Finally "Mission Accomplished" in Afghanistan! But obviously, not the way we should have exited

An Unwinnable War echo report published in Commonweal:
Leaving Afghanistan is the right thing to do.

On September 11, 2001, the United States suffered the worst attack in its history. 

Three thousand Americans perished on September 11, 2001, in the World Trade Center terrorist attack and many more were wounded. Moreover, the way Americans saw the rest of the world changed overnight. 

Many were shocked that Al Qaeda, a relatively small group of religious Muslim extremists with little in the way of traditional military might, could cause such destruction in the centers of American power. In retaliation, the United States under President George W. Bush invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, with the goal of eradicating Al Qaeda and ensuring that such an attack could not be repeated.

Now that the United States has at last left Afghanistan, two decades and three presidents later, it’s hard to say just what we were doing there during most of that time. In the years after the initial invasion, the mission morphed and expanded: first it was about uprooting Al Qaeda and capturing or killing the mastermind behind 9/11, Osama bin Laden; then it was also about removing the ruling Taliban that had harbored the terrorists; and finally it was about establishing a liberal democracy in Afghanistan and training the Afghan military to fight like ours. Meanwhile, the war in Afghanistan became the longest foreign war in U.S. history. For Americans, it cost thousands of lives and more than $2 trillion. But the toll for Afghans was far worse: there the war meant not only occupation by a foreign power, but also constant political instability, corruption, drone strikes, civilian deaths, starvation, and displacement.

When President Joe Biden announced in April that U.S. forces would be withdrawn by September 11, it was clear this date was no coincidence. “War in Afghanistan was never meant to be a multigenerational undertaking,” he said. “We were attacked. We went to war with clear goals. We achieved those objectives. Bin Laden is dead and Al Qaeda is degraded.”

On July 8, Biden confidently reassured Americans that the prospect of “the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.” 

But intelligence reports, by then, were warning that this was indeed a possibility. In the weeks that followed, the Taliban captured city after city until finally, on August 15, they conquered Kabul in a single day. 

(Failed!) President Ashraf Ghani resigned and fled the country- like a coward. Many ordinary Afghans also tried to flee; countless others have been internally displaced. In some parts of the country, women and girls have already been forbidden to leave their homes without a male relative and are being kept from school. Those who aided or worked with Americans fear for their lives and the lives of their families, despite the Taliban’s promises of amnesty.
Our politicians whistled through the graveyard and let the war grind on.

Afghan Army soldier inspects a junkyard filled with destroyed American equipment in Bagram, Afghanistan on July 2, 2021. (Photo by Kanika Gupta)

Only a few months ago, Biden insisted that the Afghan security forces, which have received twenty years of training and $88.3 billion in aid and materiel from the United States, would be able to defend themselves against the Taliban. Biden’s tone changed once we saw how quickly Afghanistan would fall. “Afghan leaders have to come together,” Biden told reporters. “They’ve got to fight for themselves, fight for their nation.” The White House spokesperson Jen Psaki put it more bluntly: “They have what they need. What they need to determine is whether they have the political will to fight back.” In other words: this outcome isn’t America’s fault, because we did our best.

The day after the fall of Kabul, President Biden addressed the nation, defending his decision to pull out of Afghanistan, while acknowledging that the Taliban’s takeover “did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated.” His candor in this regard was welcome—a refreshing change from his predecessor’s reflexive bragging and deceit—but the overall tone of the address was oddly complacent. Biden put nearly all the blame for what had happened on Afghanistan’s government and security forces and almost none on our own country’s military and civilian leadership, which had systematically deceived the American public for years.

As the Washington Post’s 2019 report on the Afghanistan Papers showed, our military leaders knew for a long time that the war was unwinnable, that its objectives were too ill-defined, and that the United States wasn’t capable of installing a functioning liberal democracy at gunpoint. But our politicians whistled through the graveyard and let the war grind on.

