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Saturday, September 11, 2021

America should leave Afghanistan to the Afghans.

 

September 11, 2021


This is finally the year the United States left Afghanistan to the Afghans.  The war in this country had stretched to almost 20 years, and the goals to end this war have regularly evolved. To use American vernacular, it amounts to "moving the goalposts." This is essentially saying there are no real concrete plans, and the end game changed to suit whatever the current White House occupant wanted it to be.  It is time to honor those who have served, have sacrificed and to save future soldiers and Marines from being killed in a war without an end in sight. It was right to leave the country, but the Biden administration seemingly botched the process, and the horrific events that news media highlighted last week have made it resemble the last days of American involvement in Vietnam. Or perhaps worse.

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"Because the goal is NOT to completely subjugate Afghanistan.  The goal is to use Afghanistan to wash money out of the tax bases of the United States, out of the tax bases of European countries, through Afghanistan, and back into the transnational security elite.  That is the goal.  The goal is to have an endless war, not a successful war." - Julian Assange, 2011


The recent developments in Afghanistan had many Americans asking, why are we still defending that country?  The United States military spent trillions of dollars invading the country to rid it of Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar, and the Taliban within months of the September 11th attacks. These original goals had overwhelming support from the American people. After the death of Osama bin Laden, there really was no plan for the remainder of the American military's time in the "Graveyard of Empires."

The jarring images of chaos in the Afghan capital, including the streets being overrun with people wanting to flee the fast-approaching Taliban, were heartbreaking.  Adding to that were the horrific images of Afghanis trying desperately to hold onto American military transport planes taking off from Hamid Karzai International Airport.  The suicide bombing that happened near the Abbey Gate of the airport, which killed 13 servicemen and women (11 U.S. Marines, 1 U.S. Navy medic, and 1 U.S. Army Sergeant) was crippling for the morale amongst Americans still trapped in the country and those watching at home.

The American taxpayer has been funding this drawn-out war with little to show for it.  The Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR), John Sopko, had reported his findings to Congress, but sadly very few people who have influence in Washington, D.C. took his views as guidance.  As a result, the United States continued to spend money on war and nation-building that's proved unfruitful.  Any cost-benefit analysis, even those by college students, would show that what we were spending money on was not bearing results that would warrant continued spending.  The metric being used was "good intentions," rather than effectual outcomes.

What are some of the primary motivations and reasons behind these military conflicts and fruitless nation-building endeavors?  As the saying goes, "Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan." Had the Iraq War and Afghanistan conflict borne success and was generally popular, everyone in Washington, D.C., including former GOP and Democratic administration staffers, former Presidents Bush, Obama, and Trump, Beltway think tanks, and anyone who spent time in those war zones would be screaming to anyone who is within earshot that they are the reason these endeavors were successful. All those involved were reluctant to admit failure and designate this conflict as a waste of American resources.  It is one of the primary reasons the war in Afghanistan dragged for more than a decade longer than it should have.

While reading various media platforms, individual bloggers, and writers, I took away from their commentaries that a lot of the blame should lay at the feet of the bloated and gargantuan military-industrial complex, which now includes corporate media. Wars in the modern era for the United States tend to bring about profit for those who have a vested financial interest: Pentagon budget planners, Raytheon, Lockheed-Martin and other defense contractors, such as Halliburton, shareholders of these companies, including members of Congress and large corporations that own news networks. Their motivation is not about victories in the field, but on advertising revenues for their "newscasts," quarterly profits, and diverse investment portfolios.

Department of Defense weapons procurers, their friends in Congress, had their hands in the cookie jar of this war. They were more interested in justifying large military budgets, rather than a sound plan for victory and to leave.  For everyone involved, making money from the war was the primary reason that no one in Congress considered that our involvement should have an endpoint.  The grift was the fuel that kept the gravy train moving. Matt Taibbi wrote on his Twitter feed recently that roughly 30% of money spent for Afghanistan was fraud and waste. That is a good description of why the United States spent so much time in that country. The motivation was not to turn Afghans into adherents and supporters for Western-style democracy but to allow as many hungry parties to feed off the bloated government-funded war trough.  

If America was serious about investment in that country, to me it required a 100-year commitment of U.S. taxpayer support. This is a country that has never shown over its history that it will accept a centralized government based on Western values, and based in part on Judeo-Christian tenets of governance. Afghans tend to be tribal, with loyalties to various groups constantly warring with each other (for example, Pashtuns, Tajiks, and Uzbeks), a foundation with too much historical conflict that precludes building a governing coalition in 20 years. Developing productive relationships with tribal factions inside Afghanistan was hard enough.  It is a serious endeavor for one country alone to provide needed support. Members of the European Union and NATO did send personnel; however, it was dwarfed by the investment on all levels by the United States. All this effort was for a country that lacked a national character or shared values and morals. I think President Biden saw that writing on the wall (or his notecard) and realized that the folly of our time in Central Asia was over. Or, perhaps, he was trying to find an excuse to move military assets to different locations on the world chessboard.

