistan…
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