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© Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.Last U.S. troops exit Afghanistan, ending America's longest war
By ROBERT BURNS and LOLITA C BALDOR WASHINGTON©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.
79 Comments
The Avenger
Finally. The pointless war is over.
Thanks, Biden. Thanks, Troops.
JeffLee
That was messy, but worth it. Yeah! No more Afghan War! (which I predicted 20 years ago would end in disaster).
Apparently, that was the biggest evacuation airlift in history, with 117,000 people rescued in a few days, and the people who organized it and ran it are geniuses and heroes.
“It was time to end a 20-year war.”
Truer words were never spoken. Now, let's get to work on Covid and re-opening the economy.
Laguna
"Afghanistan - the graveyard of empires."
snowymountainhell
“*Rest in Peace**” to ALL souls lost, civilian AND military, to the pointless* assertions that create war.
May those who remain find some kind of “Peace”.
snowymountainhell
“*Condolences*” to *all the families of the men & women that gave their lives* “in the service of ideals for the greater good of ALL people.”
PEACE -Kyo wa heiwa dayo ne
So much for not leaving anyone behind.
PTownsend
Condolences to all the families of men & women whose lives were taken or made worse (came home with PTSD, or serious wounds) while those who profited financially from the invasion got richer. Cue Edwin Starr's 'War what is it goof for, absolutely nothing'. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQHUAJTZqF0
Mr Kipling
Out of Afghanistan.... Which country will be next in the great American folly. Lebanon..failed, Iraq..failed,..Syria...failed,...Yemen..failing,....Libya... failed unless the objective was a basket case, split country run by terrorists and war lords.
Teachmeteachyou
Glad to see the rest of the troops got out safely.
Sorry for that poor country, at the mercy of so many chaotic groups. I can only hope things get better some day.
oldman_13
Thank you president Joe Biden!
Cricky
As an investment, it’s returned record profits? So who’s next? As a humanitarian exercise (the whole war) well there is a massive human cost, numbers never conveyed the true cost of a personal loss. But the companies involved don’t have that in their accounting. But for some it was a great investment. For others not such a good time.
kwatt
The war seems not completely over yet. US soldiers evacuated from Afghanistan but I heard drones fly over there and attack IS militants sometimes.
Mark
I really doubt that we will ever see the end of NATO generated and Orchestrated wars!!
Wars are good money making events and dramas and they will continue for as long as they are PROFITABLE for the war making machines and corporates.
kwatt
Who wants to make war?
ulysses
Are you in Afghanistan???
zurcronium
20 year disaster. Eventually OBL was found and killed but in another country. Total and complete waste brought to you by the twin war criminals Bush Jr and Cheney. $2.3 trillion wasted on nothing. Biden did the right thing to finally end the catastrophe this invasion turned out to be. Iraq was even worse, creating ISIS.
But all the normal suspects at the time cheered on this invasion and also the Iraq invasion based on lies. Maybe they will learn something for once. Maybe not. Being totally wrong again changes nothing.
Yrral
They ought to investigate all these mercenary,that trained the Afghan armed forces,that were unfit to fight
Japan Violet
What a world. Happy to live in Japan.
bass4funk
….as well as Obama who also increased troop levels and redeployed troops over there.
By running and leaving Americans? Look, glad we left, but how we left was a complete disaster and Blinken is making it sound as if (it’ll be easy for stranded Americans that had no way to get to Kabul because of Taliban checkpoints) getting left Americans out will be an easy thing. It won’t and now the investigations of who in the WH and State Dep. screwed up will begin.
JeffLee
None, hopefully, barring a World War. Let isolationism be the way.
If Middle Easterners or Asians decide to start killing themselves again, then fine, let it happen, as was the case with the devastating Iran-Iraq War and the Balkan conflict. The US comes out ahead when it does nothing.
ulysses
It is interesting, however, to compare the Afghanistan effort with prior evacuations of Americans. In 2015, the United States did not evacuate Americans as Yemen descended into chaos.
kwatt
No, I'm not there.
ulysses
It is ironic that Trump and team cosied up to the Taliban, Pompeo took selfies with the Taliban leaders, asked them to nominate trump for a Nobel, yet thry want to criticize Biden’s withdrawal plan.
