"... the roughly thirty-five hundred U.S. troops remaining in Afghanistan has now unleashed. The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, followed his comments by blaming the Afghan military, which the U.S. funded, trained, equipped, and built over twenty years, for its fate. 'They have what they need,' she said. 'What they need to determine is if they have the political will to fight back.'... There is, quite obviously, a calculation behind all this, which is that, after all this time and with more than enough blame to go around in both parties, Biden will not suffer politically from leaving behind an unwinnable war. Put bluntly, there is a strongly held belief in Washington that Americans simply do not care what happens in Afghanistan...."
From "'Not Our Tragedy': the Taliban Are Coming Back, and America Is Still Leaving/President Biden made it very clear this week that we’re out of Afghanistan, no matter what" by Susan B. Glasser (The New Yorker).
The phrase "the most empathetic of politicians" draws a scoff from me. Why not write "the most political of empathizers"? Clearly, the empathy is not empathy for its own stake, but a political commodity to be spent where you get good political value. Americans simply do not care what happens in Afghanistan, so Biden did not address the predictable and predicted human tragedy.
I'd like to edit out the "normally" in "normally the most empathetic of politicians." The omission of any empathy — or theatrical performance of empathy — when the subject is something Americans don't care about is exactly normal in political empathy. We're just seeing a clear example of what it means to be an empathetic politician.
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67 comments:
Biden is "the most empathetic of politicians?" C'mon, man!
The Afghan army isn't going to fight now when were they going to fight? It is hard to care for the fate of people who don't want to fight for their own.
Lacking the will to do what was necessary to actually win in Afghanistan against the Taliban, this was always going to be the outcome once we left, and staying forever was never an option.
Bush the Lesser made catastrophic decisions to nation build in Afghanistan and Iraq. Have we learned from those mistakes? I doubt it since Obama continued both mistakes as did Trump, but I at least give credit to both Trump for getting us on the way out, to Biden for following through.....so far.....or I at least give credit to Biden's nursing home staff for following through.
“Kabul will “fall” into the hands of the Taliban in the next few months. We knew this from the start. The fact that the Chinese will receive them with open arms is also a given. Afghanistan Flag of Afghanistan is the Tigris and Euphrates of rare earth minerals. #China”
Above tweet is from China watcher and hedge fund manager Kyle Bass. He knows what China is doing.
Most people in Ms. Glasser’s social circle don’t care, not most Americans.
Shorter take: "The anticipated horrors will not be Biden's fault, it will be your fault".
Well, I can't read that article (not giving them my email for 1 free article), but I was stuck on the same phrase: "normally the most empathetic of politicians,..."
Joe's been on the public dole for about 48 years now. He's been called a number of things and there are vaults of videos showing him at his 'normal' best. And never have I heard the word 'empathetic' to describe this man or this sort of personality in any man. Bullish. Brutish. Mediocre. Blowhard. Corrupt. Lying. I know these are the obvious and simple ones. Perhaps it's a more nuanced thing to say he's empathetic when you see him caressing your daughter's shoulders as he whispers in her ear. I dunno. I'd have a different reaction than to think he was being 'empathetic'. Or maybe you could say he was empathetic to Black Americans when he said Obama was 'clean and articulate'. Again- I don't see it that way, but Susan B. Glasser seems to.
While it's true that Americans are tired of losing our lives and spending money in Afghanistan, it is also true that there may have been a better way (and time) to leave rather than all at once on a given date. Hell, who DIDN'T know the Taliban would be loaded up with armaments (donated by our 'friends' around the world) and would simply bull their way across the country? But the point missed is that this is going to be very ugly and many, many people are going to be murdered, butchered, raped, and removed. Women will be subjugated and removed from schools, covered and used for cooking and making babies. Susan B. Glasser would be appalled at that happening in her neck of the woods. But I wonder if she and the rest of her media friends will even cover Afghanistan once the slaughter begins.
More than that, the Taliban will once again allow Al Quaeda (or worse) to set up and plan their next phase against a hapless Europe or a hapless, floundering US, who's military is sequestered in Woke Training courses at the moment, and who's national security teams are either escorting illegal immigrants to Atlanta and Nashville, or working feverishly to make sure that no one with opposing views can be allowed on social media platforms.
Frankly, we could not be in worse hands right now than this clownish bunch in Washington.
