Dear America,
The first time I mentioned the fact that George W. Bush sent troops to Afghanistan for the express, and for that matter sole, purpose of apprehending Bin Laden was in March 2015, and I mentioned it in the context of remarks about the American presumption that we have the prerogative of invading any nation that doesn't order its society the way we think it should. Since then, I have made the point several times that our expenditure of life and treasure in Afghanistan, especially since the killing of Bin Laden, has been for some inchoate purpose that has never been articulated except for to imply that we were somehow responsible to insulate the people of Afghanistan from the tyranny of the Taliban. But for the first time that I can recall, a foreign affairs "expert" uttered exactly that thought on NPR's "Morning Edition" along with the blunt assessment that other ex-post facto justifications for our continuing presence there had failed to inure to the benefit of the Afghan people in any meaningful and enduring way. That interview and commentary came in response to criticism of President Biden's decision to remove our troops from Afghanistan, and his explanation of that policy decision to the effect that once Bin Laden was dead, our mission in Afghanistan had been completed, and further, that we were never present in that country for "nation building" purposes. Implicit was the criticism of past administrations and congresses for failing to acknowledge that fact and instead committing a deplorable waste of our fiscal and human resources on an expedition that no other nation since Alexander the Great had succeeded in more than ephemerally, after which the country always reverted to its previous chaotic state.
Naturally, the Republicans seem to have seized upon this opportunity to criticize Biden, ostensibly for leaving the Afghan people in the lurch. So let me point out that the Republican claim ignores the fact that even such a party luminary as former President Trump, "stable genius" that he and they claim him to be, had committed to removing our troops as well. In October 2020, just a month before the election, Trump pledged to remove all of our troops by Christmas: another promise he didn't keep. At that time, I don't recall there being any significant criticism, at least none that was less ardent than perfunctory in character, of Trump's policy decision...not from Democrats or Republicans, conservatives or liberals. Of course there were a few jingoistic diehards like Lindsey Graham, who has just opined that the departure of American troops was "paving the way for another 9/11," as if being in Afghanistan could prevent it. In April this year, Mitch McConnell, the peremptory Republican minority leader of The Senate, chimed in with his pronouncement that it is a "grave mistake," characterizing it as "retreat in the face of the enemy," presumably because pride was the issue on his mind, damn the consequences. There was a smattering of dissent in both houses over both the Trump and Biden decisions, but outside of grave predictions obviously intended to cover some political asses, not much has been said. Biden has accomplished what even his patron, President Obama, couldn't manage; he is ending America's longest war, albeit with no more laudable outcome than we accomplished in Vietnam, where a goodly portion of our clothes are now made, which was perhaps the first occasion on which one of our nation's international adventures was rebuked by events for the presumption that we are the world's messiah nation.
Let me make it clear that neither I nor anyone else in this country is reveling over our outcome in Afghanistan. Our invasion of the country, then controlled by the Taliban, has been in my opinion the denouement of almost a century of what people like Newt Gingrich boastfully called "American Exceptionalism," though the phrase was coined by Stalin in 1929 (odd intellectual bedfellows, don't you think?). It is unfortunate, but I do believe that Afghanistan will revert to its former state and stay there over an interminable period in world history. And I believe that it is a misfortune for millions of people that such will be the case. But without the univocal determination of the international community to remedy the situation in concert with a near universal willingness to act, nothing will change.
Personally, I believe that the Afghan people do have the right, as President Biden pointed out, to self-determination. I also believe that if the United States should have done anything for Afghanistan it would have been to create a small safe haven within the country to facilitate repatriation for those who wanted to leave rather than be governed by another reactionary Islamic state. But while that may be a plan in the future, the current state of affairs in Afghanistan doesn't include American intervention in any way. I hesitate not at all to conclude that such should have been the case right from the beginning.
Your friend,
Mike
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