In response to Martha Bordwell’s Community Voices essay, “Disillusioned by Biden — and willing to hold his feet to the fire,” we must support President Joe Biden at this awful time in Afghanistan. We should never have invaded that country, and once there, we should have pulled out promptly, at least after 10 years. No time was a good time and would have resulted in the same devastation.
Certainly Donald Trump would have faced the same issues, and I praise Biden for taking this action and all the blame. I agonize over the fate of women and children, but that is their society. We cannot make them into Westerners; only they can do that. Hopefully the Taliban have learned something over the last two decades, and now they are faced with running a country and dealing with ISIS, their sworn enemies.
We were never going to win in Afghanistan, just as we were never going to win in Vietnam. The people have to create a government for their own society. We can support and help, but we cannot make it happen. Biden is right to end our invasion.
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We agree, Somebody had to clean up the 20 year mess, at least Biden had the cajones to do it even though his predecessor surrendered and gave him a crap hand to play.
I agree with USA getting out of Afghanistan, should have happened 19 years ago. There is however a way to get out that doesn’t put the Taliban in power and give them 80 BILLION in military equipment to thwart any type of resistance to their Sharia law, brutal dictatorship. Biden totally booted the withdrawal and those blaming President Trump are not being honest.
The first premise of President Trump’s withdrawal agreement with Taliban was no encroachment on Afghan cities and territory. President Trump dropped the MOAB on Taliban earlier and they knew he meant business. Biden, by contrast, allowed a spring advance by Taliban troops to Afghan territory and cities. Biden did nothing! That advancement broke President Trump agreement, Biden was now free to do as he saw fit. He chose to do nothing. Biden actually wanted President Ghani to lie about Taliban advancing troops. The rest is a terrible lesson of how not to withdraw from enemy territory. Totally agree with getting out of Afghanistan but how we left falls squarely on Biden’s shoulders. With 80% of independents disagreeing on how Biden withdrew, that says it all.