I'm sure that the big losers in Afghanistan will be the women there. Can anyone point to a feminist who has called for our continued presence on behalf of the women there?
Does anyone really believe Joe Biden has any empathetic thoughts, much less, any deep thoughts in his state of decline? Joe should be in the memory care unit of a nursing home.
Women living under the rule of the Taliban are the worst off on the face of the earth. If American feminists would not take an interest in their plight — and hardly any of them did — then what’s coming shortly was inevitable.
"normally the most empathetic of politicians..."
Biden has never struck me that way. It would be fair to say that Biden's most authentic quality is his phoniness, so that the sentence might well read "normally the phoniest of politicians..."
Biden, although quite dim, has skated along for 50 years in Washington with no one really taking the trouble to define him by his well-established opportunism, immorality, mendacity, and viciousness. I guess no one ever thought he was worth the trouble. President Obama spoke to part of Joe's legacy and talents when he famously said, "Never underestimate Joe's ability to fuck things up."
Donald Trump will have to live with his greatest disgrace: he lost to Joe Biden.
It's not that I don't care, it's that they had twenty years to prepare. They chose to squander it. I have no sympathy.
"The phrase "the most empathetic of politicians" draws a scoff from me."
Me too. Mr. dog-face pony soldier? Do these Dem operatives with bylines even believe their own BS?
"Clearly, the empathy is not empathy for its own stake, but a political commodity to be spent where you get good political value."
True. And of course the prime political value is helping Dems. Actual empathy would hurt Dems, so Afghans can go to hell. Now if Trump were still in charge, we'd see at least a few empathetic tears.
"Americans simply do not care what happens in Afghanistan"
Could "Americans" be both the most sentimental and the most ruthless people?
I am still puzzled by the decision to pull out. Over the last few years active support has been limited to air and logistical support.
Given recent history 20 years is not that long. The US has had troops remain Korea for nearly 70 years after the ceasefire. During the first half of that deployment South Korea was not the most stable of places.
"Americans simply do not care what happens in Afghanistan...."
I think that is largely true. I think it's been true all along. Americans care what happens to Americans in Afghanistan. I don't think they care about Afghanistan or it's people very much. I don't think they see how it would significantly benefit America even if our efforts to establish a stable democracy there had been successful.Has anyone ever adequately explained that?
20 years ago Americans cared that 9/11 was carried out from Afghanistan, but they would have been satisfied to punish those responsible with death and destruction, then to leave. When we went in, that was the stated mission, not nation-building.
Most subsequent American concern for our successes and failures in Afghanistan was about US party politics, not about Afghani hearts and minds or Afghani living standards.
To be fair, Biden has long counseled that US ground troops should be withdrawn.
Unfortunately, the American Progressive nation-building machine has turned it's lonely eyes to you and me.
You nailed it. There are lots of groups that Biden has no political empathy for: Trump voters, thousands of illegal aliens being sold into sexual and other slavery, family farmers who will be forced to sell their farms upon a death due to his tax changes, virtually all Americans suffering a “tax” increase through inflation on household goods and gas prices due his economic policies, children that suffer lasting consequences due to CDC mask mandates that are unsupported by science, people whose homes are invaded by his FBI just for being in Washington on January 6 (I’m excluding those who broke laws), workers losing jobs and livelihood in the energy industry due to his shutdowns, Cubans seeking to flee the most oppressive and abusive communist regime, black and Hispanic conservatives, etc. the one thing these people have in common is that they are not generally Biden voters. Liberals in general are uncaring about people as individual humans but only as the human component of their political hegemony.
There's a lot to dislike about fake empathy among politicians, the players who "feel your pain" or "I care for you" or "I'm fighting for you". All of those phrase are just stock tropes among the players on the political stage, and will disappear as quickly as the stage makeup is removed at the end of the show.
Biden will be accused--and probably rightly so--of bungling the withdrawal from Afghanistan. But Trump made a campaign promise last October that he would have all the troops out of Afghanistan by May 1. This was supposedly based on a Trump deal with the Taliban--but not the Afghan government. So both of them were going to pull the troops out. Would Trump have done a better job of troop removal? Maybe, maybe not.
But the various Afghani tribal factions and or coalitions have kicked the British and the Russians out--and now it's our turn.
