Damage Control We Need Queer

DAMAGE CONTROL

There are difficult decisions, and then there is damage control. And for US President Joseph R. Biden’s recent choice to withdraw all US troops, intelligence, and support from Afghanistan it was both. Making up for the malice accumulated in the drawnout death chamber known as the Afghanistan Conflict.

To fully understand how the conflict became the powder keg it is, we must first understand the origins of this international diplomacy qualm.

The Council of Foreign Relations outlines the issue chronologically. On September 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda operatives hijack four commercial airliners, crashing them into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, DC. A fourth plane crashes in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Close to three thousand people die in the attacks.

Although Afghanistan is the base for al-Qaeda, none of the nineteen hijackers were Afghan nationals. Mohammed Atta, an Egyptian, led the group, and fifteen of the hijackers originated from Saudi Arabia.

Quickly, President George W. Bush vows to “win the war against terrorism,” and later zeros in on al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. Bush eventually calls on the Taliban regime to “deliver to the United States authorities all the leaders of al-Qaeda who hide in your land,” or share in their fate.

While Biden is the face of the issue in 2021, it must be noted that his position on the conflict has not changed since 2009.

During his vice presidency, Biden was consistently one of the biggest skeptics of the chosen solution to the conflict.

His biggest critique: The military strategy would be unlikely to yield victory and would delay what could be calculated success. “We have not thought through our strategic goals!” He exclaimed during the Obama Administration’s first meeting on the topic. And with no surprise, America found itself in a 20-year war with unsatisfactory results. So his decision to exit is understandable.

Now, we must not ignore the Taliban’s swift responsiveness to the exit of American troops, but researchers assert that the expansive Taliban takeovers were amongst us regardless. We must stop applying the non-unique argument that the exit was the catalyst for the Taliban Takeover.

Associated Press, an independent global news organization dedicated to factual reporting states, “The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan two weeks before the U.S. was set to complete its troop withdrawal after a costly two-decade war.”

Yes, the exit accelerated the impending doom but it saved American lives from a harsh reality that would have stopped for no one. International involvement has been the breath of American politics since the deconstruction of American isolationism. Sympathy is due to all Afghan families and citizens who fear for the future, but fear is nothing in the face of action. Actions that would have ensued despite American presence or not.

Joe Biden is not the Afghan president. America is not the only country in the United Nations. The Afghan conflict is a global issue. We will not berate Joe Biden for having his priorities correct as of the American President. His concern is with American blood, first. The Watson Institute asserts that in 2019 alone 7,000 American soldiers dies in the conflict. 7,000 families were devastated in one year because we waged a war where there should have been global counter-terrorism initiatives launched, the same initiatives Biden advocated for in 2009. He has not dismissed the aiding to the conflict but he recognized the coexistence of American safety and foreign aid.

According to Brown University’s Cost of War Project, The war in Afghanistan has cost $2.3 trillion so far. BBC reports, Between 2010 to 2012, when the US for a time had more than 100,000 soldiers in the country, the cost of the war grew to more than $100bn a year. That is the equivalent of 300 million dollars a day. And of course, America had 300 million dollars a day laying around, false. CBS reports, “From the American Civil

War through the Korean War, the U.S. government has mostly paid for its conflicts through taxes and war bonds.”

They also assert, “ Including the cost of interest on those wars will add an additional $2.1 trillion by 2030. And through 2050, the interest alone is forecast to top $6.5 trillion — even if war spending had theoretically stopped in 2019, according to research published last year by Heidi Peltier, director of the "20 Years of War" Project at Boston University's Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. Such borrowing leads to larger total costs because interest must be paid as long as the debt is owed. That pushes the "true cost of war out to future generations.”

The equipped nature of the Taliban has created issues for many, but before Biden Trump made efforts with Taliban leaders for reform, is Biden lacking this ability? AP News says, “Last year, then-President Donald Trump announced a plan to pull out and signed a deal with the Taliban that limited U.S. military action against them. President Joe Biden then announced that the last troops would leave by the end of August.” The video and imagery we saw we labeled “The Taliban Takeover” but even in the Trump administration, there was a negotiation between the two. If anything Biden’s decision will fortify the possibility of reform without the typical choke-hold style of American foreign relations. There is chokehold syle of American foreign relations. There is a crippling misunderstanding of the rationalization of Biden’s actions.

Biden has acknowledged the families left in Afghanistan and has stated, “If there are American citizens left, we're going to stay to get them all out." on ABC news. "For those remaining Americans, there is no deadline, We remain committed to getting them out if they want to come out." Biden seems to have an intense dedication to the countries internal responsibilities for his term.

And this is long overdue. It is almost comical that this country can fund a 300 million dollar daily taxing war to solve a foreign issue, but can’t seem to work out a suitable plan for reparations for African-American citizens. Or how we still struggle with an equal pension on a gender basis or racial wealth gaps in America? That inauguration led to an insurrection and we are That inauguration led to insurrection and we are witnesses to the frequent unjust killings of Africanquestioning the guilt of 3 racist murders in the American men and women. Ahmaud Aubery trial.

The bottom line is the 20-year war was expensive and ineffective. It took lives and will plague the economic prosperity of America for the next 15 to 20 years. It is so much easier to blame an individual for a collective mishap than to address the much larger issue.

The pseudo-nationalism and lack of preparation that fueled the Afghan conflict left Biden in an that fueled the Afgan conflict left Biden in an impossible situation. Own it, America. Our addiction to devastating war-hawk tendencies disguised as patriotism will long lead us into failures of epic proportions that individuals will have to make up for and bear the brunt of. And for that, we all are responsible.

Alma Frazier, contributing writer