20 Years of Justifying Afghanistan: Joe Biden Edition (W/ Special Guest: The War-Obsessed US Media)

Instead of pretending to know what's going in Afghanistan or arrogantly trying to predict the country's future, why not take the time to reminisce about past and current America presidents trying to justify the entire experience?

Since we're talking about 20 years and multiple presidents (Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden) this will be broken up into four parts For this post: Joe Biden. Keep in mind that not every speech or even every speech about the country in question is being referenced, just notable ones where the justification is mentioned. Also, since this particular president is currently in office, much of this is subject to change. 

Because justifications vary, let's use a key:

• Humanitarian ("People are getting hurt!")
• Economic ("America/American businesses are either losing money because we're not taking action, or can gain money by taking action." 
• Political ("This will give us an advantage with our political adversaries," or "We must spread liberty/freedom.")
• Military/Strategic ("Better to fight them over there than fight them over here.")
• More Than One of the Above. 
• (Observations that I may want to add).

Joe Biden (2020 - ?) 

3/25/21 (Press Conference):

Q  Thank you, Mr. President. I wanted to ask you about Afghanistan. You face a May 1st deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from that country. As a candidate, in foreign affairs, you wrote that it is past time to end these forever wars. Can you commit to the American people that by May 2nd the U.S. will no longer have forces in Afghanistan?

THE PRESIDENT: The answer is that it’s going to be hard to meet the May 1 deadline. Just in terms of tactical reasons, it’s hard to get those troops out. So, what we’ve been doing — what I’ve been doing and what Secretary Blinken has been doing — has been — we’ve been meeting with our allies, those other nations that have NATO Allies who have troops in Afghanistan as well. And if we leave, we’re going to do so in a safe and orderly way.

We’re in consultation, I said, with our allies and partners in how to proceed. And Secretary Blinken is meeting in Brussels this week with our NATO Allies, particularly those who have forces there.

And General Austin is — just met with Ghani and I’m waiting for the briefing on that. He is the — the “leader,” quote, in Afghanistan and Kabul. And there’s a U.N.-led process that’s beginning shortly on how to mechanically get people — how to end this war.

But it is not my intention to stay there for a long time. But the question is: How and in what circumstances do we meet that agreement that was made by President Trump to leave under a deal that looks like it’s not being able to be worked out to begin with? How is that done? But we are not staying a long time.

(It should be noted that with few exceptions, no one's hair was on fire about the decision to leave Afghanistan. It's also worth noting that what may be known in the future as "Moving Day" did not happen in May 2021. Nevertheless, Biden is taking a militaristic/diplomatic approach at this point.)

4/28/21:

And American leadership means ending the forever war in Afghanistan. (Applause.) We have—(applause)—we have, without hyperbole, the greatest fighting force in the history of the world. I’m the first President in 40 years who knows what it means to have a son serving in a warzone. 

Today we have servicemembers serving in the same warzone as their parents did. We have servicemembers in Afghanistan who were not yet born on 9/11.

The War in Afghanistan, as we remember the debates here, were never meant to be multi-generational undertakings of nation-building. We went to Afghanistan to get terrorists—the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11—and we said we would follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell to do it. If you’ve been to the upper Kunar Valley, you’ve kind of seen the gates of hell. And we delivered justice to bin Laden. We degraded the terrorist threat of al Qaeda in Afghanistan. And after 20 years of value—valor and sacrifice, it’s time to bring those troops home. (Applause.) 

Look, even as we do, we will maintain an over-the-horizon capacity to suppress future threats to the homeland. And make no mistake: In 20 years, terrorists has—terrorism has metastasized. The threat has evolved way beyond Afghanistan. And those of you in the intelligence committees, the foreign relations committee, the defense committees, you know well: We have to remain vigilant against the threats to the United States wherever they come from. Al Qaeda and ISIS are in Yemen, Syria, Somalia, other places in Africa, the Middle East, and beyond.

(Despite his recent reputation of being absent-minded and scatter-brained, Biden is as clear as he can be about his foreign policy: "We did what we needed to do in Afghanistan so we're getting out, but we a bunch of other countries we can mess around in.")

