Biden Deserves Credit, Not Blame, for Afghanistan

Americans should feel proud of what the U.S. government and military have accomplished in these past two weeks.

By David Rothkopf

ATLANTIC

America’s longest war has been by any measure a costly failure, and the errors in managing the conflict deserve scrutiny in the years to come. But Joe Biden doesn’t “own” the mayhem on the ground right now. What we’re seeing is the culmination of 20 years of bad decisions by U.S. political and military leaders. If anything, Americans should feel proud of what the U.S. government and military have accomplished in these past two weeks. President Biden deserves credit, not blame.

Unlike his three immediate predecessors in the Oval Office, all of whom also came to see the futility of the Afghan operation, Biden alone had the political courage to fully end America’s involvement. Although Donald Trump made a plan to end the war, he set a departure date that fell after the end of his first term and created conditions that made the situation Biden inherited more precarious. And despite significant pressure and obstacles, Biden has overseen a military and government that have managed, since the announcement of America’s withdrawal, one of the most extraordinary logistical feats in their recent history. By the time the last American plane lifts off from Hamid Karzai International Airport on August 31, the total number of Americans and Afghan allies extricated from the country may exceed 120,000. Former military officers and intelligence operatives, as well as commentators who had long been advocates of extending America’s presence in Afghanistan, railed against Biden’s artificial deadline. Some critics were former Bush-administration officials or supporters who had gotten the U.S. into the mess in the first place, setting us on the impossible path toward nation building and, effectively, a mission without a clear exit or metric for success. Some were Obama-administration officials or supporters who had doubled down on the investment of personnel in the country and later, when the futility of the war was clear, lThey all conveniently forgot that they were responsible for some of America’s biggest errors in this war and instead were incandescently self-righteous in their invective against the Biden administration. 

Never mind the fact that the Taliban had been gaining ground since it resumed its military campaign in 2004 and, according to U.S. estimates even four years ago, controlled or contested about a third of Afghanistan. Never mind that the previous administration’s deal with the Taliban included the release of 5,000 fighters from prison and favored an even earlier departure date than the one that Biden embraced. Never mind that Trump had drawn down U.S. troop levels from about 13,000 to 2,500 during his last year in office and had failed to repatriate America’s equipment on the ground. Never mind the delay caused by Trump and his adviser Stephen Miller’s active obstruction of special visa sacked the political courage to withdraw. Some were Trump-administration officials or supporters who had negotiated with and helped strengthen the Taliban with their concessions in the peace deal and then had punted the ultimate exit from the country to the next administration.

Never mind the facts. Never mind the losses. Never mind the lessons. Biden, they felt, was in the wrong.

Despite the criticism, Biden, who had argued unsuccessfully when he was Barack Obama’s vice president to seriously reduce America’s presence in Afghanistan, remained resolute. Rather than view the heartbreaking scenes in Afghanistan in a political light as his opponents did, Biden effectively said, “Politics be damned—we’re going to do what’s right” and ordered his team to stick with the deadline and find a way to make the best of the difficult situation in Kabul.

The Biden administration nimbly adapted its plans, ramping up the airlift and sending additional troops into the country to aid crisis teams and to enhance security. Around-the-clock flights came into and went out of Afghanistan. Giant cargo planes departed, a number of them packed with as many as 600 occupants. Senior administration officials convened regular meetings with U.S. allies to find destinations for those planes to land and places for the refugees to stay. The State Department tracked down Americans in the country, as well as Afghans who had worked with the U.S., to arrange their passage to the airport. The Special Immigrant Visa program that the Trump administration had slowed down was kicked into high gear. Despite years of fighting, the administration and the military spoke with the Taliban many times to coordinate passage of those seeking to depart to the airport, tomitigate risks as best as possible, to discuss their shared interest in meeting the August 31 deadline.