Biden set a date and stuck to it, got the solders out and is working with allies to get the remaining civilians rescued. That is competence.
Begging the Taliban for a Nobel for Trump is not!!!
bass4funk
They weren’t responsible for 13 dead marines
Biden definitely won’t get one for sure.
Without eyes and ears, zero logistics, Blinken thinks as well as this WH that people are just stupid and that all the vets and special ops are just stupid and wouldn’t have the smarts to see through this charade.
The very epitome and definition of incompetence.
Yrral
The US got plenty leverage against the Taliban,10 billion dollar of the government of Afghanistan assets,plus we can cut off gps service to Afghanistan and bring down their electronic infrastructure,plus we know ,where the leaders live,even Saddam was stupid, sleeping in the same place every night
ulysses
Their ideological brothers ISIS were.
But trump will never get one, both kim and taliban didn’t nominate him.
There is something called technology, competent people understand it!
Tomi
The longest arms sales has ended.
bass4funk
And the decision to leave and the decision to not listen to his senior advisors and these 13 men and women died under the current President that presided over this was Joe Biden. Ask the parents who they hold responsible ISIS or Biden….
Trump is not the current President,
Yes, thanks to Biden, the Taliban, ISIS, the Pakistani, Iranians, Russians and the Chinese all have our technology now, they understand that very well.
ulysses
Except the far right, everyone is blaming the ISIS. Not sure why the far right thinks the ISIS are their ideological brothers
But he asked the taliban to nominate him for a Nobel.
That was done by trump, he shared secrets with Russia and they passed them on to the others.
bass4funk
Yes, I do as well, but they’re not the US President who presided over this botched pullout.
Hmm…Biden is the current President of the US
So either as President Biden has the ability to change every executive order that Trump implemented, even stop the construction of the wall, recall and redeploy ICE and CBP agents along the border, but he doesn’t have the ability to instruct our military officials to safeguard our equipment? If that’s so, then the guy really should be sitting in the Oval Office. Trump is not the current President, Joe Biden is, someone in that WH screwed up and it seems they are all pointing fingers at each other. Let’s see who will be held accountable for this mess.
Fighto!
No nation can ever defeat the fighters in that God-forsaken region. Simple as that. Russia and the USA found out. Perhaps Communist China will in future if they are stupid enough to invade Afghanistan.
Alfie Noakes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_lMKegVKyI
itsonlyrocknroll
The war over?
A twenty year exercise in the meaning of attrition has come to an humiliatingly bloody conclusion.
The war will never end, Islamic extremism will just continue with Jihad and move again onto/into our towns a cities.
In the form of terrorist atrocities.
The Taliban infestation of Afghanistan will give way to every mad mullah you can wave at stick at.
Peter14
Well done to all coalition forces that served and sacrificed after coming to the aid of the USA after 9/11 and serving for so long in Afghanistan. Many nations were involved from around the world. Realistically there was nothing more to achieve and Afghans made their choices once their twenty year support system was withdrawn. Unable to stand on their own they reverted to the easier way forward to let someone else come in and run things. That being the Taliban. If not them then ISIS would have taken over.
Sadly this does not signal the end of violence in that war torn country as there remain a number of opposing forces. Taliban and the Northern alliance are at odds and ISIS remains a third player. There remains many trained National forces now out of uniform and jobs and they may yet reform in some manner to fight Taliban rule.
ulysses
As I said the far right, apparently they now have more allegiance to the ISIS than the America.
trump wanted the taliban to nominate him for a Nobel, that’s why he released 5000 prisoners without getting anything in return. A lot of these 5000 have switched allegiance to the ISIS and attacked the American soldiers.
