US ‘misplaced’ the 20-year warfare in Afghanistan: Top US basic

The high US basic conceded in a stark admission on Wednesday that the United States “lost” the 20-year warfare in Afghanistan.

“It is clear, it is obvious to all of us, that the war in Afghanistan did not end on the terms we wanted, with the Taliban in power in Kabul,” General Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the House Armed Services Committee.“The war was a strategic failure,” Milley told a committee hearing about the US troop pullout from Afghanistan and the chaotic evacuation from the capital Kabul.“It wasn’t lost in the last 20 days or even 20 months,” Milley stated.“There’s a cumulative effect to a series of strategic decisions that go way back,” stated the final, the highest army advisor to President Joe Biden, who ordered an finish to the 20-year US troop presence in Afghanistan.”Whenever you get some phenomenon like a war that is lost — and it has been, in the sense of we accomplished our strategic task of protecting America against Al-Qaeda, but certainly the end state is a whole lot different than what we wanted,” Milley stated.”So whenever a phenomenon like that happens, there’s an awful lot of causal factors,” he stated. “And we’re going to have to figure that out. A lot of lessons learned here.”Milley listed quite a lot of components chargeable for the US defeat going again to a missed alternative to seize or kill Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora quickly after the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan.He additionally cited the 2003 determination to invade Iraq, which shifted US troops away from Afghanistan, “not effectively dealing with Pakistan as a (Taliban) sanctuary,” and pulling advisers out of Afghanistan a couple of years in the past.Biden, in April, ordered a whole pullout of US forces from Afghanistan by August 31, following by on an settlement reached with the Taliban by former president Donald Trump.Milley and General Kenneth McKenzie, commander of US Central Command, instructed a Senate committee on Tuesday that that they had personally advisable that some 2,500 troops stay on the bottom in Afghanistan.White House press secretary Jen Psaki stated Biden had acquired “split” recommendation about what to do in Afghanistan, which the United States invaded following September 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda assaults on New York and Washington.“Ultimately, it’s up to the commander-in-chief to make a decision,” Psaki stated. “He made a decision that it was time to end a 20-year war.”Also learn:’Strategic failure’: Top US basic’s testimony on 20-year warfare in AfghanistanAlso learn: Taliban warn US in opposition to working drones over Afghan airspace