MATTHEW HOH, matthew_hoh@
Hoh is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and a member of the Eisenhower Media Initiative. He is a 100 percent disabled Marine combat veteran, and, in 2009, he resigned his position with the State Department in Afghanistan in protest of the Afghan War by the Obama administration.
He said today: “Signals from D.C. that the Biden administration will not honor the agreed upon withdrawal date of U.S. forces from Afghanistan on May 1 may be the most disappointing of the many disappointments proffered by the still-young Biden administration. The Afghan War has been a living nightmare for the Afghan people for more than 40 years now, and the current peace process, while flawed, is the first formal opportunity for peace in Afghanistan in three decades. Biden’s refusal to follow the agreement made by his predecessor will mean the Taliban will resume killing Americans in Afghanistan on May 2 (the Taliban have not attacked any Americans or foreign forces since the agreement was signed more than a year ago). This will provide the necessary accelerant of violence that hardliners, on all sides, will utilize to ensure the killings, devastation and profiteering continue, without hope of ending, in Afghanistan.
“Arguments about the need for a U.S. military presence to protect against the spread of terrorism are undercut by the reality that terrorism has only spread as U.S. warfare has spread. Men and women join these terrorist and insurgent groups to fight against Western powers that they understand as occupying their lands and keeping in place corrupt, predatory and non-representative governments. Continuing with the failed and counter-productive war policies of Bush, Obama and Trump will only mean more war which will only benefit the recruitment of the terrorist and insurgent organizations, the profits of weapons companies and the promotion of generals.”
