Prime Minister Boris Johnson on the situation in Afghanistan.

Mr Speaker, I beg to move –

and may I begin by thanking you and all the Parliamentary staff for enabling us to meet this morning.

Before I turn to today’s debate, I am sure the House will want to join you and me in sending our condolences to the family and friends of those killed in the appalling shooting in Plymouth last week.

Investigations are, of course, continuing but we will learn every possible lesson from this tragedy.

Mr Speaker, I know that Members across the House share my concern about the situation in Afghanistan, issues it raises for our own security, and the fears of many remaining in that country – especially women and children.

The sacrifice in Afghanistan is seared into our national consciousness, with 150,000 people serving there from across the length and breadth of the United Kingdom, including a number of Members on all sides of the House, whose voices will be particularly important today.

And so it is absolutely right that we should come together for this debate.

I thank my honourable friend and I can assure him that I will be saying in just a few moments, we will be doing everything we can to support those who have helped the UK mission in Afghanistan and investing everything we can to support the wider area around Afghanistan and to do everything we can to avert a humanitarian crisis.

Mr Speaker, it is almost twenty years since the United States suffered the most catastrophic attack on its people since the Second World War, in which 67 British citizens also lost their lives at the hands of murderous terrorist groups incubated in Afghanistan.

In response, NATO invoked Article V of its Treaty, for the first and only time in its history, and the United Kingdom, amongst others, joined America in going into Afghanistan on a mission to extirpate Al Qaeda in that country and to do whatever we could to stabilise Afghanistan, in spite of all the difficulties and challenges we knew that we would face.

And we succeeded in that core mission.

As I said in the House just a few weeks ago, there was an extensive defence review about the Afghan mission after the combat mission ended in 2014, and I believe most of the key questions have already been extensively gone into.

It’s important Mr Speaker that we in this House should be able to scrutinise events as they unfold.

Mr Speaker, we succeeded in that core mission and the training camps in the mountain ranges of Afghanistan were destroyed, Al Qaeda plots against this country were foiled because our serving men and women were there, and no successful terrorist attacks against the West have been mounted from Afghan soil for two decades.

Mr Speaker, I think it would be fair to say that the events in Afghanistan have unfolded and the collapse has been faster than I think even the Taliban themselves predicted.

What is not true is to say that the UK Government was unprepared or did not forsee this, because it was certainly part of our planning, of pitting the very difficult logistical operation for the withdrawal of UK nationals has been under preparation for many months Mr Speaker, and I can tell the house that the decision to commission the emergency handling centre at the airport took place two weeks ago, Mr Speaker

Alongside this core mission, we worked for a better future for the people of Afghanistan.

And the heroism and tireless work of our armed forces contributed to national elections, as well as the promotion and protection of human rights and equalities in a way that many in Afghanistan had not previously known.

Whereas twenty years ago almost no girls went to school and women were banned from positions of governance, now 3.6 million girls have been in school this year alone, and women hold over a quarter of the seats in Afghanistan’s parliament.

But Mr Speaker, we must be honest and accept that huge difficulties were encountered at each turn and some of this progress is fragile.

The honourable gentleman raises exactly the right question.

I spoke this morning to Ambassador Sir Laurie Bristow as well as to Brigadier Dan Blanchford who is handling the evacuation

And it would be fair to say the situation has stabilised since the weekend but it remains precarious and the UK officials on the ground are doing everything that they can to expedite the movement of people, those that need to come out, whether from ARUP scheme or eligible persons to get from Kabul to the airport.

And at the moment it would be fair to say the Taliban are allowing that evacuation to go ahead.

But the most important thing is that we get this done in as expeditious a fashion as we can, and that’s what we are doing.

And I may say that I am grateful not just to the UK forces who are now out there helping to stabilise the airport but also to the US forces as well

The combat phase of our mission ended in 2014 when we brought the vast majority of our troops home and handed over responsibility for security to the Afghans themselves, and we continued to support their efforts

Even at that stage, we should remember that conflict was continuous, and that in spite of the bravery and sacrifice of the Afghan army – and we should never forget that 69,000 of those Afghan army troops have given their lives in this conflict – significant parts of the country remained contested or under Taliban control.

And so when after two decades, the Americans prepared to take their long-predicted and well-trailed step of a final extraction of their forces, we looked at many options, Mr Speaker, including the potential for staying longer ourselves, finding new partners, or even increasing our presence, I think that when he asked for a commentary on the respective military potential power of the Taliban and the Afghan forces, it’s pretty clear from what has happened that the collapse of the Afghan forces has been much faster than expected

And as for our NATO allies and our allies around the world, when it came for us to look at the options that this country might have in view of the American decision to withdraw, we came up against this hard reality that since 2009, America has deployed 98 per cent of all weapons released from NATO aircraft in Afghanistan, and at the peak of the operation, when there were 132,000 troops on the ground, 90,000 of them were American.

The West could not continue this US-led mission, a mission conceived and executed in support and defence of America, without American logistics, without US air power and without American might.

I spoke to Secretary General Stoltenberg of NATO only the other day about NATO’s continuing role in Afghanistan.

But I really think it is an illusion to believe that there is appetite amongst any of our partners for a continued military presence or for a military solution imposed by NATO in Afghanistan.

The idea ended with the combat mission in 2014 and I do not believe that today deploying tens of thousands of British troops to fight the Taliban is an option, no matter how sincerely people may advocate it, and I appreciate their sincerity, but I do not believe that is an option that would commend itself either to the British people or to this House.

Mr Speaker, we must deal with the position as it now is, accepting what we have achieved and what we have not achieved.

The government has been working around the clock to deal with the unfolding situation.

We must deal with the world as it is, accepting what we have achieved and what we have not achieved.

The UK will work with our international partners on a shared plan to support the people of Afghanistan and to contribute to regional stability.

There will be five parts, Mr Speaker, to this approach.

First, our immediate focus must be on helping those to whom we have direct obligations, by evacuating UK nationals, together with those Afghans who have assisted our efforts over the past twenty years.

And I know the whole House will join me in paying tribute to the bravery and commitment of our Ambassador, Sir Laurie Bristow, I thank the right honourable gentleman for raising the very needy case that he does.