If Biden was wrong to try to absolve us of guilt, he was right to pull the plug—thus rejecting the advice of the military establishment and much of the media. As the analyst Andrew Watkins told Foreign Affairs, “Many of the country’s drivers of conflict could never plausibly be resolved as long as American troops were present. Afghanistan’s war will not be over just because U.S. forces leave, but it was never going to end as long as they stayed.”

Of course, this is an unsatisfying conclusion for Americans. It should be. The damage is done; all we can do now is accept as many Afghan refugees as possible. We should feel sorrow and shame for the destruction we have caused, while recognizing that we can’t always fix what we’ve broken. We should also recognize that for many Afghans the difference between one regime and another may be less important than the difference between peace and perpetual war. Even Afghans who despise the Taliban may care less about who rules in Kabul than whether they can travel to work, plow a field, or attend a wedding without the constant fear of being shot at or bombed. “Give me liberty or give me death” is heroic, but “Give them liberty or give them death” is obscene.

Andy Borowitz is funny but the situation is serious

Leaders of isis and Al Qaeda Puzzled Why Trump Has Not Invited Them to White House ~ cynical news from Andy Borowitz!

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)

The leaders of isis and Al Qaeda said on Friday that they were totally perplexed as to why Donald J. Trump had not yet invited them to the White House.

The terror chiefs said that, as sworn enemies of the United States, they had certainly attacked the country enough to warrant an invitation for an official visit, and possibly a state dinner.“Maybe we haven’t done anything to directly undermine their democracy—I get that,” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of isis, said. “But we’ve been nemeses of America for years, and that ought to be worth something.”

Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of Al Qaeda, said that he also feels snubbed. “No invitation. Not even a save-the-date,” he said. “At this point, I’d settle for the White House Easter Egg Roll, but I’m not counting on anything.”

Calling the absence of a White House invitation for Al Qaeda “the height of unfairness,” the evildoer added, bitterly, “The whole thing seems political.”

Hibatullah Akhundzada, the current leader of the Taliban, said that, like his terrorist colleagues, he was “dumbfounded” that Trump invited Vladimir Putin and not him to the White House. 

“At some point you have to wonder, what does Putin have on this guy?” he said.

MaineWriter ~ Andy Borowitz is a creative cynic but the subjects of his humor always ring with seriousness.  In other words, the serial assassin Vladimir Putin has no business chumming around with Donald Trump.

American news media have not reported events in Syria - Assad must be looking for refuge

It's difficult to understand why American news media continue to under report or ignore news. Now that Syrian rebels are showing some success, the only coverage is in The Christian Science Monitor and Al Jeezera America.

"..rebel fighters, including the Al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, captured the northwestern Syrian city of Jisr al-Shughour on Saturday, for the first time in the four-year-old conflict."

Hmmmmm, This Al Qaeda connection is concerning.....will Al Qaeda have gained a nation after Assad is defeated?

(President Assad must be looking for refuge knowing this is a sea turn.....)

Syrian rebels seize key government-held city
Government forces redeploy to Jisr al-Shughour after rebel alliance overruns strategic city  April 25, 2015 

Syrian rebel fighters, including the Al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, captured the northwestern Syrian city of Jisr al-Shughour on Saturday, for the first time in the four-year-old conflict.

Syrian state media said the army had redeployed to the city's surroundings "to avoid civilian casualties." They said the army was battling "a large number of terrorists coming from the Turkish border."

The capture of the strategic city is the latest in a series of setbacks for government forces in the south and north.

Opposition fighters and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said the city, on a road between the coastal city of Latakia and city of Aleppo, was now fully controlled by rebels.

"All of Jisr al-Shughour is now liberated, there is no more regime there," Ahmad of the media office of the armed group Ahrar Al-Sham, which is taking part in the battle, told Reuters.

After seizing the city, rebels continued their assault with the aim of pushing the army from the few remaining government areas in the province of Idlib.

Advance on coast


Last month armed groups seized the city of Idlib, the capital of the province of Idlib near Turkey, after forming an alliance which includes Nusra, Ahrar Al-Sham and Jund al-Aqsa, but not Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), their rival.

The alliance calls itself Army of Fatah, a reference to the conquests that spread Islam across the Middle East from the seventh century.

