On Wednesday, Joe Biden announced that after nearly 20 years, the United States will withdraw all of its troops from Afghanistan by September 11, 2021, saying in a speech at the White House that staying longer will not end the conflict. “It’s time for American troops to come home,” he told the world from the same room in which George W. Bush announced the war had begun. “We cannot continue the cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in Afghanistan hoping to create ideal conditions for the withdrawal, and expecting a different result. I am now the fourth United States president to preside over an American troop presence in Afghanistan. Two Republicans. Two Democrats. I will not pass this responsibility onto a fifth.” Noting that the U.S. “went to Afghanistan because of a horrific attack that happened 20 years ago,“ Biden argued, “that cannot explain why we should remain there in 2021. Rather than return to war with the Taliban, we have to focus on the challenges that are in front of us.” He added that he’s heard the arguments that the U.S. will lose leverage over the Taliban, but said that staying hadn’t achieved peace anyway. Referencing the fact that the conflict has cost thousands of lives and trillions of dollars while often lacking a clear objective, he said: “We delivered justice to bin Laden a decade ago, and we’ve stayed in Afghanistan for a decade since. Since then, our reasons for remaining in Afghanistan are becoming increasingly unclear.”
Not surprisingly, the historic decision has both supporters and detractors. On the supporter side, there are people like senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who praised Biden for ending the prolonged conflict. Also happy about the move is Douglas Lute, a retired lieutenant general who was the coordinator for Afghanistan policy at the National Security Council under both Bush and Barack Obama. On the detractor side, you’ve got some Pentagon officials who, per The New York Times, have “argued for a continued, modest presence in Afghanistan,” and Representative Liz Cheney, who called the decision a “huge propaganda victory for the Taliban, for al-Qaeda.” (Cheney’s father, of course, is a big reason the U.S. is in Afghanistan in the first place and so she would have been on the receiving end of an extremely awkward voicemail if she’d said anything else.)
Seemingly most upset about the decision, though, was warmonger Lindsey Graham, who claims Biden’s decision to withdraw the troops will cause another 9/11. No, literally, he said that. A few times. With props!
On Tuesday, in anticipation of Biden’s announcement, Graham said in a statement, “A full withdrawal from Afghanistan is dumber than dirt and devilishly dangerous. President Biden will have, in essence, cancelled an insurance policy against another 9/11.” Later that day, he went on Fox News and told Sean Hannity that Biden is “paving the way for another 9/11,” telling viewers: “To all of you who are listening, you remember where you were at on September 11, 2001. Our military told President Biden that if you withdraw all of our forces, al-Qaeda and ISIS will come roaring back, Afghanistan will disintegrate into civil war. And we can avoid all of that by having 3,000-5,000 American forces making sure that ISIS and al-Qaeda never come back to hurt us. He rejected that advice.”
Apparently not satisfied that he’d made his point, the South Carolina senator then held a press conference on Wednesday in which he (1) warned both women in Afghanistan and the U.S. that the terrorists were coming for them:
And (2) pointed to a blown-up photo of the burning Twin Towers, and another of the Pentagon after it was hit by Flight 77, and said, “What makes you think this won’t happen again?”
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