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Disaster in Afghanistan Will Follow Us Home What on Earth Selected articles concerning Israel, published weekly by Suburban Orthodox Toras Chaim’s (Baltimore) Israel Action Committee Edited by Jerry Appelbaum ( [email protected] ) | Founding editor: Sheldon J. Berman Z”L Issue 900 Volume 2 1 , Number 3 2 Parshias Ki Seitzei August 21 , 2021 Disaster in Afghanistan Will Follow Us Home By Bret Stephens nyt.com August 15, 2021 What on earth was Joe Biden thinking — if, that is, he consequences. We should begin to anticipate t hem now. was thinking? The killing won’t stop. Watch — if you have the On July 8, the president defended his decision to stomach — videos of the aftermath of an attack in May on withdraw all remaining U.S. forces from Afghanista n. Afghan schoolgirls, which left 90 dead, or the massacre of After assuring Americans that “the drawdown is 22 Afghan commandos in June, gunned down as they were proceeding in a secure and orderly way” and that “U.S. surrendering, or Taliban figh ters taunting an Afghan police support for the people of Afghanistan will endure,” he officer, shortly before they kill him for the crime of took some questions. Here are excerpts from the White making comic videos. House transcript. One Taliban official declared that their jihad was Q: Is a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan now directed not against ordinary Afghans but only “against the inevitable? occupiers and those who defend the occ upiers.” Yet the The president: No, it is not. list of Afghans who fill that bill reaches into the thousands, Q: Why? if not higher. The president: Because you — the Afghan troops Women will become chattel. There are roughly 18 have 300,000 well - equipped — as well equipped as any million women and girls in Afghanistan. They will now be army in the world — and an air force against something subject to laws from the seventh century. They will not be like 75,000 Taliban. It is not inevitable. … able to walk about with uncovered faces or be seen in Q: Do you see any parallels between this withdrawal public without a male relative. They will not be able to and what happened in Vietnam, with some people feeling hold the kinds of jobs they’ve fought so hard to get over —— the last 20 years: journalists, teachers, parliamentarians, The president: None whatsoever. Zero … The Taliban entrepreneurs. Their dau ghters will not be allowed to go to is not the South — the North Vietnamese Army. They’re school or play sports or consent to the choice of a not — they’re not remotely comparable in terms of husband. capability. There’s going to be no circumstance where you Afghanistan will become a magnet to jihadists see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy. … everywhere. Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban’s deputy Q: Mr. President, how serious was the corruption leader, is one of the F.B.I.’s most wanted terrorists. Don’t among the Afghanistan government to this mission failing expect him to change his spots, even if he claimed there? otherwise last year in a Times guest essay. The pres ident: Well, first of all, the mission hasn’t “The relationship between the Taliban and Al Qaeda failed, yet. There is in Afghanistan — in all parties, there’s will get stronger,” Saad Mohseni, the head of the Afghan been corruption. The question is, can there be an news and media company Moby, told me on Saturday. agreement on unity of purpose? … That — the jury is still “W hy should the Taliban fear the Americans anymore? out. But the likelihood there’s going t o be the Taliban What’s the worst that could happen? Another invasion? overrunning everything and owning the whole country is “These guys are going to be the most belligerent, highly unlikely. arrogant Islamist movement on the planet,” Mohseni Biden’s heedlessness, on the cusp of a sweeping added. “They are going to be the Mecca for any youn g Taliban blitzkrieg that on Sunday saw them enter Kabul, radical of Islamic heritage or convert. It’s going to inspire will define his administration’s first great fiasco. It won’t people. It’s a godsend for any radical, violent group.” m atter that he is carrying through on the shambolic What happens in Afghanistan won’t stay there. The withdrawal agreement negotiated last year by the Trump country most immediately at risk from an ascendant administration, with the eager support of Trump’s Taliban is neighboring Pakistan. Af ter years of Islamabad isolationist base, and through the diplomatic efforts of giving sanctuary and support for the Afghan Taliban (as Trump’s lickspittle secretary of state, Mik e Pompeo. long as they attacked coalition forces), Pakistan must now