As I recall, Donald Trump also talked of removing troops from Afghanistan. I remember thinking it would be, at best, an extremely difficult process. Truthfully, if he did succeed, the Taliban would probably take the country back within a couple of years. My fear was some *RESISTANCE* leaders in the "Deep State" bureaucracy would sabotage efforts to make Trump look as bad as possible and put even more lives at risk.
I never expected it to get this bad this quickly. Given past history, I expected Biden's Administration to be somewhat smug about their abilities, but they completely misread this situation. What's truly frightening is that there is probably no *resistance* comparable to what Trump may have faced. The people in charge of foreign policy are really that bad at their jobs.
A brilliant military and political strategist would perform a withdrawal like this with the explicit plan to have the Taliban come out in force and in coordination with the Afghan military, after 20 years, and then deal a devastating death blow to them once they are out everywhere and easily targeted like this.
So having US support from thousands of miles away not equal to having Pakistan support from next door.
The Afghan army was clearly NEVER ready to secure the country. U.S. politicians and generals HAD to know this fact, most likely more than a decade ago and every day since.
How many billions of dollars were wasted by gigantic defense companies who have zero interest in peace?
The human tragedy for our troops is too great to even comprehend.
Can we please fire all of the generals and put them up on criminal charges for fraud?
And then can we do a forensic audit of their finances to see how much of the billions spent ended up in their pockets?
Maybe trying to civilize 7th-century cavemen wasn't such a great idea after all.
Biden is a crook and a colossal failure. He is also not really in charge. Who is?
Client state armies always fall when the superpower pulls out their troops. It's the expected result of Nation building. Might as well rip the band-aid off quickly. No more American boys should die for a lost cause.
I understand both sides are going to make hay about political subjects when the opportunity presents itself. Yes, withdrawing from Afghanistan was bound to lead to a Taliban resurgence and the fall of Kabul in a manner similar to Saigon. Thousands of American lives wasted to win a war that wouldn't be won. Thousands more Afghans, who gave their support to Americans, will now be imprisoned, tortured, and killed for providing aid and comfort. It is a sad day.
But I don't know what would have been different if Trump was successful in withdrawing all US personnel in his first term versus Biden doing it now. I guess Trump would unambiguously get credit for ending the Afghan war, but then he would also be that President that secured the loss of the war. Biden gets both of those now; although the ground work for ending the war was mostly done by Trump, so Biden is just following through while doing nothing to assist Afghans that helped the US.
At the end of the day, most Americans will just be happy to be done with it. I'm one of them. And I don't care who gets credit at this point. There are other issues that I will base my vote upon.
Interesting juxtaposition of “Americans don’t care” with “most empathetic” Joe and it is exactly this bastardization of language that the gaslighters at the NYT excel in. As an editor I would have removed “em” so it would read, “the most pathetic of politicians” precisely for his neverending say-anything tendencies.
"American's don't really care what happens in Afghanistan..."
is another way to say,
"3 successive Presidents have failed to enunciate a mission or goal or worthy of continued presence in Afghanistan."
...
At a time of increased Chinese global expansion and, frankly, threat, when America is focused on Russian cyber and intelligence warfare, and when the middle East remains a source of....risk....
I can think of some very clear reasons to stop the damn nation-building in Afghanistan and instead focus on a long-term strategic military and american presence there.
But instead we pretend that our current borders and presences are some sort of fixed thing that SHALL NOT BE ALTERED because then we'd be imperialistic bastards or something.
GHWBush was pretty empathetic. And he was the utterer of "Message: I Care." Now THAT's an honest politician.
"Lacking the will to do what was necessary to actually win in Afghanistan against the Taliban, this was always going to be the outcome once we left, and staying forever was never an option."
This is the same rhetoric used to explain our defeat in Viet Nam. We could stay in Afghanistan another 20 years to no different end result.
We never should have invaded Afghanistan to being with, and our "pretend" reason for doing do--to capture bin Laden--evaporated instantly once he escaped across the border. Our last 20 years has been an ongoing and futile war crime.
Those blaming Biden now for leaving the people of Afghanistan vulnerable to the Taliban--and I do not have the least admiration or respect for him and I did not vote for him--are simply scapegoating him for opportunistic political purposes. Had Trump won reelection, we would either spend the next four years continuing our impasse in the country, or he would have removed our troops, (as, to his credit, he wanted to do),to the same end result, but possibly with praise for his "bravery" in calling an end to our self-authored disaster in Afghanistan.
