I am copying two Op-Ed articles from the WSJ from the weekend. I urge all to read these.
Credit to WSJ for articles. All rights belong to WSJ. (Have to site disclaimer and give credit where credit is due!)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-...hadist-9-11-11629054041?mod=opinion_lead_pos1
https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-...hts-taliban-11629054976?mod=opinion_lead_pos2
By
The Editorial Board
Aug. 15, 2021 5:08 pm ET
WSJ Opinion: An American Rout in Afghanistan
President Biden’s statement on Saturday washing his hands of Afghanistan deserves to go down as one of the most shameful in history by a Commander in Chief at such a moment of American retreat. As the Taliban closed in on Kabul, Mr. Biden sent a confirmation of U.S. abandonment that absolved himself of responsibility, deflected blame to his predecessor, and more or less invited the Taliban to take over the country.
With that statement of capitulation, the Afghan military’s last resistance collapsed. Taliban fighters captured Kabul, and President Ashraf Ghani fled the country while the U.S. frantically tried to evacuate Americans. The jihadists the U.S. toppled 20 years ago for sheltering Osama bin Laden will now fly their flag over the U.S. Embassy building on the 20th anniversary of 9/11.
Mr. Biden’s Saturday self-justification exemplifies his righteous dishonesty. “One more year, or five more years, of U.S. military presence would not have made a difference if the Afghan military cannot or will not hold its own country,” Mr. Biden said. But the Afghans were willing to fight and take casualties with the support of the U.S. and its NATO allies, especially air power. A few thousand troops and contractors could have done the job and prevented this rout.
Worse is his attempt to blame his decisions on Mr. Trump: “When I came to office, I inherited a deal cut by my predecessor—which he invited the Taliban to discuss at Camp David on the eve of 9/11 of 2019—that left the Taliban in the strongest position militarily since 2001 and imposed a May 1, 2021 deadline on U.S. forces. Shortly before he left office, he also drew U.S. forces down to a bare minimum of 2,500. Therefore, when I became President, I faced a choice—follow through on the deal, with a brief extension to get our forces and our allies’ forces out safely, or ramp up our presence and send more American troops to fight once again in another country’s civil conflict.”
Note that Mr. Biden is more critical of his predecessor than he is of the Taliban. The President has spent seven months ostentatiously overturning one Trump policy after another on foreign and domestic policy. Yet he now claims Afghanistan policy is the one he could do nothing about.
This is a pathetic denial of his own agency, and it’s also a false choice. It’s as if Winston Churchill, with his troops surrounded at Dunkirk, had declared that Neville Chamberlain got him into this mess and the British had already fought too
many wars on the Continent.
Mr. Trump’s withdrawal deadline was a mistake, but Mr. Biden could have maneuvered around it. He knows this because his Administration conducted an internal policy review that provided him with options. The Taliban had already violated its pledges under the deal. Mr. Biden could have maintained the modest presence his military and foreign-policy advisers suggested. He could have decided to withdraw but done so based on conditions on the ground while preparing the Afghans with a plan for transition and air support.
Instead he ordered a rapid and total withdrawal at the onset of the annual fighting season in time for the symbolic target date of 9/11. Most of the American press at the time hailed his decision as courageous.
Worst of all is the plight of the Afghans who assisted the U.S. over two decades. Mr. Biden said Saturday that the 5,000 U.S. troops he is sending will help in evacuating Afghans and Americans. But there are thousands of translators, their families, and other officials who are in peril from Taliban rule and didn’t get out in time. (See nearby.) The Biden Administration was far too slow to get them out of the country despite urgent warnings. The murder of these innocents will compound the stain on the Biden Presidency.
The consequences of all this will play out over many months and years, and none will be good. The illusion, indulged on the left and right, that the U.S. can avoid the world’s horrors while gardening its entitlement state, is sure to come home to haunt. Adversaries are taking Mr. Biden’s measure, and there will be more trouble ahead. The costs will be all the more painful because the ugliness of this surrender was so unnecessary.
Copyright ©2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
By
The Editorial Board
Aug. 15, 2021 5:03 pm ET
The speed of the Taliban offensive caught the Biden Administration by surprise, but it can’t say it wasn’t warned to move faster on visas and exit plans for Afghan translators, journalists and their families. Former U.S. military officers sounded the alarm, as did Members of Congress. There’s no excuse for the scenes of fear and chaos on Sunday at the civilian wing of Kabul’s airport that had Afghans trying to flee without military protection as the Taliban closed in.
One of those sounding the alarm has been James Miervaldis, a U.S. Army vet who served in Afghanistan and Iraq and is now chairman of No One Left Behind. The nonprofit has been trying to fill the vacuum left by the U.S. State Department by negotiating and financing the exit of families who have been lucky enough to obtain U.S. visas.
