A month-and-a-half back (on March 3 to be exact) my weekly blog was entitled “Biden Finally Gets One Right.” That’s because Joe Biden had decided to reconsider the previous administration’s decision to pull all US troops out of Afghanistan.
Well, President Biden has reconsidered and come to a decision – to pull all US troops out of Afghanistan. In my opinion, this is a terrible decision, which he, sometime in the not too distant future, will discover was one of the worst decisions in his presidency. And God knows, he’s had a lot of those in his short presidency already: killing the Keystone Pipeline, opening the floodgates at our southern border, resurrecting the flawed Iran deal, re-joining the Paris Climate Accords, and on and on.
Now I’m not a big fan of the Washington Post. They’ve become a mouthpiece for the left, and have supported Biden in virtually everything he’s done so far in his presidency. But here’s what they had to say:
“Mr. Biden‘s decision to remove US forces…may result in terrorist bases…that could force a renewed US intervention. At a minimum, it will mean an abandonment of those Afghans who believed in building a democracy that guaranteed basic human rights – and the nullification of the sacrifices of the American servicemen who were killed or wounded in that mission. Mr. Biden has chosen the easy way out of Afghanistan, but the consequences are likely to be ugly.”
That’s from the left. Now here’s what the more-to-the-right Wall Street Journal editorialized:
“History suggests US interests will suffer. If the country again becomes a sanctuary for Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, don’t be surprised if US troops have to return as they did in Iraq after Barack Obama‘s 2011 withdrawal led to the rise of ISIS…Hard-fought progress for women will vanish…If much of Afghanistan again becomes a security vacuum, Al-Qaeda and ISIS will have a freer hand to plot terrorist attacks against the US.“
Now to be fair, there are many Americans on the left, and on the right (and in the middle) who agree with Biden‘s decision. Their argument in general is that we’ve been in Afghanistan long enough, too long. Why should we put our military personnel at risk any longer. It’s up to the people of Afghanistan to fight their own fight. Bring our troops home immediately. And stop sending our tax dollars over there too.
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These are legitimate, and understandable, points of view. We have been there a long time now, nearly 20 years. But we’ve been in Germany and Japan for nearly 80 years, and in Korea for nearly 70. And far more of our troops are in those countries I might add – we have 53,000 in Japan, 34,000 in Germany, 27,000 in South Korea, and only 3500 in Afghanistan. In addition to our 3500, there are about 6500 NATO troops with ours for a total of 10,000. When we pull ours out, the others will do the same, so that leaves Afghanistan completely on its own to fight off the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and any and all other terrorist groups.
In my opinion, within a relatively short period of time, the Taliban and their terrorist allies will take over the country. This is exactly what almost happened in Iraq when Obama made the same clueless decision to pull all US troops out there, and ISIS murdered thousands and thousands of innocent people (crucifying many Christians), and would have taken over all of Iraq had we not gone back in a second time.
I would note that the United States benefits a great deal by maintaining a presence in Afghanistan, other than of course avoiding the consequences that would come with an Afghan collapse after such significant US involvement. For example, US intelligence gathering, relative to terrorist entities like ISIS and Al-Qaeda, and rivals such as Russia and Iran and China, is invaluable.
And complete withdrawal puts one of our key allies in the region, India, in a precarious position, and sends a terrible signal as to how reliable an ally the United States really is. In addition, the other “stans” in the Central Asian region, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan , Tajikistan, etc. may well see this as a signal to turn back to Russia, rather than to the United States, in the future. None of this is good for long-term US national interests.
President Biden should reconsider his decision. To do otherwise, in my opinion, will have dire consequences.