I am sure that colleagues across the House, literally every member will I imagine have received messages from people who know someone who needs to get out of Afghanistan,

And I can tell the right honourable gentleman that we are doing everything we can to help out of that country those people to whom we owe a debt of obligation

And on that point, I want to repeat my thanks, not just to Sir Laurie Bristow, but also our commander on the ground, Brigadier Dan Blanchford and the entire British team in Kabul.

I can tell the House that we have so far secured the safe return of 306 UK nationals and 2,052 Afghan nationals as part of our resettlement programme, with a further 2,000 Afghan applications completed and many more being processed.

UK officials are working round the clock to keep the exit door open in the most difficult circumstances, and actively seeking those we believe are eligible but as yet unregistered.

That’s why it’s been so important that we maintain a presence at Kabul airport and that’s why we’ve been getting the message out that we want people to come through

As I said earlier on, it is important for everybody to understand that at the moment in the days that we have ahead of us, which may be short, but at the moment, this is an environment in which the Taliban are permitting the evacuation to take place.

Mr Speaker, these are interpreters, they are locally engaged staff and others who have risked their lives supporting our military efforts and seeking to secure new freedoms for their country.

We are proud to bring these brave Afghans to our shores – and we continue to appeal for more to come forwards.

Mr Speaker, that’s the 5000 on whom we are spending £200 million to bring a further 5000 on top – I think it will be 10,000 altogether that we bring under the ARUP and other programmes.

We will be increasing that number over the coming years as I said to 20,000.

But the bulk of the effort of this country will be directed, and should be directed, to supporting people in Afghanistan and in the region in order to prevent a worse humanitarian crisis

I tell the House that in that conviction I am supported very strongly both by President Macron of France and by Chancellor Merkel of Germany.

We are also doing everything possible to accelerate the visas – we are making sure that we bring back the 35 brilliant Chevening scholars, so that they can come and study in our great universities.

We are deploying an additional 800 British troops to support this evacuation operation, and I can assure the House that we will continue this operation for as long as conditions at the airport allow.

We will not be sending people back to Afghanistan and nor by the way will we be allowing people to come from Afghanistan to this country in an indiscriminate way.

We want to be generous but we must make sure we look after our own security.

Over the coming weeks, we will redouble our efforts, working with others to protect the British homeland and all our citizens and interests, from any threats that may emanate from a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, from terrorism to the narcotics trade.

Like many of us I have been extensively lobbied on behalf of the excellent work done by Mr Pen Farthing – I am well aware of his cause and all the wonderful things he has done.

And for animals in Afghanistan I can tell my honourable friend that we will do everything we can to help Mr Pen Farthing and others who face particular difficulty like himself

But as I say without in any way jeopardising our own national security

These are concerns shared across the international community, from the region itself to all the NATO alliance and indeed all five permanent members of the UN Security Council. and I will chair a virtual meeting of the G7 in the coming days.

Third, Mr Speaker, we also have an enduring commitment to all the Afghan people, and now, more than ever, we must reaffirm that commitment.

Our efforts must be focused on supporting the Afghan people in the region itself, particularly those fleeing conflict or the threat of violence.

We therefore call on the United Nations to lead a new humanitarian effort in this region.

I’m very grateful to right honourable lady opposite because I think she’s asked a question that formed in many people’s minds about the 5000

And yes indeed the 5000 extra and the resettlement scheme and in addition to those already announced – we will support those people in coming to this country

We will also support the wider international community in delivering on humanitarian projects in the region by doubling the amount of humanitarian and development assistance that we had previously committed to Afghanistan this year, with new funding, taking this up to £286 million with immediate effect.

And we call on others to work together on a shared humanitarian effort, focusing on helping the most vulnerable in what will be formidably difficult circumstances.

My Right Honourable friend makes an excellent point and that’s why the UK has chaired the security council of the UN, and asked to put the motion together with our French friends to get the world to focus on the humanitarian needs of Afghanistan

And we’ll be doing the same thing in NATO, in the G7 and the other bodies in which we have a leadership role.

We want all these countries to step up as he rightly says and focus on the most vulnerable in what we will be formidably difficult circumstances

Fourth, while we must focus on the region itself, we will also create safe and legal routes for those Afghans most in need to come and settle here in the UK.

So in addition to those Afghans with whom we have worked directly, I can announce today that we are committing to relocating another 5,000 Afghans this year, with a new and bespoke resettlement scheme focusing on the most vulnerable, particularly women and children, and we will keep this under review for future years, with the potential of accommodating up to 20,000 over the long-term.

And so taken together Mr Speaker, we are committing almost half a billion pounds of humanitarian funding to support the Afghan people.

Fifth, Mr Speaker, we must also face the reality of a change of regime in Afghanistan, and as President of the G7, the UK will work to unite the international community behind a clear plan for dealing with this regime in a unified and concerted way.

Over the last three days I have spoken with the NATO and UN Secretaries General, with President Biden, Chancellor Merkel, President Macron, and Prime Minister Khan, we are clear and we have agreed that it would be a mistake for any country to recognise any new regime in Kabul prematurely or bilaterally.

Instead, those countries that care about Afghanistan’s future should work towards common conditions about the conduct of the new regime before deciding, together, whether to recognise it and on what terms.

We will judge this regime based on the choices it makes – and by its actions rather than by its words.

On its attitude to terrorism, to crime and narcotics, as well as humanitarian access and the rights of girls to receive an education.

Defending human rights will remain of the highest priority.

And we will use every available political and diplomatic means to ensure that those human rights remain at the top of the international agenda.

Mr Speaker, our United Kingdom has a rollcall of honour that bears the names of 457 service men and women who gave their lives in some of the world’s harshest terrain, and many others who bear injuries to this day

fighting in what had become the epicentre of global terrorism, and even amid the heart-wrenching scenes we see today, I believe they should be proud of their achievements, and we should be deeply proud of them, because they conferred benefits that are lasting and ineradicable on millions of people in one of the poorest countries on earth, and they provided vital protection for two decades to this country and the rest of the world.

They gave their all for our safety, and we owe it to them to give our all to prevent Afghanistan from once again becoming a breeding ground for terrorism.

Because no matter how grim the lessons of the past, that future is not yet written, and at this bleak turning-point, we must help the people of Afghanistan to choose the best of all their possible futures, and in the UN, the G7, in NATO, with friends and partners around the world that is the critical task on which this government is now urgently engaged, and will be engaged in the days to come.

