Disappointed, but not surprised

Well, that was predictable. I’m talking about the complete victory by the Taliban in Afghanistan. For over a decade, the U.S. ponied up billions of dollars in various forms of aid, including infrastructure, equipment, and training. The lives and limbs lost there, well, you can’t put a dollar amount on those.

I was never in favor of putting the U.S. military “in country.” My impression was that AQ was using Afghanistan and the Taliban as hosts for training purposes. Objective should have been to eliminate AQ’s training sites and use air and drone resources to selectively target appropriately. Instead, multiple presidencies and sessions of Congress kept throwing money and personnel into a country where we have no vital interests. The Russians found out the hard way; our leaders thought this venture would have a different outcome? This was nothing more than Vietnam 2.0.

I have no quarrel with Biden’s desire to get out of Afghanistan; Trump had similar ambition. But our flat-lining president fumbled the ball in many important ways. Biden broadcast to the world that we would withdraw by September 11th. Great use of symbolism and irony, but exceedingly beyond stupid to announce; rapid withdraw under chaotic circumstances should have been predictable; effective measures should have been taken to ensure that U.S. military equipment and installations would not end up with the enemy (booby-trapping?). Enemy combatants in prisons should have been “neutralized” rather than allowed to be freed and resume their havoc.

— Tom Neill, Chico