The process was relentless and imperfect and, as we all have seen in the most horrific way, not without huge risks for those staying behind to help. On August 26, a suicide bomber associated with ISIS-K killed more than 150 Afghans and 13 American service members who were gathered outside the airport. However, even that heinous act didn’t deter the military. In a 24-hour period from Thursday to Friday, 12,500 people were airlifted out of the country and the president recommitted to meeting the August 31 deadline. And he did so even as his critics again sought to capitalize on tragedy for their own political gain: Republicans called for the impeachment of Biden and of Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Within hours of the attack at the airport, America struck back, killing two terrorists and injuring another with a missile launched from a drone. A separate drone strike targeted a vehicle full of explosives on Sunday. In doing so, Biden countered the argument that America might lack the intelligence or military resources we would need to defend ourselves against violent extremists now that our troops are leaving.

The very last chapter of America’s benighted stay in Afghanistan should be seen as one of accomplishment on the part of the military and its civilian leadership. Once again the courage and unique capabilities of the U.S. armed services have been made clear.  And, in a stark change from recent years, an American leader has done the hard thing, the right thing: set aside politics and put both America’s interests and values first.

 NPR

More than 123,000 civilians were flown out by the U.S. and its partners

Gen. Frank McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command, said more than 123,000 civilians were flown out of the country in a coordinated effort by the U.S. and its allies, calling it "a monumental accomplishment."

A U.S. official also said today that 6,000 people who self-identified as American were American. The official said the number of Americans left in Afghanistan is below 250.

Every single American service member is now out of the country, McKenzie told reporters Thursday, and no evacuees were left at the airport when the last flight took off.

McKenzie said in the final hours of America's military presence on the ground, the Taliban were "very pragmatic and very businesses-like." He said they established a "firm perimeter outside the airfield," and were helpful to U.S. forces in concluding military operations on the ground.

Despite the end of military presence, McKenzie echoed other administration officials who have emphasized in recent days that diplomatic efforts to get more Americans and American allies out of Afghanistan will continue. U.S. officials have said Taliban forces, who now control Afghanistan's borders and air space, have been told that anyone who wants to leave should be able to do so peacefully.

The Pentagon is investigating civilian deaths in last drone strike

The official ending of the U.S. war in Afghanistan comes as the Pentagon is still looking into the deaths of 10 Afghan civilians, including a number of children, who were killed during a drone strike over the weekend that targeted suspected ISIS-K militants.

Sunday's drone strike destroyed an Islamic State affiliate car bomb that posed an "imminent" threat to Kabul's airport, U.S. Central Command said.

However, The Washington Post reported Monday that 10 Afghan civilians, including several children, were also killed in the strike. The dead, all part of the same extended family, were reportedly getting out of a car near the targeted vehicle.

Seven children were among the dead, according to Susannah George, the Post's Afghanistan bureau chief, who spoke with NPR's All Things Considered.

NPR has not independently confirmed the reports.

Central Command said in an earlier statement it was "aware of reports of civilian casualties," adding: "We would be deeply saddened by any potential loss of innocent life."

Amnesty International USA's executive director, Paul O'Brien, said Washington has a responsibility to the families of those killed to "acknowledge its actions, investigate and provide reparations."

"Survivors awake today in Afghanistan with the unimaginable pain of having lost their loved ones with no accountability for those who have committed the airstrikes," O'Brien said in a statement emailed to NPR.

"For two decades the United States has carried out strikes with no accountability to the public for how many civilians were killed by U.S. actions in Afghanistan and other countries. It is unconscionable that the Biden administration continues airstrikes in this shroud of secrecy."

Meanwhile, rockets fired on Monday apparently aimed at Kabul's airport rained down on a nearby neighborhood as U.S. forces scrambled to evacuate thousands of Afghans trying to flee ahead of the withdraw of all American troops.

The attack, reportedly involving several rockets, occurred as U.S. C-17 cargo jets continued operations to evacuate people desperate to escape from an Afghanistan now controlled by the hard-line Taliban.

Taylor said five rockets were fired at the Kabul airport. He said three had missed altogether, one was shot down, and a fifth hit the airfield but caused no damage or injuries.

"We're in a particularly dangerous time right now," said Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, acknowledging there was still a threat to U.S. forces.

The Islamic State Khorasan, or ISIS-K, claimed responsibility for the attack. The group's Nasher News said on its Telegram channel, "By the grace of God Almighty, the soldiers of the Caliphate targeted Kabul International Airport with six Katyusha rockets."

