MinnPost. One must read the entire thing.
It says negotiation should have been tried instead of a military solution.
Trump and Pompeo negotiated, for Christsakes. Biden is following the agreement as it was negotiated. That is why we are finally getting out and letting the nation half a world away drift into its future. Finally, finally cutting losses and withdrawing.
And to write the entire thing without any mention of poppies and heroin is to be either ill-informed or snaking with the facts as if writing for morons.
And DIA was headed by Flynn, who was of the belief that we had to "understand the culture" and how to meet expectations of good, rather than militarism alone, the heavy boot on the chest. Obama removed Flynn from heading DIA.
Go figure that one. Suggesting Obama did not like anything beyond drone strikes, midnight hit squads, and whatever? Low engagement, status quo.
So what was the objective? That is the question this analyst presumes without thought. To be honest, beyond control of the heroin trade, was there an objective?
Was there any sense at all at play during the entire twenty years messing that country up more than the Russians then the Taliban messed it up.
Make it unstable so the Chinese could not reliably build a trouble free pipeline from the Caspian region to them? Some sane thought, of some kind?
Ask Condi Rice? She'd likely give the word equivalent of a piano recital. She's said to be skilled at piano.
There will be Afghan resiliency. That is the only option. But what it will look like with resilience, in five or ten years, is an open question.
The Golden Triangle, withdrawal in failure; then Afghanistan, withdrawal in failure, with the DEA named "Drug Enforcement Agency" and not "Drug Eradication Agency." Seemingly for a reason.
As to what Pompeo and the one Taliban rep. arrived at as a plan after negotiating, I surely don't know. I was not there. Pompeo has done little but say he'd have done a more orderly exit. He's bullshiting, clearly, but what's the terms and conditions he ended up bringing home to Trump? What were the terms of a deal? Is that a forbidden question, for National Security Reasons?
But there was a timetable Trump/Pompeo failed to meet but with troop drawdowns during their final year. Aimed in a military stand down, slippage in the timetable.
Biden extended the timetable and seems to have no will to try to stretch things further than now. He likely is right doing so. Trump ended Iraq, and set things to end Afghanistan. And backed out of Syria where Obama farted us into that dumb intervention.
So the press, of course, talks of insurrection and Jan. 6, ignoring the man did demilitarize U.S. foreign policy, to a degree, and if only for a moment.
Still, the current situation is short term chaos, while long term superior to what Obama stepped into and perpetuated, handing things off to Trump in a viscous status quo, and it was Trump who changed course. Give him due credit.
In closing -
Why was Bush the elder called Poppy Bush? CIA background and all? That's always been an unsure thing to me.
UPDATE: Footing the MinnPost item is the authorship blurb -
Alex Betley is a recent graduate of the Tufts University Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and an ISSP Civil Resistance Fellow. Before Fletcher, he studied philosophy, politics, and economics at St. Olaf College. He can be followed on Twitter @ambetley.
Wtf is "an ISSP Civil Resistance Fellow?" Link.
________FURTHER UPDATE________
On the question of Flynn, whether he got things right in suggesting DIA operatives leave DC desks and get in the field to find out what is what, or was showboating, opinions online differ: Observer. PJMedia. IntelToday. WaPo. defensesystems.com
Turmp trusted Flynn, and made the moves to end Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan stasis. The opinion here is we are better with the three failures behind us.
While other problems haunted the Trump administration, his war policy stands as a departure from what came before. What came before is judged many ways, pro and con.