US Troop Draw Down in Afghanistan by 2021

Biden should be impeached over Afghanistan withdrawal, SC’s Graham says

South Carolina’s senior U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham said President Joe Biden should be impeached over his efforts to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan, an exit that has left many Afghans who assisted American soldiers stranded in the country.

Graham said he supported impeachment during a Tuesday night interview with Rob Schmitt on Newsmax.

“This is the most dishonorable thing the commander-in-chief has done maybe in modern times,” Graham said. “Joe Biden, for political reasons, wanted to pull all of our troops out because of the polling numbers, and what has he done? He’s created the conditions for another 9/11, he’s abandoned thousands of people who honorably and bravely fought along with us”...

Americans Never Understood Afghanistan Like the Taliban Did

The united states never understood Afghanistan. American planners thought they knew what the country needed, which was not quite the same as what its people wanted. American policy was guided by fantasies; chief among them was the idea that the Taliban could be eliminated and that an entire culture could be transformed in the process.

In an ideal world, the Taliban wouldn’t exist. But it does exist, and it will exist. Western observers always struggle to understand how groups as ruthless as the Taliban gain legitimacy and popular support. Surely Afghans remember the terror of Taliban rule in the 1990s, when women were whipped if they ventured outside without a burka and adulterers were stoned to death in soccer stadiums. How could those dark days be forgotten?

America saw the Taliban as plainly evil. To deem a group evil is to cast it outside of time and history. But this is a privileged view. Living in a democracy with basic security allows citizens to set their sights higher. They will be disappointed with even a relatively good government precisely because they expect more from it. In failed states and in the midst of civil war, however, the fundamental questions are ones of order and disorder, and how to have more of the former and less of the latter.

The Taliban knew this. After its fall from power in 2001, the group was weak, reeling from devastating air strikes targeting its leaders. But in recent years, it has been gaining ground and establishing deeper roots in local communities. The Taliban was brutal. At the same time, it often provided better governance than the distant and corrupt Afghan central government. Doing a little went a long way...

The Final Retrograde from Afghanistan Has Officially Begun

The U.S. military has begun the process of withdrawing from Hamid Karzai International Airport but pledged to continue to evacuate people despite threats to the dwindling force and its outbound aircraft, the Pentagon said Saturday...

With limited flights and hours on the ground left before the Aug. 31 deadline for full withdrawal, the military has begun destroying some of its larger items that commanders on the ground have determined they don’t want to fly out, but don’t want to fall into enemy hands. This will make as much room as necessary for people and critical equipment on those last planes out.

“We have begun retrograding,” Kirby said, using the military term for the removal of equipment and forces as a military operation ends...