This is happening on Biden’s watch, at Biden’s fear that the next regime in Kabul will give sanctuary and insistence, against the advice of his senior military advisers support for the Pakistani Taliban. There may be poetic and with Biden’s firm assurance to the American people just ice in this, but the prospect of fundamentalist forces that what has just come to pass wouldn’t come to pass. destabilizing a regime with an estimated 160 nuclear Past presidents might have had a senior adviser resign in warheads is an unparalleled global nightmare. the wake of such a debacle, as Les Aspin, then the Short of this, the calamity in Afghanistan is a recipe secretary of defense, did after the 1993 Black Hawk Down for another wave of migrants, one that will wash over episode in Somalia. Europe’s shores and provoke a populist backlash. “We’re This time, Biden owns the moment. He also owns the going to see 20 Viktor Orbans emerge,” warned Mohseni, F o c u s o n Is ra el August 21, 2021 Page 2 referring to the Hungarian strongman and Tucker Carlson for 71 years, at far higher cost, and the world is better off B.F.F. for it. America’s geopolitical position will be gravely But wasn’t the Afghan government corrupt and inept? damaged. What kind of ally is the United States? In the last Yes, but at least that government wasn’t massacring its several years, the United States has maintained a relatively own citizens or raising the banner of jihad. small force in Afghanistan, largely devoted to providing But aren’t American casualties unacceptable? They are su rveillance, logistics and air cover for Afghan forces while surely tragic. But so is squandering the sacrifice of so many taking minimal casualties. Any American president could Americans who fought the Taliba n bravely and nobly — have maintained this position almost indefinitely — with and, as it turns out, for nothing. no prospect of defeating the Taliban but none of being But is there any reason we should care more about the routed by them, either. fate of Afghans than we do of desperate people elsewhere? In o ther words, we had achieved a good - enough Yes, because our inability to help everyone, everywhere solution for a nation we could afford to neither save nor doesn’t relieve us of the oblig ation to help someone, lose. We squandered it anyway. Now, in the aftermath of somewhere — and because America’s power and Saigon redux, every enemy will draw the lesson that the reputation in the world is also a function of being a beacon United States is a feckless power, with no l asting appetite of confidence and hope. for defending the Pax Americana that is still the basis for Now these arguments belong to the past. The war in world order. And every ally — Taiwan, Ukraine, the Baltic Afghanistan isn’t just over. It’s lost. A few America ns may states, Israel, Japan — will draw the lesson that it is on its cheer this humiliation, and many more will shrug at it. But own in the face of its enemies. The Biden Doctrine means the consequences of defeat are rarely benign for nations, th e burial of the Truman Doctrine. no matter how powerful they otherwise appear to be. But didn’t we have to leave Afghanistan sometime? So America’s enemies, great and small, will draw conclusions goes a counterargument. Yes, though we’ve been in Korea from our needless sur render, just as they will about the frighteningly oblivious president who brought it about. Taliban triumphant: America may pay dearly for defeat in Afghanistan By The Economist economist.com August 15, 2021 Joe Biden’s decision to pull forces from Afgha nistan overrunning everything and o wning the whole country is could haunt his presidency. highly unlikely”. By August 14th Mr Biden was reduced to Joe Biden may have more foreign - policy experience trying to shift some blame to Donald Trump. “When I than any American president in 30 years, but he is haunted came to office, I inherited a deal cut by my predecessor,” by the brutal assessment of his judgment by Bob Gates, he said in a statement. He argued the deal “left the Taliban who was secretary of defence under the president both in the strongest position militarily since 2001” and noted it men served, Barack Obama. Mr Gates called Mr Biden “a imposed a May 1st, 2021 deadline for American man of integrity” whom it was impossible not to like. Yet, withdrawal. writing in “Duty”, his memoir, he added: “I think he has Yet Mr Biden also stood behind his own decision, been wrong on nearly every major foreign - policy and saying that America’s mission of eliminating the terrorist national - security issue over the past four decades.” threat from Afghanistan was accomplished years ago.
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