Monday, August 18, 1941. Lili by the lamp light.

On this day in 1941, Radio Belgrade played Lale Andersen's recording of Lili Marleen. It became an instant hit.

The song was originally a poem written in World War One by a conscripted German school teacher.  It was set to music and then recorded by Andersen in the late 30s, but it wasn't a hit until Radio Belgrade began to play it.  With a wartime theme, and very romantic, it became hugely popular with troops from both sides.  The better known version for Allied troops was the one recorded by Marlene Dietrich 

Bei der Kaserne
Vor dem grossen Tor
Steht 'ne Laterne
Und steht sie noch davor
Da wollen wir uns wiedersehen
Bei der Laterne wollen wir stehen
Wie einst Lili Marlen
Wie einst Lili Marlen

Unsere beiden Schatten
Sah'n wie einer aus
Dass wir lieb uns hatten
Dass sah man gleich daraus
Und alle Leute sollen es sehen
Wenn wir bei der Laterne steh'n
Wie einst Lili Marlen
Wie einst Lili Marlen

Deine Schritte kennt sie
Deinen schoenen Gang
Alle Abend brennt sie
Doch mich vergass sie lang
Und sollte mir ein leids geschehen
Wer wird bei der Laterne stehen
Mit dir Lili Marlen?
Mit dir Lili Marlen?

Aus dem tiefen Raume
Aus der Erde Grund
Hebt sich wie im Traume
Dein verliebter Mund
Wenn sich die spaeten Nebel dreh'n
Wer wird bei der Laterne stehen
Mit dir Lili Marlen
Mit dir Lili Marlen

Wenn sich die spaeten Nebel dreh'n
Wer wird bei der Laterne stehen
Mit dir Lili Marlen
Mit dir Lili Marlen.

The song and the poem lament the situation of a soldier longing for "Lili by the lamp light" who waits outside the Kaserne by the big door.

The song wasn't popular with the German authorities, but they proved unable to do anything about it.  Oddly, the German language song was popular with English speaking Allied troops, being more popular than the English language versions.

Andersen lived a troubled early life but went on to a more settled one after the war, after which she rarely preformed.  She herself wasn't keen on the Nazis and her sentiments were known, but the popularity of the song deterred the German authorities from doing much about it.

Concerning music, on this day German authorities raided clubs in Hamburg frequented by "Swing Kids", young Germans who favored jazz and swing music and who were a type of German counterculture.  300 individuals were arrested and some sent to concentration camps.  Initially the raids hardened their opposition, which was already there, to the Nazi culture and even harsher repression then followed.  They were an interesting example of a relatively large group of young Germans whose rejection of Nazi ideology was pretty widely known, if muted.  Favoring English language and American derived music, they also affected a style of dress that was very similar to that of Zoot Suiters in the United States.

Both of these items are cataloged here:

Today in World War II History—August 18, 1941

President Roosevelt signed the bill extending the Selective Service Act in the United States.

Mid Week At Work: Escaping the Efficiency Trap—and Finding Some Peace of Mind

 

Escaping the Efficiency Trap—and Finding Some Peace of Mind

The more productive we are, the more pressure we feel. It’s time to break the busyness cycle.

Ben Sasse on Afghanistan.

Our troops didn’t lose this war. Politicians chose defeat. We never had to let the Taliban win, but a bipartisan doctrine of weakness has humiliated the world’s greatest superpower and handed Afghanistan to butchers. In the next few weeks, the situation in Afghanistan will get much worse. Americans need to pray for that troubled country. President Biden needs to man up, come out of hiding, and take charge of the mess he created. Secure the airfields and get as many souls out as possible. Time is short.

National Review, "Worse Than Saigon".

How we lost the war in Afghanistan

How did we lose the war in Afghanistan and set it up for collapse?

And yes, we lost it.

A few short points.

1.  Conducting a war when a punitive expedition will do.

French navy raiding Mexico during the Pastry War.

A friend of mine has this better put than I do, but the fact of the matter is that we never needed to take over Afghanistan in the first place. We shouldn't have.

Our invasion of the country was done in reaction to the Al Qaeda attack upon the Twin Towers in New York City.  We needed to react to that. And Afghanistan was where Al Qaeda had taken refuge.  That meant something had to be hit there.

But that something should have been proportional, something that's now been forgotten.  The terrorist attack was just that, a criminal terrorist attack. But we treated it effectively as an act for war by two foreign nations, Afghanistan and Iraq.  Iraq  had nothing whatsoever to do with it, which we'll address in a moment.

A proportional response would have been a heavy series of raids. . . a punitive expedition, aimed at Al Qaeda and its infrastructure in Afghanistan.

Examples of this abound.  Ronald Reagan's administration carried one out against Libya while he was in office, which was directed at Gaddafi himself. That event turned out to be hugely successful.  The most famous US one was the one against Pancho Villa in 1916-17, which had mixed results, but after that threats to the border did diminish.  The US has carried them out additionally against Fiji and local forces in Korea, way back in the sailing ship days, which you rarely hear about.  

Arguably, the US reaction to the taking of the Mayaguez ship by Cambodia following the Vietnam War provides the best recent example in addition to Libya. That was a criminal act, and President Ford sent the Marines to take the ship back and destroyed the Cambodian navy in the process.

A heavy raid, designed to wipe out Al Qaeda, which in the end took years to wipe out as it was, would have been a better, proportional, response.  It would have left the Taliban in power, but they're back in power as it is.

Hindsight is 20/20 of course, but that's actually what I expected at the time.  Not an invasion.

Before moving on, I'd further note that treating the perpetrators of the terror attack as criminals, rather than soldiers, would have been a better philosophical and legal move as well.  Treating them as soldiers, as we did, means that at some point here all of them remaining in captivity will have to be released really.  You don't keep Prisoners Of War forever.

2.  If you invade, you don't ignore Clausewitz.

Clausewitz, who warned against half measures.

Having determined to invade, we did it incompetently with a minimal amount of force.

That never made any sense at all, but that was the way Donald Rumsfeld saw it.  He thought that we'd advanced so far technologically that a mere handful of US troops could invade and control the country.  

He was wrong.