Raytheon and the other arms manufacturers certainly care. It's OK though. Biden has presumably assured his Sec of Def and Raytheon board member Lloyd Austin there will be another war launched soon enough.
This is a situation I'm conflicted on. I overall wanted us out of Afghanistan, but I still hate to see this happen, predictable as it is.
Now that the Taliban is out in force since we're withdrawing, I wonder if we could have pursued a better strategy there. This might just be a misconception on my part, but I thought one of our big problems fighting the Taliban was routing them out of their hidey holes. Maybe we should have faked a withdrawal years ago, then blown them up as they came out to take all these cities.
We're South Korea's own soldiers committing terrorism against US troops sixty years ago?
I think that's the difference between Afghanistan and South Korea.
'What they need to determine is if they have the political will to fight back.'
Absolutely. All those little girls getting raped and their schools burned down and those women and old ladies all need to get some backbone and fight back.
Disgusting. Hillary said the same thing when ISIS rose up, "It's not our problem. Those victims who are incapable of defending themselves are on their own."
As was said yesterday --
The U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan will come under fierce attack on September 11, 2021, with staff being forced to evacuate on helicopters to the airfield. Perhaps even evacuating from the embassy roof.
The script writes itself.
What can you do with a people who - when told that man has walked on the Moon - look at the sky, hold up thumb and forefinger two inches apart signifying the size of the Moon in the sky, and say that’s not possible, the Moon is too small to walk on?
Kabul will fall before end of August. Shades of 1975.
When you folks not caring what happens because it is all on the Afghans themselves -- I hope you remember that when you are infirm and unable to take care of yourselves, and that will happen at some point. Why should anyone care about you in that state?
Given recent history 20 years is not that long. The US has had troops remain Korea for nearly 70 years after the ceasefire. During the first half of that deployment South Korea was not the most stable of places.
South Koreans weren't actively trying to kill US troops. You can go off base and have a few beers. Also, the Koreans were building a nation. That's why they have a functioning democracy and export cars and stuff. Oh, and their army is tough and formidable. But most importantly, we are there because its advantageous in a geo-political sense to be there. Afghanistan is just a drain on our resources.
I have wrestled with comparing our military commitment to staying in South Korea to staying in Afghanistan. The South Koreans have made a success of their country and economy. They have a desire to be a country. Sadly, the people Afghanistan have held on to their tribal mentality. The comparison between the two countries is apples to oranges.
Advertising the draw down and exit was dumb, cruel, and politically self-serving.
"When you folks not caring what happens because it is all on the Afghans themselves -- I hope you remember that when you are infirm and unable to take care of yourselves, and that will happen at some point. Why should anyone care about you in that state?"
We were not in Afghanistan to "help" them. We do not go to war to help anyone. We rarely go to war to defend ourselves, as we have rarely (especially in the modern era) been threatened by military attack from abroad. We go to war for the reasons all empires do: for plunder (on behalf of the "industrial" portion of the military/industrial complex) and for accumulation of power.
To the "liberal" Hive, empathy is measured by the willingness to spend other people's money.
I listened to a podcast with a veteran of the Afghan war probably 8 years ago. He was on for some other reason (I can't remember, maybe he was running for Congress), but he was asked about the war. He said, "you fight to remove a Nation's chains, but then you realize they would rather have the chains."
Another twenty years wouldn't have changed that. The Arab Spring turned out the same way. Not everyone wants to be The West.
(Even The West doesn't want to be The West anymore.)
@Mark
There a lots of places where the people are miserable because of the government and culture, we can't invade them all and if we did we would be accused of imperialism.
I am not aware of this new spelling i.e. "empathetic" to describe Joe Biden. When did they add the silent "em". Is it like the "p" in Psaki?
I wrote “NYT” which should have been “New Yorker” instead. I regret the error.
Two words come to mind to describe Joe Biden: Creep and Bigot. Joe abused women by swimming naked in front of female Secret Service agents. Also, all the photos of him caressing and sniffing women. The worst one was the picture of a 12-year old leaning to her right with a grimace on her faces while Creepy Joe caresses her shoulders. There are thousands other photos of similar creepy behavior.