7/8/21 (The Drawdown Speech with Q&A):

THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon. Earlier today, I was briefed by our senior military and national security leaders on the status of the drawdown of U.S. forces and allied forces in Afghanistan.

When I announced our drawdown in April, I said we would be out by September, and we’re on track to meet that target.

Our military mission in Afghanistan will conclude on August 31st. The drawdown is proceeding in a secure and orderly way, prioritizing the safety of our troops as they depart.

Our military commanders advised me that once I made the decision to end the war, we needed to move swiftly to conduct the main elements of the drawdown. And in this context, speed is safety.

(That sound you hear is hundreds of exploding war-hawk heads, combined with the noise of a sizable number of COVID experts transforming themselves into Afghanistan experts.)

[snip]

I want to be clear: The U.S. military mission in Afghanistan continues through the end of August. We remain—we retain personnel and capacities in the country, and we maintain some authority—excuse me, the same authority under which we’ve been operating for some time.

As I said in April, the United States did what we went to do in Afghanistan: to get the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 and to deliver justice to Osama Bin Laden, and to degrade the terrorist threat to keep Afghanistan from becoming a base from which attacks could be continued against the United States. We achieved those objectives. That’s why we went.

We did not go to Afghanistan to nation-build. And it’s the right and the responsibility of the Afghan people alone to decide their future and how they want to run their country.

[snip]

In our meeting, I also assured Ghani that U.S. support for the people of Afghanistan will endure. We will continue to provide civilian and humanitarian assistance, including speaking out for the rights of women and girls.

I intend to maintain our diplomatic presence in Afghanistan, and we are coordinating closely with our international partners in order to continue to secure the international airport.

And we’re going to engage in a determined diplomacy to pursue peace and a peace agreement that will end this senseless violence.

I’ve asked Secretary of State Blinken and our Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation to work vigorously with the parties in Afghanistan, as well as the regional and international stakeholders to support a negotiated solution.

[snip]

When I made the decision to end the U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan, I judged that it was not in the national interest of the United States of America to continue fighting this war indefinitely. I made the decision with clear eyes, and I am briefed daily on the battlefield updates.

But for those who have argued that we should stay just six more months or just one more year, I ask them to consider the lessons of recent history.

In 2011, the NATO Allies and partners agreed that we would end our combat mission in 2014. In 2014, some argued, “One more year.” So we kept fighting, and we kept taking casualties. In 2015, the same. And on and on.

Nearly 20 years of experience has shown us that the current security situation only confirms that “just one more year” of fighting in Afghanistan is not a solution but a recipe for being there indefinitely.

It’s up to Afghans to make the decision about the future of their country.

Others are more direct. Their argument is that we should stay with the Afghan—in Afghanistan indefinitely. In doing so, they point to the fact that we—we have not taken losses in this last year, so they claim that the cost of just maintaining the status quo is minimal.

But that ignores the reality and the facts that already presented on the ground in Afghanistan when I took office: The Taliban was at its strongest mil-—is at its strongest militarily since 2001.

The number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan had been reduced to a bare minimum. And the United States, in the last administration, made an agreement that the—with the Taliban to remove all our forces by May 1 of this past—of this year. That’s what I inherited. That agreement was the reason the Taliban had ceased major attacks against U.S. forces.

If, in April, I had instead announced that the United States was going to back—going back on that agreement made by the last administration—[that] the United States and allied forces would remain in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future—the Taliban would have again begun to target our forces.

The status quo was not an option. Staying would have meant U.S. troops taking casualties; American men and women back in the middle of a civil war. And we would have run the risk of having to send more troops back into Afghanistan to defend our remaining troops.

Once that agreement with the Taliban had been made, staying with a bare minimum force was no longer possible.

So let me ask those who wanted us to stay: How many more—how many thousands more of America’s daughters and sons are you willing to risk? How long would you have them stay?

Already we have members of our military whose parents fought in Afghanistan 20 years ago. Would you send their children and their grandchildren as well? Would you send your own son or daughter?

After 20 years—a trillion dollars spent training and equipping hundreds of thousands of Afghan National Security and Defense Forces, 2,448 Americans killed, 20,722 more wounded, and untold thousands coming home with unseen trauma to their mental health—I will not send another generation of Americans to war in Afghanistan with no reasonable expectation of achieving a different outcome.