The application of US technology to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were amazing.  But it hasn't carried the day in Afghanistan.  It did in the conventional war in Iraq. The problem with our campaign in Afghanistan, other than it being unjustified and probably an illegal act under the US Constitution, is that we subordinated the war in Afghanistan to our war in Iraq.  I don’t think the war in Iraq was necessary, and the fact that it became the main show meant that our early efforts in Afghanistan were with smaller unconventional forces.  By the time we got around to a large commitment the war was on and the initial shock over.  That caused it to drag on.  Had we gone in big right off the bat things may well have turned out differently, long term.  By and large we did so well against the Taliban that even having a small force there, before we began to withdraw it, was enough to keep the country from collapsing.

What ever the war in Iraq was about, it wasn't about the Twin Towers and was an unnecessary manpower suck that went on for years.

In someways, I  think we just liked invading Iraq better than Afghanistan.  The early part of it was like the Six Day War on steroids.  Of course, that lead us into a protracted guerilla war as well, but at least so far our efforts there, unnecessary though they were, seem to have worked.

A full scale invasion of Afghanistan, if we were going to invade it, may also have worked.  Massively overrunning the country would have caught the Taliban off guard and potentially destroyed it.  Putting it on the back burner to take on a different war didn't serve that aim.

It also committed it to a long stay and nation building.

3.  The long stay

Wounded US soldiers in Manila, 1899.

The US, and indeed maybe any democracy, has a limited staying power.  At least in our case, we get tired of things after a few years and are ready to leave, even if we regret leaving later. 

Supposedly having an “exit plan” was a lesson learned from Vietnam, but if so we really didn’t exhibit it when we went into Afghanistan.  I’m not saying that going in was the wrong thing to do (although I do think we didn’t do it well when we did it), but we didn’t seem to have a clear exit plan.

The reason seems to be that the George Bush II administration was a "neo conservative" one, not a conservative one.

Neo cons have their merits, but they are far from being conservatives.  Actually growing out of the Trotskyite wing of the Communist Party, but with a latter-day loss of faith in Communism and a restoration of faith in something greater than that, Neo Cons believed in their hearts that everyone was just like Americans and that all you had to do was get the bad guys and democracy would bloom.  That's naive, but it reflects their original views as Communists, as well as a sort of perpetual American naïveté on these issues.

The Bush Administration really believed that we could invade Afghanistan, take the Taliban out of power, and a modern democracy would just pop up.  That was never going to happen rapidly.

Building a nation is a messy process and most countries have gone about it badly.  There are European countries that were still enduring military coups as late as the 1970s, for example Greece.  If Greece, which experimented with democracy really early, was still trying to make it work out that late, we can’t expect Afghanistan to pick it up in two decades.  Russia, which of course some would debate as not really being European, hasn't managed to pull it off yet, even though it looked like it was going to after Communism fell, and It's had some sort of supposedly deliberative body since 1905.  Some countries in the region still hover on backsliding, with Turkey being a prime example.

Indeed, while Afghanistan is a Central Asian nation, not a Middle Eastern one, no Middle Eastern nation has managed to pull off becoming democratic save for Israel, Turkey, and so far Iraq.  Even the countries that have some sort of deliberative body aren't really democratic.  There are historical reasons for this, but before a person goes too far in attributing it to anything, we should keep in mind that Portugal and Spain only became democracies in the 1970s, and they certainly have long histories of western political culture.

Probably what we need also need to keep in mind is the example of countries like South Korea. South Korea is a functioning democracy but as late as the 80s the military still basically ran the country.  It took nearly 40 years from WWII for the country to get the hang of it.  During that interval, the country was ruled by some folks that really weren’t super admirable. 

And that presents an uncomfortable truth.  To really cause a nation to cross over this bridge, its political culture, and even its culture, needs to be reformed, and it won't be reformed very easily from the inside.

The Philippines, when we took it from Spain in 1898, was a country rife with internal political and cultural divisions, but which also wanted freedom. We fought a war there against that goal that we declared over, when it really wasn't, in 1902.  "Civilizing them with a Krag" actually took a really long time, and it wasn't until 1946 when the country imperfectly became independent.  In other words, we ran it for about 50 years.

South Korea provides a different example. We didn't run it, but we supported it, as a dictatorship, for about the same length of time.

And there's a real lesson there.  To build democracy, in real terms, sometimes you have to back the non-democratic.

Spain became democratic, ironically, because of Franco.  Nobody wants to admit it, but it's true.  Spanish democracy had collapsed in the mid 1930s and the country was going to be Communists, Anarchist, or Authoritarian.  Franco won, and he wasn't a democrat, but in later years he facilitated the transfer back to a civil government which was sustainable.  Salazar achieved the something, without even meaning to, in Portugal.

People like to call Afghanistan the "graveyard of empires", and it sort of is.  But not for the reason people imagine.  It's just hopelessly backwards and to really address its situation you have to try to advance it 2,000  years.  Unfortunately, you can't do that overnight, and you really can't do it with the culture that's in place.  We would have been better off turning the country over to a strong man who was at least our strong man.

There might be a lesson from Vietnam there too.  We got irritated with Diem as he wasn't a Democrat.  He wasn't. But he was the last guy who ran the South competently.  The country might have become a democracy eventually, but it would have taken a long time.  It still might, as at least it isn't hopelessly backwards like Afghanistan.

If we didn't have the stomach for that, and it appears we never did, we should have just done a raid.

Not sending "American boys to (fill in bank) boys should do for themselves". The President's speech.

I've posted on this on our thread cataloging wars, but I'll do so here again separately

Good afternoon.

I want to speak today to the unfolding situation in Afghanistan, the developments that have taken place in the last week and the steps we’re taking to address the rapidly evolving events.

My national security team and I have been closely monitoring the situation on the ground in Afghanistan and moving quickly to execute the plans we had put in place to respond to every contingency, including the rapid collapse we’re seeing now.

I’ll speak more in a moment about the specific steps we’re taking. But I want to remind everyone how we got here and what America’s interests are in Afghanistan.

We went to Afghanistan almost 20 years ago with clear goals: get those who attacked us on Sept. 11, 2001, and make sure Al Qaeda could not use Afghanistan as a base from which to attack us again. We did that. We severely degraded Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. We never gave up the hunt for Osama bin Laden and we got him.