The allied groups agreed to unite in the battle for Jisr al-Shughour under the name "Battle for Victory." The formation of alliances by groups before major battles is one of the factors behind the advances, sources say.

By taking Jisr al-Shughour, the rebels have edged closer to the coastal province of Latakia, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's stronghold, and are now less than 5 miles from villages loyal to the government near the coast.

"Jisr al-Shughour is more important than Idlib itself, it is very close to the coastal area which is a regime area, the coast now is within our fire reach," Ahmad from Ahrar Al-Sham said.

Syrian forces captured the city of Jisr al-Shughour in June 2011, when what the government described as armed gangs killed more than 120 security personnel in the city after large anti-government demonstrations there.

A rebellion in Jisr al-Shughour, home to 50,000 residents, in 1980 against President Hafez al-Assad, Bashar's father, was crushed with scores of deaths.

Reuters

Evil rampage in Peshawar Pakistan to demoralize entire nation and innocents suffer

Evil Taliban: We Slaughtered 100+ Kids Because Their Parents Helped America. Militants attacked an army-run school in Peshawar claiming the massacre of children is retaliation for U.S.-backed efforts to crush a group that's helped protect Al Qaeda. I suspect this diabolical slaughter is also retaliation against the effectiveness of US led drone strikes against Al Qaeda conducted throughout Pakistan and other places.  

Obviously, Pakistan has been completely ineffective dealing with security in their own nation. Theirs is a failed nation where terrorism grows like germs on a human carcass.

It's a stomach turning sequence of horrors. An evil rampage in Peshawar, Pakistan proves beyond any doubt that the Islamic terrorists must be annhilated soon. Otherwise, Al Qaeda and other radical spin off groups will execute their unbridled heinous slaughters of innocents, without any consideration for the toll their killing takes on civilization. Eventually, unless these attackers are annihilated, they'll continue to build their evil critical mass, like an astrological black hole sucks in energy, until they consume all of us, regardless of where we are.

What else are these disgusting evil doers capable of doing?  

When Islamic Taliban radicals consume innocent children to retaliate against the Pakistan military, what else is left in the evil pot they piss in, as they rampage their gruesome intentions to destroy humanity?

Some Americans have a false sense of protection from this kind of inhumanity. They may feel like our natioal borders protect us from this kind of inhumanity. Those are naive beliefs. We must never forget September 11, 2001, because it can and likely will happen again, in some other, unknown form. That's the reason the Islamic extremists must be annihilated.

Undoubtedly. the victims of terrorism have the most at stake for destroying the perpetrators of the inhuman evil. This violent evil is infecting Islamic nations faster than the Ebola virus is killing innocents in Western Africa. Surely, those who hate terrorists and the horrendous actions they inspire must outnumber those who fall into their evil extremist vortex?  For example, millions of people living in refugee camps in Syria must outnumber those who are protecting evil President Assad in his Damascus, Syrian palace? Certainly, the numbers of innocent people who live in Pakistan outnumber the terrorists. Nevertheless, the extremists are ravaging entire generations and taking their own civilization down with them.  Even the timing of the Peshawar school attacks were deliberate, to coincide with Christian Advent and Christmas. 

Evil works like that.

I don't know how to annihilate Islamic extremists, except to kill them. But, what I do know is this. If these extremist evil doers will stop at absolutely nothing to take down their own civilizations, then we don't want to know what horrors they are creating to kill all the rest of us.

General Wesley Clark "Don't Wait for the Next War"

Al Jazeera America interview with General Wesley Clark explains how boots on the ground to fight evil ISIS must be negotiated from among threatened Middle East nations. He told Al Jazeera that ISIS wants to "sucker in" US military troops. America must not put boots on the ground in the Middle East because ISIS will use this potential escalation as a rallying call for even more ferocious jihad.


General Wesley Clark tells Americans that public opinion shouldn't dictate foreign policy. The former NATO Supreme Allied Commander says the executive branch has to lead public opinion rather than react to it.

http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Wait-Next-War-Leadership-ebook/dp/B00JZBABKO

With the end of the Cold War came the end of America’s sense of its strategic purpose in the world. 

