Joe Biden is expected to announce that the United States will withdraw from Afghanistan but will violate an agreement with the Taliban to do so by May 1st. Politico. The new withdrawal date will be on September 11th, the 20 year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The news will almost certainly lead to attacks from the Taliban which have largely stopped since President Trump made the agreement with them. The Biden admin will continue to target al-Qaeda and ISIS in Afghanistan and may target the Taliban if they start attacking. Military commanders cited the difficulty of withdrawing troops and supplies from the country as the reason to delay the withdrawal.
My Comment:
What a joke. We could pull these troops out today if we really wanted too. We might lose some of our supplies and cause some issues but we could still do it. And given how many billions of dollars we have wasted in Afghanistan what difference would a few more millions worth of equipment mean?
And I also don't really believe that we will really do it. Biden always struck me as a warhawk and he has already failed at withdrawing from Afghanistan once. Hell, even President Trump did in his first term, canceling a war is really hard. And I don't even think that Biden wants to do so, he's just trying to placate his critics on the left.
And the Taliban will have their say as well. They are not going to accept this later withdrawal date as it directly violates the deal they made with President Trump. That means they will likely step up attacks against US troops and the Afghan government. These attacks will be used to cancel the withdrawal, probably leading to years and years of warfare.
I honestly think keeping our work with the Taliban is worth keeping to the schedule alone. Though America has never been that good at keeping our word, this is the kind of betrayal that people will remember. Why would any enemy make a good faith attempt at peace if we constantly go back on our word? We said we would leave on May 1st so that means we should leave.
I also think that making the date the 20th anniversary of 9/11 is pointless political theater. We have no reason to wait that long and the date is arbitrary at best. And specifically waiting 20 years after the war started just seems like a middle finger to the American people. Plus it will distract from the 9/11 anniversary which is not helpful.
As for the war itself, I think it should have ended a long time ago. Once al-Qaeda was defeated we no longer had any reason to stay there. Our goal was never to defeat the Taliban but we tried to do so and we failed. And then ISIS came to Afghanistan as well. We did not make the country any better and we killed a whole lot of people and for what? We didn't even take Afghanistan's mineral resources, we just let the country stagnate.
If Biden is serious about ending the war in Afghanistan it will be a positive thing if he can pull it off. I have no faith in his ability to do so or even if he actually desires to do so. Indeed, I have thought for a long time that the war in Afghanistan will never end, or at least US involvement in the war. The powers that be want the war to continue and so it will.
I don't know much about the war, but enough is enough.
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