To the Editor:

Much has been written about President Joe Biden botching the end of the war in Afghanistan. Little has been written in his defense.

Let’s face facts. We had been at war in Afghanistan for 20 years at a cost of over $2 trillion and the death of nearly 2,500 United States soldiers. Our efforts to establish a democratic Afghan government and to build a strong Afghan army had failed.

Instead, the corrupt, incompetent government that resulted was unable to govern or to gain popular support and the weakly-led, U.S.-dependent Afghan army never became a viable force. Both vanished in less than two weeks of fighting the Taliban.

The three presidents before Biden all saw the uselessness of continuing the war but lacked the courage to tell Americans the truth and get us out. Biden had the guts to say it’s over.

No doubt the ending of the war could have been handled better but such an operation is never pretty. All our troops and almost 125,000 individuals including over 6,000 Americans have so far been airlifted out. Hopefully, the remaining American citizens, some who have not yet committed to leaving, and many more of the Afghans who worked with the Americans will be able to leave the country.

To get the international recognition needed to get aid and to borrow money to run the government, the Taliban will have to modify its religious restrictions especially as regards women.

Some people say we should have been better prepared to leave, that we should have seen what was coming, that we should have done more to get our citizens and Afghan allies out earlier. Many now admit that the eventual takeover by the Taliban was inevitable.

What no one saw was the swift failure of the government and the army. General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, “There was nothing … that indicated a collapse of this army and government in 11 days.”

Former President Donald Trump’s counterterrorism and acting defense secretary Chris Miller said the missed speed of the Taliban takeover was “... an intelligence failure of cataclysmic proportions.”

Even so, there were early calls warning Americans to get out. On May 15, the U.S. embassy encouraged “... U.S. citizens to make plans to leave Afghanistan as soon as possible.” On Aug. 7, the State Department urged Americans to leave and provided funds for them to purchase flight tickets.

To those who say we shouldn’t have left so suddenly, keep in mind the cards Biden was dealt. In February 2020, Trump signed an agreement with the Taliban to free 5,000 Taliban prisoners in exchange for the Taliban agreeing to stop attacking U.S. servicemen. To sweeten the deal, he promised our complete withdrawal in 14 months.

Although Biden delayed Trump’s withdrawal deadline by a few months, any further postponement would have triggered an aggressive Taliban response, requiring him to send in more U.S. troops. The number of them killed would have been many more than the 13 who died in the ISIS-K suicide attack at the Kabul airport.

Afghanistan is not Germany or Korea where we maintain a continuing military presence as a bulwark against Russian and Chinese aggression. The majority of Americans know this and wanted us out.

As for those who think otherwise, as Ross Douthat in The New York Times put it, they are the very “generals and grand strategists who presided over quagmire, folly, and defeat” for two decades.

Charles Rielly

Altamont