President Biden Speaks on Afghanistan: Watch It For Yourself
President Joe Biden gives remarks in a prime time address following his signing of the Covid Relief Bill. March 11, 2021. (Screen capture)
Helicoptering in from Camp David and four days of silence, President Biden Speaks on Afghanistan from the White House before departing back to Camp David as US forces continue to try and evacuate the remnant of US personnel and allies from Kabul.
*Speech starts at 46:00
President Biden Delivers Remarks on Afghanistan
So, how did President Biden Speaking on Afghanistan land with you?
He made the best bad decision he could make, especially given the conditions, and the refusal of the professional foreign policy establishment to recognize their utter two decade failure.
They don’t call Afghanistan the Grave Yard of Empires for no reason. And America is not exceptional in that regard.Report
They don’t call Afghanistan the Grave Yard of Empires for no reason. And America is not exceptional in that regard.
I’ve always thought that was more correlation than causation. Few (any?) empires get to Afghanistan when they are young and vigorous. It’s sort of the back side of nowhere for the Asian and European empires (and the US is the first American empire with global reach). It’s not like there’s great agricultural land, or rich easily available extractive resources.
OTOH, statistically, Afghanistan today has about twelve times the population density on average as the US Great Plains. The GP are about twice the size of Afghanistan, with a sixth the population.Report
Part of the issue is that Afghanistan has nothing of value for conquerors. The brits went in as part of the Great Game to just be there to protect their empire in India. It had no intrinsic value on its own. The brits sure as hell held on to other colonies that had value. Empires will spill blood for treasure, but there isn’t any there.
There is the thin argument that us being there prevented other terror attacks which makes little sense. Terror attacks don’t need entire countries with little infrastructure or industry. There plenty of places around the world to plan and stage terror attacks.Report
FWIW much of the 9-11 planning was conducted in the lawless ungovernable tribal regions of…*check notes* Florida.Report
By Saudis not Afghans.Report
It has poppies.Report
Which they can sell on their own and doesn’t bring money for the empires that have gotten stuck there. If there was lots of oil we would still be there if the soviets had ever left which they probably wouldn’t have.
It’s never been that a modern foreign power can’t kill and bribe enough Afghan’s to create a stable puppet government. It’s that it’s never been worth the cost. We could afford the cost of the current occupation, it just isn’t worth it.Report
A guy on discussion board I frequent tried to posit that America is really there to exploit Afghan resources and deny the country to their Chinese and Russian rivals. As evidence of that, they were talking about some lithium play all three were sniffing at.
This is an example of something on the internet I think we need a word for. A kind of pretend worldly cynicism that’s managed to become naive and credulous. Rapacious American capital has had two decades of access to Afghanistan to try and exploit them if they wanted and they’ve pretty much declined the option for entirely understandable reasons.Report
I was making a dry joke.Report
Afghanistan has been conquered and incorporated into many, many empires, albeit mainly Asian ones that your causal Western geopolitical reader hasn’t heard of, compared to the European empires of the Makedonian, British, Russian and Soviet empires which they have heard about.
Its difficult to see it as worth conquering ever since the Silk Road stopped being an important trade route. Because its landlocked, mountainous and has no major strategic resources.Report
Only because Opium poppies are not yet a legal crop in the US . . . and with synthetic opioids running loose out there its doubtful they ever will be.Report
Surprising no one I thought it was a terrific speech. He was blunt and candid, pulling no punches in calling out the feckless Afghan government while also taking sole responsibility for the decision to pull the plug.Report
I also thought it was a remarkable speech. He was blunt, he was honest. Sure there was politics in it- he’s a politician; he has an obligation to his party and his supporters to politic it as best he can- but it was a very candid presentation.
If he can get enough people out without a bloodbath and few to no westerners die history (in the US) will look kindly on him.Report
I’ve seen a bunch of people eviscerate him for the whole “The buck stops with me… Trump, Trump, Trump” stuff, but, for the most part, I don’t think that getting out of Afghanistan would have gone off any better with Trump in office ostensibly overseeing it while tweeting about it.
It was always going to end badly and the choice was it ending badly now or it ending badly later.
We finally had someone pick “now”. Good. Now no one else will have to make that awful choice.Report
Preach, Joe.Report
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