by islander on August 17, 2021 6:18 am
There hasn't been a US military death for 18 months
"the disintegration of the Afghan military proved that pulling out the few remaining U.S. troops was the right decision. He inherited from former president Donald Trump the deal with the Taliban agreeing that if the Taliban stopped killing U.S. soldiers and refused to protect terrorists, the U.S. would withdraw its forces by May 1, 2021. The Taliban stopped killing soldiers after it negotiated the deal, and Trump dropped the number of soldiers in Afghanistan from about 15,500 to about 2,500.
Biden had either to reject the deal, pour in more troops, and absorb more U.S. casualties, or honor the plan that was already underway. “I stand squarely behind my decision,” Biden said today. “American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves. We spent over a trillion dollars. We trained and equipped an Afghan military force of some 300,000 strong—incredibly well equipped—a force larger in size than the militaries of many of our NATO allies…. We gave them every tool they could need. We paid their salaries, provided…close air support. We gave them every chance to determine their own future. What we could not provide them was the will to fight for that future.”
* Heather Cox Richardson
by Donna on August 17, 2021 7:51 am
Right, islander. So if we didn't leave, we'd return to the situation which produced all of those stats I posted, which probably means that thousands more civilians, police, and coalition soldiers would be killed with no end in sight.
There is no peaceful solution.