This is how Afghanistan would change without US troops 4:12
(CNN) -
President Joe Biden's promise to withdraw US military personnel from Afghanistan before 9/11 is his effort - every one of the past four presidents has done one - to end America's longest war.
The deadline for Biden's withdrawal is significant: September 11, 2021 marks 20 years after the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania that led the United States to target Afghanistan in the first place.
Those two decades have seen more than 2,300 American military lives lost, tens of thousands of American wounded, countless Afghan casualties, and more than 2 trillion taxpayer dollars spent.
After all that, the last American soldiers to leave, some of them likely born after the 9/11 attacks, will leave parts of Afghanistan under the control of the same oppressive Taliban leaders who were there in 2001.
Here's a brief attempt to put those 20 years of war into perspective.
Where did the Taliban come from?
The Soviets occupied Afghanistan during the 1980s and eventually withdrew after resistance from fighters, collectively known as mujahideen.
Among them was Osama bin Laden.
The United States channeled arms and aided these anti-Soviet forces.
But in the post-Soviet power vacuum, the Taliban were formed under the leadership of Mullah Mohammed Omar, who wanted to create an Islamic society, drive foreign influences like television and music out of the country, and impose a repressive version of Islamic law that is particularly harsh on women.
In 2001, they controlled almost the entire country.
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Why did the United States invade Afghanistan in the first place?
It was al Qaeda, the international terrorist network, not Afghanistan's Taliban, a regional Islamic military and political force, that attacked the United States on September 11.
But the masterminds of the attack, including Osama bin Laden, had been operating under the cover of the Taliban, who refused to hand over bin Laden after the attack.
Was there bipartisan support for invading Afghanistan in 2001?
The support was almost unanimous.
The military effort began with the authority of a resolution "authorization for the use of military force" passed a week after September 11.
Only one legislator, Representative Barbara Lee of California, objected.
That resolution was first used to authorize action in Afghanistan, but presidents have since relied on it to act in at least 37 different countries, according to the Congressional Research Service.
What did President George W. Bush say when the United States invaded Afghanistan?
The invasion, led by US forces with the help of NATO allies, was specifically framed as a step in a war on terror.
"These carefully targeted actions are designed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a base for terrorist operations and attack the military capabilities of the Taliban regime," he said, noting that the name of the operation was "Enduring Freedom," although in hindsight it could be holding a lasting war.
"Since 9/11, a whole generation of young Americans has gained a new understanding of the value of freedom and its cost and duty and sacrifice," he later said.
Since then, a new generation of Americans have been born and come of age as the war that began that day raged on, often in the background with little attention from the majority of the public.
How many soldiers have been in Afghanistan in the last 20 years?
The number has fluctuated.
President Barack Obama took office promising to refocus the US military on Iraq, where Bush also invaded.
At times during the Obama administration, around 100,000 US troops were deployed to Afghanistan.
Obama tried to end US combat operations in Afghanistan in 2014, but left more soldiers in the country than he had planned.
His successor, Donald Trump, sent new US troops there before greatly reducing them and entering into peace talks with the Taliban.
How many American soldiers die each year in Afghanistan?
The deadliest years were after Obama's surge in 2009. The deadliest year for both the US and its NATO allies was 2010. There have been far fewer US deaths since major combat operations in the United States ended. USA and NATO in 2014.
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: What consequences will withdrawing US troops in Afghanistan have?
When did this transform from an effort to attack Al Qaeda?
By the end of 2001, bin Laden had moved through parts of Afghanistan and crossed into Pakistan, where he would remain in hiding for nearly a decade until he was killed there in May 2011 by Navy special forces (the Navy SEALs).
How is Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban today?
CNN's Nick Paton Walsh visited Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan that were the scene of American and British deaths a decade ago.
He and his CNN team found women who couldn't go outside.
Paton Walsh writes: While Kabul and the center of most major cities remain largely under government control, vast swaths of rural Afghanistan are ruled by rebel and varied units of the Taliban. For more than five years in Musa Qala, they have imposed their rules even though they are still in regular conflict with Afghan security forces further south in Helmand province.
"At the end of the day, the Taliban have the power," said one resident. "You really can't go against your will."
What exactly is the United States trying to achieve in Afghanistan?
The stated goal of US involvement is not to liberate women repressed by the Taliban or to end that regime.
In fact, the United States has been involved in peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government for years.
The simplest explanation for the US goal in Afghanistan is to prevent it from becoming a hotbed again for terrorist groups like Al Qaeda.
When the United States left Iraq, for example, the power vacuum helped lead to the rise of ISIS there.
But what the United States has been trying to achieve in Afghanistan, and the strategy for doing so, has changed with each president.
That lack of purpose is manifested in an internal government study, The Afghanistan Papers, from 2015 that was discovered and published by
The Washington Post
in 2019. It suggests that government leaders have long misled Americans about what could be accomplished. in Afghanistan.
In unadorned interviews that they never thought would be made public, American military leaders told government viewers that the United States was not prepared for Afghanistan and that the American people did not know the "extent of dysfunction" in waging war. .
Will American soldiers be left in Afghanistan after September 11, 2021?
Very few American forces will be there and they will focus on helping American diplomats.
An exact number is unclear.
It is not entirely clear, for example, what role, if any, US special operations soldiers would play in Afghanistan.
What if conditions in Afghanistan worsen between now and September?
Biden's decision is said to be final and not "based on conditions."
This is going to happen.
What is the reaction to Biden's decision?
There is bipartisan opposition.
"Apparently, we are helping our adversaries celebrate the anniversary of the September 11 attacks by wrapping the country in gift wrap and giving it back," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a Senate plenary on Wednesday.
Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat from New Hampshire, tweeted as news of Biden's plans began to circulate: "It undermines our commitment to the Afghan people, particularly Afghan women."
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Who supports Biden's decision?
There is support, particularly from progressives and democrats.
"I think President Biden has come up with a careful and thoughtful plan," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told John Berman on CNN's "New Day."
Look, John, the president doesn't want endless wars.
I don't want endless wars.
And neither are the American people.
"Year after year, military leaders told Congress and the American people that we were finally turning the corner in Afghanistan, but in the end we were only entering a vicious cycle," Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in a statement. .
It is also in line with Trump's goal of withdrawing from Afghanistan, although the former president has not intervened.
What will happen after the US and NATO forces leave?
While the United States will continue to try to negotiate a peace deal between the Afghan government and the Taliban, September may now be the de facto deadline for those talks.
Biden is ignoring military commanders who fear the Taliban will invade the Afghan government once American firepower runs out.
An assessment by the US intelligence community released Tuesday shares those concerns.
"The Taliban are likely to make progress on the battlefield, and the Afghan government will fight to keep the Taliban at bay if the coalition withdraws its support," according to the official assessment of global threats.
Why is Biden determined to withdraw the remaining 2,500 US troops?
Biden said in his speech Wednesday that no amount of US forces on the ground can deter the Taliban or end the war.
"It wasn't true when we had 98,000 US troops on the ground, and it won't be true keeping [the current] 2,500 troops on the ground ... We don't think the rules of the game change," a source told CNN's Christiane Amanpour.
The United States will continue to use diplomatic and monetary leverage.
What is not entirely clear is whether those tools will deliver results where two decades of US military forces could not.
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