Announcing July 8 that U.S. troops would be out of Afghanistan early before Aug. 31, 78-year-old President Joe Biden reaffirmed 75-year-old former President Donald Trump’s policy to leave Afghanistan before Sept. 11, 2021, the 20-year anniversary of Operation Enduring Freedom. Trump negotiated with the help of 70-year-old Afghan-American academic Zalmay Khalilzad an agreement with the Taliban for U.S. forces to leave Afghanistan May 31. Biden pushed the date up by a few months but agreed with Trump’s policy to end the oldest running war in U.S. history. Biden said the U.S. is not in Afghanistan for nation-building, something so preposterous, it’s laughable. Of course over the last 20 years the U.S. had spent blood-and-treasure rebuilding the war-torn country from its years of Soviet occupation, all through the Taliban takeover of Kabul in 1996.
Through all the wars in Afghanistan, the only constant was the lucrative poppy trade, a major supplier of heroin and morphine derivatives around the globe both to the pharmaceutical trade and illicit drug market. Afghan’s opium poppy farmers control the shots in Afghanistan, including the Taliban-based Kandahar region controlled by the Taliban, and other Afghan warlords. Once the conservative Islamic Taliban assassinated North Alliance Leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, “Lion of Panjshir” Sept. 9, 2001, the Taliban continued its stranglehold on Afghanistan, closely coordinating with al-Qaeda founder Saudi-born Osama bin Laden. When former President George W. Bush stood in the rubble of the World Trade Center and Pentagon Sept. 11, 2001, he promised that American justice was on its way. Only a month after launching Operation Enduring Freedom Oct. 7, 2001, the Taliban fell Nov. 14. 2001.
Bush warned Taliban Leader Mullah Mohammed Omar that either turn over Bin Laden or face the U.S. military, something Omar never understood after fleeing Kabul from the U.S. army Nov. 14, 2001. If Omar turned over Bin Laden, the Taliban would still be in power today, despite all the backward Islamic practices, including public amputations and beheadings. For the past 20-years, the U.S. and coalition forces fought a low intensity guerrilla war with the Taliban, who’ve shown the kind of resiliency likely to take them back to Kabul after the U.S. withdrawal. When Trump negotiated the withdrawal, it was strongly opposed by Democrats, Republicans and the press. But now that it’s Biden’s policy, the media shows little resistnace. “We did not got to Afghanistian to nation build,” Biden said, stating the obvious, but much blood-and-treasure has been spent.
Biden, like Trump, has concluded that it’s time for the U.S.-backed government of 72-year-old Ashraf Ghani to defend Afghanistan. “It’s the right and the responsibility of the Afghan people alone to decide their future and how they want to run their country,” Biden said, mirroring the dismal reality that Ghani’s government isn’t likely to last long after the U.S. pullout. Despite all the promises made by the Taliban to Khalilzad about backing Ghani’s government, the 72-year-old Afghan leader has a target on his back. Biden’s fully aware of how driven the Taliban is to topple the U.S.-backed government. When Trump advocated leaving Afghanistan, the press ranted about cutting-and-running from Ghani’s U.S.-backed government. Now that Biden’s calling the shots, there’s little objection from Democrats and the press. Biden mirrors almost to the letter Trump Afghan policy.
Biden’s policy ordered the U.S. military out of Afghanistan, believing the U.S. has completed its job of arming-and-training the Afghan military to defend the country. Whether that’s enough to keep the Taliban from toppling Ghani’s government is doubtful. “Nearly 20 years of experience has shown us—and the current security situation only confirms—that just one more year of fighting in Afghanistan is not a solution, but a recipe for being their indefinitely,” Biden said. “It’s up to the Afghans to make the decision about the future of their country,” knowing that a U.S. troop withdrawl gives the Taliban the red carpet back to Kabul. Biden reacted harshly to a question by the press whether or not he trusted the Taliban. “It’s a silly question. Do I trust the Taliban? No. but I trust the capacity of the Afghan military, who is better trained, better equipped and more competent in terms of conducting war,” Biden said.
Biden’s acting clueless that the existing Afghan army has the resources needed to combat the Taliban. Many of Ghani’s army have sympathies to the Taliban and will either lay down their arms for fight for the Taliban to topple Ghani’s U.S.-backed government. “It is not in America’s national security interest for the Taliban to take over Afghanistan,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C..), longstanding member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who backed the Aghan and Iraq wars with his colleague and friend the late Sen. John McCaine (R-Az.). “If the Taliban takes over part of Afghanistan, I fear that al-Qaeada and ISIS will re-emerge and we’ll be paving the way for another 9/11,” Graham said. Whether that’s true or not, the time has come for the U.S. military to leave Afghanistan. If the Taliban topples Ghani’s government, the U.S. can still defend its own interests, if need be.
