AMERICAN INVOLVEMENT IN AFGHANISTAN 1

America’s involvement in Afghanistan

Student’s Name

Institutional Affiliation
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America’s involvement in Afghanistan

After 20 years of war and the deaths of over 100,000 Afghan citizens, military, coalition

soldiers, and militant fighters, the United States is withdrawing completely from Afghanistan.

Joe Biden's decision to withdraw the US presence in the country has been condemned by people

on all sides of the political spectrum. The United States' withdrawal from Afghanistan and the

Taliban's re-accession to power have surprised both intelligence officials and the general public.

The US, on the other hand, has been trying to leave the country for the past decade, with varied

degrees of success. Despite being a popular war in the United States following the terrorist

events of September 11th, the American public cooled on it, seeing little return on their ongoing

investment in a battle with no apparent conclusion in sight. According to a Chicago Council poll

done in July, 70% of Americans support terminating US troop participation in the country.

However, due to corruption in the Afghan government and difficulties in forming a cohesive and

capable force, US officials decided to postpone the deadline until 2016. Former President Donald

Trump campaigned on ending the war in Afghanistan, but was stymied by US military

authorities who believed that if the US did not intervene, the Afghan government would fall to

Taliban forces. While Mr. Trump eventually followed that suggestion, in 2020 he held talks with

the Taliban about leaving the country by May 1, 2021, in exchange for the release of 5,000

Taliban detainees. In exchange, the Taliban vowed not to assault Americans fleeing the country

and to start peace talks with the Afghan government. Those discussions eventually fizzled.

The Taliban did not keep their half of the bargain, and Mr. Biden did not keep his end of

the bargain when he became president in 2021. The Taliban gained strength as a result of its wins

and a reduced US presence. While a renewed US troop presence would have likely defeated the

Taliban once more, there was no evidence that American voters would embrace the cost of
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American life and additional financial commitment that such a mission would necessitate. Mr.

Biden responded to public opinion by announcing that all US soldiers would be out of

Afghanistan before the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on September 11th. In April, Mr

Biden stated, "We already have service people serving in Afghanistan today whose parents

served in the same war." "Some of our service personnel were not even born when our country

was assaulted on September 11, 2001."

Even if Americans wanted to stay in Afghanistan longer, there was no guarantee that

more money would lead to a strong democracy capable of fighting the Taliban. According to the

Cost of War project, the US spent $2.26 trillion on the war, including the costs of developing and

training the Afghan army, which is now in disarray. Ivo Daalder, a former US Ambassador to

NATO who served from 2009 to 2013, told NPR that despite the US's investment of time and

money, the country has yet to develop a viable state. "And for those who say, "Oh, if we had just

stayed a little longer, we could have avoided the situation," he responds, "We could have avoided

the situation if we had just stayed a little longer." Why do you think 21 or 22 years would have

sufficed if you couldn't do what needed to be accomplished in 20 years? "He expressed himself.

Furthermore, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, a US watchdog

office charged with overseeing the US effort in Afghanistan, recently released a report detailing

the "many failures" of the previous two decades. "Much has improved and much has not in the

last twenty years," the report stated. "The overall picture is grim if the purpose was to reconstruct

and leave behind a country that can sustain itself while posing little threat to US national security

interests." Due to public opinion in the United States and a lack of meaningful progress toward

establishing a viable government, it is highly improbable that Americans would support a

renewed effort to expend US lives fighting the Taliban.

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Afghanistan has been strategically and socially divided for quite a long time, its populace

has been harshly and fiercely harmed, and its future is questionable. While Afghanistan has

shown an energetic and public solid person—especially notwithstanding alien presence and

occupation, and regardless of a large number of worldwide political tensions, including

devotions to territorial powers—the nation faces complex provokes that limit its capacity to

flourish without a trace of global entertainers driving help, adjustment, state-building, and

improvement plans (Singh, 2018).

President Biden defended his decision to terminate the United States' military

participation in Afghanistan, calling it "the correct decision, the intelligent decision, and the

greatest option for America," one day after the final American troops left the nation, ending

America's longest conflict. "I was not going to continue this forever war, and I was not going to

extend a forever exit," Biden said in remarks from the White House. "There is nothing low grade,

low risk, or low cost about any war," Biden remarked, addressing those who support for a small

force continuing in Afghanistan. He stated that US missions abroad should have "clear realistic

aims" and "remain squarely focused on the United States' essential national security interests."

Biden also defended the widely panned US withdrawal and stated that the US will continue to

assist Americans and Afghans in leaving the country.

The enormous expenditures of the war

The president introduced the choice to leave Afghanistan as a paired decision, as he has

before: either proceed with the 20-year battle at a greater expense in American lives and assets,

or stop American commitment. Biden asserted that the United States satisfied its expected reason

in Afghanistan 10 years prior by capturing Osama container Laden, the al-Qaida authority and

brains of the 9/11 assaults, however that the US remained for one more decade. The
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psychological militant risk has developed from that point forward, as per Biden, and the US will

keep on engaging it, yet "we don't have to wage a ground battle to do it." Over the course of the

20-year struggle in Afghanistan, around 2,500 US administration individuals passed on, costing

many billions of dollars. Individuals don't appreciate "the amount we have requested from the

1% [of Americans] who put on the tactical uniform," Biden expressed in his discourse. He

underlined the conflict's monetary expenses for the United States — an expected $300 million

every day — just as the human expenses for veterans and their families, strikingly the 18

American officers who end it all consistently, as per him.

The United States is as yet in Afghanistan.

Biden again safeguarded his decision to withdraw Afghanistan by his own cutoff time of

August 31. It was "expected to save American lives," he contended, not subjective. In the course

of the last month, the US has cleared 5,400 Americans from Afghanistan. 100 to 200 Americans,

as per Biden, are as yet in the country "with some aim of leaving." "most of them are double

residents, long haul occupants who had recently chosen for stay in light of their familial roots in

Afghanistan," he clarified. As per Biden, ""The reality" was that "over 90% of Americans in

Afghanistan who needed to leave had the option to do as such, and there is no schedule for the

people who remain." We're actually devoted to getting them out assuming they need to."
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These drives require giving over control of the country to Afghans with the goal for them

to take part in inward and outside discourse and compromise measures, setting to the side global

inspirations to line up with outer plans, destinations, or standards. Regardless of the battle, every

political decision cycle offers a new guarantee for authentic, viable, and securing administration,

complete with helpful instruments for surveying achievement and disappointments, just as

restricting destructive and manipulative associations. The functional and improvement networks

should evaluate the pertinence and effect of their programming, just as the impacts and

imperatives of their activities and backing firmly checked drives with a period and mission that

favor coordination, arrangement, and nearby drives, limit rivalry and lack of concern, and enable

change from reliance to independence.

Reference

Kolenda, C. D. (2017). America’s generals are out of ideas for Afghanistan. Survival, 59(5), 37-

46.
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Singh, G. (2018). China's Afghanistan Policy. Identity, 5507.

Imran, S. (2019). Sino-US Involvement in Afghanistan. Strategic Studies, 39(3), 53-72.

Saikal, A. (2018). Afghanistan: A turbulent state in transition. Modern Afghanistan: The Impact

of 40 Years of War, 21-36.