C-17s in the sky over a home base in Charleston, S.C. Air Force photo.
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
SEPT. 3, 2021 | Thank you, President Biden. Thank you for taking the bold steps in leadership in getting out the last of our military troops entirely out of Afghanistan by your own August 31 deadline. You did what three other presidents did not or would not do. You also completed this evacuation in the face of unwarranted criticism of your actions.
Just in a few days, some 122,000 people have been airlifted out of Kabul, in the face of threats and confusion caused by the Taliban. This was a major successful military withdrawal. We need to recognize that in itself this was a dramatic victory, completing it against all odds. This gigantic rescue mission will go down as marking one of our nation’s most dramatically successful and humanitarian efforts.
No longer will the mothers and fathers of American fighting women and men be worried about their offspring caught up in a useless war with which we should never have been involved. Though in the last days, 13 Marines died in this final deadly firefight at the airport, we are pleased that no longer will our nation be routinely risking other lives halfway around the world in a doomed cause.
In years to come, the United States will remember August 31 as a day when the United States came to its senses and got out of Afghanistan, after 20 years of continually being thwarted by forces out of our control. We didn’t lose an undeclared war, as much as we found ourselves in the middle of one in a region where our neighbor has been fighting for centuries. And we stepped into this fray thinking we could remove a threat to our country and reform the world. No nation could have, as Russia had already found out. It might be that the people of Afghanistan are incapable of being a united nation.
Biden
Give the United States credit for one thing: our military leadership found ways to continually get the funding required. We certainly poured enough money in, only to find it was wasted time and time again. Even had we doubled the amount of our financial resources during the 20 years, the long-term outcome would have been the same. Note that our country’s Congressional leaders had little to say about continuing the effort, while the military constantly made it clear more money was needed at every turn. Three presidents promulgated its continuation and backed more dollars for the cause.
Perhaps one of the most poignant stories of recent days showed the leader of our last troops in Afghanistan, Maj. Gen. Chris Donahue, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, walking to board the Boeing C-17 airplane as the last American military person to depart the country. He was performing this duty in the best tradition of a military commander, much as a Naval commander is the last to leave an abandoned ship. His action made us realize how proud we were of him and all the troops who have been to Afghanistan, and especially to the many who took their last breath there.
Thank you, Joe Biden, for what no one else has done, your determined action to get us out of Afghanistan.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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