Biden Puts Feelings Over Facts in Afghanistan Withdrawal

The idea that our departure won't be seen as a defeat is preposterous.

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President Biden has decided to end the war in Afghanistan. He feels it’s time, and so do a lot of Americans.

I feel it too. I’m just not sure feelings should win the day.  

In his televised address announcing the decision, Biden reiterated that American withdrawal can’t be “tied to conditions on the ground” because no one can say what conditions must be met in order to depart. 

As a senior administration official explained to reporters, “This is not conditions-based. The president has judged that a conditions-based approach, which has been the approach of the past two decades, is a recipe for staying in Afghanistan forever.” 

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  1. Avatar photo
    Josh Blumenthal

    Here's what I don't get. It's a big world. Are we to think that Afghanistan is the only place from which the Taliban can plan and launch an attack?

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    1. Nickson

      Aside from Iraq and Syria and Afghanistan, the Islamic State (the Taliban itself is Afghan) had or has (really, one has to assume they still have) operations of varying size and effectiveness in Nigeria, Somalia, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, plus at least “cells” in the Philippines, India, Pakistan, Algeria, Tunisia, the Caucasus, and Saudi Arabia. And there are plenty of other potential locations. I don’t get it either.

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  2. Emma

    This is what happens when you divide the world on a napkin....

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    Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

    Indeed, terrible things are happening right now in all sorts of places—Myanmar, Tibet, Hong Kong, Ukraine

    He forgot Burma. Terrible things happening there too! But at least it wasn't invaded/controlled by an outside force, like the others on that list.

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      Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

      And yes, I know Burma is the former name for Myanmar.

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  4. Avatar photo
    Logical

    Afghanistan has an amazing history. For nearly four thousand years, it served as the crossroads for early indo-aryans, scythians, parthians, greeks, central asians, arabs, persians, and moghuls invading the subcontinent. Only route to the Indian plains was through a narrow pass (Khyber pass).

    The first time the invaders did not use the Khyber pass in all that history was the British, who came from the Arabian sea. They tried the opposite approach, i.e., invade Afghans from the subcontinent. Didn't work out well.

    They have the distinction of slaying three superpowers, the last two in forty years.

    They are tough people. They are not arab, often misunderstood.

    They may not be wise but they are proud. Al Qaeda is not their natural ally. Bin Laden used money to bribe the war lords to get involved.

    We could have dealt with the northern Afghans differently after driving Bin laden out. But we were stuck with posturing for American consumption than playing with the realities of the Afghan culture.

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  5. Bubba

    “ We’re there to ensure that the Taliban doesn’t take over the country and make it a safe haven for terrorism again. ”. Because there aren’t a million other safe havens? We need to focus more on punitive expeditions and less on trying to shovel sand with a pitch fork.

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    CVS

    This is 100% right. This entire debate is over feelings, not reality.

    If you want to say, "We're done, and I don't care if the Taliban comes back, I don't think it's that important," fine. That position I can respect.

    The idea that this is anything but a defeat, or that we are doing this for the right reasons, is ridiculous and intelligence insulting.

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  7. Avatar photo
    CP

    I really want that bookshelf from the picture.

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  8. Avatar photo
    Dante Longfellow

    "Of all the aspects of Biden’s decision, picking September 11 as the deadline is the most baffling."

    It's not at all baffling.

    Disgusting, outrageous, but not baffling.

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      Narwhal

      Why don’t you feel it is baffling? I assume that you mean you understand why he chose that day.

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        Dante Longfellow

        Yes, I do. Does the date lack any significance to you?

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          Narwhal

          Of course not. Can you explain why you think he chose that day?

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    Narwhal

    We’ve got bigger problems than Afghanistan and the Taliban on the horizon.

    Call me crazy, but when two presidents as different as Trump and Biden reach the same conclusion on a matter of foreign policy then I assume they are better briefed than me or anyone else and have good reasons for doing so, even if the reasons they give publicly don’t seem defensible.

    Did President Obama stop using drones? Nope. Did a sizable portion of his base want him to? Yes. Is it possible that he knew far more than them?

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    1. Raincheck

      Trump’s foreign policy isn’t half of an argument for leaving. It was an incoherent, intuitive, rambling mess. We still have forces in Germany. We don’t call World War II an endless war or pretend it is still going on. We still have troops in Korea, even though the war is over. Our troops in Afghanistan are not in active combat. They are preserving a fragile peace. Leaving is for optics. The war is over and we still have a residual force. Presidents think that is too complicated for Americans to understand.

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      Synchronize Your Dogmas (Bill B)

      We touched on this is in another thread. Us geniuses who get neither intelligence or State Department briefings and don't have a virtual army of subject area experts at our disposal seem to always be so much wiser than the people who do.

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        Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

        Saying the unwashed hordes don't understand the situation is not the same as saying those who have been briefed do.

        Many of the experts also come in with their own biases, causing occlusion to their judgement.

        Me, I trust the judgement of those who have been briefed, and don't have a dog in the fight.

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          Synchronize Your Dogmas (Bill B)

          Yes. Experts come with biases. There’s an entire field of study that deals the field and with previous Admins who dealt with it; most famously “groupthink” during the Kennedy Administration. I like Israeli “Tenth Man Rule” idea highlighted in World War Z; one person whose job it is to challenge the conventional decision-makers.

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  10. Avatar photo
    Todd T

    Gendarmerie? That's a dandy...

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