Looking back at Afghanistan
Thinking about the last twenty years in Afghanistan, it occurs to me that I’ve been blogging since the fall of 2004 and I wondered what I’ve written about it over the years. My recollection is that I wrote very little about it, and when I checked I saw that right now I only have a total of forty-six posts (although I’m not sure that includes all of them; the “category” designations weren’t there in my earliest posts). And that includes quite a few posts written during the last few days, and also quite a few earlier ones about Bowe Bergdahl. That’s in contrast to 219 on Iraq.
Afghanistan had reached a sort of homeostasis for many of the years of this blog. Although the situation there was far from good, it was relatively stable. The most relevant post of mine I found in a quick perusal was this one from March of 2012. In it I summarized the Afghan situation as I saw it at the time:
The larger question is what our mission in Afghanistan is accomplishing at this point, or is even meant to accomplish. Initially it was obvious: defeat the Taliban. Help set up an alternative government. But it was clear that anything more would require a societal, economic, and cultural transformation that might be beyond our powers, especially with the resources we were willing to commit to the project, and even if we were willing to do more and become a de facto colonial power there. It’s the dilemma we face in many countries around the world, Iraq being one of them: how to foster the growth of liberal democracies in places that seem unready for them (and may never be ready for them), and what to do in the meantime if their present-day governments threaten us?
That encapsulates why we went in – to defeat the Taliban who were harboring the 9/11 architect and al Qaeda and had set up large training camps there for terrorists – and how futile any nation-building transformative mission had obviously become, as well as why it was nevertheless so hard to leave. It doesn’t cover how to leave, though.
At that same post, this was the very first comment in the thread, by “Daniel”:
I really think that Bush had this one right. Kick the Taliban out and maintain just enough of a presence that we can interdict any problems from them or Al Quaeda in the future. It’s a stone age country without a middle class or democratic institution and nation building is just too long term of an issue for us to be involved there. We shouldn’t leave en masse now, though as that sends a bad signal to what trusting allies we have left and will also set up a massacre of huge proportions. It’s a bit of a mess.
More than a bit of a mess, I’d say.
I was always somewhat puzzled about why Obama set Afghanistan up as the “good war” versus the “bad war” in Iraq, although it seemed it was for political reasons. In other words, the aim was to criticize Bush without making Obama look wimpy or pacifist.
But right at the outset Afghanistan represented a conundrum. We demanded that the Taliban surrender Bin Laden and his confederates; they refused, and we went to war to root the Taliban and al Qaeda out. The hot war – which was not all that long – was successful in toppling the government and ending the camps, but not in eliminating Bin Laden or al Qaeda.
Then we were left with the question of what to do next to prevent the swift return of the Taliban and the terrorists. There was no good solution, but we chose one that seemed less bad. However, it had no foreseeable end except withdrawal. It was clear quite early on that there would be no real transformation of Afghanistan. It was also clear that some day we would need to leave, and that the Taliban almost certainly return then. But when to leave? And most importantly, how to leave?
It just may be that the Biden administration has chosen one of the worst possible ways to leave, and perhaps the worst possible way.
Good grief. Biden sounds completely oblivious to what’s actually happening in Afghanistan.
Mike
This truly is Biden’s Saigon, but the blame is hardly his alone, as the puppet-masters who are really pulling the strings (Kamala or Pelosi or, in all likelihood, Obama through Susan Rice?) bear the real responsibility for his almost unbelievably inept mismanagement of everything (with not a single exception) over seven months. Nor should the “credentialed morons” who constitute our insufferable ruling class (corrupt, entitled, and incompetent) be absolved of accountability, for they have aided and abetted the senile buffoon since even before he was illegitimately installed.
MBunge,
He is oblivious to everything except ice cream.
Bin Laden escaped to Pakistan, which we have continued to treat as an ally contrary to all evidence. Without Pakistan, the Taliban would not have survived.
expat:
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Mike. A sanctuary is always needed.
