On September 11th 2001, 19 members of the Islamic extremist group al-Qaeda hijacked a number of planes and carried out suicide attacks on US soil. Two of these planes were flown into the World Trade Centre. Nearly 3,000 people died. The result of this was the US entering Afghanistan. 

After nearly two years of combat, the US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld stated that ‘major combat’ operations had ended. However, multiple years of combat between the US, their allies and the Taliban followed.  In the meantime, the Afghani government elected Hamid Karzai as President. Despite his reputation as an easy-going progressive, President Obama ramped up US operations in Afghanistan, sending an extra 17,000 Americans to help fight the Taliban and al-Qaeda. He was successful in his mission to assassinate Bin-Laden and in his second term he announced a plan to leave. President Trump withdrew some forces, however, there were unsuccessful peace talks.

Brown University estimates 69,000 members of the Afghan army lost their lives during this time. 51,000 innocent civilians and over 3,500 coalition soldiers were killed, and over 20,000 US soldiers have been injured. When you look at these statistics, it makes you think about why the US were there in the first place. What were their targets? What did they achieve?

President Biden declared that ‘We went to Afghanistan almost 20 years ago with clear goals: get those who attacked us on September 11, 2001- and make sure al-Qaeda could not use Afghanistan as a base from which to attack us again. We did that a decade ago. Our mission was never supposed to be nation-building.’ So, the goals of the US when going into Afghanistan were to kill bin-Laden and to suppress al-Qaeda, and, as the President said, they accomplished that a decade ago.

Now, the President is getting torn apart by people on both sides of the political aisle. You can see this in the Guardian’s headline ‘UK politicians decry Joe Biden’s defence of Afghanistan pullout’ and the Daily Mail’s ‘US media blast Joe Biden for ‘blame-shifting in Afghanistan crisis.’ Now, I agree with the President when he said it was ‘messy.’ It certainly was. It is horrible to watch the scenes in Afghanistan and to think about the future of women’s rights and the education of girls under the Taliban. This is something NATO urgently needs to address. I also think the global community needs to apply the harshest possible diplomatic pressure to the Taliban to ensure that the Afghani people’s human rights are honoured and that the nation does not, once again, become a breeding ground for terrorism. 

However, I think these politicians, instead of just agreeing with the popular opinion of the time, actually need to consider why the US were in Afghanistan in the first place. Do they hold any more moral responsibility to stay in Afghanistan than anyone else? I agree with co-host of Breaking Points Saagar Enjeti when he said: ‘The people who want to stay in Afghanistan should be honest about what they want: 20 year old Americans getting blown to bits by a suicide bomb for a government that has no interest in governing and an army that has no interest in fighting.’ The truth is that the US stayed in Afghanistan for an extra ten years, working with and training the Afghan forces. What would an extra year have done? Biden shares this view saying, ‘If Afghanistan is not capable of mounting a defence against the Taliban now, there is no chance that 1 year or 5 years of US forces on the ground would make any difference.’ I once again agree with Biden, saying ‘American troops cannot and should not be fighting and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight themselves.’

Obviously, the situation is ‘messy’, horrible, and certainly very far from perfect, but I agree with the President. I think he made the right decision. He was honest with the American people and stuck to his promise – something very few politicians do. I also think I should make clear that I was not a massive Biden supporter. I would not have voted for him in the Democratic Primary. So, my opinion about this is not clouded by a pre-existing love for the President – it is guided by what the US went to Afghanistan to do.

Furthermore, I agree with Qasim Rashid’s analysis when he showed how the $2T+ spent on the Afghan war could have ended US homelessness, paid for insulin for diabetics, Universal Higher Education, and the cancellation of all medical and student debt. Despite being one of the world’s richest countries, over 30 million Americans live below the poverty line. Instead of funding military training, which clearly was not all that useful, so many Americans could have been lifted up and given a better chance in life. So could the Afghans, who as a consequence of the fighting are emigrating to the US (some Afghans will also emigrate to other countries such as Tajikistan and the UK).

I think Biden deserves praise for this because he stood up, was brave and made a very difficult decision. It is easy to say that American troops should have stayed for a while longer, but it suddenly becomes less easy when you have to tell more and more parents that their son or daughter has needlessly been killed in action.  This difficult decision is one that previous Presidents kept passing on to the next one. That is what being the Commander in Chief is about. He stood up to the mark and actually put the American people first, as opposed to the US military-industrial complex. As Einstein said ‘What is right is not always popular and what is popular is not always right.’ Although the situation is ‘messy’, I believe that in time, people will realise that an extra five years would not have made a difference and that Biden made the right decision. 

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