One: The Attack Itself. In retrospect, this should have been expected. We knew that ISIS was in the area; in fact our intelligence community had been warning for several days that an attack was imminent. That it was this deadly was particularly disheartening. And the threat is still present. We will be quite fortunate if we get out by the 31st with no further loss of life.
Meanwhile, as we lift up those service members who perished on Thursday, let’s not forget all the brave souls who’ve served and continue to serve faithfully. They’re hurting right now. No matter what our political differences may be, these men and women have selflessly and steadfastly defended this nation, and in the weeks and months ahead many of them will still be grieving long after the pundits have moved on to the next "crisis" of the day.
Two: The Peanut Gallery. No doubt when the dust settles there will be Congressional hearings into what went wrong and why. The Biden Administration should make every effort to be as transparent as possible when the time comes.
But what I have no use for is the peanut gallery: the clowns who are now demanding Biden's resignation or threatening him with impeachment. Where were they when Trump was negotiating the complete surrender of Afghanistan to the Taliban? For those who decry the fate of Afghan translators who will likely be left behind in the evacuation, where was the outrage when Trump sold out the Kurds in Northern Syria? Their disingenuousness is nauseating.
It was Trump who failed to include the Afghan government in talks with the Taliban, thus delegitimizing that government; it was Trump who ordered the drawdown of US forces to 2,500; and it was Trump who imposed a withdrawal date of May 1, effectively tying Biden's hands. The only way Biden could've gotten out of the agreement would've been for him to deploy tens of thousands of additional troops into the country, and that would've led to an escalation of hostilities with the Taliban resulting in yet more American casualties.
Every "genius" who is now engaging in Monday-morning quarterbacking should be required to explain what it is they would've done differently that would've led to a different outcome. The fact that they've been unable or unwilling to do so only underscores what we kind of already knew: that this was going to be a shit show the moment the Afghan military collapsed. Think about it: Twenty years, a trillion dollars and the whole thing imploded in eleven days.
Three: A Little Perspective Please. While Biden may have been boxed in by Trump, clearly something went terribly wrong with the evacuation. As I wrote in an earlier piece, either the intelligence was bad or the Administration ignored it. Either way, somebody dropped the ball. Then there was the backlog of special visas for Afghans that many had warned the Administration about for months, to no avail. To not admit these faults is to be intellectually dishonest. Lately, I've been seeing a lot of circling of the wagons on social media. This has to stop. You voted for the man, you didn't have his baby, for Christ's sake.
Joe Biden's decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, I believe, will be vindicated by history. But once the evacuation is completed, we need to have a serious discussion in this country about why the United States keeps getting involved in these senseless wars that cost trillions of dollars and result in the deaths of tens of thousands of service men and women and hundreds of thousands of civilians.
Whether Southeast Asia, Central America or the Middle East, the pattern is the same: puppet governments with no legitimacy are established. Those governments end up becoming corrupt and eventually collapse in on themselves. And when that happens, chaos ensues. The reason we have ISIS is because we invaded Iraq and toppled the existing government there. Actions have consequences.
Our system of laws and values, imperfect though it may be, isn't for everyone. Yet we keep ramming it down the world's throat. Then, when it gets rejected, we have the nerve to act surprised. What would you do if someone walked through your front door and tried to transform you into something you're not?
It's time to face facts. There are some things we do very well, and others we suck at. Nation building falls under the latter. The sooner we figure that out, the better off we'll be.
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