Bigot Joe: Describing Barrack Obama as "clean and articulate." More recent is his statements about Black Americans being too ignorant to hire attorneys and accountants, his "They [Mitt Romney and Wall Street] gonna put y’all back in chains.” Also, his statement about Duncan Donuts and having to be "having to have a slight Indian accent."
And Democrats celebrate this man. This just proves how racist Democrats are.
So the consensus here seems to be "f*ck the Afghan people."
@Robert Cook "Those blaming Biden now for leaving the people of Afghanistan vulnerable to the Taliban--and I do not have the least admiration or respect for him and I did not vote for him--are simply scapegoating him for opportunistic political purposes." Wait, but wasn't he some small part of the Obama administration that decided on this course for Afghanistan? I recall the Pres. Bush never considered anything like that there - because it was obviously impossible - and the Obama folks kept talking about The Right War.
People who are comparing this to Vietnam don't really remember Vietnam. The South Vietnameses were in good military shape when we began our pull-out, with the enemy completely kicked out after the Tet Offensive. But the United States had no stomach for continued war - and no stomach for sending any kind of help to the South Vietnamese. They probably would have been fine if we had sent them weapons, but we made a conscious decision not to send one bullet. It was a shameful thing. We just didn't want to think about them any more. This is very different. The Afghani Army vastly outnumbers the Taliban, but isn't fighting.
“Just think if the U.S. hadn’t been in Afghanistan for the last 20 years… the Middle East would be unstable.”
—- Jimmy Dore
I wrote a comment on a blog, Political Animal, almost 20 years ago- probably around December 2001 when it was clear the mission in Afghanistan had metasticized into a nation building operation- that I wouldn't be surprised to find US troops still battling the Taliban on the 20th anniversary of 9/11. I might still end up being right.
As for the comparisons to South Korea- they don't work. There haven't been active hostilities for almost 70 years, and the South Koreans themselves aren't killing American soldiers in ambushes. If Bush the Lesser had told people that we would be in Afghanistan forever, the invasion would have never happened in the first place, and everyone knows it. The remarkable thing about the whole operation was that we did this just 13 years after watching the Soviet Union get kicked out by the same people who are effectively kicking us out. History usually doesn't repeat on such a quick cyle since most people seem to learn something even if that knowledge dies with them- not this time.
An unwinnable war? I think you can make the case that the war was won a few months after it began. The problem has been the post-war occupation.
"Biden himself, normally the most empathetic of politicians"
Empathy doesn't finger-rape.
The lessons to be learned from both Iraq and Afghanistan are to protect the locals who aid us by bringing them to the US after we leave, never engage in nation building and keep the war aims limited to smashing everything that needs to be smashed and kill everyone that needs killing and then get out. Old School, butcher and bolt. We were successful in Germany and Japan in part of their fear of the Soviet Union. Korea could have been settled sooner had MacArthur stopped where China drew it's no go line. Vietnam could have been settled favorably sooner had we invaded North Vietnam and then made a deal with Mao. Mao got played by Stalin in Korea and he learned from that. We could have had two wins in Asia instead of one. Iraq and Afghanistan are different situations, they are not real countries but clans roped together by the British Foreign Office for administrative reasons. These will be failed states until they unwind themselves into smaller units with the majority clan ruling the state. So with "countries" like that butcher and bolt is the way to go. They eventually will get tired if that were to be our only policy.
In retrospect, the mistake was in thinking that under the skin, foreigners are just like us and want to be like us. The hubris was in thinking that we could remake Afghanistan (and Iraq) like we did Germany and Japan after World War II. Nation building only works when the enemy is not just utterly defeated, but knows that they are utterly defeated because they are starving in the rubble of what was once their homes. That kind of defeat makes a change of world-view away from Nazism or Japanese militarism possible. In contrast, the victories achieved in Iraq and Afghanistan were accomplished in as surgical manner as possible, and the average Mohammed didn't feel defeated. And the equivalent of Germany's de-Nazification would have been de-Islamization, and we didn't have the stomach for that. Nation-building does not work unless you are ruthless in defeating your enemy first, and we no longer are. It's sad for the people of Afghanistan, but in the long run, we had to leave sometime, and staying would only have delayed the inevitable. The Taliban, etc., are ruthless. The Afghanistan government is not. Their fate is sealed. In the future, should more terrorist attacks come from there, the proper response is massive destruction from the air, but not one boot on the ground. It's not worth a single more American life.
Mike of Snoqualmie said...
