There’s an expression “even a broken clock is right twice a day.” Another one expressing essentially the same sentiment goes “even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.”
Well our broken-clock, blind-squirrel President finally, in my humble opinion, got one thing right. He has decided to reconsider, review, take another look at, the decision of the previous administration to get-the-heck-out-of-Afghanistan as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately the Biden administration has gotten so many other things wrong. Killing the Keystone Pipeline, thus making us less energy-independent. Stopping further building of the southern border wall, thus reversing the gains the Trump administration had made in securing that border. Resurrecting the highly-flawed Iran Deal (JCPOA), which will pump more money into supporting terrorism in the Middle East and across the globe. Rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, which will kill a huge number of American jobs, for minimal climate gains. Reversing the Mexico City Policy, which will mean US taxpayer dollars will go to pay for abortions across the globe. And on and on.
But back to our troops in Afghanistan. Getting us out of “endless wars” has become a much thrown about phrase of late – by both some Republicans and some Democrats. With respect to Afghanistan, we made a deal with the Taliban to pull all our troops out by May 1 if they’d stop their attacks against the Afghan government (and troops), and agree not to allow Al-Qaeda to operate there in the future. Since the agreement was signed, the Taliban has already failed to follow it by continuing the attacks.
In my view, if we pulled all our troops out, Afghanistan would fall to the Taliban in very short order, and Al-Qaeda would once again have safe harbor to launch attacks against us, and against our allies, in the region, and across the globe (just like they did on September 11.) Therefore, we need to maintain a US presence there, to secure the gains we’ve attained through so much US blood and treasure over the last two decades.
We need look back no further than the Obama administration to see the likely scenario. Obama, against the recommendation of nearly everyone, except the Left and isolationists in both parties, pulled all US troops from Iraq. Within a short period of time, ISIS arose and took over most of the country, and would have taken Baghdad, had we and our allies not expended additional blood and treasure to defeat ISIS.
And as for “endless wars”, I would note that in order to secure US interests across the globe, we have troops in many countries, particularly those where US troops were at some point heavily involved. For example, we have 53,000 military personnel in Japan, 34,000 in Germany, 27,000 in South Korea, 12,000 in Italy, 9000 in the UK, 4000 in Bahrain, 3000 in Spain, nearly 1700 in Turkey, 1000 in Australia, and smaller numbers in many other countries. It makes no sense to me, to pull all our troops from Afghanistan, trust the Taliban, and run the risk of having to do it all over again.
Finally, we must always remember that we are in great debt to our men and women in uniform who serve our great nation, here in the United States, and across the globe. God bless them for their sacrifices in securing our freedoms and those of freedom- loving people everywhere.
See you next week.