One year later, the Afghanistan withdrawal was still the right call

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
August 30, 2022
Contact: press@defensepriorities.org

WASHINGTON, DC—The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan was completed one year ago today. Defense Priorities Senior Fellow and Military Expert Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis. USA, Ret. issued the following statement in response:

“One year ago today, the last U.S. troops left Afghanistan, ending a twenty-year war, the longest in U.S. history. The full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan was long overdue and represented a logical end to an unwinnable war.

“As illustrated over four successive U.S. administrations, the war in Afghanistan was a case study in hubris. What was supposed to be an intervention with a narrow purpose—decimating Al-Qaeda and punishing the Taliban for harboring the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks—quickly devolved into an expensive, costly counterinsurgency and nation-building campaign. U.S. forces were tasked with fighting in the middle of an Afghan civil war, on behalf of a government in Kabul saddled with systemic corruption, incompetence, and inefficiency. Washington ordered the military to accomplish impossible objectives, or—at best—objectives that only had a chance of succeeding after a multi-generational commitment.

“The consequences have been severe and painful for many Americans. Thousands of troops were killed, tens of thousands more wounded, and literally hundreds of thousands suffered post traumatic stress disorder and endured traumatic brain injuries, all in support of a mission that could never succeed and which had long ago become divorced from core U.S. interests. President Biden was right to finally leave a failed war behind. The next step is to recognize that the logic which necessitated the Afghanistan withdrawal applies elsewhere—the same clear thinking should culminate in the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, Syria, Somalia, and other locations around the world.”

Author

Daniel
Davis

Senior Fellow & Military Expert