View Single Post
  #1  
Old 08-16-2021, 11:33 PM
AVB-AMG's Avatar
AVB-AMG AVB-AMG is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: NJ
Posts: 192
AVB-AMG is on a distinguished road
The U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan - August 2021

The U.S. strategy for getting out of a 20-year, no-win, war - was right, but the tactics and execution was horribly wrong. Today, at issue is the botched, unplanned, unprepared, incredibly messy, amateurish way that the Biden administration’s exit strategy developed. There wasn’t any... The point of all this is not about the decision to leave. It is all about the execution. There was no plan, there was no accounting for anything other than meeting a date. Those closest to the situation gave advice - and it was ignored. What we witnessed today was eerily similar, but at a much larger magnitude than the memorable images of the debacle in Vietnam of the evacuation of from the U.S. Embassy in Saigon back in 1975.

Yet, putting all the blame on President Biden is not entirely fair. This was a disaster 20 years in the making. Neither G.W. Bush, Obama nor Trump had the guts to do what Joe Biden did - pull out of Afghanistan while they were in office. Anyone who thinks that withdrawal could have been done in a less "messy" fashion is delusional. It was a bad and misguided mission from the get-go and only got worse as each president kicked the can down the road. At the end of the day, President Biden made the right decision and the American people will ultimately thank him for that.

Let’s not forget that when our armed forces completed their mission of defeating AL Qaeda in Afghanistan in 2001, the job was done, but not for America's military industrial complex (MIC). They did not want the $billions in profits coming their way to end. Therefore, our politicians, financially supported by lobbyists from the MIC, changed the stated goals and modified the U.S. mission in Afghanistan to nation building, creating a modern, educated, liberal, democracy from a backward, Muslim, fractured autocracy. The U.S. spent the past two decades pouring almost $2 trillion and losing almost 2,500 American lives fighting the Taliban. Shockingly, but with 20-20 hindsight and not really surprising, the Afghan government collapsed within 3 weeks of most US troops leaving. Therefore, we should ask the question: Was that goal ever really attainable? We sell a bill of goods about freedom and democracy in other countries, then disgrace ourselves by trying to overthrow the very democracy we claim to have, (see the U.S. Capital on January 6th). The U.S. military and body politic knew democracy would never exist there without a heavy US military presence and continued financial support from the U.S.

I agree with the argument that we cannot justify risking and sacrificing any more American soldier’s lives limbs when a majority of the people of Afghanistan apparently want us gone and the Afghan Army, we spent 20 years training fled the battle field without a fight and the government officials abandoned their country. It is not fair to the service members or their families. Joe Biden is right: if the Afghans won't fight, we should not be fighting for them. Clearly, it has also been a tremendous waste of U.S. taxpayers’ money that could have been better invested in our country.

I wonder if our country will ever abandon the arrogant belief that the U.S. can assert Jeffersonian Democracy in a land or country that has never known such ideals in its history? The problem is that we Americans have been taught to believe that our ideals are easily transferred to another people and that they want what we have, since our way of life is better. Maybe… maybe not. If the Taliban decides to attempt to regress Afghanistan back to the 16th Century, let them try and see if the Afghan people will obediently oblige that step backwards.

One final observation and conjecture: while now the future of women’s rights and freedoms in Afghanistan looks bleak, perhaps Afghan men have no real problem with the Taliban and is part of the reason that the all-male Afghan army just gave up. Perhaps if we had really empowered Afghan females, including making them a major part of the fighting force, democracy may have had a better chance for success. In that case, Afghan women really would have had something to fight for, while men had more mixed feelings. Many of these men wanted to maintain the status of women as chattel or slaves. Maybe with 20/20 hindsight, the U.S. should not have attempted to teach Afghan men how to fight, but taught the women instead….

AVB-AMG
__________________
My current & recent car history:
2020 BMW 440i xDrive Coupe (Wife's daily driver)
2016 BMW X5M (My daily driver)
2014 BMW M6 Coupe (gone)
2013 BWM 335i xDrive Coupe (gone)
2011 BMW 335xi turbo coupe (gone)
2007 Mercedes-Benz ML63 AMG (gone)
2007 BMW 335ci twin turbo coupe (gone)
2004 Mercedes-Benz E55 AMG (gone)
2004 BMW X5 4.4i (w/full Aero Kit - gone)
2001 BMW X5 4.4i (w/full Aero Kit - gone)
2000 Mercedes-Benz E430 Sport (gone)
1961 Mercedes-Benz 190SL (owned for 48 years)

Last edited by AVB-AMG; 09-17-2021 at 07:30 AM.
Reply With Quote

Sponsored Links