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Business Insider | ‘We actually won the war we need to fight’: Trump’s pick for ambassador to Afghanistan on why it’s time to get out
The US war in Afghanistan reached its 19th anniversary in October, with several thousand US troops still on the ground, a presence that has been prolonged by the gradual expansion of the US mission there.
"We've actually accomplished quite a bit and ... we actually won the war we needed to fight," William Ruger, vice president for research and policy at the Charles Koch Institute, told Insider in an interview this month.
The US needed to do three things in Afghanistan, Ruger said: decimate Al Qaeda's ability to strike the US, punish the Taliban for supporting terrorism against the US, and capture or kill Osama bin Laden.
"We've accomplished all three," Ruger added. "We failed once we expanded the war aims beyond what was both necessary for us and accomplishable." |
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