That was a decade ago. Our mission in Afghanistan was never supposed to have been nation-building. It was never supposed to be creating a unified, centralized democracy. Our only vital national interest in Afghanistan remains today what it has always been: preventing a terrorist attack on American homeland.

I’ve argued for many years that our mission should be narrowly focused on counterterrorism, not counterinsurgency or nation-building. That’s why I opposed the surge when it was proposed in 2009 when I was vice president. And that’s why as president I’m adamant we focus on the threats we face today, in 2021, not yesterday’s threats.

Today a terrorist threat has metastasized well beyond Afghanistan. Al Shabab in Somalia, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Al Nusra in Syria, ISIS attempting to create a caliphate in Syria and Iraq and establishing affiliates in multiple countries in Africa and Asia. These threats warrant our attention and our resources. We conduct effective counterterrorism missions against terrorist groups in multiple countries where we don’t have permanent military presence. If necessary, we’ll do the same in Afghanistan. We’ve developed counterterrorism over-the-horizon capability that will allow us to keep our eyes firmly fixed on the direct threats to the United States in the region, and act quickly and decisively if needed.

When I came into office, I inherited a deal that President Trump negotiated with the Taliban. Under his agreement, U.S. forces would be out of Afghanistan by May 1, 2021, just a little over three months after I took office. U.S. forces had already drawn down during the Trump administration from roughly 15,500 American forces to 2,500 troops in country. And the Taliban was at its strongest militarily since 2001.

The choice I had to make as your president was either to follow through on that agreement or be prepared to go back to fighting the Taliban in the middle of the spring fighting season. There would have been no cease-fire after May 1. There was no agreement protecting our forces after May 1. There was no status quo of stability without American casualties after May 1. There was only the cold reality of either following through on the agreement to withdraw our forces or escalating the conflict and sending thousands more American troops back into combat in Afghanistan, and lurching into the third decade of conflict.

I stand squarely behind my decision. After 20 years, I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw U.S. forces. That’s why we’re still there. We were cleareyed about the risks. We planned for every contingency. But I always promised the American people that I will be straight with you.

The truth is, this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated. So what’s happened? Afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country. The Afghan military collapsed, sometimes without trying to fight. If anything, the developments of the past week reinforced that ending U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan now was the right decision.

American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves. We spent over a trillion dollars. We trained and equipped an Afghan military force of some 300,000 strong. Incredibly well equipped. A force larger in size than the militaries of many of our NATO allies. We gave them every tool they could need. We paid their salaries, provided for the maintenance of their air force, something the Taliban doesn’t have. Taliban does not have an air force. We provided close air support. We gave them every chance to determine their own future. What we could not provide them was the will to fight for that future.

There are some very brave and capable Afghan special forces units and soldiers. But if Afghanistan is unable to mount any real resistance to the Taliban now, there is no chance that one year — one more year, five more years or 20 more years — that U.S. military boots on the ground would have made any difference.

Here’s what I believe to my core: It is wrong to order American troops to step up when Afghanistan’s own armed forces would not. The political leaders of Afghanistan were unable to come together for the good of their people, unable to negotiate for the future of their country when the chips were down. They would never have done so while U.S. troops remained in Afghanistan bearing the brunt of the fighting for them. And our true strategic competitors, China and Russia, would love nothing more than the United States to continue to funnel billions of dollars in resources and attention into stabilizing Afghanistan indefinitely.

When I hosted President Ghani and Chairman Abdullah at the White House in June, and again when I spoke by phone to Ghani in July, we had very frank conversations. We talked about how Afghanistan should prepare to fight their civil wars after the U.S. military departed. To clean up the corruption in government so the government could function for the Afghan people. We talked extensively about the need for Afghan leaders to unite politically. They failed to do any of that. I also urged them to engage in diplomacy, to seek a political settlement with the Taliban. This advice was flatly refused. Mr. Ghani insisted the Afghan forces would fight, but obviously he was wrong.

So I’m left again to ask of those who argue that we should stay: How many more generations of America’s daughters and sons would you have me send to fight Afghanistan’s civil war when Afghan troops will not? How many more lives, American lives, is it worth, how many endless rows of headstones at Arlington National Cemetery? I’m clear on my answer: I will not repeat the mistakes we’ve made in the past. The mistake of staying and fighting indefinitely in a conflict that is not in the national interest of the United States, of doubling down on a civil war in a foreign country, of attempting to remake a country through the endless military deployments of U.S. forces. Those are the mistakes we cannot continue to repeat because we have significant vital interest in the world that we cannot afford to ignore.

I also want to acknowledge how painful this is to so many of us. The scenes that we’re seeing in Afghanistan, they’re gut-wrenching, particularly for our veterans, our diplomats, humanitarian workers — for anyone who has spent time on the ground working to support the Afghan people. For those who have lost loved ones in Afghanistan, and for Americans who have fought and served our country in Afghanistan, this is deeply, deeply personal. It is for me as well.

I’ve worked on these issues as long as anyone. I’ve been throughout Afghanistan during this war, while the war was going on, from Kabul to Kandahar, to the Kunar Valley. I’ve traveled there on four different occasions. I’ve met with the people. I’ve spoken with the leaders. I spent time with our troops, and I came to understand firsthand what was and was not possible in Afghanistan. So now we’re focused on what is possible.

We will continue to support the Afghan people. We will lead with our diplomacy, our international influence and our humanitarian aid. We’ll continue to push for regional diplomacy and engagement to prevent violence and instability. We’ll continue to speak out for the basic rights of the Afghan people, of women and girls, just as we speak out all over the world.

I’ve been clear, the human rights must be the center of our foreign policy, not the periphery. But the way to do it is not through endless military deployments. It’s with our diplomacy, our economic tools and rallying the world to join us.

Let me lay out the current mission in Afghanistan: I was asked to authorize, and I did, 6,000 U.S. troops to deploy to Afghanistan for the purpose of assisting in the departure of U.S. and allied civilian personnel from Afghanistan, and to evacuate our Afghan allies and vulnerable Afghans to safety outside of Afghanistan. Our troops are working to secure the airfield and ensure continued operation on both the civilian and military flights. We’re taking over air traffic control. We have safely shut down our embassy and transferred our diplomats. Our diplomatic presence is now consolidated at the airport as well.