Then, after a decade of drift, the US was violently dragged back into international conflict. Its armed forces responded magnificently but its leaders’ objectives were substantially flawed. We fought the wrong war (in Iraq)—twice—for reasons that were opaque, and few American citizens understood the cause for which their sons and daughters were fighting and dying. (There were no Weapons of Mass Destructions in Iraq.)

War is a poor substitute for strategic vision, and decisions made in the heat of imminent conflict are often limited by the emotions of the moment. In Don’t Wait for the Next War, Wesley K. Clark, a retired four-star general of the US army and former Democratic candidate for president, presents a compelling argument for continued American global leadership and the basis on which it can succeed—a new American strategy. America needs both new power and deeper perspective. The platform for American leadership is to use America’s energy resources to spark sustainable economic growth, building new strength to deal with pressing domestic issues like the deficit as well as the longer term challenges to US security—terrorism, cyber threats, the next financial crisis, China’s rising power, and climate change.

Such a strategy is not only achievable but essential, and it is urgently needed. This is the true test of American leadership for the next two decades, but it must start now, so America has the power and vision to deal with the acute crises that will inevitably come—in the Mideast, Europe, or Asia.

General Clark certainly provides clarity about the complex Middle East dangers.  He also challenges President Obama to communicate with the American people about the daunting challenges of destroying terrorism. Americans need to hear from President Obama about how he is negotiating with allies to launch an international war to defeat Al Qaeda and its subsidiaries.

Polarized Government While Fighting the War on Terror - Speaker John Boehner Must Stop the October 1, Quagmire

Speaker John Boehner may shut down the American government on October 1, 2013, because he wants to waste more time to force a repeal of President Obama's Health Care Reform. 

Indredulously, the threat of a government shut down on October 1st, is real. Government services could stop, all the while our state department personnel and US military are in harms way, prepared to defend our nation against renewed terrorist threats. A government shutdown, by the way, means these people probably won't get paid. 

U.S. officials have emphasized they have been watching growing threats emerging from Yemen for weeks.

An intercepted Al Qaeda message has startled Americans, once again, about the dangers of living in a world at war with terrorists.
Extremist warriors with the Al Qaeda network are continuing to plot attacks to kill Americans, especially in areas of the Middle East, where some populations are easily intimidated to become complicit with terrorist groups.

Extreme caution against international terrorism is the new normal, but especially so since we're coming up on one year since the deadly September 11, 2012, Benghazi attacks, when Ambassador Stevens was killed in fiery street demonstrations.

Terrorist "chatter" threats, combined with the coming end of the month of Ramadan, plus the concern over several major prison breaks in the region, all contributed to the U.S. decision to shut down diplomatic installations.

Nevertheless, while our nation faces renewed terrorist threats, our government is nearly paralyzed by political polarization that takes only a majority vote to fix. While our state department and the military fights, putting their lives on the line, to defend us against perceived and actual terrorist threats to national security, by groups hell bent on killing us, our government is entrenched in a difficult to explain political quagmire.  

Imagine how history will judge our priorities during the war on terror?  Congress can't pass immigration reform, won't repeal the stupid budget sequester that's hurting our economic recovery, refuses to take action on the President's Jobs Act and repeatedly wastes time voting to repeal Health Care Reform.  Yet, somehow, we're supposed to win the war on terror, being fought by brave state department and military personnel, although a polarized government may cut their salaries. Incredulously, these brave people could see their salaries frozen if Speaker John Boehner shuts down government on October 1st, just to prevent Health Care reform from moving forward.

It can't escape terrorists, who obviously watch CNN or the BBC news networks, that the American Congress can't even vote to build roads and bridges, advocated by the President's Jobs Act, never mind, unite to fight terrorist attacks.  

Although American vigilance has spared us many potential attacks, our luck could run out at any time. 

Republicans are clearly engaged in dangerous reasoning. Their priorities are screwed up. 

