The quick collapse of the Afghan government and the takeover of the entire country by the vicious and barbaric Taliban was no intelligence failure, as Rep. Jackie Speier (D‑Calif.) ridiculously charged Sunday.
U.S. intelligence officials had informed the Biden Administration, as well as previous ones, of the inevitable consequences.
Nor is this mess in any way a failure of the US military.
It is a political failure, through-and-through.
While the withdrawal* could have been handled far better, the big mistake was thinking — for even a nanosecond — that we could remake Afghanistan into a pillar of freedom and democracy.
Or anything remotely close.
The U.S. has been there for two decades, our longest war, and could have stayed another hundred years … and still, when we left, this would be the result.
As this commentary warned repeatedly.**
I have come to support U.S. alliances with free peoples, within limits … the key limit being the American people’s degree of commitment. Such alliances would be more sustainable than our current role as world policeman, better protecting freedom from the admittedly serious danger presented by China and Russia, two exceedingly bad actors.
We can occupy unfree peoples — for example, the Afghans — perhaps forever if we are willing to expend the blood (our sons and daughters) and treasure, but neither the U.S. nor any other country has shown the capability to remake peoples or nations.
Liberation is beautiful. But if forced, it won’t take.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* The U.S. Government bears some responsibility not to get people who work with it killed. We all seem to agree on that, even if we don’t agree on other issues regarding such interventions. So why does our government facilitate the placing of a price on many people’s heads and then cut and run without taking care to protect them? This is not a demand for perfection. But how about some quick visa paperwork and the offer of flights out of Afghanistan? In fact, fill out the stupid paperwork on the flight over here.
** In 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, etc.
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3 replies on “Lack of Intelligence?”
Actually, it was a lack of intelligence. From Day One.
The French warned us about Vietnam. We ignored their advice. Afghanistan is known as the “graveyard of armies” and has been for 2,500 years! The outcome was obvious before we invaded. The Taliban live there; we don’t.
We turned our attention from Afghanistan to Iraq which did not help. George Bush invaded Iraq not knowing that there were two major factions there— Sunni and Shia. He thought they were “just” Muslims. Saddam Hussein was Sunni which was only 25% of the Iraq population. Basically what we did in Iraq was give the country to the Shia who are aligned with Iran. How stupid can we be? We gave Iraq to one of our major enemies!
The ultimate outcome in Afghanistan was known by anyone with a brain.
The ultimate outcome in Afghanistan was known by anyone with a brain.
BINGO!
We should have removed all of our equipment on leaving, or at the very least, destroyed it so it couldn’t be used by the Taliban