Was there ever any GOOD way for us to get out of Afghanistan?

[CTyankee]

My neighbor says it was a lousy thing to do to all of the people there who helped us and who we deserted. My sense is that we didn't have any good options at that point, but I don't know if that is true. I know it's something of a shudda, coulda, woulda at this point. Has there been a really good examination of what happened?

[Aristus]

1. Never to have gone in in the first place.

Invade in haste, repent in leisure, I guess...

[Wounded Bear]

2. Short answer is "No"...

We could have delayed another year or ten and it still would have been a clusterfuck on the way out.

Fact is, we got 120,000 people out and that ain't hay. Many, if not most, of the American 'left behind' chose not to get out when they could.

The age old problem is that it is always easier to start a war than to end it.

[Klaralven]

3. Yes, we should have turned the north over to the Northern Alliance in 2001

Blown the Salang Tunnel, and left the southeast to the Pakistanis to manage.

[WA-03 Democrat]

4. Yes

After 9/11 OBL was pinned down in Bora Bora. Drones go in and no one comes out. In retrospect that was the mission.

Oh but they have minerals and key energy pipeline space. Halliburton best interests was the mission.

[Mad_Machine76]

5. We spent 20 years building up some non-Taliban structure/society

that evaporated almost as soon as they knew we were living, which is an utter disappointment. But what else could we have done that would have created a better outcome? Staying for another week, month, year, decade? And we got a lot of people out, so..........

Your neighbor seems to be "Monday Morning Quarterbacking". Besides, it was Trump that negotiated the withdrawal over a year ago (which was actually even extended once by Biden) and released thousands of Taliban prisoners. Staying would have violated the agreement and lead to more hostilities. Is that what your neighbor wanted?

There was simply no good outcome. We would have done well to smash the Taliban, kill OBL, and and get out of there. However, W. Bush took his eyes off the ball and went after his real destination, which was Iraq, of course. We didn't get OBL and a large contingent of the Taliban escaped to cause problems later.

[CTyankee]

9. That is pretty much what I would say (and I would remind him that it was Obama that finished

off OBL). Biden evacuated a huge number of Afghans who helped us. I am sure that Biden took this very hard. But he wanted to end the unwinnable war. What happened to Afghanis who helped us and couldn't get out sure saddens President Biden, whereas Trump couldn't care less.

[nitpicker]

15. It took nine years to figure out where OBL was

And by the time the SEALs got him, IMO the US was SO committed to "nation-building" that the blinkers were firmly on.

[Mad_Machine76]

16. True

We'll never know though if we could have gotten him sooner if we hadn't diverted resources to Iraq (and then made such a huge mess of THAT country too)

[Firestorm49]

6. It matters not who was the president at the closing of a war.

It’s an ugly situation no matter how hard anybody tries. One can only imagine how TFG would have handled it. But that’s not the point.

Despite the tragic loss of personnel during the evacuation, I find it more destructive to our country that the media didn’t praise Biden for the accomplishment. His decision was guided by an earlier agreement, which he honored. Nobody can be a winner in such a situation, but Biden, in my opinion, brought us out of an endless war the best way he could, and I, for one, applaud his decisions.

[CTyankee]

10. You said what I strongly agree with.

[Ocelot II]

7. There was never a good way. There's a reason Afghanistan has been called

"the graveyard of empires." While the initial incursion in 2001 might have been justifiable as a means to deny Al Qaeda a base of operations by removing the Taliban from power, once Kabul and Kandahar fell, the Taliban were taken down, and Bin Laden was no longer hiding in Afghanistan, that should have been the end of it. We were there 20 years too long trying to shore up a corrupt government that couldn't survive on its own, and it was never going to end well.

[zipplewrath]

8. No

Mistakes were made, mostly in the earlier months when red tape tied up the processing of Afghans who had supported our efforts. There was also concern early on about an apparent massive withdrawal undermining the governments strength and confidence. But in the end, it was a retreat and those are never pretty.

[rickyhall]

11. I put all blame squarely on W's slumped shoulders.

[MineralMan]

12. No, of course not.

We have not left any war zone recently where we have accomplished anything of value. Not since WWII, really. Korea, Vietnam, and the entire Middle East have all been futile efforts we have had to abandon after great loss of life and destruction.

We do not do third-party warfare very well, it seems. Perhaps we should stop entering into such conflicts altogether.

[nitpicker]

18. Technically, this is semi-correct

BUT IMO...

The US has not abandoned South Korea. Reuters claimed in March there were still about 28500 troops there. Sure it wasn't a victory, but an ongoing armistice that allowed South Korea (with all its warts) to learn how to operate well enough to become a G20 country.

And the US managed a less big butcher's bill for events such as the Persian Gulf War and tinpot invasions of Grenada and Panama.

But when the US hung around for years and years...

Eventually filling up Section 60, row by row with Afghanistan and Iraq (and related) casualties.

And I think my dad (a Korea and Vietnam vet) would have agreed with you (long afterwards) about Vietnam.

[MineralMan]

19. That we have to have troops in the five figures in South Korea

is not a positive thing. We won nothing there, but have to stay there to prop up the South Korean government and keep the North from invading. Not a good situation in any way.

Now, I own two pretty new cars that were built in South Korea and a Samsung cell phone, also made there, but the situation still remains tenuous, 70 years later.

My point is that we have accomplished little with our third-party "police actions." A waste of time, money, and lives all around, frankly.

We do not do that very well at all, and should stop doing it altogether, in my opinion. We meddle only when there is some sort of financial benefit to us. Elsewhere on the planet, we let the locals fight it out, pretty much.

[marble falls]

13. If we'd have only kept Bush from stealing the 2000 election.

[brush]

14. The Brits from Dunkirk, the Germans from Russia, the French at...

Dien Bien Phu, us Americans from Saigon...nope, can't think of any peaceful, large-scale withdrawal from a war zone. We might throw in the Brits from Afghanistan long ago and the Soviets from there too last century.

It's never an easy, clean thing. And for us to get 120, 000 out in a few days with only a few casualties at the tail end was quite remarkble.

It'll be appreciated more once we can look back objectively in hindsight.

[moondust]

17. Not good but maybe better.

You don't let an inexperienced, self-serving, glory-seeking clown incompetently "negotiate" a future withdrawal that may be dumped on his successor to carry out. You don't bypass the de facto government to "negotiate" with a gang of rabid medieval misogynists and terrorist sympathizers. You don't agree to the prison release of 5000 of the bastards.

Other than that, who knows?

[maxsolomon]

20. This is an important point.

The OP's idiot neighbor likely has no clue that Trump & Pompeo stabbed the Afghan govt in the back in Doha.

Including the Afghan Govt in those talks might have resulted in something "better". Might.

The withdrawal itself? 100K evacuated, 1 terror bombing that wasn't the Taliban. That went pretty well, but that's hard to see when all you're looking for is a cudgel to hit Biden with.

[sakabatou]

22. This

[sakabatou]

21. No, there was no good way to get out.