Over the coming days we intend to transport out thousands of American citizens who have been living and working in Afghanistan. We’ll also continue to support the safe departure of civilian personnel — the civilian personnel of our allies who are still serving in Afghanistan. Operation Allies Refuge, which I announced back in July, has already moved 2,000 Afghans who are eligible for special immigration visas and their families to the United States. In the coming days, the U.S. military will provide assistance to move more S.I.V.-eligible Afghans and their families out of Afghanistan.

We’re also expanding refugee access to cover other vulnerable Afghans who work for our embassy. U.S. nongovernmental organizations and Afghans who otherwise are a great risk in U.S. news agencies — I know there are concerns about why we did not begin evacuating Afghan civilians sooner. Part of the answer is some of the Afghans did not want to leave earlier, still hopeful for their country. And part of it because the Afghan government and its supporters discouraged us from organizing a mass exodus to avoid triggering, as they said, a crisis of confidence.

American troops are performing this mission as professionally and as effectively as they always do. But it is not without risks. As we carry out this departure, we have made it clear to the Taliban: If they attack our personnel or disrupt our operation, the U.S. presence will be swift, and the response will be swift and forceful. We will defend our people with devastating force if necessary. Our current military mission is short on time, limited in scope and focused in its objectives: Get our people and our allies as safely and quickly as possible. And once we have completed this mission, we will conclude our military withdrawal. We will end America’s longest war after 20 long years of bloodshed.

The events we’re seeing now are sadly proof that no amount of military force would ever deliver a stable, united, secure Afghanistan, as known in history as the graveyard of empires. What’s happening now could just as easily happen five years ago or 15 years in the future. We have to be honest, our mission in Afghanistan made many missteps over the past two decades.

I’m now the fourth American president to preside over war in Afghanistan. Two Democrats and two Republicans. I will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth president. I will not mislead the American people by claiming that just a little more time in Afghanistan will make all the difference. Nor will I shrink from my share of responsibility for where we are today and how we must move forward from here. I am president of the United States of America, and the buck stops with me.

I’m deeply saddened by the facts we now face. But I do not regret my decision to end America’s war-fighting in Afghanistan and maintain a laser focus on our counterterrorism mission, there and other parts of the world. Our mission to degrade the terrorist threat of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and kill Osama bin Laden was a success. Our decades-long effort to overcome centuries of history and permanently change and remake Afghanistan was not, and I wrote and believed it never could be.

I cannot and will not ask our troops to fight on endlessly in another country’s civil war, taking casualties, suffering life-shattering injuries, leaving families broken by grief and loss. This is not in our national security interest. It is not what the American people want. It is not what our troops who have sacrificed so much over the past two decades deserve. I made a commitment to the American people when I ran for president that I would bring America’s military involvement in Afghanistan to an end. While it’s been hard and messy and, yes, far from perfect, I’ve honored that commitment.

More importantly, I made a commitment to the brave men and women who serve this nation that I wasn’t going to ask them to continue to risk their lives in a military action that should’ve ended long ago. Our leaders did that in Vietnam when I got here as a young man. I will not do it in Afghanistan.

I know my decision will be criticized. But I would rather take all that criticism than pass this decision on to another president of the United States, yet another one, a fifth one. Because it’s the right one, it’s the right decision for our people. The right one for our brave service members who risked their lives serving our nation. And it’s the right one for America.

Thank you. May God protect our troops, our diplomats and all brave Americans serving in harm’s way.

I continue to be amazed by how the country has consistently made resort to politicians from the Baby Boom generation which are also, it might be noted, the Vietnam War era generation.

George Bush II, who committed the US to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, was the second one, following Clinton, who had not served in the war, who was the first.  Bush had been in the Texas Air National Guard which is real service.

The next one was Donald Trump, who had not served.  Trump may or may not have evaded service, depending upon whatever the truth of his medical disqualification for service was.  Joe Biden also had medical deferments, for asthma.

I note this in part because this speech recalls the Vietnam War so strongly.  We've blamed the military of the nation we abandoned for not wanting to fight, much like we blamed the ARVN for the same, and still do, not appreciating I suppose the culture of the nation they're in, and the situation they found themselves in.

I'll post a separate summation of what I think happened in Afghanistan, but blaming the people we left behind and political predecessors doesn't really excuse an incompetent present assessment of the situation, which is what occured.

President Biden hasn't been in office long. . .

as we all know, so he is of course still dealing with things that started in the prior administration.

But at some point you own the problems you are presented with in high office, and frankly by this point, as to most of them, Biden does.

This is motivated by the disaster in Afghanistan.  A minimal retention of US forces in the country would have kept the Taliban from taking control of the country.  While some may hope against hope as to what this means, what it does mean is a return to a hard line Islamic rule by men alone and brutal punishment for all who transgress from an Islamic rule of a severity known nowhere else on the globe.  We'll be back, probably from the air, as this grows into a terror problem for us.

We didn't have to take over the country in 2001, but we ultimately did, and once you do that, it's your responsibility.  You can't reform a country that is 2,000 years behind the times overnight, and of course we didn't. The Afghanis aren't wanting a hardcore Islamic rule, but they haven't had any experience with a strong central government since the 1970s, and they've never had any real experience with a democratic one.  It would have taken time, perhaps a lot of time.  It took us fifty years in the Philippines, for example.

That was our obligation.

Every American President has claimed he wanted out of the country since we first went in.  President Obama started the process of withdrawing, only to have to engage in the "surge" in order to try to set the stage for that.  The stage never set, even though the surge was successful.  President Trump started the withdrawal in his waning days of office.  President Biden didn't have to complete it.

He still doesn't.

He's going to, even though he shouldn't.

Inflation is also now ramping up distressingly, a lot of which is due to the impact of the Coronavirus Recession abating.  That origin isn't his fault, but violently hurling cash at the economy at this point is going to make it worse.  Economist have been warning against this, and not warning against it at the same time, as that's how they are, but that's where we're headed.

That needs to be addressed, and immediately, by the President as well. But the temptation to buy everything possible seems to have the Democrats, and even some Republicans, like toddlers in a candy store.