On Sunday morning New York time, Mr. Miervaldis told us that his group had 50 families with some 250 people scheduled to leave Kabul on commercial flights. But they were stuck when commercial flights were halted. He said U.S. military flights appeared to be taking only big shots or U.S. Embassy personnel, and no one knows if or when the Taliban will allow commercial flights to leave.
He said U.S. military units contacted his group to obtain information on what is going on at the airport because they had been provided no on-the-ground intelligence. This is unforgivable, and the incompetence of the U.S. is stunning. “It is mind-blowing, the lack of preparation,” Mr. Miervaldis said.
He added that only about 350 Afghan families, or about 1,200 people, with U.S. visas had been able to leave before the Taliban victory. That leaves hundreds of translators and their families who had already obtained visas stranded in Kabul.
There are perhaps 50,000 or more who would qualify for visas but didn’t yet have them because of the slow U.S. bureaucracy.
This could turn into a human tragedy. No One Left Behind has tried to track Taliban killings of translators and counted some 300 from 2014 to April 2020. It has since had a harder time getting accurate information, but Mr. Miervaldis says the killings spiked again this spring and have escalated in the summer. Afghan girls and women will suffer even if they aren’t killed, as they are forced to marry Taliban fighters and can no longer attend school.
The tragedy is compounded because there is no easy refugee exit. When the Taliban last ruled Afghanistan, Pakistan was a refuge. No longer. The county’s border crossings with other countries are closed amid Covid.
Mr. Miervaldis says Afghanistan for him is “watching this movie on repeat” from his experience in Iraq. When the U.S. withdrew there in 2011, jihadists emptied the prisons and the insurgency reformed into ISIS. He fears the same will happen as the Taliban empties prisons, and al Qaeda and ISIS establish havens.
The Biden Administration’s withdrawal is already a catastrophe, but it has a moral obligation to keep U.S. forces in Kabul for as long as it takes to evacuate all of the Afghans and their families who assisted us.
Credit to WSJ for articles. All rights belong to WSJ. (Have to site disclaimer and give credit where credit is due!)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-...hadist-9-11-11629054041?mod=opinion_lead_pos1
https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-...hts-taliban-11629054976?mod=opinion_lead_pos2
Biden’s Afghanistan Surrender
The President tries to duck responsibility for a calamitous withdrawal.
By
The Editorial Board
Aug. 15, 2021 5:08 pm ET
WSJ Opinion: An American Rout in Afghanistan
President Biden’s statement on Saturday washing his hands of Afghanistan deserves to go down as one of the most shameful in history by a Commander in Chief at such a moment of American retreat. As the Taliban closed in on Kabul, Mr. Biden sent a confirmation of U.S. abandonment that absolved himself of responsibility, deflected blame to his predecessor, and more or less invited the Taliban to take over the country.
With that statement of capitulation, the Afghan military’s last resistance collapsed. Taliban fighters captured Kabul, and President Ashraf Ghani fled the country while the U.S. frantically tried to evacuate Americans. The jihadists the U.S. toppled 20 years ago for sheltering Osama bin Laden will now fly their flag over the U.S. Embassy building on the 20th anniversary of 9/11.
***
Our goal all along has been to offer constructive advice to avoid this outcome. We criticized Donald Trump’s deal with the Taliban and warned about the risks of his urge to withdraw in a rush, and we did the same for Mr. Biden. The President’s advisers offered an alternative, as did the Afghanistan Study Group. Mr. Biden, as always too assured of his own foreign-policy acumen, refused to listen.Mr. Biden’s Saturday self-justification exemplifies his righteous dishonesty. “One more year, or five more years, of U.S. military presence would not have made a difference if the Afghan military cannot or will not hold its own country,” Mr. Biden said. But the Afghans were willing to fight and take casualties with the support of the U.S. and its NATO allies, especially air power. A few thousand troops and contractors could have done the job and prevented this rout.
Worse is his attempt to blame his decisions on Mr. Trump: “When I came to office, I inherited a deal cut by my predecessor—which he invited the Taliban to discuss at Camp David on the eve of 9/11 of 2019—that left the Taliban in the strongest position militarily since 2001 and imposed a May 1, 2021 deadline on U.S. forces. Shortly before he left office, he also drew U.S. forces down to a bare minimum of 2,500. Therefore, when I became President, I faced a choice—follow through on the deal, with a brief extension to get our forces and our allies’ forces out safely, or ramp up our presence and send more American troops to fight once again in another country’s civil conflict.”
Note that Mr. Biden is more critical of his predecessor than he is of the Taliban. The President has spent seven months ostentatiously overturning one Trump policy after another on foreign and domestic policy. Yet he now claims Afghanistan policy is the one he could do nothing about.
This is a pathetic denial of his own agency, and it’s also a false choice. It’s as if Winston Churchill, with his troops surrounded at Dunkirk, had declared that Neville Chamberlain got him into this mess and the British had already fought too
many wars on the Continent.