The commies in Greece after WW II were making headway, or at least remaining in being. Then Tito cut them off from Yugoslavia and….all done.
To make a weak excuse for Pakistan, they couldn’t seem too rough on the T because they had their own goat-humping potential jihadi population to manage.
But, outside of providing a kind of R&R and blind-eyeing recruiting, the actual provision of money, arms, and equipment was a token of their interest in the issue.
Said it elsewhere: Just as colonial powers built infrastructure to help in exploitation, we built infrastructure to support our forward presence in the neighborhood of Iran. And, in both cases, the locals’ lot was improved. A high volume road from the airport can be used by locals, given the occasional checkpoint.
What resources we spent on schools is not, to my knowledge, easily available. What was the utility? If we needed to hire a literate person, many urban folks were literate, or at least sufficient.
Perhaps schools, especially girls’ schools, was a cheap way of undermining traditional culture. (DON’T GO THERE)
I’m noodling around the edge of the question of nation-building out of the goodness of our hearts, and nation-building as a strategic advantage for us. I have no idea how to split out the proportion of resources, nor of which were considered one and which the other.
But this Biden thing is no roller of big cigars although he might be tempted to sniff and drink from “concupiscent cups.”
I’m waiting for the moment when the nation gets to see his horny feet protrude after they spread the fantail embroidered sheet over his face. Hard.
That’s a Biden address I’d watch.
Aubrey, nation-building was never the point. It was a propaganda afterthought.
G. Figured that was likely. I recall that ending slavery was a justification in the Scramble for Africa.
However, what kind of looks-like-nation-building was a strategic benefit to us?
Aubrey, nation-building was never the point. It was a propaganda afterthought.
Maybe for GVDL, but it was part of the discussion leading up to the Iraq War, as in Colin Powell’s citing of the “Pottery Barn Rule”: “If you break it, you bought it.”
As I recall, by the time of the “Shock and Awe” invasion, there was no question that we were going to take down Hussein and then leave. We were committed to sticking around and nation-building.
I have no insight as to what our plan was in Afghanistan, much less an understanding of how it was pursued.
Early on there was a certain euphoria as elections were held (purple thumbs yet) in the major cities. Clearly, the tea leaves in the provinces were conveniently ignored.
The ultimate mystery is two fold. How could we, with such a heavy presence of military and civilian nation builders in the country have so badly missed the now obvious appeal of the Taliban? The follow-on is obvious. If it was not missed, why were the American people lied to for decades?
From the little that I know of Afghan history, their was a period under the Monarchy when it resembled a country. That was rather long ago, and debacle after debacle have served to degrade whatever sense of nascent national unity may have existed.
There were lessons to be learned from the Imperial British and the Russians. They both left Afghanistan with their tails between their legs (metaphorically speaking.) One big difference is that they left in an orderly fashion, transporting their war fighting materials, with their flags flying, and, no doubt in the British case with the bands playing. I recall the gleeful chortling at the pictures of Russian columns exiting the country; but, they left as a coherent forced and did not leave their resources for the enemy. If only the images of our departure were as respectable.
I mourn for those Afghans, as many as there might have been, who believed that they had a chance for a reasonable 21st century existence if they trusted the United States. They will suffer horribly. I fear for the credibility of the United States at a time when there are multiple threats. Many who looked to the U.S. as a protector of freedoms will have to make accommodations to the forces of tyranny. I suspect that the U.S. will be isolated in the power struggles to come. Pax Americana, you were short lived, and will probably be a footnote to history.
The problem never was the Taliban or al Qaeda. Nor Iran or Iraq.
Those are symptoms of America and the West’s ‘problem’.
The problem is a divided American electorate. Lack of political consensus = counterproductive responses. Liberals won’t accept “bomb every country back into the stone age that offers terrorists support” and conservatives won’t accept “hunker down and take it because we deserve it”.
Imagine if China had our resources and was in America’s position with terrorist attacks. Does anyone here think they’d have a ‘problem’ for very long?