But I thought the far right was complaining that President Biden overturned everything trump did. So which is it, did he overturn or not?
ulysses
I didn’t realize America shared a border with Afghanistan.
But then who am I to question the words of a highly decorated Afghan war hero.
bass4funk
Asking myself the same question.
Yes
He wasn’t President, how? .
Sorry, they don’t. Not now and especially not this time.
PTownsend
Which is fortunate.
Trump did more than enough damage to the republic, and through his QGOP and its followers continues doing more damage.
'Gave their lives for the country', I doubt any of my friends killed in action would say that.
"Gave their life for some cause might" have been the case for those who believe in holy wars, like the Greek myth of the Elysian Fields, or those who believe the Norse myth of Valhalla, or those who actually believe there will be wine and virgins after dying for their religion, or that dying for the emperor will enable your soul (whatever that means) to be prayed for at Yasukuni.
But I believe most who were killed in combat would rather be alive, given a choice. I believe my friends killed in combat, would rather be here now. Ask any medic or corpsman or corpswoman, who had to tend to a dying military person, whether the dying person fought for his last breath, or said I want to die for my country.
Stop killing people in wars, especially when it's only a handful of people, including undertakers, who benefit in any way from them.
Let the chickenhawks and those heavily invested in the big war corporations and their financiers fight the wars. Afghanistan, like Iraq and Syria, will long have to deal with the environmental damage done through having so many weapons exploded.
https://time.com/5946800/syrian-war-environmental-impact/
plasticmonkey
The airlift went remarkably well in the end. Pullouts are messy no matter what. Calling this one "botched" is ridiculous and disrespectful to the troops who pulled it off.
Yesterday you were telling us that "all" of the families of the 13 soldiers killed at the Kabul airport were ripping on Biden. I checked your assertion. In fact, 2 parents had harsh words for the current administration.
Busby
There is certainly enough blame for everyone over the past 20 years for this war, but let's pin the tail on the Elephant (not the Donkey) where it belongs - the war-loving Repub NEOCONs....
They started it in 2001 and could have ended it several months later when we defeated the Taliban, but nope....they wanted to stay and fight some more. Then they repeated the exact same error in 2003 when they invaded Iraq, justifying that with Dick Cheney-made up fairy tale intel.
Obama tried for 8 years to leave, but McConnell, Graham, McCain, Liz Cheney, and the rest of the Repub warhawks would cry "Retreat", "Surrender", "Terrorist-Lover" and all manner of ridiculous insults.
Then to cap it off there was the "we quit" agreement that Trump and Pompeo agreed to with the Taliban in 2020 - that gave them everything they wanted to include a release of 5000 Taliban, ISIS, and Al-Qaeda prisoners and the exact date we'd be gone.
And the Repub NEOCONs are still at it - beating the war drums. They can't wait to "bomb, bomb, bomb; bomb bomb Iran" or send a Tomahawk to Pyongyang with KJU's picture on it...
Vote for a Repub in 2022/24 and you're voting to send America's sons and daughters off to more endless wars...
ArtistAtLarge
Exactly.
Goyt
Thank you Buden for getting US troops out of there and out of harm's way, in which you put them. Also, thank you for opening up the field of Republican candidates in the upcoming elections- including the one that replaces you as president.
plasticmonkey
You keep repeating this. I'd like you to tell us who and what he didn't listen to.
Did Biden say he's leaving Americans behind? Or did Tucker tell you that?
bass4funk
Yes and no. Yes, for the people that were able to make it and no for the Americans that were left behind
We all know this, but again, you’re doing the deflection move as liberals tend to do, this has nothing to do with the majority of Americans on both sides 84% feel we should have stayed until every last US citizen is out-period!
To you, not to the majority of Americans, vets and Special Ops servicemen, that is beyond disrespectful.
