Retired Adm. Bill McRaven
Military Times: Former SEAL, SOCOM boss McRaven says we’re going to be in Afghanistan ‘for a very long time’
A draft agreement for peace between the U.S. and the Taliban in Afghanistan got a lot of hopes up late this summer, but the former head of U.S. special operations ― most well known for overseeing the mission that ultimately took out Osama Bin Laden ― said that making concessions to the extremist group is the wrong move.
Retired Adm. Bill McRaven, now a national security professor at the University of Texas in Austin, likened negotiating with the warlords who control much of Afghanistan’s square mileage to sitting down with ISIS, in a discussion Wednesday at the New America Special Operations Forces Policy Forum in Washington.
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WNU Editor: Retired Adm. Bill McRaven is unfortunately right. Afghanistan is one of those conflicts that will takes decades of fighting to resolve. An example that always comes to my mind is Colombia and its war against FARC. That conflict that has been ongoing for over five decades now, and will probably continue for a few more. And while the U.S. can get up and leave Afghanistan to its fate, the problem with this conflict is the Taliban's close alliance with Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda, like ISIS, is an incredibly destructive and fanatical organization that is dedicated to bringing great harm to the rest of the world. Giving them a safe haven to grow and flourish is not an option for us.