That problem in China would be solved in a long weekend.
oldflyer:
You write: ” How could we, with such a heavy presence of military and civilian nation builders in the country have so badly missed the now obvious appeal of the Taliban? ”
I doubt those “nation builders” didn’t know that the Taliban had an appeal to a certain percentage of Afghans. They may be relatively clueless but I don’t think their cluelessness extends that far.
However, I think they either underestimated the extent of the appeal, or – and I think what I’m about to say is closer to the truth – they underestimated the corruption of some of the leaders of the Afghan towns and forces who would be tasked with defending the country from the Taliban if the Americans were to leave. I have read that what happened was that the Taliban had been spending months prior to the takeover setting up the surrender by bribing those people and making it worth their while to surrender. It makes a certain amount of sense that many of the Afghan people may have been betrayed by their “elites.”
But who knows? Truth is among the casualties, I think.
As far as your fear for the credibility of the United States goes, it is my opinion that it has no credibility whatsoever left.
Jack Posobiec
@JackPosobiec sez:
Cuomo out
Biden on the ropes
K in the wings
I share your sentiments, oldflyer.
I think Geoffrey B. has a point. Since Vietnam the left has never closed ranks with the right against an external foe. The days of politics ending at the water’s edge have been over since the 1960s.
We have become extraordinarily wealthy and have a powerful military in spite of our divisions. But seems to me the table is being set for the decline of this once united nation.
The Left only “closed ranks” during WWII after Hitler attacked their motherland of the USSR. Since that time we have always been at war with tyrants, communist and terrorist, and they are our left’s comrades in arms against the hated free peoples of the world.
geoffb
Rebecca West, among others, details the neck-snapping one-eighties demanded of communists in the UK when the Germans attacked Russia.
Ron Radosh says the same when WW II got embarrassing for the comrades.
I recalll working with a faith-based SJW group when the USSR imploded. We were cautioned against triumphalism.
There is the left There is the left’s useful-idiot brigade. And greatly outnumbering the latter are the mush heads. Very useful. Can be manipulated even by a useful idiot.
Richard Aubrey: you FORGET TO MENTION WHAT WE DID NOT DO: OUTLAW ENDOGAMY (incest marriage).
In India, Suttee (Hindu Widow Burning) was outlawed (among other offensive Hindu traditions). Why can’t we do what would revolutionize a Tribal society? And save our caste investment in lives and treasure?
Nope. We’re all just Woke now.
Oldflyer:”How could we, with such a heavy presence of military and civilian nation builders in the country have so badly missed the now obvious appeal of the Taliban?”
SEE ABOVE. Cut off Tribalism at the roots. It worked for Western Europe.
“caste” should read “vast”
Tyler Cowen, an economist who blogs at Marginal Revolution, wrote this yesterday for Bloomberg Opinion (https://tinyurl.com/59y9d9ha):
“That all said, I still think the Biden withdrawal from Afghanistan was a policy mistake. The U.S. has allowed a very certain evil to rule about 38 million people, without constraint, and has damaged America’s credibility. The Afghani future never looked promising, but sudden reversals of fortune do occur in world affairs — for instance the Irish peace process of the 1990s or the cessation of war in South America. Hoping for such a reversal, and extending the previous American commitment, seemed a better option. Perhaps the best chance for credibility was, from the beginning, to sell the American public on the notion of a permanent garrison, to forestall disaster, rather than nation building.”
In general, I agree with this assessment, but I can’t imagine an American president spending the political capital required to mount a long public relations campaign for a permanent garrison in Afghanistan. If the case were made that this was the best option for American security interests, and that other options were even worse, then a majority of the public might agree. Unfortunately, a vocal minority — including most of the media — would always protest. The issue would never go away, and it would have crippled any presidency.
Cornflour. I agree with Cowen’s view that a geo-political-military-strategic argument might have been more saleable than nation-building.
Problem is that the left doesn’t like the US having military advantages v. our potential enemies and opposing “nation-building” is harder. To insist it would never work requires, in effect, condemning the folks in the country, and their culture. The left doesn’t want to do that.