All of what I described has played a large part in why we never made serious progress.  Additionally, the Taliban are the latest tribal incarnation of a hardened people who have a long history of defying foreign invaders. The Taliban were proud to mention to Western media that America had all the nicest watches, but the Taliban had all the time.  This was their country and knew it best, understood its history, its people, and the character of what it stood for.  The Afghan Army neither had the will nor the strength required to fight and win a war of attrition, despite receiving nearly $85 billion in Pentagon investments (Haaretz).

Craig Whitlock, an investigative reporter for the Washington Post and Pulitzer Prize recipient, on Bill Maher's Real Time, gave an example of the folly of war in Afghanistan. He described how the military would build bridges in remote parts of the country, requested by one community.  The bridge would then be destroyed by the Taliban.  Then the bridge would have to be rebuilt with taxpayer money again.  This self-fulfilling circle complete with corruption and bribery exemplified the American mission in Afghanistan.  Fighting the Taliban was secondary to that mission.  

America had not the faintest idea of how to nation-build in a country that never wanted to build anything for itself.  The SIGAR report gave a detailed example of how contractors and those entrusted to train the Afghan National Police watched episodes of CSI and Law and Order to figure out how to train that police force, clearly an utter joke.  The dedicated soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines made every effort to do their best with the goals they were given. The unfortunate part is that those who were entrusted to lead our nation, defense department, and senior flag officers in the Pentagon were either never serious about their strategy, or were obfuscating the realities on the ground.  As with most recent American wars, the men and women of our military won major battles, but the leadership elites in the United States lost the long war in the end but benefited in other ways.

What becomes of Afghanistan now? I suspect there were ulterior motives for this wasted war, and those reasons will not come out any time soon.  Perhaps down the road the American people will figure out or have genuine investigative reporters provide that blueprint for them. Those who gave their sons and daughters need to hear it the most. I have read that the country is rich in agricultural products (opium) and that is one of the methods the Taliban used to fund itself over the years. Afghanistan is rumored to have rich mineral deposits (Lithium) as well. The newly restored Taliban government will make use of these additional revenue streams and do business with many countries that have a vested interest in competing against American military, technological and economic power (China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan) once we remove all relevant embassy and military staff from the country. I suspect our elites have already made off like bandits, literally, and have no interest in how Afghanistan conducts its external affairs now. There is no shortage of shame, and that cannot be said enough.

Right now, political pundits and paid contributors for the major cable news networks are mouthing the theme that the American military didn't really "lose" the war, but instead on how we conducted a war that ended in defeat.  Many of these talking heads tend to be former military officials, think tank staffers, and former political operatives who earn income serving on corporate boards or act as advisors to the large defense contractors, and other companies who earn massive amounts of revenue for drawn-out wars.  Their motivation was to provide excuses for our failures in Afghanistan and Iraq.  For the elites in our government, and in various administrations, there is no price to pay for failure, being wrong in foreign policy, and making mistakes for those decisions.  That is partly due to a near-monopoly between two political parties who take turns running our country.

How do we end this cycle of never-ending war, nation-building, and perpetual government waste? Matt Taibbi, the independent investigative reporter I mentioned earlier, I think has the "write" stuff, and he wrote on his Substack page that the emergence of strong, effective new parties can change the game. I think that is the best option for the near future. The incumbent GOP and the Democrats do not have to change or adapt their ideologies because the electorate does not punish both parties. Contrarians can always point out that any new party or parties will fall prey to the same issues that affect the parties now, heavy dependence on campaign cash, influence from wealthy donors, and the ability of political power to corrupt anyone.  While these things might be true, the only real power voters have in a democracy is for people in leadership to be removed for their decisions.  American politics gives the advantage to the well-funded candidate or party, but strength in numbers, educated and knowledgeable voters, and a desire to win for a cause greater than personal politics can achieve better results for a citizen's movement in this country.

If the American people do not take democracy into their own hands and be assertive in their vote about the recent foreign policy failures around the world, highlighted by Iraq and Afghanistan, then nothing will change.  The carnage we as a nation inflict on countries and their populations, the wasteful and fraudulent expenses from our military and administrative spending, the leadership in subsequent administrations never being accountable or punished for their arrogance and failures will eventually damage our democracy. The loss of valuable and courageous American servicemen and women will continue. It will erode our influence in the world, our allies will lose faith in American power, and it will expedite our decline.

If we the American people do not learn from our time in Afghanistan, take the lessons from its failure and apply them to future foreign policy decisions, then that will be the final tragedy and loss from the war.



 

 




1 comment:

  1. You have encapsulated well the reasons for the long drawn out war and hope more of the citizens of this country regardless of party will use the information you have provided to make sensible decisions and vote out from office those who perpetuate fear to allow future wars. We have far too many problems within this country that can be solved with money saved from the wars.

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