Biden bids farewell to Forever War

³It is time to end the forever war.´

6o said 3resident -oe Biden in his announcement that, as of 6ept. , the 20th anniversary of the attacks on the :orld 7rade Center and 3entagon, all 8.6. troops will be gone from Afghanistan.

7he longest war in our history, which cost 2, 00 dead, 20,000 wounded and 2 trillion, is ending ± ± but only for Americans, not Afghans.

6ecretary of 6tate Antony Blinken assured our 1A7O allies in Brussels that we are all leaving with our mission accomplished

³7ogether we went into Afghan- istan to deal with those who attacked us and to make sure that Afghanistan would not again become a haven for terrorists who might attack any of us.

³:e have achieved the goals we set out to achieve,´ the secretary said. ³1ow it’s time to bring our forces home.´

But while the 8.6. military did not lose a major battle, we Americans did not win this war. Our enemies are stronger, and they control more territory today than they have since their overthrow in 200 .

7hey have reconstituted themselves under fire, control half of the country and can cut roads to the capital of .abul. And in our mission to build a democratic Afghanistan that could sustain itself long after we depart, we failed.

And we have no guarantee al-4aida will not reestablish itself in Afghanistan. )or the most probable successors to the regime we are leaving behind are the same 7aliban we drove from power in 200 .

And while the 7aliban did not defeat us, they have bled the Afghan army we helped to create and train, and outlasted the 8nited 6tates and a 1A7O alliance that emerged victorious from a 0-year cold war with the 6oviet (mpire.

As we depart Afghanistan before summer’s end, the

, 00 1A7O troops there will be leaving with us. 7hat this is viewed as no strategic victory may be seen from the reaction of those who most consistently supported the war, conservative 5epublican senators.

6aid 0ajority /eader 0itch 0cConnell of Biden’s announcement

³3recipitously withdrawing 8.6. forces from Afghanistan is a grave mistake . ... )oreign terrorists will not leave the 8nited 6tates alone simply because our politicians have grown tired of taking the fight to them.´

6aid /indsey *raham

³It is insane to withdraw at this time given the conditions that exist on the ground in Afghanistan . ... A full withdrawal from Afghanistan is dumber than dirt and devilishly dangerous ... 3resident Biden will have, in essence, canceled an insurance policy against another

.´

6aid the ranking 5epublican on armed services, -im Inhofe

³1o one wants a forever war, but ... any withdrawal must be conditions-based. Arbitrary deadlines would likely put our troops in danger, jeopardi]e all the progress we’ve made ... lead to civil war in Afghanistan ± ± and create a breeding ground for international terrorists.´

But if we failed in Afghanistan, why did we fail?

Our enemies, the 7aliban, motivated by a religious faith many would call fanaticism, were more willing to sacrifice, suffer, fight, bleed and die for longer than we or our Afghan allies.

7he 7aliban are (ric +offer’s ³7rue Believers.´

Also, it is their country, after all, not ours. It is everything to them, not so much to us. 7hey are steeped in the traditional Afghan hostility to foreigners and hatred of those who come to their land to tell them how they should live and rule themselves.

7he 7aliban captured the flags of anti-colonialism, nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism.

7here is talk that, should the 7aliban topple the government, bring down the regime and engage in reprisals and atrocities, American troops might surge back in.

0y sense is no. :hen we go this time, we’re gone for good. /ike the Brits in the th century and 5ussians in the 20th, when we go, we will not return.

7he greatest blunder came in 200 , when *eorge :. Bush was persuaded by the neoconservatives to invade IraT and covert that country into America’s model democracy for the 0iddle (ast.

Our -year struggle in IraT following the invasion of 200 has proven even most costly in lives and treasure than the war in Afghanistan.

After IraT came the intervention in 6yria’s civil war to back rebels seeking to oust 3resident Bashar Assad. After that came the 8.6.-1A7O intervention in the /ibyan civil war and America’s intervention on the side of 6audi Arabia in

)or a generation now, we have been stomping barefoot on anthills and throwing rocks into bees’ nests across the 0iddle and 1ear (ast.

And to what avail?

7he nation-builders, the democratists, the liberal interventionists, the 1ew :orld Order crowd are, today, being repudiated by Biden’s decision to write off their 20-year project in the +indu .ush.

One wonders :ill they soon start calling Biden an isolationist?