Central Command spokesman Bill Urban said earlier that the rockets were intercepted by a U.S. defensive system known as a Counter-Rocket, Artillery and Mortar System, or C-RAM.

The drone strikes follow last week's suicide bombing at the gates of the airport that killed 169 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members. ISIS-K, an affiliate of the widely known extremist group, claimed that attack as well, inviting swift retaliation in the form of a U.S. drone strike that killed two "high-profile" members of group and wounded a third, according to U.S. officials.

NATIONAL

What We Know About The 13 U.S. Service Members Killed In The Kabul Attack

U.S. strikes against ISIS-K 

Urban, the Central Command spokesman, described Sunday's drone strike as a "self-defense unmanned over-the-horizon airstrike."

"We are confident we successfully hit the target. Significant secondary explosions from the vehicle indicated the presence of a substantial amount of explosive material," he said.

The two drone strikes on Friday and Sunday came after Biden last week vowed to hunt down the perpetrators of Thursday's airport attack. A day before the second U.S. strike, Biden warned that another attack on the airport was imminent and that he had directed U.S. commanders to "take every possible measure to prioritize force protection."

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the lead-up to Tuesday's troop withdrawal deadline was "the most dangerous time in an already extraordinarily dangerous mission these last couple of days."

Evacuations continued to the very end

As airport evacuations continued Monday, the White House said that about 1,200 people were evacuated from Kabul in the 24 hours ending at 3 a.m. ET Monday.

"This is the result of 26 US military flights (26 C-17s) which carried approximately 1,200 evacuees, and 2 coalition flights which carried 50 people," the statement said.

The statement said that since Aug. 14, the U.S. "has evacuated and facilitated the evacuation" of some 116,700 people. It said that since the end of July, the U.S. has relocated about 122,300 people.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan said the Biden administration believes it will still have "substantial leverage" over the Taliban after U.S. forces withdraw from Afghanistan that will allow the U.S. and its allies to leave the country safely even after Tuesday's deadline.

Sullivan said there are about 300 American citizens who remain in the country. Many others hoping to evacuate are Afghans who helped the U.S. military and who qualified for special immigrant visas or other visas to come to the United States.

At Monday's Pentagon briefing, Kirby said it was not too late for any remaining Americans to get to the Kabul airport for evacuation flights.

"There is still time," he said.

Analysis: War is over but not Biden's Afghanistan challenges

 

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 The Taliban has said it will 
 investigate such reports. 

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AAMER MADHANI and ZEKE MILLER

Tue, August 31, 2021, 12:16 AM

WASHINGTON (AP) — With the final stream of U.S. cargo planes soaring over the peaks of the Hindu Kush, President Joe Biden fulfilled a campaign promise to end America’s longest war, one it could not win.

But as the war ended with a chaotic, bloody evacuation that left stranded hundreds of U.S. citizens and thousands of Afghans who had aided the American war effort, the president kept notably out of sight. He left it to a senior military commander and his secretary of state to tell Americans about the final moments of a conflict that ended in resounding American defeat.

Biden, for his part, issued a written statement praising U.S. troops who oversaw the airlift of more than 120,000 Afghans, U.S. citizens and allies for their “unmatched courage, professionalism, and resolve.” He said he would have more to say on Tuesday.

“Now, our 20-year military presence in Afghanistan has ended,” Biden said in his statement.

The muted reaction was informed by a tough reality: The war may be over, but Biden’s Afghanistan problem is not.

The president still faces daunting challenges born of the hasty end of the war, including how to help extract as many as 200 Americans and thousands of Afghans left behind, the resettlement of tens of thousands of refugees who were able to flee, and coming congressional scrutiny over how, despite increasingly fraught warnings, the administration was caught flat-footed by the rapid collapse of the Afghan government.

Through the withdrawal, Biden showed himself willing to endure what his advisers hope will be short-term pain for resisting bipartisan and international pressure to extend his Aug. 31 deadline for ending the American military evacuation effort. For more than a decade, Biden has believed in the futility of the conflict and maintained that the routing of Afghanistan's military by the Taliban was a delayed, if unwelcome, vindication.

