Let's be clear about Afghanistan: If after 20 years, and 832,000 American troops serving there... [View all]

[Drunken Irishman]

...areas of the country are this quick to fall to the Taliban, there was nothing we ever could have done to salvage that situation. This does not mean pulling troops from Afghanistan was the wrong decision. In fact, it validates the decision of both Trump and Biden (as much as I hate to say it for Trump).

Here's the reality: The US military has consistently said they need at least 14,000 troops in Afghanistan to keep any semblance of stability. A huge number of those troops were brought home even before Biden won the election.

The Taliban also agreed to a ceasefire with US forces contingent on the US leaving Afghanistan in 2021. If Biden had opted to go back on Trump's agreement, the ceasefire would have ended and we would have been woefully underequipped at these troop levels to maintain any level of peace in Afghanistan.

So, don't let the narrative get out that it was a decision between withdrawing and the status quo. That absolutely is not the option.

The real option facing Biden was withdrawing completely or committing at least 14,000 more troops to the country because remaining with the amount they had at the beginning of Biden's presidency would have been a fruitless endeavor.

Are we wiling to do yet another surge knowing that the surge Obama oversaw, and that Trump oversaw in his first year as president, essentially failed?

Afghanistan has absolutely turned into the definition of insanity. It is an unwinnable situation. This is not like Germany or even Korea where we have an active presence - this is a combat zone. If there was a radical sect of Germans attempting to overthrow the German government, that might be a little bit better of a comparison but that's not the situation in most these areas of the world where the United States is still active.

It's unfortunate what is going on there but we have to concede as a nation that we've done everything we can to turn that country around and to bring a democratic government that is sustainable - and it hasn't happened. The only way we can seem to bring democracy to Afghanistan is by gunpoint and that is not sustainable.

We spent 20 years there and we still haven't defined what the goal of objective is. What's the endgame for these conservatives?

Biden did the right move withdrawing from Afghanistan - at least compared to the other options.