Best they can do is insist our culture is so bad that it would be worse for Afghans than their own and…that’s a hard sell, too.
Which is why I say the skedaddle isn’t a matter of the Afghans aren’t doing the Norman Rockwell thing. It’s because the Taliban is overrunning them, in part due to corruption and disloyalty among local commanders.
Having said both, a modest proportion of the resources expended, such as elementary schools–don’t cost much to build with local labor–and employ local teachers, puts the US occupation in the position of providing self-interest of the locals. So that would be nation building, but with a strategic purpose. The same would apply to various other amenities–sewage, road repair, etc.–which would also be a direct advantage to the US forces.
No culture is uniform across the population and some would be more amenable to going along with us and others less. To the extent we get the former group on side–if only because the “tolerate” us and our barbaric customs in their own interest, then we’re making strategic progress.
I think you have to conclude that this was THE worst way
How could it be any worse ?
deadroddy:
Hunter’s missing laptop (no. x) found in Kabul?
@ Richard Aubrey – “Having said both, a modest proportion of the resources expended, such as elementary schools–don’t cost much to build with local labor–and employ local teachers, puts the US occupation in the position of providing self-interest of the locals.”
Except that isn’t what we did. Instead, we focused on feminism and gender studies. Almost surely pissing off the population more than helping them.
That’s what you get when you make the faculty lounge into National Security advisors.
Except that isn’t what we did. Instead, we focused on feminism and gender studies. Almost surely pissing off the population more than helping them.
I don’t know if we focused on that, but the fact that it was there at all is indicative of something gravely wrong in the foreign aid apparat. What Ernest LeFever said 40 years ago holds: “the first duty of a government is to govern; the second duty of a government is to govern justly; the third duty of a government is to govern democratically”. Establishing foundational order and a monopoly of force should be job one. Establishing functioning and passably impartial bodies of officialdom – e.g. courts, administrative tribunals, bailiffs, comptrollers, treasurers, tax collectors, land registrars, and examiners – should be job two. Putting school teachers and agricultural extension agents in place should be job three. Establishing elected conciliar bodies should be job four. Importing American cultural pathologies should be job never.
FORGET TO MENTION WHAT WE DID NOT DO: OUTLAW ENDOGAMY (incest marriage).
One set of my great-grandparents were 1st cousins. Not unusual at that time and place.
Per Stanley Kurtz, the troublesome practice is “parallel cousin marriage”, where the children of two brothers marry. That gets harder to sustain as family sizes decline. If I’m not mistaken, the practice is now quite unusual in Egypt, where tribal antagonisms are a residue.
I know a couple from Syria. Second cousins. Literally met at a family reunion. Beautiful couple. Beautiful children. I still think it’s a good, cultural rule to forbid it, but it works for them.
deadrody and Art Deco,
Regardless of the extent America’s agents on the ground in Afghanistan did or did not focus on cultural issues like female empowerment, it seems likely most Afghanis would not be interested in becoming more “American.”
Imams don’t even have to lie in their sermons to paint a dire picture of American culture. Even those of us who grew up here, immersed in the culture from our birth, find shock or disgust with things we see; puberty blockers for minors, Olympic heroes dressing in drag, a Vice President’s son doing drugs off the flesh of hookers… I could continue this list a long time.
To an outsider it appears we worship the seven deadly sins; greed, lust, pride, gluttony, sloth…
American culture would be a nearly impossible thing to export to any theocratic nation. I can’t imagine Afghanis wanting any part of it.
RT Firefly, second cousins wouldn’t usually be a problem, unless the intermarriages become so common that there’s hardly any separation. Many Muslim cultures still do have frequent marriages of first cousins, with the resultant increase in birth defects.
When I was in India and Egypt, I found that many there thought that all Americans participate in the horrible behavior seen in our movies and TV sitcoms. In particular, they thought all American women were “loose,” and were astonished to learn I was my husband’s first and only wife of, then, 35 years.