Congressional Republicans are willing to put state department and military personnel in harms way to defend us against terrorism, but won't vote to support economic security in programs for our citizens, like Social Security, Veterans Benefits, Unemployment Insurance, Medicaid, Head Start, Food Stamps or Meals on Wheels programs, to name a few.  

Rather, Congressional Republicans could soon waste more time to vote to shut down government, just because they can.  

A polarized government is no way to win the war on terror. This war defines our 21st century. Americans must find a way to win this war, just like we won the Cold War, regardless of how much money it costs.  It's time Republicans, who take an oath to protect the United States Constitution, show patriotic dedication by solving our nation's resolvable problems and winning the war on terror, too.

Let's vote out of office the Republican obstructionists, like Speaker John Boehner, and others who can't share the vision of a world at peace, where our people share in the wealth of a successful democracy. 

Speaker Boehner has the power to dredge our nation out of the quagmire of a government shutdown. Moreover, he has an obligation to put our national priorities in the right order.

Syrian People - Desperate Victims of Iraq and Afghanastan

People in Syria are engulfed in a tragic civil war while their horrible circumstances are the collateral damage of America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. If American had never entered these two wars, we'd be in a much better position to help the suffering Syrian people. Now, the use of chemical weapons is reported in the Syrian conflagrations, creating more support for nations to respond to a growing humanitarian crises.  Americans could have helped the desperate Syrian people, if our government weren't embroiled in failed wars on terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Unfortunately, the war in Iraq was predicated on a false premise, because the threat of Saddam Hussein harboring Weapons of Mass Destruction didn't exist. Nevertheless, the cost to Americans was staggering.   Casualties in Iraq http://antiwar.com/casualties/ The Human Cost of Occupation Edited by Margaret Griffis :: Contact
American Military Casualties in Iraq
Date	Total	In Combat
American Deaths
Since war began (3/19/03):	4488	3532
Since "Mission Accomplished" (5/1/03) (the list)	4347	3424
Since Handover (6/29/04):	3627	2899
Since Obama Inauguration (1/20/09):	256	128
Since Operation New Dawn:	66	39
American Wounded	Official	Estimated
Total Wounded:	32021	Over 100000
Page last updated 03/5/13 11:08 am EDT
List of U.S. Servicemembers killed since 5/1/03 Afghanistan has, likewise, cost American lives lost and trillions in money wasted.  This war was waged in a desolate nation for the purpose of destroying the militant Al Qaeda Islamists, but it's turning out to be as big a failure as the War in Iraq.  Of course, the Afghan war had a somewhat national security purpose; but the reasoning for continuing to keep American troops in harms has become more elusive as Afghanistan appears completely infiltrated by enemies of the US and the national government.  It's just a matter of time before President Karazi and his Afghan government are toppled as tensions are mounting in this regard. When this coup inevitably happens, we'll see all the time, money, lives and resources poured by Americans into this wild mountainous country will be as wasted as soot in a fire place.   But Syrians are suffering because Americans simply can't afford the political or fiscal capital to help them to defend themselves. Syrian victims are, tragically, the extended collateral damage of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.   Obviously, we can't turn the clock backwards to re-create the decisions that put America into two expensive and failed wars.  Iraq could well fall apart into ethnic factions something like the European Balkans.  Afghanistan might become an anarchist government and an Al Qaeda haven.  Syria, on the other hand, could conceivably be an American ally in the Middle East. Unfortunately, the potential for this alliance is dwindling by the hour, especially as chemical weapons may infect the people's hearts and minds. America's invasion of Iraq in March of 2003, has been a failure that's now impacting millions of victims who cannot help themselves. These victims include Iraq civilians, American families who lost loved ones in the wars and, now, helpless Syrians who can't help themselves in the face of chemical weapons. Americans can't ignore the wrong mindedness of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. We could have killed Osama Bin Laden without invading Iraq, because, as it turned out, the terrorist hid in Pakistan - not in Iraq or Afghanistan. Nevertheless, we may be politically paralyzed to help the Syrians, even if we, somehow, can right our past wrongs.