https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-real-tragedy-of-afghanistan/[Any story of the August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan must begin in the earliest days of the Obama administration, when the young president, possessed with an overwhelming mandate to end the endless wars begun by his predecessor, was rolled by members of his own cabinetmost notably Secretary of State Hillary Clintonand his top military and intelligence advisers, who together prevented the president from doing what he was sent to Washington to do: End the disastrous wars begun under George W. Bush.
Almost alone among Obama's advisers counseling withdrawal were his vice president, Joe Biden, and Biden's longtime adviser Tom Donilon, then serving as Obama's national security adviser.
Twelve years later, President Biden must have felt some measure of satisfaction that it was he who was able to do that which his two predecessors, Obama and Trump, could or would not, when he ordered the final withdrawal of American troops from that Central Asian wasteland.
And yet, as with anything involving Biden and his national security team of Keystone Cops, all did not go as planned.
The decision to withdraw from Afghanistan was and remains a deeply divisive one. While Biden for once showed some measure of political courage in ordering the withdrawal, the execution went badly awry. Tragically, on Aug. 26, 2021, thirteen American soldiers and 170 Afghan civilians were killed in a terrorist attack by the Islamic StateKhorasan Province at the Abbey Gate of Hamid Karzai International Airport....]
