Taliban fighters take control of Afghan presidential palace after the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Aug. 15, 2021. Person second from left is a former bodyguard for Ghani. (AP Photo/Zabi Karimi)

Afghanistan Has Fallen
8/23/2021

Twenty years ago, the United States invaded Afghanistan. The sole mission was to bring justice to Osama Bin Laden and the Al Qaeda terrorists who orchestrated September 11th. The Taliban was providing security for and encouraging the development of Al Qaeda. After the United States successfully executed Osama Bin Laden and stabilized the region, the reasons for remaining in Afghanistan received scrutiny.

In 2020, then President Trump negotiated and planned to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan by mid-2021. Recently, President Biden decided to withdraw troops before evacuating all Americans, allies, and Afghans that fought alongside the Americans. The administration also left an arsenal of expensive American weapons, including armored vehicles and Black Hawk helicopters, which may soon be replicated. The Taliban of yesterday was poorly armed with outdated equipment, but the Taliban of today is in possession of sophisticated military equipment, 75,000 US Military vehicles, and military drones. The retreat was not thoroughly planned out and was advised with possible nefarious motives.

As US forces departed Afghanistan, the Taliban seamlessly took control city by city and province by province. Considering the trend of the Taliban’s advance, the American people should have been able to trust that the President would make a well-advised and practical judgment to evacuate civilians and retain vital military bases. Our troops, allies, and Afghans that fought alongside Americans have lost the trust of the President of the United States.

The ramifications of the Vietnam-style withdrawal from Afghanistan are unknown, but reports indicate that women that can't afford to cook for up to a dozen Taliban fighters and women that refuse to wear burkas in public are being beaten and, in some cases, slaughtered. There are also reports that the Taliban is going door-to-door to seek revenge on the relatives of people who worked with the United States. The Biden administration has failed our civilians overseas, along with the Afghan people. The United States now faces a major humanitarian crisis. Hundreds of thousands of Afghans are at risk of being killed by the Taliban but have not yet been vetted by the US. The Biden Administration ought to secure the airports and send the Afghan refugees to Guam, which is facing economic failure due to the inhibition of tourism from the Covid-19 Pandemic. Guam is also currently experiencing a surplus of vacant hotel rooms that could be used to house refugees that didn't turn their back on America.

 Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal has been a disaster. Both parties agree that the US should leave Afghanistan, but they're not weighing the cost. Aside from a humanitarian crisis, leaving Afghanistan will destabilize the region into tribalist radical Islamic factions. How well the retreat is conducted determines the level of destabilization. Without the occupation, the US will not be able to monitor the presence and development of terror groups that pose a grave danger to the United States and the Western World. Under the current scope, the American people shouldn't be surprised to see an uprising of tribalist terror groups such as ISIS-K and Taliban-backed Al Qaeda. The terror threat has exponentially grown, and these organizations are in possession of sophisticated 21st century weaponry for the first time. For the President, every second is critical.