The United States cannot afford to remain tethered to policies creating a response to a world as it was 20 years ago. We need to meet the threats where they are today.

Today, the terrorist threat has metastasized beyond Afghanistan. So, we are repositioning our resources and adapting our counterterrorism posture to meet the threats where they are now significantly higher: in South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.

[snip]

[NEXT UP: THE Q&A]

(It should be noted that during the Q&A, the justifications for STAYING in Afghanistan were mostly coming from the MEDIA's QUESTIONS and not from Biden's answers.)

Q: Is a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan now inevitable?

THE PRESIDENT: No, it is not.

Q: Why?

THE PRESIDENT: Because you—the Afghan troops have 300,000 well-equipped—as well-equipped as any army in the world—and an air force against something like 75,000 Taliban. It is not inevitable.

[snip]

Q: Thank you, Mr. President. Given the amount of money that has been spent and the number of lives that have been lost, in your view, with making this decision, were the last 20 years worth it?

THE PRESIDENT: You know my record. I can tell by the way you asked the question.

I opposed permanently having American forces in Afghanistan. I argued, from the beginning, as you may recall—it came to light after the administration was over, last—our administration—no nation has ever unified Afghanistan. No nation. Empires have gone there and not done it.

The focus we had—and I strongly support it—and you may remember I physically went to Afghanistan. I was up in that pass where Osama bin Laden was—allegedly escaped or—out of harm’s way.

We went for two reasons: one, to bring Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell, as I said at the time. The second reason was to eliminate al Qaeda’s capacity to deal with more attacks on the United States from that territory. We accomplished both of those objectives—period.

That’s what I believed, from the beginning, why we should be and why we should have gone to Afghanistan. That job had been over for some time. And that’s why I believe that this is the right decision and, quite frankly, overdue.

[snip]

Q: Mr. President, some Vietnamese veterans see echoes of their experience in this withdrawal in Afghanistan. Do you see any parallels between this withdrawal and what happened in Vietnam, with some people feeling —

THE PRESIDENT: None whatsoever. Zero. What you had is—you had entire brigades breaking through the gates of our embassy—six, if I’m not mistaken.

The Taliban is not the south—the North Vietnamese army. They’re not—they’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy in the—of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable.

[snip]

Q: Mr. President, how serious was the corruption among the Afghanistan government to this mission failing there?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, the mission hasn’t failed, yet. There is in Afghanistan—in all parties, there’s been corruption. The question is, can there be an agreement on unity of purpose? What is the objective?

For example, it started off—there were going to be negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan National Security Forces and the Afghan government. That—that of—it didn’t come to—it didn’t come to fruition.

So the question now is, where do they go from here? That—the jury is still out. But the likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.

[snip]

Q: Mr. President, will the United States be responsible for the loss of Afghan civilian lives that could happen after a —

THE PRESIDENT: No.

Q:—military exit?

THE PRESIDENT: No, no, no. It’s up to the people of Afghanistan to decide on what government they want, not us to impose the government on them. No country has ever been able to do that.

Keep in mind, as a student of history, as I’m sure you are, never has Afghanistan been a united country, not in all of its history. Not in all of its history.

[snip]

Q: Mr. President, if this isn’t a “mission accomplished” moment, what is it, in your view?

THE PRESIDENT: No, there’s no “mission accomplished.”

Q: How would you describe it?

THE PRESIDENT: The mission was accomplished in that we get—got Osama bin Laden, and terrorism is not emanating from that part of the world.

Final Tally:

• Humanitarian:  1
• Economic:  2
• Political:  3
• Military/Strategic:  5
• More Than One:  3

The most noticeable thing about Biden's approach so far is 

The "evolution" of America's relationship with Afghanistan through presidential speeches has been something to behold. From Bush's arguments that tried to link Afghanistan to 9/11 and the threats terrorism pose to innocents, to Obama's attempts to contrast the "necessity" of Afghanistan's success with the "folly" that was Iraq, to Trump's basic assessment of, "it's only really worth it if you can win," to Biden's using his political experience to justify bringing it all to a close, we see that like most things Afghanistan was (sadly) just one of many political footballs.