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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWaPo: Biden will withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, 2021
By Missy Ryan and Karen DeYoung
April 13, 2021 at 11:27 a.m. EDT
President Biden will withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan over the coming months, people familiar with the plans said, completing the military exit by the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that first drew the United States into its longest war. The decision, which Biden is expected to announce on Wednesday, will keep thousands of U.S. forces in the country beyond the May 1 exit deadline that the Trump administration negotiated last year with the Taliban, according to one person familiar with the matter, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity to describe plans that are not yet public.
While the Taliban has vowed to renew attacks on U.S. and NATO personnel if foreign troops are not out by the deadline, it is not clear if the militants will follow through with those threats given Bidens plan for a phased withdrawal between now and September. Officially, there are 2,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, although the number fluctuates and is currently about 1,000 more than that. There are also up to an additional 7,000 foreign forces in the coalition there, the majority of them NATO troops. Bidens decision comes after an administration review of U.S. options in Afghanistan, where U.S.-midwived peace talks have failed to advance as hoped and the Taliban remains a potent force despite two decades of effort by the United States to defeat the militants and establish stable, democratic governance.
The war has cost trillions of dollars in addition to the lives of more than 2,000 U.S. service members and at least 100,000 Afghan civilians. This is the immediate, practical reality that our policy review discovered, the person familiar with the deliberations said. If we break the May 1st deadline negotiated by the previous administration with no clear plan to exit, we will be back at war with the Taliban, and that was not something President Biden believed was in the national interest. Were going to zero troops by September.
The decision highlights the tradeoffs the Biden administration is willing to make to shift the U.S. global focus away from the counterinsurgency campaigns that dominated the post-9/11 world to current priorities, including increasing military competition with China. In addition to major domestic challenges, the reality is that the United States has big strategic interests in the world, the person said,like non-proliferation, like an increasingly aggressive and assertive Russia, like North Korea and Iran, whose nuclear programs pose a threat to the United States, as well as China. The main threats to the American homeland are actually from other places: from Africa, from parts of the Middle East Syria and Yemen.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/biden-us-troop-withdrawal-afghanistan/2021/04/13/918c3cae-9beb-11eb-8a83-3bc1fa69c2e8_story.html
Supposed to be made "official" tomorrow (otherwise I'd throw this in LBN ).
JohnSJ
(91,968 posts)BumRushDaShow
(127,331 posts)And there is a narrower "criteria" in LBN - particularly with something like this, where if he hasn't officially "announced it" yet (which is supposed to happen tomorrow, with some clarifications I expect today at the daily presser), then it has to wait.
CNN has similar wording (referencing WaPo) -
By Kevin Liptak and Jeremy Herb, CNN
Updated 11:53 AM ET, Tue April 13, 2021
Washington (CNN)President Joe Biden plans to announce Tuesday a withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan by the upcoming twentieth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, according to three people familiar with the plans. The withdrawal extends the US troop presence past a May 1 deadline set by the Trump administration in an agreement with the Taliban, but only by a matter of months.
Biden has been weighing the decision for months with his advisers and signaled he did not believe US troops should remain in the country long past the deadline. Officials were expected to explain the decision further later on Tuesday. The Washington Post was first to report the news.
Biden's new September 11 deadline to withdraw US troops would mark a symbolic end to the longest war in American history: Exactly 20 years after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that sparked the initial US invasion of Afghanistan. The Afghanistan troop withdrawal is the first major decision of Biden's presidency regarding US troops abroad, and Biden wrestled with what to do for months leading up to the May 1 deadline set by his predecessor.
Last month, Biden signaled he was unlikely to meet the May 1 deadline, but said at his first press conference as President that he did not envision US troops remaining in Afghanistan by next year. "We are not staying for a long time. We will leave," Biden said. "The question is when we leave." He added, "it's going to be hard to meet the May 1 deadline just in terms of tactical reasons."
This story is breaking and will be updated.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/13/politics/biden-afghanistan-withdrawal/index.html
JohnSJ
(91,968 posts)announce it it isn't on their site as "official"
I think it is still breaking news because it is more than speculation
BumRushDaShow
(127,331 posts)Been there done that with the "to announce" and LBN and needing to either change it to a source with something definitive or self-delete.
NYT version -
By Helene Cooper, Julian E. Barnes and Thomas Gibbons-Neff
April 13, 2021, 12:00 p.m. ET
President Biden has decided to withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, 20 years after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon launched the country into its longest war, United States officials said Tuesday.
The decision will keep more than 3,000 American troops on the ground in Afghanistan beyond the May 1 withdrawal deadline announced by the administration of former President Donald J. Trump. But it signals what Mr. Biden plans to present as a definitive end to Americas Forever War.
Administration officials said that since Mr. Biden was fixing a definite date on an American troop withdrawal, he hoped to avoid an increase in violence which the Taliban have threatened if the United States kept troops beyond May 1.
The decision was reported earlier Tuesday by The Washington Post.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/13/us/politics/biden-afghanistan-withdrawal.html
Johnny2X2X
(18,747 posts)It's great when you have a leader you can absolutely trust to do the most right thing possible. if Biden wants this, he's thought it out, listened to all sides, and made what he thinks will be the best decision. That's a lot more than we could ever say for the last guy.
I was a big hockey fan in the 90s and 00s. Detroit Redwings fan. We had Scottie Bowman as coach, Scottie Bowman was a coaching genius. He would sometimes do unorthodox things that no other coach could get away with, but because it was Bowman, you knew it would just work out. Like moving one of the top 3 centers in the NHL to defense for half a season (Sergei Fedorov), any other coach and there would have been a mutiny in the press and locker room, but this was Scottie Bowman, he had a method and everyone trusted him.
Joe Biden is our Scottie Bowman, he has a plan, and he never makes decisions like this without carefully considering all sides.
greenjar_01
(6,477 posts)I mean, think of it what you will, but let's be realistic about what's going to happen here.
BumRushDaShow
(127,331 posts)waiting in the wings.
We used to talk about Vietnam being dragged out but this has gone on way way way past even that point.
For over a millennia, countries have tried to "subdue" the Afghans and remold them, and we are just the latest ones to attempt it and not get very far. They'll just wait us out...
greenjar_01
(6,477 posts)I also think the Taliban are a far different thing than the DRV.
Brother Buzz
(36,217 posts)BumRushDaShow
(127,331 posts)Klaralven
(7,510 posts)President Joe Biden will remove all US troops from Afghanistan before this year's 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, finally ending America's longest war despite mounting fears of a Taliban victory, officials said Tuesday.
The drawdown delays only by around five months an agreement with the Taliban by former president Donald Trump to withdraw all troops, amid a growing consensus in Washington that little more can be achieved.
Biden, who will make an announcement on Wednesday, has "reached the conclusion that the United States will complete its drawdown -- will remove its forces from Afghanistan -- before September 11," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity.
Biden had earlier mused about keeping a residual force in Afghanistan to strike Al-Qaeda or an emergent Islamic State extremist threat or, like previous presidents, making a withdrawal contingent on progress on the ground or in slow-moving peace talks.
In the end, he decided to do neither and will order a complete withdrawal other than limited US personnel to guard the US installations including the imposing embassy in Kabul.
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210413-biden-to-withdraw-all-us-troops-from-afghanistan-by-september-11-1
It "clears the decks" for going to war with Iran. In case of war with Iran, any US troops in Afghanistan would be sitting ducks.