Turning the page on Afghanistan is a crucial foreign policy objective for Biden, who repeatedly has made the case for redirecting American attention toward growing challenges posed by adversaries China and Russia — and for shifting America's counterterrorism focus to areas with more potent threats.

But in his effort to end the war and reset U.S. priorities, Biden may have also undercut a central premise of his 2020 White House campaign: a promise to usher in an era of greater empathy and collaboration with allies in America's foreign policy after four years of Trump's “America first” approach.

“For someone who made his name as an empathetic leader, he’s appeared ... as quite rational, even cold-hearted, in his pursuit of this goal” to end the war, said Jason Lyall, an associate professor of government at Dartmouth College.

Allies — including lawmakers from Britain, France, and Germany — chafed at Biden's insistence on holding fast to the Aug. 31 deadline as they struggled to evacuate their citizens and Afghan allies. Armin Laschet, the leading conservative candidate to succeed Angela Merkel as Germany's chancellor, called it the “biggest debacle that NATO has suffered since its founding.”

At home, Republican lawmakers have called for an investigation into the Biden administration’s handling of the evacuation, and even Democrats have backed inquiries into what went wrong in the fateful last months of the occupation.

And at the same time, the massive suicide bombing in the final days of the evacuation that killed 13 U.S. troops and more than 180 Afghans is raising fresh concern about Afghanistan again becoming a breeding ground for terrorists.

Biden blamed his predecessor, Donald Trump, for tying his hands. He repeatedly reminded people that he had inherited an agreement the Republican administration made with the Taliban to withdraw U.S. forces by May of this year. Reneging on the deal, Biden argued, would have put U.S. troops — who before Thursday had gone since February 2020 without a combat fatality in the war — in the Taliban's crosshairs once again.

The president’s advisers also complained that the now-ousted Afghan government led by Ashraf Ghani was resistant to finding a political compromise with the Taliban and made strategic blunders by spreading largely feckless Afghan security forces too thinly.

Republicans — and even a few Democratic allies — have offered withering criticism of the administration’s handling of the evacuation, an issue that the GOP is looking to weaponize against Biden.

It remains to be seen if criticism of Biden's handling of Afghanistan will resonate with voters. An Associated Press-NORC poll conducted earlier in August found that about 6 in 10 Americans said the war there was not worth fighting.

An ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted Aug. 27-28 found about 6 in 10 Americans disapproving of Biden’s handling of the situation in Afghanistan. That poll also found most said the U.S. should remain in Afghanistan until all Americans and Afghans who aided the U.S. had been evacuated. The poll did not ask whether people approved of withdrawal more generally.

After backing the 2001 U.S. invasion, Biden became a skeptic of U.S. nation-building efforts and harbored deep doubts about the Afghan government’s ability to develop the capacity to sustain itself.

His opposition to the 2009 “surge” of U.S. troop deployed to Afghanistan when he was vice president put him on the losing side of conflicts with the defense establishment and within the Obama administration. Biden, in recent weeks, told aides that he viewed his counsel against expanding the American involvement more than a decade ago to be one of his proudest moments in public life.

In July, Biden pushed back at concerns that a Taliban takeover of the country would be inevitable. Weeks later, the group toppled the Afghan government.

The president also expressed confidence that Americans would not see images reminiscent of the U.S. evacuation from Vietnam at the end of that war in 1975, when photos of helicopters evacuating people from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon became gripping symbols of U.S. failure.

In fact, they saw images of desperate Afghans swarming the Kabul airport — at least one falling to his death after clinging to a departing U.S. aircraft.

Biden told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos during an Aug. 18 interview that the U.S. military objective in Afghanistan was to get “everyone” out, including Americans and Afghan allies and their families. He pledged American forces would stay until they accomplished that mission.

But Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday that there was “a small number of Americans, under 200, likely closer to 100, who remain in Afghanistan and still want to leave.”

The swift military evacuation now yields to a murkier diplomatic operation to press the Taliban to allow Americans and their allies to depart peacefully by other means.

Biden believes he has some leverage over the Taliban, former U.S. enemies turned into pragmatic partners, as Afghanistan faces an economic crisis with the freezing of most foreign aid. But U.S. commanders say the situation in Afghanistan could become even more chaotic in the coming weeks and months.