Cal Thomas - Penalty for early withdrawal

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, July 15th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Here’s commentator Cal Thomas.

CAL THOMAS, COMMENTATOR: Retirement plans warn of a “penalty for early withdrawal.” Might that also apply to the withdrawal of American and NATO forces from Afghanistan?

If you set aside the victory by coalition forces that expelled Saddam Hussein's overmatched troops from Kuwait in 1991, the United States has not won a war since World War II. Not in Korea. Not in Vietnam. And President Biden now says Afghanistan is another war we cannot win.

Osama bin Laden predicted this would happen. He said we didn't have the staying power and would ultimately tire of the conflict.

Our longest war may be ending. At least, that’s how President Biden put it. But it may only get worse from here. Terrorism knows no state boundaries. And it doesn’t adhere to classic rules of warfare.

U.S. air power largely kept the Taliban at bay. Without it they are re-capturing territories they once held before 9/11.

President Biden and former President Trump, who first announced the withdrawal of U.S. forces, say America cannot engage in “nation building.” Even recent history has proved that true. But the larger question is whether we can defend ourselves against further attacks on this country if Al-Qaeda regroups. What if, with the help of Iran, it stages another 9/11-type attack? What if it’s worse this time? What if it involves nuclear devices?

All wars cost money, lives, and limbs. We just have to decide whether that investment was worth it. Did it produce the outcome we wanted, or needed?

Brown University’s Cost of War project offers some data to help answer that question. It found that the combined cost of our involvement in Afghanistan is over $2 trillion dollars. That doesn’t include lifetime care for veterans or future interest payments on money borrowed to fund the fighting.

It also counts the human cost: 241,000 lives lost. That includes 24-00 U.S. service members, nearly 4,000 contractors, and more than 71,000 civilians.

Will we build a "wall" to commemorate those U.S. deaths? The Vietnam Veterans Memorial still haunts me when I visit it in Washington, D.C. I knew some of the people whose names are carved into the black granite. My name might have been one of them. As an Army enlisted man, I received orders for Vietnam. I ultimately got re-assigned, due to my position at Armed Forces Radio in New York. More than 58,300 others were not as fortunate.

What did we learn from Vietnam? Obviously nothing because we have repeated history in Afghanistan. We had no “end game,” except to hold off the Taliban, a terror group motivated by religious fervor that has no intention of quitting.

If Al-Qaeda regroups under the Taliban’s watch and launches another terror attack against the United States, how will we respond? And who will take the blame?

I’m Cal Thomas.

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