4 more today. Let the rest get on TV and talk about it
u_s__reamer
After 20 years of American carnage Biden finally made it a wrap with a bloody end to US occupation leaving for domestic consumption one last drone as a pointed farewell gift , but apparently presented to the wrong party of three adults and seven children in a replay of Bush Jr.'s "collateral murder" we still remember from that video nasty.
bass4funk
I will give you that, it started under a bush and then an Excelerator under Obama, so you have to put in the so-called dovish Democrats and let’s not forget who authorized to fund this war, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton, to name a few.
Obama could’ve done the same thing, when he got in the office he campaigned on ending the Iraq war and then what did he do he left the country in ruins and did not even consider leaving a residual fighting force, which led to the rise of Isis the same group that he called a JV team and blew them off as irrelevant ( a term the left likes to use when they get tongue-tied and hit an argument roadblock) bunch of lightweights.
He was that weak as President? Well, Obamacare was more important, he used all of his Presidential powers to get that through. I guess..considering the work involved…..smh
This is why the Chinese, Russians and Iranians love The DNC, they will appease and capitulate no matter what. That’s what I would want if I were them, a weakened America on every conceivable level.
iradickle
Bass,
Like, for real. What are you even trying to say?
So we should have stayed until every single person was evacuated, overstay the deadline and have Taliban start attacking (and ISIS continue attacking) a limited military force? Would that give your 84% good feelings?
When the attacks start, wonder what happens next. More troops deployed to protect the prolonged evacuation. maybe more troops die. war again?
Blacklabel
Every single American, yes.
as Biden promised.
bass4funk
Yes
I think so and the majority of Americans polled thought so as well as all the vets that were polled. You never leave Americans behind-period! And Biden just blew up his entire party over this. The Dems will be lucky if they can even hold on the Presidency going forward. As bad as Biden is, and the majority of us who’ve been around long enough knew how badly flawed this man is, but what he did and how he botched this and that image of people holding on to the plane, him checking his watch and refusing to answer questions from the press and with this botched withdrawal it won’t go away anytime soon, quite the opposite.
Seriously? We are the US, they kill one American and then you just unleash a punishing hailstorm on them. The Taliban should under no circumstances have been given delete on this or to dictate and call the shots and how we should leave, that was a breakdown in leader ship and someone in that White House needs to step down, not just as president but Blinken, Miley and Austin need to go.
To protect Americans, maybe, but to die surrendering? Sorry, nope.
Alfie Noakes
It's being reported that many killed at the airport were actually shot by American and Turkish military after the suicide bombings:
https://consortiumnews.com/2021/08/29/media-bury-story-us-may-have-fired-on-crowd-at-airport/
BBC journalist report:
https://twitter.com/SecKermani/status/1431517279859224579
So the final final act was a random massacre of people who'd worked for the Americans over the last 20 years.
Busby
What's an "Excelerator"? And you can't compare the Dems to the war-loving NEOCONs - the Dems voted to fund a "limited" war, then the Repubs made it an endless one...and another endless one in 2003...
Not with the Repub NEOCONs fighting his every move - remember who controlled the Senate - your favorite Repub war-lover, Mitch.
Ask OBL if he was a weak President. A weak President negotiates a retreat agreement with a terrorist group that gives them everything they wanted, and releases 5K of their members from prisons...in return for nothing.
Trump lets the CCP make his clothing line, is BFF's with Putin, and gave Syria to the Iranians...but back to the point, put the Repub NEOCONs back in charge and its off to war we go - as you have said in numerous posts...
rlaalswls
Do you know when Afghanistan was at its most peaceful?
You can easily tell by looking at the number of times the Afghan flag has been changed.
Afghanistan has changed 22 flags in 124 years.
It has been changed 8 times since it was under British rule, and after independence from 1931 to 1973, except for the flag of the Kingdom of Afghanistan, the flag (15times) was changed almost every 3 years during the civil war.
The period from 1931 to 1973 was the most stable period in Afghanistan, and the per capita GDP surpassed that of Korea.
The irony is that the world at this time was a period of chaos due to WW 1.2.
It was most stable when all the countries didn't even think about Afghanistan.