Mr. Trump’s withdrawal deadline was a mistake, but Mr. Biden could have maneuvered around it. He knows this because his Administration conducted an internal policy review that provided him with options. The Taliban had already violated its pledges under the deal. Mr. Biden could have maintained the modest presence his military and foreign-policy advisers suggested. He could have decided to withdraw but done so based on conditions on the ground while preparing the Afghans with a plan for transition and air support.
Instead he ordered a rapid and total withdrawal at the onset of the annual fighting season in time for the symbolic target date of 9/11. Most of the American press at the time hailed his decision as courageous.
***
The result a mere four months later is the worst U.S. humiliation since the fall of Saigon in 1975. The Taliban is saying it wants a “peaceful transfer of power” in Kabul, but the scenes are still redolent of U.S. defeat. The scramble to destroy classified documents. The helicopters evacuating U.S. diplomats. The abandonment into Taliban hands of valuable U.S. military equipment.Worst of all is the plight of the Afghans who assisted the U.S. over two decades. Mr. Biden said Saturday that the 5,000 U.S. troops he is sending will help in evacuating Afghans and Americans. But there are thousands of translators, their families, and other officials who are in peril from Taliban rule and didn’t get out in time. (See nearby.) The Biden Administration was far too slow to get them out of the country despite urgent warnings. The murder of these innocents will compound the stain on the Biden Presidency.
The consequences of all this will play out over many months and years, and none will be good. The illusion, indulged on the left and right, that the U.S. can avoid the world’s horrors while gardening its entitlement state, is sure to come home to haunt. Adversaries are taking Mr. Biden’s measure, and there will be more trouble ahead. The costs will be all the more painful because the ugliness of this surrender was so unnecessary.
Copyright ©2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
The Afghan Allies Left Behind
Fear and chaos in Kabul as the U.S. fails to get loyal friends out.
By
The Editorial Board
Aug. 15, 2021 5:03 pm ET
Stranded people arrive to try to cross the border into Afghanistan, at a border crossing in Chaman, Pakistan, Sunday, Aug. 15, 2021.
Ashraf Ghani was able to flee Afghanistan on Sunday, preventing the spectacle of a public execution by the Taliban. But tens of thousands of other Afghans who assisted the U.S. over 20 years aren’t so fortunate and now face a potentially gruesome fate.The speed of the Taliban offensive caught the Biden Administration by surprise, but it can’t say it wasn’t warned to move faster on visas and exit plans for Afghan translators, journalists and their families. Former U.S. military officers sounded the alarm, as did Members of Congress. There’s no excuse for the scenes of fear and chaos on Sunday at the civilian wing of Kabul’s airport that had Afghans trying to flee without military protection as the Taliban closed in.
One of those sounding the alarm has been James Miervaldis, a U.S. Army vet who served in Afghanistan and Iraq and is now chairman of No One Left Behind. The nonprofit has been trying to fill the vacuum left by the U.S. State Department by negotiating and financing the exit of families who have been lucky enough to obtain U.S. visas.
On Sunday morning New York time, Mr. Miervaldis told us that his group had 50 families with some 250 people scheduled to leave Kabul on commercial flights. But they were stuck when commercial flights were halted. He said U.S. military flights appeared to be taking only big shots or U.S. Embassy personnel, and no one knows if or when the Taliban will allow commercial flights to leave.
He said U.S. military units contacted his group to obtain information on what is going on at the airport because they had been provided no on-the-ground intelligence. This is unforgivable, and the incompetence of the U.S. is stunning. “It is mind-blowing, the lack of preparation,” Mr. Miervaldis said.
He added that only about 350 Afghan families, or about 1,200 people, with U.S. visas had been able to leave before the Taliban victory. That leaves hundreds of translators and their families who had already obtained visas stranded in Kabul.
There are perhaps 50,000 or more who would qualify for visas but didn’t yet have them because of the slow U.S. bureaucracy.
This could turn into a human tragedy. No One Left Behind has tried to track Taliban killings of translators and counted some 300 from 2014 to April 2020. It has since had a harder time getting accurate information, but Mr. Miervaldis says the killings spiked again this spring and have escalated in the summer. Afghan girls and women will suffer even if they aren’t killed, as they are forced to marry Taliban fighters and can no longer attend school.
The tragedy is compounded because there is no easy refugee exit. When the Taliban last ruled Afghanistan, Pakistan was a refuge. No longer. The county’s border crossings with other countries are closed amid Covid.
Mr. Miervaldis says Afghanistan for him is “watching this movie on repeat” from his experience in Iraq. When the U.S. withdrew there in 2011, jihadists emptied the prisons and the insurgency reformed into ISIS. He fears the same will happen as the Taliban empties prisons, and al Qaeda and ISIS establish havens.
The Biden Administration’s withdrawal is already a catastrophe, but it has a moral obligation to keep U.S. forces in Kabul for as long as it takes to evacuate all of the Afghans and their families who assisted us.
