There are various ways the U.S. could commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on our homeland. Joe Biden has decided to commemorate them by effectively surrendering to the terrorist outfit that made the attacks possible.
Biden says the U.S. will withdraw from Afghanistan by September 11 of this year. There are arguments in favor of pulling out of that country, although I believe the stronger case is for maintaining our current presence (a subject for a future post). Donald Trump talked about withdrawing for four years and eventually set a May 2022 [correction: May 2021] date for giving up.
Biden also wants to pull out. Fine. But doesn’t it seem odd to pick September 11 as the date by which we effectively surrender Afghanistan to the Taliban? It was the Taliban, after all, that allied itself with Osama bin Laden and provided him the base from which to attack America.
Biden’s choice of date is symbolic. I suppose his message is that 20 years of fighting in Afghanistan is enough. That message plays well with the Democratic base and, quite possibly, with the country as a whole.
But the message many will receive, especially terrorists and other adversaries, is that the U.S. has so little self respect that it symbolically chooses 9/11 as the date for accepting defeat in Afghanistan at the hands of an enemy that helped pull off the devastating 9/11 attack on America.
Shortly after the attack, President Bush visited Ground Zero. He promised that those responsible for the attack would be “hearing from us.”
They did. Now, for the twentieth anniversary of the attack, one of the groups responsible is again hearing from us. They’re hearing Joe Biden say, Afghanistan is all yours.
Great nations don’t behave this way. I would have thought that no nation does.
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