The last member of the United States military left Afghanistan before midnight on August 30, 2021 – about 19 years and 47 weeks after they entered Afghanistan after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Approximately 800,000 Americans have served in Afghanistan over the past nearly 20 years.
The Joe Biden administration botched
the final exit from Afghanistan – much like they have done in every other
single thing that they have done in the past seven months. The presence of
Americans in Afghanistan has kept America safe from terrorist attacks for 20
years. The military has been successful in this mission. After all the
successes of the military, the civilians in the Biden administration
surrendered to the Taliban, the terrorist group that now controls Afghanistan.
There have been many complaints
about the cost of the equipment that Biden left in Afghanistan. The failure to
bring out the equipment will damage America for many years. However, the costs
of being in Afghanistan has been many times greater. According to Emily Crane
the costs of Americans being in Afghanistan are as follow:
·
Deaths
of U.S. service members from the Afghanistan war: approximately 2,400.
·
Wounded
Americans from the Afghanistan war: 20,000.
·
Number
of other allied troops killed in the Afghanistan war: about 1,144.
·
Number
of Afghan troops killed: 66,000.
·
Number
of Afghan civilians killed: 48,000.
·
Number
of Afghans injured in the Afghanistan war: 75,000.
·
Number
of U.S. service members killed last week: 13.
·
Number
of Afghans killed by the ISIS suicide bomber last week: 170.
·
Number
of journalists killed in Afghanistan between 2001 and April 2021: 77.
·
Number
of humanitarian aid workers killed in Afghanistan between 2001 and April 2021:
444.
·
Total
estimated financial cost for fighting the Afghanistan war: $2.313 trillion – or
$300 million per day.
·
Financial
costs for the fighting alone: $837 billion.
·
Financial
costs for rebuilding things such as Afghanistan’s security forces, government
institutions, and the economy: $145 billion.
·
Financial
costs for buildings and vehicles since 2008: $7.8 billion.
(About $2 billion “was essentially wasted”
because those buildings and vehicles “fell into disrepair or were no longer
being used as intended.”
·
The
exact value of the weapons and equipment left in Afghanistan was not available,
but it is most “likely to be in the tens of millions of dollars.”
·
Number
of people evacuated by the United States and its allies over the past two
months: more than 122,000.
·
Number
of civilians flown out of Kabul on U.S military aircraft since August 14:
79,000.
·
Number
of American civilians flown out on U.S. military aircraft since August 14:
6,000.
·
Number
of Afghans and other-country citizens flown out on U.S. military aircraft since
August 14: 73,500.
·
Number
of Americans left behind: somewhere between 100 and 200 who wanted to leave
Afghanistan but were unable to catch a flight.
If the Biden administration had followed
the plan presented to them by the Trump administration, all the civilians would
have been taken out first, then the equipment, and then the military. However,
Biden could not follow a plan made by Trump because of his “Trump = bad”
attitude, but he erred badly. Trump’s plan would have gotten Americans out by
May 1, 2021, before the “fighting season” in Afghanistan that takes place in
the summer months.
However, Biden wanted a big photo op for the twentieth anniversary of September 11, so he changed the date for leaving Afghanistan to August 31, 2021. He chose the date, and the Taliban held him to it. He took out the military first and essentially gave the territory and the equipment to the Taliban before he took out the civilians. He made a huge mistake, and he should be forced to leave office. Biden is casting in concrete his status as the WORST President of the United States in history – much worse than Jimmy Carter or even Barack Obama!
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