Wolfpack
Hundreds of American citizens remain in country at the mercy of the Taliban. Thanks for nothing Joe. I guess we can be grateful that only 13 soldiers were killed, 18 wounded, and nearly 200 Afghans slaughtered due to the failures of the current presidents exit strategy.
bass4funk
They funded it, doesn’t matter what the reason was, they funded it, which means they supported it, if they didn’t, they wouldn’t have funded it, so yes, these earlier mentioned Democrats, they’re equally complicit.
Not mine, but it is true, just like it’s true that Obama could have ended the war, he did in Afghanistan, but instead of leaving a residual force, he just extracted them and moved them to Afghanistan.
Kinda hard….I mean….
Not sure, watching those people cling to the C-17 doesn’t show confidence or strength. No one thinks strength and Joe Biden in the same sentence and again, this goes back to 1975 so that’s a long time to carry the label of incompetency.
Exactly, pathetic!
NOMINATION
Not only that but tens of thousands of Afghans that worked with the U.S. soldiers and government. Don't think for a second that the Taliban and whatever terrorist group lurking there will take these people lightly. All I see here by people above though is that troops are gone so all is hunky dory like 13 troops and a family of 10 including 7 children didn't just die in vain.
Sheikh Yerboaby
They were damned if they do and damned if they don't. Afghanistan has been invaded, intervened in, supported, cajoled and threatened by western interests for over 300 years and not once has it ever been tamed. The Brits, the Soviets, the Yanks have all came and went and it reverts back to it's own ways. I feel sorry for the women mainly, who had a glimpse of a life that could've been and are now sentenced to a life of drudgery. The only way for Afghanistan to progress is for Afghans to do it for themselves......sadly that seems to be as a civil war as the Taliban will not back down. Nice to see the US arm them again with modern weapons...... :O
Busby
Nope. They voted based on a limited war in Afghanistan, and on false, faulty, fairy tale intel for Iraq - all given by the NEOCONs...surprising that you're defending them based on how much you have criticized them in the past, especially your quite negative comments about Liz Cheney...
Yet you keep defending them...
Exactly, thanks for agreeing with me...
Pompeo waived the white flag, then turned around and gave it to the Taliban negotiator, as they posed for their infamous picture together...
iradickle
So for Bass, Wolfpack, Nomination and Blacklabel
We should have stayed, added more troops and possibly continue the war?
With all of you guys posts, surely you have a perfect mass military evac plan. No need to talk about presidents, politics far right/left this n that. Just what you would have done.
Slickdrifter
I am not one to mince words. So, I am going to get right too it. And keep the politics out of it.
On September 11th 2001, nearly 3,000 people were killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The United States believed that Osama Bin Laden - who was the head of al-Qaeda - was the man behind these attacks. I lost friends that day in those towers’ Japanese friends. I would have deployed willingly if asked but was winding down my commission. I had 6 month left when then President Busch started this campaign.
Before would get my exit out of the Corps.
August 31st JST this campaign ended today and goes in too a diplomatic approach and phase.
IISIL/ISIS and the Taliban can have a go at each other. Go for it! No love loss between these two groups.
But I feel compelled to share with you, my thoughts as a vet in this war on terror.
And really the only the one thing I wish to convey.
Gratitude. -
Many gave their life in the hopes making the world a safer place. Speaking with Marines everyday those years back. One things sticks out above all. Wanting to go was forged in payback for 911. But left with the feeling we were not doing enough. On a general consensuses. When talking to these Afghanistan veterans. These people really wanted to make the world a better place. Its easy for us to sit behind our alias and key board and try to forge our beliefs on the readers here.
Those who perished and gave up everything.
Gone but not ever ever forgotten.
Job well done.
Semper Fi. Rah!
Honor those who paid the ultimate sacrifice please.
