Afghanistan 7-13-2021

 13, July 2021                                       Afghanistan

Following the invasion oIraq, (arguably one of the largest blunders in US history) former President Bush and his senior advisor, VP Cheney desperate to regain a semblance of credibility,  ordered the US military to attack Afghanistan hunting for Osama Bin Lahdin, demanding he be decapitated, his severed head packed with ice and sent to the White House. A whole nation was attacked for the misdeeds of a single man and his small cadres of supporters. Bush and Cheney argued that it was better to kill Bin Lahdin before his band of jihadists attacked the US again. Such muddled thinking persuaded a majority of lawmakers, NATO leaders including former British PM, Tony Blair, lampooned as Bush’s poodle was ager to bring back the glory of the British empire.  The hard lessons of Vietnam and Iraq were long forgotten. After 20 years of war, US troops are withdrawing at an accelerated pace leaving  the tattered Afghan forces and the abandoned Afghan people to the mercy of the advancing Taliban army. The war has destroyed much of the country, the lives of thousands of American and NATO forces and hundreds of thousands of Afghans and are likely to condemn Afghan women to a subordinate role, returning Afghanistan back to the stone age. Another humiliating defeat for US military power. The final chapter in this sad saga is Biden’s insistence on maintaining a US embassy in Kabul. Far better to close the embassy and airlift US personnel out of harm’s way before Taliban forces reach Kabul.