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| I cheered the Afghanistan invasion. I was wrong. |
| 2020-03-04 |
| [The Week] It is a cliché to say that certain eras "end not with a bang, but a whimper," but the old trope is true in Afghanistan. U.S. and Taliban officials signed an agreement over the weekend that should lead to the withdrawal of American troops from that country — a development mostly overshadowed by the spread of coronavirus and developments in domestic presidential politics. That shouldn't be the case. Attention must be paid. Along with the war in Iraq, the Afghan experience defines the U.S. interactions in the world in the 21st century — a righteous display of might that ultimately devolved into an unending, unsolvable, exhausting slog. The war began on 9/11, when hijackers flew passenger planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon — another plane crashed in the Pennsylvania countryside — killing 2,977 victims and 19 hijackers. More than 2,300 American servicemembers have died in Afghanistan over the last generation, while estimates say that 157,000 people died there during the war — including more than 43,000 civilians. Everything about the war has been a tragedy. The invasion of Afghanistan is the only U.S. military offensive that I have wholeheartedly rooted for during my adult life. A few weeks after 9/11, I drove from my home in Kansas to New York — via the Flight 93 crash site in Pennsylvania — to witness history for myself. Smoke was still wafting from the bowels of the Twin Towers. Like Americans everywhere, I wanted revenge. I didn't believe for one second that the Al Qaeda terrorists hated us "for our freedom," the easy explanation offered Americans during the early days of "why do they hate us?" questioning after the attack. But thousands of civilians had been killed — in the first days after 9/11, it was widely believed that tens of thousands of civilians had been killed — and in the heat of the moment, it seemed that such massive violence must be met with equally massive violence. When Vice President Dick Cheney went on TV the next weekend to hint at the likelihood of torture in the coming conflict — promising U.S. personnel would work on "the dark side, if you will" — even that seemed to make sense to a nominal pacifist like myself. I was wrong. We — all of us who cheered the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan — were wrong. We were wrong because we ignored world history. There was a reason that Afghanistan — occupied over the years by the British, then by the Soviets — was already known as "the graveyard of empires." For cultural and geographic reasons, no would-be conqueror of the country has ever fully subdued its people. Responding to the 9/11 attack was not necessarily America's big mistake. Staying and trying to recreate Afghanistan in something like our own image was the crucial error, both hubristic and well-intentioned — we thought we could be the conquerors who left the country better than we found it. We are not. Article re-posted using proper font. Feel free to add in-line comments that may have been deleted. Thank you for your post. |
| Posted by:Herb McCoy |
| #17 Also recommend Edward Rice's "Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton." Burton reputedly spoke 29 languages, was a spy soldier and adventurer across Afghanistan, India, Africa, the Middle East. |
| Posted by: Lex 2020-03-04 16:37 |
| #16 Third York H's book suggestion. A wonderful read. |
| Posted by: Lex 2020-03-04 16:33 |
| #15 /\ Salmon Pak? Animal cages at remote labs? Yes, been there done that, seen it. What are your questions ? |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2020-03-04 16:22 |
| #14 You know, the whoppers about Saddam giving Al Qaeda WMD. There was video of cadres from Al Qaeda and other jihadi groups practicing poisoning dogs with aerosolized chemicals at Salman Pak, Saddam Hussein’s site for advanced training of his extra special forces on one side and a variety of jihadis and the IRA on the other. They had their very own commercial jet plane for practicing hijacking techniques, too. It’s all in the Rantburg archives, Mr. McCoy. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2020-03-04 16:20 |
| #13 Second York Harding's book suggestion. Read it anyways; the prose is easy and the topic exciting, some real life James Bond shit happened. Might even find out the British, French, Germans, Russians were mucking about the area long before the US even thought about getting involved. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2020-03-04 15:05 |
| #12 If he was right the world would be a much better place and it all would have been worthwhile, but he was wrong. So we learn from that mistake and move on. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2020-03-04 14:09 |
| #11 W bet that Islam was compatible with Democracy. If he was right the world would be a much better place and it all would have been worthwhile, but he was wrong. They are compatible in small groups but not as a culture, not as a nation. Turkey has been trying for decades and still has to crack down once in awhile. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2020-03-04 13:40 |
| #10 Herb, I don't see the 9/11 attack as post facto justification in the invasion of Iraq v.2 even if OBL had designs on placing a true believer proxy leader there (if he was successful killing Saddam). That is the whole thing about dictatorships, they can be replaced with one bullet. AQ and the Iraqi leadership were at odds and did not appear to be um, co-conspirators that is for sure. OBL was very strategic and believed in the long game...if you read the portions of the 9/11 report that Obama declass'd you can see inferences that he intended to dirty up the Saudi gov't with the 9/11 attack as well...who really knows whether Bandar was connected with Zubaydah/Bassan/Bayoumi...maybe he really did support...the truth is likely buried. Although if the Saudi gov't took a hit for the attack it benefited OBL. |
| Posted by: Tennessee 2020-03-04 13:07 |
| #9 The Great Game by Peter Hopkirk on the British experience in Afghanistan should have been required reading for US military and policy makers once the punishment phase was over in Afghanistan and the nation building began. |
| Posted by: York Harding 2020-03-04 12:57 |
| #8 The Week, moving up to a campus publication? |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2020-03-04 10:15 |
| #7 Huhhhh... mumble.. |
| Posted by: Dron66046 2020-03-04 07:24 |
| #6 Never heard of that OBL plan with Iraq. You sure this wasn't some weirdo after-the-fact justification of the war we started under false pretenses? You know, the whoppers about Saddam giving Al Qaeda WMD. Boy, I don't know how anyone fell for something that unbelievable. It would be like Jews giving Zyklon B to the Nazis. |
| Posted by: Herb McCoy 2020-03-04 04:27 |
| #5 GW Bush had it right when he 'declared victory' and moved the fight to Iraq, but public pressure to fight the 'good' war in Afghanistan forced it to be renewed (even though it did not end the Iraq effort.) |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2020-03-04 01:43 |
| #4 The invasion was correct, but the lengthy occupation was wrong... OBL did not hate us for our freedom, but his attack on us was part of a plan to establish himself as a modern Saladin by mobilizing the masses to stand behind him when he attacked the great Satan... The 9/11 attacks started with the assassination of Massoud (to consolidate power in AF) just prior to the attack on us...and was to culminate with the assassination of Saddam. OBL would have been able to consolidate regional and religious power by placing a figure head in charge in Iraq (largest standing army in ME), receiving tribute from the Gulf States via threat, and ruling from his protected base in AF. We had to invade to disrupt his plan and we did so. Staying there and trying to reform that country was the bridge too far. |
| Posted by: Tennessee 2020-03-04 01:15 |
| #3 Ref #1: I had no problem with going after Osama, but my reading of history told me it wasn't a great place to try to occupy and reform. Says it all right fok'n there. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2020-03-04 00:44 |
| #2 Nothing wrong with a punitive expedition. Salt the earth, destroy AQ's/juhad's haven. But under W's Christian mission civilisatrice, the punitive expedition morphed into Three Cups of Tea, Hoorah for Afghan Girls' Education, and Let's Make Afghanistan Safe For THAT's where & when we went wrong, IMO. |
| Posted by: Lex 2020-03-04 00:40 |
| #1 I had no problem with going after Osama, but my reading of history told me it wasn't a great place to try to occupy and reform. These things are always (supposedly) black and white in hindsight. |
| Posted by: charger 2020-03-04 00:24 |