Meet Carlos my friend. My brother. Try to read with an open mind.
https://www.ocregister.com/2019/07/03/marines-who-went-to-hell-and-back-nearly-10-years-ago-in-afghanistan-rely-on-camaraderie-community-to-heal/
Blacklabel
keep Bagram Air Base. its secure and controlled by us. evacuate all civilians, starting months ago. process and vet our Afghani friends, from months ago.
take all our money, weapons, equipment and dogs. Fly our military out last, bomb the base and destroy anything that remained.
simple.
Zaphod
The Avenger
....and now the pointless haggling over hostages for money begins.
You mean the dead troops that were brought back while Biden was nervously looking at his watch, thinking of his milk and cookies?
Thanks Biden for turning what was supposed to be a systematic withdrawal into a deadly mess. All he needed to do was to leave Trumps plan as it was, but now, he had to reverse everything Trump, and we we enjoy his handiwork.
Helix
Hundreds of US citizens are left behind.
Helix
US Military service dogs are left behind in their cages. Its unfathomable. They could have gone out in the holds of the planes.
ulysses
Their brilliant strategy is for a small but substantial force, which is lightly but heavily armed and conducts operations peacefully but violently.
Simply brilliant!!!
Helix
Doubts emerging that there was any terrorist killed in the US drone attack on that car.
A family of at least nine including six children blown to pieces in a display of “President Biden’s resolve”.
bass4funk
I don’t, but many of the vets that were stationed there and most of special ops two, wonder why this woke Generals didn’t consult them?
This is what Biden left the Taliban
https://twitter.com/dailycaller/status/1432006507802075141?s=21
ulysses
It might require a large bomb to blow up all the equipment. Any suggestions?
bass4funk
But m they never voted for an abysmal exit and not just any exit a disastrous one.
well then you have to blame French intelligence, Israel intelligence, German intelligence, there were a lot of people that screwed up on this.
I’m not defending any of them, I don’t know what you’re talking about, quite the opposite I’m defending our military and the innocent people that were caught up in all of this mess that was bungled up by idiot bureaucrats and a president that has no idea what he’s doing and hasn’t known since he has been elected to Congress.
No, I agree with the special forces and the vets
it didn’t matter what he did, he is not the president, neither is Trump, Obama is not the president, Bush is not the president, Jimmy Carter is not the president, Hillary Clinton is not the president, the President of the United States that decided to withdraw our troops in the most disastrous way is Joseph Biden. He could’ve change the outcome and he didn’t and no deflection is going to change that or help him or his administration call me pretty much killed the Democrat party for the next few years and beyond.
ulysses
I am sure the ISIS appreciates sympathy from the American right wing.
But problem is it will require hundreds of drones to blow up all the stuff. Is Russia willing to lend some?
takeda.shingen.1991@gmail.com
Are these the same people that Stephen Miller held up visas for?
https://www.businessinsider.com/stephen-miller-racist-hysteria-blocked-help-afghans-ex-pence-adviser-2021-8
We've known about these issues for years, but it seems like the right only cares about them when they came use it score political points.
bass4funk
Well, Biden missed that opportunity, so it’s limited. But maybe it’s time for these woke leaders to pay attention and listen to the more experience vets, doubt it, but it would be a start.
ulysses
Couldn’t agree more, brilliant suggestion.
People who can suggest a small but substantial force, lightly but heavily armed, peaceful but violent operations are invaluable!!!
Chop Chop
The failure of Afghanistan was not a fault of the US or Nato alliance but it was Afghan people themselves and their leaders. They don't want to protect their human rights and democracy by themselves and just want to rely on others. Dishonest and greedy in tribal leaders and corruption in Government. Both former Presidents were corrupted and they had stolen billions of dollars from foreign aid money. The only thing failure of the US and Nato alliance were too much relied on so called experties in Afghanistan and Islamic terrorism.
They thought Christian and Muslim can be friendly forever if you help them. It's wrong. Muslim always see Christian and other faith as infidel.
ulysses
The only ones I know with those skills are you and Rambo III.
stormcrow
Bittersweet. It’s good to get out of there, but sad to leave so many behind.