Cui Bono? Who Benefits From the Afghanistan Withdrawal?
Foreign policy abhors vacuums, and the United States has now created one.By Dennis Prager
August 31, 2021
How does a leader decide what to do?
The most logical response is: “Cui bono?”—”Who benefits” from the decision?
If some policy benefits your country most, you should, within moral bounds, pursue it.
If your enemies benefit most, you should avoid it.
I’d be curious to learn what answer proponents of America leaving Afghanistan—conservative or liberal—would give to the question, “Cui bono?”
I can say that until this moment, I have not read or heard a single cogent argument from proponents of American withdrawal as to how exactly it benefits America.
“Twenty years is too long,” or its variant, “we have to end these endless wars,” the most commonly offered argument for withdrawal, has nothing to do with benefiting America.about:blankabout:blank
It is an emotional sentiment, not a rational argument.
The withdrawal has already cost us in a single day more service members’ lives than we lost on any one day in Afghanistan since June 2014, seven years ago.
The number of American servicemen killed in Afghanistan per year from 2015 to 2020 is respectively 22, 9, 14, 14, 21, and 11. No one can seriously argue that we are leaving Afghanistan because of high American casualties.
So, while America doesn’t benefit at all from leaving Afghanistan, it does get hurt.
The damage to the reputation of America—as an ally and as a strong country—is not easily overstated.
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Cui Bono? (Who benefits?), by Dennis Prager
Cui Bono? Who Benefits From the Afghanistan Withdrawal?
Foreign policy abhors vacuums, and the United States has now created one.By Dennis Prager
August 31, 2021
How does a leader decide what to do?
The most logical response is: “Cui bono?”—”Who benefits” from the decision?
If some policy benefits your country most, you should, within moral bounds, pursue it.
If your enemies benefit most, you should avoid it.
I’d be curious to learn what answer proponents of America leaving Afghanistan—conservative or liberal—would give to the question, “Cui bono?”
I can say that until this moment, I have not read or heard a single cogent argument from proponents of American withdrawal as to how exactly it benefits America.
“Twenty years is too long,” or its variant, “we have to end these endless wars,” the most commonly offered argument for withdrawal, has nothing to do with benefiting America.about:blankabout:blank
It is an emotional sentiment, not a rational argument.
The withdrawal has already cost us in a single day more service members’ lives than we lost on any one day in Afghanistan since June 2014, seven years ago.
The number of American servicemen killed in Afghanistan per year from 2015 to 2020 is respectively 22, 9, 14, 14, 21, and 11. No one can seriously argue that we are leaving Afghanistan because of high American casualties.
So, while America doesn’t benefit at all from leaving Afghanistan, it does get hurt.
The damage to the reputation of America—as an ally and as a strong country—is not easily overstated.
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