SAN DIEGO: How many times have we heard the mission in Afghanistan was to stop terror groups like al Qaeda from planning, executing attacks on the U.S.? The likes of what we witnessed on 9/11. Never again was the Bush promise. It’s crucial to know why we were there before buying into ‘we lost’. Were thousands of American troops deployed there to gain territory for control of Afghanistan? Did we know we were there to install a western government in a tribal nation? A futile goal, if so.
Afghanistan hosts haunting battlegrounds of past invaders from Alexander the Great to the Russians. Who did come to conquer and rule, but that is not us.
The United States was there to protect the homeland from terror attacks is what we were told. We kept terror down. Troops fought like hell to keep insurgencies from advancing fighters, drugs, and weapons. Their violent insurgency is fueled by the poppy trade. Helmand Province is the fertile home of the world’s largest opium poppy harvest. Afghanistan poppies produce more than 90% of illicit heroin globally. A profitable illegal business to fund war.
Our warriors helped Afghan forces win territory the Taliban tried to overrun. Just like we did with insurgencies in Iraq. They answered to the call to return later to help Iraqi Security Forces end the ISIS reign of power and violence. Exclusive: Marine Brig. Gen. Bill Seely over Iraq’s enduring defeat of ISIS
Will we have to retake territory in Afghanistan?
Over the years, U.S. troops took out Taliban leaders planning terror attacks and bombings. As well as radical Islamic fighters trained in Pakistan who were killing the local Afghans, police, and Army, as well as U.S. and coalition service members.
Exclusive story behind 80+ Taliban leaders killed by US Marines, Afghanistan in May
Initially, we went in on the hunt for bin Laden, the evil architect of 9/11. Bin Laden had declared radical jihad on all non-believers worldwide. Bin Laden held nothing back to destroy ‘infidels’. He had Iran in his back pocket to do it, as well as the Taliban in his front pocket to offer protection. Biden empowering Iran’s reign of terror that President Trump was ending
The Biden and Trump administrations failed to comprehend that the Taliban and Al Qaeda have been “joined at the hip” for decades,” says former Army Maj. Brad Bowman, of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think tank in Washington, D.C.
Those years we were on the ground we kicked the Taliban backsides.
We eventually hunted down bin Laden and took him out in Pakistan in 2011. But that did not mean the fight was over. We were not just after him, but his surviving operatives inside Afghanistan along with al Qaeda’s allies. Meaning the Taliban joined at the hip.
When our troops left – many thought they were winning. We didn’t go in just waving rifles in their faces. We hunted them down and flushed them out of their hiding places. The Taliban found viscous ways to fight back without showing their faces because that is something they didn’t want to do with America’s warriors.
It’s upsetting to hear the U.S. is fleeing from Afghanistan as if being chased out.
We’re watching town after town fall to the Taliban. Have to think we’re taking out a few evil-doers before we go. It’s gut-wrenching to see our investment take this path. We gave so much manpower, sacrificed so many lives, offered up weaponry and air support for 20 years. We spent 88 billion to train and equip Afghan Security Forces and the Afghan National Army.
And this is how the Taliban now unafraid does business because the Americans are leaving,
“The [Taliban] have already proved they will show no mercy to the vanquished. In June, the Taliban executed 22 Afghan commandos after they had surrendered. Afghan journalist Bilal Sarwary tweeted on Aug. 5 that several Afghan troops who fell into Taliban hands were killed and had their eyes gouged out,” reports Task and Purpose.
CNN reports on the same,
Videos show 22 Afghan commandos murdered by the Taliban after surrendering @amcoren reports pic.twitter.com/TMKmhv0rj1
— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) July 13, 2021
It’s eerily reminiscent of what happened in Vietnam. Yet, there is a time to say ‘it’s time to leave, but that is not the same as saying ‘we lost’. We fought communism in Vietnam and now we see it encroaching our freedoms in our own country’.
That’s a sickening development for all the American lives given to Vietnam.
Joe Biden’s Afghanistan War: No tears for the mistakes killing thousands
All was not lost at the time troops were in Afghanistan.
Our brave, skilled, fierce warriors held the Taliban down and prevented another 9/11. You can’t tell these Marines, Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen Coastguardsmen, and Reservists who gave all they had and more that ‘they lost’. That’s a sticky subject for someone who’s a double or triple amputee or suffers from Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). Or for Gold Star families who cannot fill that empty seat at the Thanksgiving table.
One former Army medic is not the only one angry at the events unfolding in Afghanistan,
“No one’s saying, ‘Hey, you know, at least we did something.’ There’s just nothing to really show for it,” he said. “And so, everyone’s kind of angry and wondering, why? Why were we even there?”
