It is official….the Afghanistan War is over and our troops have departed.

In the early hours of 3 August (Afghan tine) the last plane flew out of Kabul airport….

n Washington, the US confirmed the withdrawal of its last troops, which faced a self-imposed Tuesday deadline. In announcing the completion of the evacuation and war effort. Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of US Central Command, said the last planes took off from Kabul airport at 3:29pm Washington time, or one minute before midnight in Kabul. The evacuation effort, set to end Aug 31, was wrapped up a full day early, with military equipment loaded onto transport planes before the last US service members flew out, reports the New York Times.

“Tonight’s withdrawal signifies both the end of the military component of the evacuation, but also the end of the nearly 20-year mission that began in Afghanistan shortly after September 11 2001,” McKenzie said, per the Guardian. “It is a mission that brought Osama bin Laden to justice along with many of his al-Qaeda co-conspirators. The cost, he said, was “2,461 US service members and civilians killed and more than 20,000 who were injured.”

Then with all the criticism fro  the idiot Right the president wen on-air to explain and thank the troops….

Addressing the nation, a defensive President Biden on Tuesday called the US military airlift to extract more than 120,000 Afghans, Americans, and other allies to end a 20-year war an “extraordinary success,” though more than 100 Americans and thousands of Afghans looking to leave remain in the country. Twenty-four hours after the departure of the last American C-17 cargo plane from Kabul, Biden vigorously defended his decision to end America’s longest war and withdraw all US troops ahead of an Aug. 31 deadline, the AP reports. “I was not going to extend this forever war,” Biden said in an address from the White House State Dining Room. “And I was not going to extend a forever exit.”

Biden said the US government had reached out 19 times since March—prior to his public announcement that he was going to end the US war—to encourage all American citizens in Afghanistan to leave. He acknowledged that 100 to 200 were unable to get out when the airlift ended Monday. Biden asserted that his administration was ready when the US -backed government in Kabul collapsed in mid-August and the Taliban took over. The last Air Force transport plane departed Kabul one minute before midnight Monday, raising questions about why Biden didn’t continue the airlift for at least another day. He had set Tuesday as a deadline for ending the evacuation and withdrawing the last US troops.

 

 

Biden has faced tough questions about the way the US went about leaving Afghanistan—a chaotic evacuation and spasms of violence including a suicide bomb that killed 13 American service members and 169 Afghans. But he said it was inevitable that the final departure from two decades of war would be difficult with likely violence, no matter when it was planned and conducted. “To those asking for a third decade of war in Afghanistan I ask, ‘What is the vital national interest?’” Biden said. He added, “I simply do not believe that the safety and security of America is enhanced by continuing to deploy thousands of American troops and spending billions of dollars in Afghanistan.”

Nice try prez but this will not silence the morons on the Right…’the Chickenhawks’…..for me this was spin and political speech setting up the issue for the 2024 campaigns.

Personally I am glad yo see this abortion of a foreign policy come to an end…..

But if you thought this would save the country some cash to be used elsewhere then you will be mistaken.

The last plane was barely airborne before a statement was issued…..

Defending his decision to withdraw from Afghanistan on Tuesday, President Biden said the “world is changing” and that the US is now “engaged in a serious competition with China.”

Since coming into office, President Biden has frequently framed China as an ideological competitor, and his Pentagon has identified Beijing as the top “pacing threat” facing the US military.

(antiwar.com)

And then the real bomb (no pun intended) was dropped….

As the US military is focused on China, Pentagon officials are inflating the threat of Beijing to justify more spending and expansion in Asia. Last week, the deputy commander of US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) claimed China will soon surpass Russia as Washington’s top nuclear threat.

“There’s going to be a point, a crossover point, where the number of threats presented by China will exceed the number of threats that currently Russia presents,” Lt. Gen. Thomas Bussiere told an online forum on Friday.

China’s nuclear arsenal is estimated to be somewhere between 300 and 350 warheads, while the US and Russia each possess around 6,000, give or take a few hundred. But Bussiere insists it is not the size of China’s arsenal that makes them a threat, but how they’re “operationally fielded.” He said he believes China will overtake Russia as a nuclear threat “in the next few years.”

(antiwar.com)

And that sports fans is how you keep the cash flowing into the Pentagon by the buckets…..find the new enemy that needs confronting.

We may be out of Afghanistan….but we will find a new way to find an enemy to use those unused weapons so they can be replaced at a higher price range.

All this just a new beginning for the waste of much needed funds.

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