William T. Robinson, Jr.
The current withdrawal of Americans, Afghanistan allies, and friends from Afghanistan has created a whirlwind of dissension and finger pointing at those in leadership positions, primarily President Joe Biden. Our top military intelligence advisors are throwing the president under the bus, alleging he refused to adhere to their advice in effectively evacuating Americans and their allies from Afghanistan. They sight his lack of prudence in foreseeing the consequences of implementing this troublesome withdrawal.
Let’s not spend unnecessary time arguing why the U.S. military is leaving Afghanistan when it is the consensus of most Americans. Their real question is ‘why were we there so long after the assassination of Osama bin Laden’? So leaving Afghanistan is not the issue, but the mishandling of the evacuation is—especially as it relates to bringing the bulk of the troops home before completing the withdrawal operation.
It was our understanding retaliating against those responsible for 9/11 was our main reason for being in Afghanistan in the first place. But even after the assassination of Osama bin Laden, we were given several reasons for our military’s continuance in Afghanistan—mainly training the Afghanistan military to fight the Taliban and assuring the basic rights of the Afghans, especially women. These are commendable and laudable reasons when all is said and done. But we find that many of the people we were trying to help and empower are not willing to fight for their own freedom. Many are quick to argue that it doesn’t make sense to sacrifice American lives for people who are not willing to fight for their own cause.
The media is concentrating on the trepidation of Americans and Afghans who fear for their lives trying to get out of the Taliban controlled country. Many blame the United States government who trained the Afghan military more than the Afghan military who gave the country to the Taliban without a fight. There is no argument that what is transpiring is a disheartening ugly picture and President Biden and his intelligence advisors must take responsibility in acknowledging that we made major mistakes in calculating the outcome. We can undoubtedly see that more troops should have remained stationed, mobilizing the country until all parties were evacuated safely—even if it meant extending the troops’ withdrawal time period.
Now if you are a demagogue or opponent of the current Democratic Administration, you may be having a field day in throwing rocks and trying to further divide this country for your own personal gain. But I would suggest that we used this explosive situation as a learning experience going forward. However, a major concern that we cannot ignore is the competency and reliability of our Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), especially as it relates to what is really happening here in this country and abroad.
We may also want to consider if this was a needed war or just a smokescreen to make money for those manufacturing and selling military war artilleries such as tanks, planes, guns, etc. We must also look at our humanitarian efforts worldwide, especially when we are falling short of adhering to these efforts here in this country. The truth of the matter is that we need more independent thinking citizens who are unpolluted by the biases of those trying to control our minds, convincing us that whatever they do is acceptable.
Many Americans ‘in the know’ believe that most wars are not fought for our national security but are devised and implemented as power moves or for monetary purposes to continue to fill the coffers of an esoteric few. The Afghanistan War can teach the public to stop being pawns in a calculated chess game. Once we learn to understand the war game and the main orchestrators and true benefactors, the American public will be in a better position to make decisions determining their own outcome.
The Afghanistan debacle teaches us that those at the top don’t always get it right. But we should not be above acknowledging and learning from our mistakes.
