I have always come from a
#CT perspective: the strategic aim was to prevent a catastrophic attack on US/U.K./NATO homeland and that Afghanistan was not to be a safe haven. Has that been achieved?
Yes.
Are we less safe now than 2 years ago?
No
I'm nowhere near convinced that has stayed the case since the Afghan withdrawal...
Did we succeed in denying the use of Afghanistan as a safe haven for terrorists while we were there?
Yes, absolutely.
Is that still the case, a few years after the Afghan withdrawal?
No, it isn't - Afghanistan has absolutely become one of THE most popular safe havens for terrorists from around the world...
Hamza Bin Laden (son of OBL) has resurfaced in...guess where? Afghanistan. Turns out he wasn't as dead as the media claimed him to be... (he had some involvement in Benghazi, and is very much following in his father's footsteps)
The key founding members of the Haqqani Network now hold extremely powerful positions within the Afghan government.
The US State Department has a $10M bounty on one of the key Haqqani leadership members, who I kid you not is actually the guy in charge of Afghanistan's passport program.
I believe he is also the same guy who receives millions in US funds each week, and converts it to Afghan currency on behalf of the Afghan government. (His position is almost that of Minister of Commerce in scope)
On Thursdays, he has declared it to be 'Holy Warrior Day' and the passport offices are ONLY open to those wanting to fight & die against the west
...
...and let's not forget, quite a few Afghans have come into the US just in the last few months via their open southern border...
There is a very good chance some of those guys are showing up with fake passports provided to them directly from the Taliban.
(How else could they even afford to fly to South America & support themselves during their journey through the Darian Gap?)
(And why would the Taliban pay for the airfare of so many young adult males coming up thru the border, if it didn't support their end goal?)
...
So Afghanistan is now home to some big name terrorists, especially Hamza Bin Laden & members of the Haqqani...
Did we prevent Afghanistan from being a terror safe haven while we were there? Yes we did... (while we were there)
Is that still the case? No, not even close
Are we safer now than we were a few years ago? My opinion is NOPE, we are not even close to being safer now than we were say a decade ago.
(my 2 cents anyway)