President Joe Biden’s handling of the U.S. military’s departure from Afghanistan has been a cataclysmic disaster. Under his leadership, the military looks disorganized, weak, and chaotic. We went from the Mother of All Bombs to the mother of all blunders.
We surrendered billions of taxpayer dollars in military equipment. More American soldiers were killed in action this past week than what was averaged during the entire presidency of Donald Trump. Our military deserved better. Our military deserved Trump’s leadership, not Biden’s.
The Islamic State’s local affiliate, ISIS-K (the group responsible for the terrorist attack that killed the U.S. troops), started causing trouble for the United States back in 2015. They were situated in a remote part of Afghanistan covered in rugged mountains and gorges in 2017. It put American forces at a distinct disadvantage. Under Trump, ISIS-K was dealt with by dropping MOAB.
“It allows the coalition to do significant damage without significant risk to our Special Forces,” retired Maj. Gen. James Marks said in 2017.
In 2019, Trump ordered a more aggressive plan to take on the Taliban and ISIS in Afghanistan. He gave military commanders the authorization to pursue Taliban and ISIS militants. It resulted in a bombing onslaught by the U.S. military that reached a record pace, USA Today reported.
In 2019, under Trump, the U.S. military deployed 6,208 missiles and bombs in Afghanistan, according to USA Today — this compared to the previous record of 5,982 from a year earlier.
“The logic is that the Taliban may be more likely to agree to a peace deal acceptable to the United States and the Afghan government if the Taliban believe they can’t win the war in Afghanistan,” Seth Jones, a defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and former adviser to the special operations commander in Afghanistan, said at the time.
Military strikes were “a way to raise the costs for the Taliban of continuing the fight,” Jones said in 2019.
Even after signing a deal with the Taliban, Trump subsequently bombed them, and they cried uncle as a consequence. In retaliation for Taliban attacks in Helmand province, Trump directed an airstrike just days after agreeing to the deal. The Taliban asked for deescalation after they were bombed. Suhail Shaheen, a spokesman for the Taliban, tweeted that they planned “to implement all parts of the agreement one after another to prevent conflict escalation.”
Biden has taken a different approach. He pursued detente. He claimed he was beholden to agreements from his predecessor and that his hands were tied, but that hadn’t stopped Trump. Biden made clear to the Taliban that the military tactics used under Trump were off the table, and they took advantage. It was a mistake, and 13 service members just paid the price.
Kathy McCollum is the mother of one of the soldiers killed in Afghanistan, Rylee McCollum. She proclaimed that her son would still be alive if Biden wasn’t president.
“I just want all you Democrats who cheated in the election, or who voted for him legitimately, you just killed my son,” she said. “[Biden] needs to be removed from office. It never would have happened under Trump.”