Why did my friend get blown up? For what?’: Afghanistan war veterans horrified by Taliban gains
There are many battles won in Afghanistan the media fails to recognize.
And some of these stories of valor and victory are coming out in book form and a documentary film by this writer so they are not lost. Documenting how our counterinsurgency efforts changed the terror landscape – changed how the Taliban went about things. We had them running at the sound of our helicopters approaching and hiding in buildings as our foot patrols came for them. We gave the locals life options versus nothing but pain from the Taliban.
Because the Taliban are a tyrannical religious regime that has no mercy. Put no value to human life. Many of their fighters are not native to Afghanistan. They come trained out of Pakistan or wherever recruiters lure them from. Then pour in to Afghanistan to kill, to maim, to destroy.
Regarding the failed attempt at diplomacy with the Taliban.
“Diplomacy can achieve wonderful things, but sometimes there’s this tendency to believe that we’re just one diplomatic meeting, just one treaty, one diplomatic agreement away from wonderful things,” Bowman said. “There’s a reluctance to admit that sometimes there are just evil people that want to hurt us that have to be opposed,” says Maj. Bowman to Task and Purpose, adding,
“While diplomacy plays a vital role in U.S. foreign policy, it becomes useless – if not destructive – if it is not coupled with military power, which ultimately gives the United States real leverage on the ground,” he said.
The condemnation of the International community of the Taliban has had no real effect on stopping their decades of violence.
“I think the Taliban has made clear, going back to their rule in the 1990s, of who they are and what they stand for,” says Bowman.
We’re leaving them in a compromised position to defend themselves.
Logistics is the “Achilles’ heel” of any fighting force and the United States has either taken control of or heavily influenced the Afghan logistics system for most of the war,” said John Sopko, the inspector general for reconstruction in Afghanistan.
“Currently, the Afghan government has limited capability to move food, ammunition, medical supplies, and so on, to units in the field,” Sopko said. “As SIGAR [the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction] has highlighted recently, the Afghans also lack any capability to maintain their equipment. Without the development of these core functions, the ANDSF will never be able to sustain itself.”
Taliban will disprove Biden’s lie that he’ll end Afghanistan’s war
The Taliban: the enemy within.
They did not conquer American troops while we were there, invited by the government. The turning point to our ferocity came after Obama’s 2014 drawdown to fulfill a campaign promise. The mission changed to ‘train and assist’ after so many years of boots on the ground battles. Then our few troops left in-country were told to stand down by Afghan President Ghani after a 3- day ceasefire with the Taliban in June 2018. Ghani extended the ceasefire even though the Taliban returned to killing. The Taliban war crimes on the people only increased with furor from then on.
Our current all-troops withdrawal is based on U.S. Taliban peace talks that went round in circles. The heft of the agreement stated in March 2020,
“After more than eighteen years of war in Afghanistan, the United States and the Taliban reached an agreement in what was both sides’ most intensive efforts yet to end the war. Central to the deal is a significant drawdown of U.S. troops and guarantees from the Taliban that the country will not become a safe haven for terrorists,” reports Council on Foreign Relations.
The U.S.-Taliban Peace Deal also addresses reducing violence and starting intra-Afghan negotiations. Note the word ‘reducing’ is used not ‘ending’.
The horrific takeover we see happening in major Afghan cities has been fueled by Biden’s unmitigated disaster of removing troops from Afghanistan.
Keep in mind if the State Department decides to evacuate the embassy, thousands of Afghans who have worked for the U.S. government and their families will be targets. These people are America’s allies.
In addition, the U.S. had no plan to save interpreters left behind, even though Biden has vowed to rescue them.
“An estimated 70,000 Afghans who have worked for the United States — and their family members — are at risk of being killed as the Taliban push for a final victory,” reports Task and Purpose.
Biden’s withdrawal disaster paves the way for Taliban faster-than-expected surge.
Saying ‘we lost’ indicates the government really never understood the fight or who was doing the fighting. American troops kept the same cities now being taken, out of Taliban control. As a result tribal elders ruled their own provinces protected by U.S.-led Coalition troops. Including Kabul, the seat of government for Afghanistan, is now at risk of falling, as predicted by many military experts and advisors who saw it coming.
We used to first carry a big stick and talking (diplomacy) was second. Now the example we set for Russia, China, Iran these days is not that formula. We used to take war crimes seriously. Afghanistan’s future looks bleak.
In the long run, winning is the 20-yr ‘hold them down and back’ fight given to Afghanistan, and losing is the lack of outsider recognition for it.
