© AP/Getty Images/KJN
US President Joe Biden • British PM Boris Johnson • Street scene in Kabul, Afghanistan
Afghanistan has become the United States' longest military engagement in history, lasting 20 years.
Similar to the Vietnam War (which lasted 19.5 years), there has never been a positive military objective for "winning" in Afghanistan such that American troops could finally leave.
As Col. Prouty has stated in his
book, not one of the six U.S. administrations who oversaw the Vietnam War ever stated a positive American military objective for that war.
The generals sent to Saigon were told not to let the "communists" take over, period. As Prouty makes the point repeatedly in his book,
this does not constitute as a military objective. (For more on this
refer to my paper.)
46 years later, it would appear the United States has not learned from this hard bled lesson. Today, the U.S. is repeating the same foolish "strategy" in Afghanistan against the Taliban. On August 15th the capital of Afghanistan fell to the Taliban forcing President Ashraf Ghani to flee the country, ending the rule of the Afghan government.
The Taliban take-over has been spurred by the Biden Administration's handling of American troops exit from Afghanistan, which was pre-planned over a year ago.
However, there is something not quite right about all this.
Comment: Of course they'd never give the Taliban a list. Who would think that the US - who gifted an estimated $85 billion dollars worth of military equipment and sensitive data to the Taliban - would ever give them something as dangerous as a list?