Sketcher
Born Imperishable
My criticism of Biden in this is that he was pledging this support after it was all beginning to unravel and he continued the withdrawal of our military which was the only support the Afghans knew.The same Afghan government whose leader fled the country without even informing his inner circle? It's clear by now that the entire US government massively over estimated the resolve of the Afghan government and underestimated the Taliban's ability to negotiate their way into Kabul. For better or worse, both American Presidents made the wrong bet by relying on the Afghan government. Neither Trump nor Biden were going to insert 20-30k (or likely more) troops to start re-fighting the Taliban directly. Nor did Biden have an option to insert forces after the US government realized Kabul would fall. Operationally, it was impossible to move that many US combat troops into Kabul in that timeframe. There were no options other than to rely on the Taliban for security - and in turn, the US was subject to their terms for who would evacuate and for how long. So yea, that was the ugly reality in August...and despite all the challenges, many Afghans were evacuated. Now, let's see if the American people will welcome them...or will they become yet another political pawn of the Stephen Miller wing of the Republican party....
I don't see how anything beyond US military boots on the ground would be real support to the Afghans who worked with us and the Afghan women and girls. I don't see how they would see it any other way. And I'm calling him out on this because he said specifically that he would support them when it was all falling apart and he continued the withdrawal anyway.
Upvote
0