Show Me Your Plan

The breastbeating about the U. S. withdrawal from Afghanistan continues, this time in the form of a Washington Post column by Josh Rogin:

When President Biden chose in April to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by September, we were among those who judged that the result would be a disaster for the country’s 38 million people — and in particular, its women. Now, that tragedy appears to be unfolding more quickly than even many of the pessimists imagined. In recent weeks, Taliban forces have captured dozens of districts in a nationwide offensive, surrounding several provincial capitals and blocking key roads into Kabul. On Tuesday, the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Austin S. Miller, met with reporters and warned with remarkable bluntness that “civil war is certainly a path that can be visualized,” adding: “That should be a concern for the world.”

concluding:

Mr. Biden has long been a skeptic of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, and he has stuck to that position even as the number of troops and expenditure dedicated to it have drastically shrunk. His view has been that the war against the Taliban is unnecessary and unwinnable. But the descent from stalemate to defeat could be steep and grim. We wonder whether he has fully considered the consequences.

Not one of those who lament our withdrawal from Afghanistan has proposed a mitigation plan that did not involve occupying Afghanistan permanently, taking casualties every step of the way. We’ve got to remember that this day was always going to come unless we were willing to occupy Afghanistan forever which four consecutive presidents said was not the case. Responding to 9/11 was a necessity; invading Afghanistan led to the occupation which led to today.

I believe it is incumbent on those who are now lamenting our withdrawal to produce their mitigation plans. They should also explain how permanent occupation of Afghanistan is in our national interest. Show me your plan.