BIDEN’S SAIGON
Alex Newberg, Editor-in-Chief
T
here are miscalculations, and then there are colossal screw-ups. US President Joseph R. Biden’s recent decision to withdraw all US troops, intelligence, and support from Afghanistan was a colossal screw-up bordering on malice. To fully realize how unreasonable this decision was, one must first understand how and why the US military arrived in Afghanistan.
smallest military presence since 2001 with only 3,500 troops. Nevertheless, against the advice of his advisors and the intelligence community, President Biden announced on April 14, 2021, that the United States would initiate a complete pullout starting on May 1.
Biden followed through, and precisely what was predicted transpired. The Taliban almost immediately took over the entire country, including sweeping the Capital, forcing Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to flee Following the attack on the Twin Towers and the the country. And despite the Taliban’s laughable offer Pentagon on September 11th, 2001, citizens of the for a peaceful transition of power, the fundamentalist world experienced an unyielding shock. The evil organization has already begun its reign of terror on attack was not only an act of terror against the United Afghanistan. States but against the entire free world. So, to prevent anything remotely similar from occurring again, The Taliban has begun going door-to-door, targeting then-President George W. Bush vowed: “[to] direct women: gang-raping them and seeking to indoctrinate every resource at our command– every means of them. They have stoked so much fear that women diplomacy, every tool have started passing their of intelligence, every babies over fences seeking After Biden’s foolhardy, precipitous pullinstrument of law to put them in the safe out, Afghanistan witnessed its deadliest enforcement, every hands of soldiers. financial influence, day of conflict since 2011. and every necessary After Biden’s foolhardy, weapon of war– to precipitous pull-out, Afthe destruction and to the defeat of the global terror ghanistan witnessed its deadliest day of conflict since network.” 2011. 60 Afghans and 13 US troops perished. This marked the first combat troop deaths since February Of course, behind the 9/11 attacks was al Qaeda. 2020 (illustrating that Afghanistan was not America’s This vicious, Islamist terrorist group was, at the time, longest-standing “war” by any stretch of the imagibeing bolstered by the Taliban in Afghanistan. After nation). All this unfolded because Biden enacted an Bush demanded the Taliban turn over al Qaeda mem- unnecessary withdrawal without a real contingency bers with no response, he said, “now the Taliban will plan. pay a price,” and into Afghanistan, we marched. The Taliban is now one of the most well-equipped After quickly toppling the Taliban and rejecting forces globally due to the amount of equipment and an unconditional surrender, the United States and intelligence the military was forced to leave behind NATO allies ended primary combat operations and given such short notice. According to Reuters News, began nation-building. Initially seeking to establish a “the current intelligence assessment was that the Talwestern-style democracy, the operation, indeed, fell iban are believed to control more than 2,000 armored victim to mission creep. vehicles, including U.S. Humvees, and up to 40 aircraft potentially including UH-60 Black Hawks, scout Fast forward to 2021... 2 decades later. The US still attack helicopters, and ScanEagle military drones.” has activity in Afghanistan, but it dwindled to the And equally concerning is the massive supply of
