Mission sorta accomplished
Tuesday, 7,128 days after his predecessor’s predecessor’s predecessor began striking targets in Afghanistan in a righteous campaign to prevent that nation from ever again becoming a launching pad for the mass murder of Americans, the commander in chief pledged that all 3,000 or so remaining U.S. troops will be home by the 20th anniversary of the horror visited by those terrorists.
With the strategic map remade many times since Sept. 11, 2001, with drones giving the U.S. the ability to strike at pinpoint targets, with more pressing threats from Iran and North Korea and a newly assertive China, withdrawal is wise. President Biden, following Presidents Trump and Obama, understands that the impoverished and dangerous land presents tremendous costs and risks yet, at this point, insufficient benefits for national security.
No honest person could claim that America’s longest war has been a rousing success. The Taliban remains powerful throughout the countryside. U.S. attempts to crush the opium trade have failed miserably. Presidents promised taxpayers America wouldn’t engage in nation-building, but that’s exactly what we tried, spending $133 billion above and beyond the war as of late 2019. Nearly 2,500 Americans and 100,000 Afghanis lost their lives.
Still, the main mission was destroying Al Qaeda. Though the terror network remains “heavily embedded” with the Taliban, it now has a foothold in a dozen other countries, while its ability to strike U.S. targets has by all indications greatly diminished. Meanwhile, ISIS in Syria and Iraq of late proved far more virulent, before they too began to fade.
Radical Islamists brought down the Twin Towers and killed 3,000 Americans on one September morning. The toxic dust from the pulverized wreckage has sickened and killed thousands since. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, the far-off possibility of post-Taliban stability and the risks of precipitous withdrawal made presidents scuttle plans to bring our warriors home. No more. Celebrate, with fingers tightly crossed that America can protect itself from future carnage with less blood and treasure sacrificed in faraway lands.