Tuesday, April 27, 2021

Five reasons Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal is a big mistake; Five reasons Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal is the right move

Analysis - Five reasons Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal is a big mistake:
You can put Afghanistan down as yet another issue that seems to divide neatly along party lines, with Democrats backing President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw the remaining U.S. and NATO partner forces after 20 years of war and Republicans warning it’s a blunder that will once again allow Afghanistan to become a haven for terrorists and require the United States to return in greater numbers and at a greater cost at some future date. We asked Washington Examiner defense reporter Abraham Mahshie to analyze why the withdrawal is a strategic and policy error. Separately, Washington Examiner national security reporter and senior writer Jamie McIntyre presents the positive case for withdrawal from Afghanistan.
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The Taliban have not broken with al Qaeda:
The chief reason cited by detractors against the Biden decision to withdraw from Afghanistan is the fact that the Taliban have not yet broken from al Qaeda. The assessment is buttressed by the intelligence community and the congressionally appointed special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction.
Rep. Mike Waltz, who fought in Afghanistan as a green beret, said the vacuum will allow al Qaeda to grow. “The Taliban have not lived up to their commitments to break away with al Qaeda and have strategically planned for a total U.S. withdrawal in order to take back power,” he said after the Biden decision was announced. “The intelligence community has made it clear that al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations will grow in the coming vacuum.”
U.S. Central Command Gen. Frank McKenzie said on Tuesday that he knows that the Taliban have not broken ties but that the group promised not to allow al Qaeda to operate in Afghanistan and that the U.S. military will hold them to that promise. “With the Taliban, I've learned to not listen to what they say but rather to watch what they do, so we will watch closely what they do,” he said. --->READ MORE HERE
Analysis - Five reasons Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal is the right move:
You can put Afghanistan down as yet another issue that seems to divide neatly along party lines, with Democrats backing President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw the remaining U.S. and NATO partner forces after 20 years of war and Republicans warning it’s a blunder that will once again allow Afghanistan to become a haven for terrorists and require the United States to return in greater numbers and at a greater cost at some future date. First up, we asked Washington Examiner national security reporter and senior writer Jamie McIntyre to present the positive case for withdrawal from Afghanistan. Separately, Washington Examiner defense reporter Abraham Mahshie presents the case for why withdrawal from Afghanistan is a mistake.
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The Trump-Biden view: 'Enough is enough'

It was Trump’s plan: Former President Donald Trump, convinced the advice of his defense secretary and national security advisers had been wrong all along, did everything he could in his last year in office to lock in place his plan to bring all U.S. troops home by this year. When President Joe Biden was elected, Trump began a furious effort to box in the new president, including an additional troop cut, and likely would have pulled all the forces out by Inauguration Day, had not then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other cooler heads persuaded him that it would be a logistical nightmare and a political disaster. The Taliban, believing the February 2020 peace deal was a full surrender by the United States, vowed to resume attacks against U.S. and foreign troops, ending a yearlong period without a single U.S. casualty. “It is perhaps not what I would have negotiated myself,” Biden said when announcing his decision to follow Trump’s lead. “It was an agreement made by the United States government, and that means something.” Biden knew that while the Taliban deal was not set in stone, it was set in quick-drying cement. --->READ MORE HERE


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