How Biden's team overrode the brass on Afghanistan

[DonViejo]

After two decades, troops have an end date on America's longest war. But it took a White House ready to pull rank on the military.

By LARA SELIGMAN, ANDREW DESIDERIO, NATASHA BERTRAND and NAHAL TOOSI

04/14/2021 04:45 PM EDT

Updated: 04/15/2021 07:43 AM EDT

The military spent more than a decade urging three different American presidents to stay in Afghanistan. With President Joe Biden’s decision this week to withdraw all U.S. forces by Sept. 11, they finally lost the battle.

“We cannot continue this cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in Afghanistan, hoping to create ideal conditions for the withdrawal and expecting a different result,” Biden said Wednesday in a speech announcing the decision. “I'm now the fourth United States president to preside over American troop presence in Afghanistan. Two Republicans, two Democrats. I will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth.”

As Biden weighed a full exit from the country this spring, top military leaders advocated for keeping a small U.S. presence on the ground made up primarily of special operations forces and paramilitary advisers, arguing that a force of a few thousand troops was needed to keep the Taliban in check and prevent Afghanistan from once again becoming a haven for terrorists, according to nine former and current U.S. officials familiar with the discussions.

Gen. Mark Milley, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as the four-star commanders of U.S. Forces-Afghanistan, Central Command and Special Operations Command, were emphatic proponents of this strategy, the current and former officials said, some of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive planning.

But in the end, Biden and his top national security deputies did what no previous president has done successfully — they overrode the brass.

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https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/14/pentagon-biden-team-overrode-afghanistan-481556

[lark]

1. drumpf wasn't man enough, didn't care enough to really do anything on his own watch.

He knew Biden would win, so set this BS withdrawal timeline just to fuck him. If he'd won, guarantee you he'd have changed it because he's a total chickenshit at heart and he would get no personal profit to sway him.