The southern border with Mexico is in complete utter disarray and being flooded with deluded illegal migrants who believe that the US is the answer to all of their problems.  Like it or not, this problem was much more under control during the Trump administration. Biden virtually declared the border open before he was even President, and this disaster resulted.  It's not being adequately addressed.

There's a lot that needs to be addressed in the nation.  The January 6 insurrection put a rift in the population like none other.  But events develop due to what a President does and doesn't do, some of which are well outside of their personal control.  Wilson didn't want World War One, but he got it.  Lyndon Johnson hoped to build a Great Society, but he got Vietnam.  

Great, or at least adequate, Presidents rise to the occasion and look the problems in the eye and act on them, and hope to get back to their real focus.  Probably Roosevelt and Truman give us the best relatively recent modern examples of that.  Johnson might give us the worst.

Things aren't looking too good right now.

Kabul airport

 Kabul airport.

Saturday August 16, 1941. Lethal discipline in the Red Army.

Red Army soldier, you will not surrender your love to the Hitler's soldiers for the shame and dishonor.

On this day in 1941, Stalin issued Order No. 270

It provided:

Order of the Supreme Command of the Red Army on August 16, 1941, No. 270; "On the responsibility of the military for surrender and leaving weapons to the enemy"

Not only our friends, but also our enemies are forced to acknowledge that, in our war of liberation from German-Fascist invaders, that elements of the Red Army, the vast majority of them, their commanders and commissars conduct themselves with good behavior, courageously, and sometimes – outright heroically. Even those parts of our army who, by circumstances are detached from the army and encircled, preserve the spirit of resistance and courage, not surrendering, trying to cause more damage to the enemy and to leave the encirclement. It is known that such parts of our army continue to attack the enemy, and take every opportunity to defeat the enemy and break out of their encirclement.

Deputy Commander of the Western Front, Lieutenant-General Boldin, while in the 10th Army near Bialystok and surrounded by German-Fascist troops, organized from deep in the enemy's rear Red Army troops, who fought for 45 days behind enemy lines and made their way to the main forces of the Western Front. They destroyed the headquarters of two German regiments, 26 tanks, 1,049 passenger vehicles, transport vehicles and staff cars, 147 motorcycles, five batteries of artillery, four mortars, 15 machine guns, eight machine guns, one airplane at the airport and a bomb arsenal.

More than a thousand German soldiers and officers were killed. On 11 August Lieutenant-General Boldin struck the Germans from behind, broke through the German front, united with our troops, and led out of the encirclement 1,654 personnel and officers of the Red Army, including 103 wounded.

The commissar of the 8th Mechanized Corps, Brigade Commissar Popiel and the commander of the 406th Rifle Regiment, Colonel Novikov, have fought out of encirclement with 1,778 soldiers. During a bitter battle with the Germans, the Novikov-Popel group travelled 650 kilometres, causing huge losses to the enemy's rear.

The commander of the 3rd Army, Lieutenant-General Kuznetsov and Member of the Military Council, Army Commissar 2nd Rank Biryukov fought out of encirclement with 498 soldiers and officers of the 3rd Army, and led out of encirclement the 108th and 64th Infantry Divisions.

All these and many other similar facts show the resilience of our troops; the high morale of our soldiers, commanders and commissars.

But we cannot hide that recently there have been some shameful acts of surrender. Certain generals have been a bad example to our troops.

The commander of the 28th Army, Lieutenant General Kachalov who – together with his headquarters troops – was surrounded, showed cowardice and surrendered to the German fascists. However, the headquarters of Kachalov came out of encirclement, a small group from the encirclement of Kachalov's group, and Lt.-Gen. Kachalov chose to surrender – chose to defect to the enemy.

Lieutenant-General Ponedelin, commander of the 12th Army was encircled by the enemy, but had ample opportunity to get through them, as did the vast majority of his army. But Ponedelin has not shown due persistence and will to win, was panicked, frightened – and surrendered to the enemy, deserted to the enemy, thus committing the crime against the country of breaking a military oath.

The commander of the 13th Rifle Corps, Major General Kirillov, was surrounded by German-Fascist forces and, rather than to fulfill his duty to the country, entrusted to him to organize stubborn resistance of the enemy and to move out of encirclement, deserted the field of battle and surrendered to the enemy. As a result the 13th Rifle Corps was broken, and some of them without serious resistance surrendered.

In all the above situations some military council members, commanders, political workers, special section members, that were present in the encirclement, showed an unacceptable distraction, shameful cowardice and did not even try to become motivated to prevent Kachalov, Ponedelin, Kirillov and others to surrender to the enemy.

These shameful facts of surrender to our sworn enemy testify that there are unstable, cowardly, cowardly elements in the ranks of the Red Army, which is staunchly and selflessly defending its Soviet Motherland from the vile invaders. And these cowardly elements are not only among the Red Army, but also among the commanding staff. As you know, some commanders and political workers by their behavior, not only at the front of the Red Army did not show a sample of courage, strength and love of country, and vice versa hide in crevices in the offices are busy, do not see and do not observe the field of battle, and when the first serious challenges to combat shrink from the enemy, tear off his insignia, a deserter from the battlefield.

Can we put up with in the Red Army cowards, deserters who surrender themselves to the enemy as prisoners or their craven superiors, who at the first hitch on the front tear off their insignia and desert to the rear? No we can not! If we unleash these cowards and deserters they, in a very short time, will destroy our country. Cowards and deserters must be destroyed.

Can we assume battalion commanders and commanders of regiments, who hide in crevices during combat, do not see the battlefield, and make no progress on the field of battle are regimental commanders and battalions? No we can not! These are not commanders of regiments and battalions, they are impostors.

If such impostors are unleashed, they soon turn our army into a massive bureaucracy. These impostors should be immediately dismissed from office, reduced in post to the rank and file, transferred, and if necessary shot on the spot, before appointing in their place bold and courageous people from the ranks of junior command personnel or soldiers.

I ORDER:

•          That commanders and political officers who, during combat tear off their insignia and desert to the rear or surrender to the enemy, be considered malicious deserters whose families are subject to arrest as a family, for violation of an oath and betrayal of their homeland.

·         All higher commanders and commissars are required to shoot on the spot any such deserters from among command personnel.

