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Dexter Filkins, who wrote The Forever War, paid Afghanistan another visit.
Expecting a catastrophic downfall.
Last Exit from Afghanistan
Will the prospect of an American withdrawal create a breakthrough or a collapse?
Trump was clearly desperate to make a deal that would allow him to say that he had ended the war. When the Taliban refused to include the Afghan government in the talks, the U.S. did not insist. The senior American official told me, “The Trump people were saying, ‘F%&# this—the Afghans are never going to make peace anyway. Besides, who cares whether they agree or not?' ” As the talks progressed, Trump repeatedly announced troop withdrawals, depriving his negotiators of leverage. “He was steadily undermining us,” a second senior American official told me. “The trouble with the Taliban was, they were getting it for free.” https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...&utm_brand=tny
Trump's foreign policy will go down in history as squandering generations of hard-earned American relationships and alliances for ego, and the devastating effect it had. The man is so overwhelmingly inept at it, it blows me away... all the talks of "great deals" and the ones who are getting the best deal are the ones who are ostensibly our sworn, mortal enemies.
The US should in fact get out of Afghanistan, but the way the Trump administration started the whole process pretty much destined the outcome. Anything short of Biden shelving it completely and deciding we stay a other decade, the Taliban is simply waiting for the US to withdraw to pounce on the Afghan govt.
Ultimately though, the US needs to stop acquiescing to the military industrial complex and keeping these long-term, detrimental expeditionary wars going so that tax dollars do to defense contractors at stupidly-inflated prices. Afghanistan has always been a quagmire for foreign invading forces, and that will never change. To reign in the tribal structure of the nation would require the sort of total an unflinching domination that the US inflicted on the Natives, or the Soviets did across its territories, and no one is willing to do this. Considering this, it's just a matter of how much more money, lives, and years we want to waste.
Saigon 1975 redux. The last helicopters out from the American embassy as the Taliban reaches Kabul. The American collaborators faced with with reprisals. Afghan women back to the darks ages. So much of our country’s blood and economic resources wasted. The very definition of tragedy.
Dexter Filkins, who wrote The Forever War, paid Afghanistan another visit.
Expecting a catastrophic downfall.
Last Exit from Afghanistan
Will the prospect of an American withdrawal create a breakthrough or a collapse?
Trump was clearly desperate to make a deal that would allow him to say that he had ended the war. When the Taliban refused to include the Afghan government in the talks, the U.S. did not insist. The senior American official told me, “The Trump people were saying, ‘F%&# this—the Afghans are never going to make peace anyway. Besides, who cares whether they agree or not?' ” As the talks progressed, Trump repeatedly announced troop withdrawals, depriving his negotiators of leverage. “He was steadily undermining us,” a second senior American official told me. “The trouble with the Taliban was, they were getting it for free.”
Trump was simply fulfilling a campaign promise, as was Biden in his 2020 campaign to end the "forever wars". In that sense, via the election process (twice) - it's the American peoples bipartisan wish to leave Afghanistan. There was no bad deal, there was the only deal possible - It's time for Afghan Army to stand on it's own, and it's amazing that the article is presenting this as a bad thing (something tells me if it wasn't Trump the article would be celebrating). We don't have a huge presence there anyways - about 2,500 troops (down from 100,000 in 2011). Heck we have 50,000 troops in peacetime Germany now.
Anyways, the Taliban was never a problem to the US, or really anyone except Afghans. They simply were a group of wacky extremists in a troubled country, with no sense of human rights, as similarly existed in dozens of other countries in the world. But it was Al Qaeda and Bin Laden in Afghanistan, which the Taliban allowed and protected, that had to go. If not for that, we would have never moved in at all. With Al Qaeda and Bin Laden gone (or, at least for AQ, diminished in power), that issue is no longer relevant. Our reason for being in Afghanistan ended long ago. Mission accomplished. However, the danger with the US leaving is an extremest group will again use it as a base for attacks against US interests, maybe AQ will be ressurected.
Saigon 1975 redux. The last helicopters out from the American embassy as the Taliban reaches Kabul. The American collaborators faced with with reprisals. Afghan women back to the darks ages. So much of our country’s blood and economic resources wasted. The very definition of tragedy.
I think it's a valid comparison in many ways.
In our history there are international issues we have fixed or at least improved.
But after seeing what happened to the French in Vietnam, we were plain stupid to get in there. Somewhat similar in Afghanistan. And when you think of it, how much did the Brits pay in dead soldiers only to have to give up their empire in the end.
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