[My apologies, mates, but with the recent events going on in the world, it seems like many have forgotten what led us to this point. So this post may read as an history lesson… for which it is intended. -The Captain]
Yesterday afternoon the final U.S. troops departed from the airport in Kabul, marking the end to 20 years of fruitless conflict. The Taliban is now in control of Afghanistan. Again.
There has been much uproar about President Biden's decision to withdraw the troops. So if you will, step into the “Wayback Machine” with the Captain and let’s go back and remember how this all started…
As of this writing, we know of 2,996 people who died in those attacks on American soil.
The world was forever changed.
The terrorist organization al Qaeda claimed responsibility. Osama bin Laden was credited as the mastermind.
Interesting note: Osama bin Laden and 15 of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, an ally with which the U.S. has had a love/hate relationship for decades. They supply cheap oil. We let them do what they want.
But since al Qaeda used Afghanistan as a recruiting and training base for its terrorist organization, Afghanistan became the target of choice as the U.S. demanded blood revenge.
Although the Taliban – in charge of the then Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan – publicly condemned the 9/11 attacks, they refused to hand over bin Laden to the U.S. and refused to close down the terrorist training camps in their nation.
This led to the U.S. / NATO invasion of Afghanistan, dubbed “Operation Enduring Freedom”, just a month later. The Taliban and al Qaeda were routed and an attempt at imposing a democratic government was launched.
Captain’s Note: Osama bin Laden was finally located and killed by U.S. forces in 2011.
For 20 years the U.S. has supplied, trained, and provided support for the Afghan Armed Forces in the ongoing fight against the Taliban, al Qaeda, and ISIL.
Four U.S. Presidents have had to deal with this mess in the Middle East. President George W. Bush, who got us into the war, quietly slipped off to his Texas ranch, leaving the ongoing war to his successor. As Vice President, Joe Biden counseled President Obama to withdraw the troops; Obama opted for a surge of troops instead. Former President Donald Trump promised in his 2016 campaign that he would end the war, as did Biden in his 2020 campaign.
Meanwhile, Congress – which has the sole authority to declare war – refused to dirty its hands, simply renewing the President’s powers in the “War on Terrorism”. This enabled them to take potshots whenever the President made a misstep.
In 2019, then-President Trump hatched a plan to have Taliban leaders – long considered to be terrorists – meet with his administration at Camp David to discuss a treaty. It happened to fall on September 11th. After a huge outcry from the public - because some of us DO remember - the meeting was canceled.
Nonetheless, in February of 2020 the Trump administration drew up a peace treaty with the Taliban – without Afghan President Ashraf Ghani at the table – essentially returning the country to the terrorists from whom we originally wrestled it away. Trump promised the U.S. would withdraw completely from Afghanistan in 14 months, and he agreed to other concessions to the Taliban if they promised to stop terrorist activities from being generated in that country - a promise they did not keep.
But Trump was defeated in the 2020 election and on January 20, 2021, Joe Biden was sworn in as President. By that time, Trump had already drawn down U.S. forces to a mere 2,500.
Captain’s Note: We will never know what might have been had Trump been awarded a second term in office… thank the Lord!
President Biden, still holding to his former position against the war in Afghanistan and honoring the treaty established by the Trump administration, settled on an August 31st date for the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from the country.
As he explained it, his choice was to either leave now or send in another build-up of troops and extend the war... for how many more years?
Captain’s Note: In case you're wondering, your Captain believes he made the right decision.
Despite U.S. and NATO presence, the Taliban was building up strength and marching across Afghanistan. On August 15th the Afghan President fled the country, taking with him an estimated $169 million in cash. The U.S.-trained Afghan army immediately folded and the Taliban took control of Kabul.
It seems we’ve been here before…
In the end, the “Costs of War” project at Brown University estimates the war killed 171,000-174,000 people – 51,613 civilians, 66,000-69,000 military and police, and at least 51,000 Taliban fighters.
The U.S. reported 2,461 service members killed with 20,000 wounded, with more than two trillion dollars spent in the process.
Captain’s Note: If you are one of those blaming President Biden for the 13 military deaths in a suicide bomber attack during the airlift, but you are not blaming the previous presidents for the other 2,448 service members killed during this conflict, you are a hypocrite. Get off my ship!
Was it worth it? Definitely not.
But when you’re simply out for bloodlust, the cost never seems to matter.
So here we are today.
The U.S. successfully evacuated 123,000 civilians – the largest airlift ever. Our final military plane left the Kabul airport yesterday morning. The word is there are maybe a couple hundred U.S. citizens who could not make it to the airport in time. The State department says they will continue to negotiate for the safety of those people.
They tell us from now on our approach to Afghanistan will be “diplomacy”.
President Biden is being attacked from both sides of the aisle for his decision to withdraw the troops – criticized by some of the same people who have frequently demanded we get out of Afghanistan.
Captain's Note: For their benefit, here is a map indicating exactly where Afghanistan is located.
The Taliban is once again in control of Afghanistan. To be successful, they must not only learn how to govern a nation, but also suppress al Qaeda and ISIL-K, a recent militant group of disgruntled former Taliban.
Despite the end to this costly war, hawkish members of Congress want to add another $25 billion to the U.S. military budget.
And, to put the cherry on top of the sundae, even as the last U.S. military plane left Kabul yesterday, former President Trump whined to the media that no one was talking about his “great agreement” with the Taliban to end the war.
All the “evil” media wanted to talk about – all day long! – was the Category 4 hurricane that was barreling down on the coast of Louisiana...
Can someone please turn off that man's microphone already...