·         Encircled units and formations to selflessly fight to the last, to protect materiel like the apple of their eye, to break through from the rear of enemy troops, defeating the fascist dogs.

·         That every soldier is obliged, regardless of his or her position, to demand that their superiors, if part of their unit is surrounded, to fight to the end, to break through, and if a superior or a unit of the Red Army – instead of organizing resistance to the enemy – prefers to become a prisoner they should be destroyed by all means possible on land and air, and their families deprived of public benefits and assistance.

·         Division commanders and commissars are obliged to immediately shift from their posts commanders of battalions and regiments, who hide in crevices during battle and those who fear directing a fight on the battlefield; to reduce their positions, as impostors, to be demoted to the ranks, and when necessary to shoot them on the spot, bringing to their place bold and courageous people, from among junior command personnel or those among the ranks of the Red Army who have excelled.

This order is to be read in all companies, squadrons, batteries, squadrons, teams and staffs.

Headquarters of the Supreme Command, Red Army

Chairman of the State Defence Committee J. STALIN

Deputy Chairman of the State Defence Committee V. MOLOTOV

Marshal S. BUDYONNY

Marshal S. TIMOSHENKO

Marshal B. SHAPOSHNIKOV

General of the Army G. ZHUKOV

This was the beginning of direct lethal action by the Soviets against surrendering and retreating members of the Red Army.  It wasn't unprecedented, however, as Stalin had already decimated the Red Army's officer corps prior to the war for bizarre and trumped up political reasons.  It all provided evidence of his absolute control over the Soviet Union, as at this point many other leaders would have been deposed.

Red Army desertions never stopped during the war, and amazingly occurred even late in the war.  The numbers were quite substantial.  The Germans never took advantage of this to the extent they could have, as they regarded the Russians as subhuman.

On the same day, the Germans began to take Black Sea ports in Ukraine.

And Winston Churchill, on his way home from Newfoundland, stopped by in Iceland.

Tuesday, August 16, 1921. Dáil Éireann convenes.

The Dáil Éireann convened in Dublin in spite of the United Kingdom's position that without dominion status, an independent government in Ireland would not be recognized.

The "Second Dáil" would become the one that engaged in the long awkward process of sorting out Irish independence.

Prince Alexander, hospitalized in France due to appendicitis, became King of Yugoslavia due to the death of his father, King Peter.

The Soviet Union announced a partial revocation of prohibition in the USSR, allowing for alcoholic beverages of now more than 14% ABU.

Woodrow Wilson returned to the practice of law for the first time in decades.  He would not do it for long.

Afghanistan: What We Should Do.

 I thought I was alone in this opinion, but in Bloomberg's editorial today:

Even at this late date, the U.S. should stand with what remains of the national government and the heroic holdouts in the Afghan armed forces. Targeted U.S. air strikes and a rushed deployment of 5,000 American troops may yet stave off a collapse of the capital and buy precious time for evacuations. But no one should doubt the end game: In all likelihood, the Taliban will soon be in complete command.

And:

As a start, the administration must offer more help to the Afghan people. It should continue funding the government and military as long as they remain viable, while also offering aid to civil society. It should accelerate efforts to evacuate the roughly 17,000 Afghans who worked for the U.S. — as cooks, translators, drivers, security guards and engineers — and have now become targets, along with their families. It should make every possible effort to enable imperiled Afghans in the broader population to flee, including establishing air corridors. And it should work with its allies to establish a viable resettlement plan for refugees, while pressuring Pakistan and Iran to accept their share.

Not exactly my view.

I subscribe more to the "you broke it, you bought it" model of things.  And this is our responsibility.

We should stand with stand with the remaining Afghan forces still fighting, and by standing with them, go back in, in force while we still have a toehold.

Let's be honest, the Taliban isn't the Herman Goering Division, or a seasoned NVA unit in 1975.  It's never been that adept of a fighting force.  It is, basically, a religiously motivated force of very light infantry.  If we go back in, it'll collapse rapidly.

We should.

But we won't. We will instead sit by cowardly and wring our hands about how awful this is, and in a few weeks be blaming the Afghans for their loss.

Not that this isn't without some merit. The country never put together a government anyone could love.  People who might wonder why the Saur Revolution happened in 1978 have an idea now. The country is a mess.

None of which proves the opposite.  A brave nation would go back in.  We're not going to do that.

Defeat in Afghanistan

This morning, when I stumbled out of bed at what has now become a stress induced "late" time for me of 4:45 a.m., and then clicked on the computer and saw the morning's news, I saw a photograph of a Chinook helicopter landing on the US embassy roof in Kabul.

The Taliban has entered Kabul.

It immediately made me recall the North Vietnamese Army entering Saigon and our embassy personnel being taken off the roof.

There is no reason this had to happen.  And it's going to be a bloody disaster.  

That blood will be on our hands.

There's a lot of reasons this has occurred, and the blame for the disaster goes back to President Bush II and his Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld.  There was never a reason for the United States to launch a war against Iraq in 2001 and the fact that we committed our forces, there, rather than in Afghanistan were there was a dire need to do so, set us off on a half cocked strategy of minimal force that allowed the Taliban to continue to exist and, eventually, recover.

Beyond that, the simple fact of the matter is that the American concept of instant national reform, simply because we are there, is idiotic.  Germany didn't reform at the end of World War One.  It took a second war and the dismantling of the nation to cause that to occur, and it had somewhat of a history of civil government.  Japan, which had a parliament that had been semi functioning as well before it was co-opted by the military, saw its military dismantled and its culture swamped by Americans.  Simply setting up a democratic government and thinking it was going to work right away was naive.

An American general has recently opined that significant forces in the nation combined with an intent to stay until 2030 was what was really needed.  Rather than that, we hoped for a cheap and easy war and that people would suddenly become democratic and peaceful as that's in their DNA.  Recent events should cause us to question if that's even in our political DNA.

If we were going to just go in, get Bin Laden, and not worry about what happened after, we could have done that.  We didn't.  And that was an option. A big raid just designed to kill Bin Laden could have been done. But once you invade a country, it's your responsibility.

There's no excuse for this whatsoever, and every American administration from George Bush II on deserves the blame for it.  There's going to be piles of hand wringing and excuse making, and one of the things we will here is that our actions over the last several months don't really mean that our troops died in vain.

A person should question that.