For all the accurate comments that America could not build a nation in Afghanistan, we didn't have to do that to achieve our objective of preventing Afghanistan from being a terrorist haven.
To be clear, we had won in Afghanistan and could defend that win with time to correct weaknesses and mistakes. With our support, the Afghan security forces--designed by America to work with American and NATO support--was fighting and dying every day with that support while killing jihadis for us. Yet Biden claimed:
No amount of military force would ever deliver a stable and secure Afghanistan.
But who said we needed a "stable and secure" Afghanistan? We needed a pro-American government that prevents al Qaeda and other international jihadis from having a sanctuary there. And 2,500 American troops seemed to be doing that. Without a combat casualty in the last year and a half.
Biden set up a straw man to conceal his incompetence:
Contrary to his and others’ cliches about "endless war," though, U.S. troops had not been in major ground operations, and had endured very modest casualties, since 2014. Mr. Biden statically measures the dollar costs of staying in Afghanistan. Yet there will be costs, potentially high ones, attached to a botched withdrawal, too. A small U.S. and allied military presence — capable of working with Afghan forces to deny power to the Taliban and its al-Qaeda terrorist allies, while diplomats and nongovernmental organizations nurtured a fledgling civil society — not only would have been affordable but also could have paid for itself in U.S. security and global credibility.
In order to do less than we needed to win, Biden is pretending we needed to do the impossible to win.
So Biden "ended" the war before the 20th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 al Qaeda terror attacks by needlessly losing it. Which means the Taliban and their jihadi terrorist allies will have reason to celebrate on September 11, 2021.
Have a super sparkly day.