Two words come to mind to describe Joe Biden: Creep and Bigot. Joe abused women by swimming naked in front of female Secret Service agents . . .
Vice President Joe Biden enjoys swimming without a bathing suit, a . . . book claims . . . Biden . . . gives Secret Service agents an eyeful both at his Delaware home and at the vice president’s official residence in Washington, D.C., according to “The First Family Detail” by Ronald Kessler.
The book relies on . . . unnamed sources to describe life guarding prominent politicians including Biden . . .
“Agents say that, whether at the vice president’s residence or at his home in Delaware, Biden has a habit of swimming in his pool nude,” Kessler writes in the book – release[d] Aug. 5 [2014].
As Porky Pig has told us many times, "Badee badee, that's all folks!" - obviously referring to unnamed sources unsubstantiated by anyone.
And in case we have forgotten (or have not admitted), former president 45 was king of women abusing, accused of fondling or raping some 30 women (with names) as well as admitting to violating the privacy of beauty contestants backstage.
“I’ll tell you the funniest is that I’ll go backstage before a show and everyone’s getting dressed,” Trump told Howard Stern.
“No men are anywhere, and I’m allowed to go in, because I’m the owner of the pageant and therefore I’m inspecting it. … ‘Is everyone OK?' You know, they’re standing there with no clothes. ‘Is everybody OK?’ And you see these incredible-looking women, and so I sort of get away with things like that.”
I would have thought that Afghanistan would have expected a punitive expedition from the US as a "reward" for letting Bin Laden operate with impunity in the period before the 9/11 attacks. Remember the criticism from foreign policy experts about the way the US had armed and supported the mujahedeen against the Soviets and then "washed its hands of the area" (which is a direct quote from a Pakistani diplomat in the early 2000s)? The Taliban, which made no bones about destroying World Heritage Sites if they were Buddhist, could expect some fairly rough times from the US, but if the brutal Soviets could not tame the Taliban, how could we? So, I thought we would whack a few locals, blow some things up, and then pull back, and we would definitely chase Bin Laden "to the gates of hell", as Biden likes to say.
Bush then launched an attack on Iraq with the goal of destroying the "Axis of Evil" (thank you, David Frum) OK. Another punitive expedition. Find those weapons of mass destruction! Knock Saddam Hussain off his perch and then leave. Right? Right? Wait, we weren't leaving!
Remember those geniuses around Bush saying that the Iraqis would be like the French at the liberation from the Nazis? Remember Ambassador Bremer of the State Department disbanding Saddam's army instead of co-opting it? Remember how we didn't have enough coalition troops to keep the peace? Remember how tough it was to re-establish some semblance of order after the Sunni awakening? Remember how Obama threw that away in favor of a limited surge into Afghanistan, the "necessary war"? Then Syria? The Califate? The nonstop activities of the Iranians? The confusion of Team Obama which seemed to be equal to or worse than the confusion of Team Bush? Then Trump came on the scene.
The one thing that has become completely clear is that the military chain of command was insubordinate to Trump. They brag about lying to him and hiding things from him. Trump couldn't get along with McMaster, Mattis, Milley, and Kelly. Sad. I don't think that speaks at all well of Trump. By way of contrast, Lincoln had to find a way to work with his generals in the Civil War, and he did so. Trump did some good things, but in his dealings with the US military, he failed. He never got close to articulating a strategy that made sense to them in terms of resources, goals, operations, and outcomes. And because he failed, when he didn't get reelected, we got stuck with Biden as commander in chief.
I am afraid things are going to get worse from here, but I am reciting this history to remind myself that this has been a twenty year saga engineered by both political parties, and the permanent bureaucracy, of waste and failed strategies, combined with selfless sacrifice by our soldiers, sailors, and airmen, all of whom are volunteers.
We have to do better in the future.
"So the consensus here seems to be 'f*ck the Afghan people.'"
That's what we decided when we invaded for no reason.
"@Robert Cook 'Those blaming Biden now for leaving the people of Afghanistan vulnerable to the Taliban--and I do not have the least admiration or respect for him and I did not vote for him--are simply scapegoating him for opportunistic political purposes.' Wait, but wasn't he some small part of the Obama administration that decided on this course for Afghanistan? I recall the Pres. Bush never considered anything like that there - because it was obviously impossible - and the Obama folks kept talking about The Right War.
People who are comparing this to Vietnam don't really remember Vietnam. The South Vietnameses were in good military shape when we began our pull-out, with the enemy completely kicked out after the Tet Offensive. But the United States had no stomach for continued war - and no stomach for sending any kind of help to the South Vietnamese. They probably would have been fine if we had sent them weapons, but we made a conscious decision not to send one bullet. It was a shameful thing. We just didn't want to think about them any more. This is very different. The Afghani Army vastly outnumbers the Taliban, but isn't fighting."
The similarities are that we invaded and waged war against two foreign nations for no valid reason, we pretended we were fighting to "free them" from some pernicious internal threat, with no prospect of "victory" (whatever that would have been) in either case. Why should we fight continued wars? Few wars we've fought in our history were justified, and all were ruinous in cost of lives and money...and the money went to somebody (several somebodies, who were enriched by our killing), but no benefits accrued to the people fighting in the wars or the US citizens paying for the wars.
"American's don't really care what happens in Afghanistan..."
Most Americans don't even care what happens in Washington DC. It's just an occuppying force 1000 miles away, trying to impose it's alien culture on the rest of us.
But if Joe is gonna bring the boys home, why stop at Afghanistan? Bring 'em home from Italy, France, Germany too. There's an invasion occurring on our southern border they should be guarding...despite what Jen Psaki has been telling him.
The people who put Biden and Fauci in place know that we, as humans, do not really consider octogenarians to be responsible for what they say and do. You can figure out the reasoning.
With that additional insight, I would like, if I could, to point out that Mark is completely correct.
The enemy in Afghanistan is not just the Taliban, it is the primitive culture that allows it. To defeat that,you have to do what the US did in the Amer-Indian Wars; Build forts everywhere. Settle friendlys around them. Put the hostiles on reservations. Hang their leaders. Massacre resisters. Put their children in boarding schools. Change their religion. Make them dependent. We do not have the stomach for that anymore.
"When you folks not caring what happens because it is all on the Afghans themselves -- I hope you remember that when you are infirm and unable to take care of yourselves, and that will happen at some point. Why should anyone care about you in that state?"
This perhaps might be the worst analogy in the history of the internet.
It's just a tragedy all around. I actually wanted Trump to get us out of there earlier, and was frustrated when he didn't. On one hand he was often words and no action, but he was also frustrated by the powers that be at every turn. I believe he sincerely wanted a withdrawal. Who knows if it would have turned out this badly. I suspect that the Taliban may have been more wary of Trump retaliating, since he was so unpredictable. I don't know how much attention the Taliban actually pay to our politics, but surely they can tell that Biden is a weak president who is unlikely to counteract their offensive.
Someone above wrote what I was thinking - China is going to be the beneficiary among the main powers. That country is remarkably cold and calculating. And I bet the Taliban will welcome their investment. Unlike Britain, Russia, or the US, I think China will be much more shrewd, and avoid turning it into a sinkhole.
One of my first political memories was of Jimmy Carter announcing the boycott of the Moscow Olympics. That was more than 40 years ago. I was ten at the time. How bizarre that Afghanistan is at the center of so much history.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/carter-announces-olympic-boycott
”We do not have the stomach for that anymore.”
We don’t have the right or a valid reason doing that.
Afghanistan has always been a tribal region, not really a country. The idea of a central government is laughable; anything beyond Kabul was never really in control. The Taliban has been biding their time and this human tragedy was inevitable whether Trump or Biden initiated it. I'd like to think that our military would have anticipated it and provided a more secure withdrawal, but who am I kidding?
An unwinnable war?
The Taliban never thought the war unwinnable from their side. Ho Chi Minh never thought the war unwinnable. Even OSAMA BIN LADEN did not think the war for Islamism was unwinnable. In fact, bin Laden predicted this very thing -- the Americans will eventually get tired and quit, they do not have the will to fight.
What wins wars is the superior will.
The U.S. military used to understand that. They used to understand military doctrine to be that the objective was not to destroy the enemy's material or even their soldiers' lives. The objective is to destroy the will of the enemy to resist. If you don't, then they will simply outlast you and take over when you leave.
Of course, with Islam, the enemy's will is never going to be broken. That's why many understood if not on September 12, then on September 13, that this war with Islam -- which has been going on for 1400 years -- would continue for the rest of our lives.
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