How did we get here?
We got involved in Afghanistan in an unprecedented surge of patriotic fervor to kill Osama bin Laden, who masterminded the 9/11 atrocity. What started as a special force hunt in Afghanistan, became intertwined and overshadowed by the war in Iraq, our entire effort was diffused and failed to recognize that the enemy was religious extremism that just could not live with our presence in the Middle East.
We also failed to recognize when the towers fell how the paradigm “how we defend our country shifted under our feet” as our unified rage only found frustration not only in Afghanistan, but domestically. As the war on terror was brought into the domestic domain, we are now at war with ourselves, as we don’t recognize the America we love.
We subjected the best military
to a form of low intensity war in Afghanistan as the hunt turned into a strange form of conflict where the enemy looked like some elusive but fierce medieval army of the Ayatollah. Only the expenditure of immense resources, the employment of thousands of American contractors to sustain the effort and the absolute heroic commitment of our military made the effort possible.
Questionable military tactics aimed at “making friends with the population,” reminiscent of Vietnam, resulted in loss of limbs and lives of our military fighting heroically against formidable odds in the most adverse of mountain regions. Only our warriors experienced this strange mix of cultural milieu they were thrust into and trying to understand what this fight was really about.
The lack of decisive outcome continued to prevail, as the years passing have culminated the Afghanistan effort into our politically unacceptable “longest war.” Afghanistan has been an enigma for our nation’s senior leadership from the very beginning and counterinsurgency, as such was a working disaster given Afghanistan’s tribal make up and deeply
embedded religious orientation in the tribal regions. In brief, we had a modern technology-based military force trying to impose its will on religious fanaticism.
Four presidents struggled with our presence and lack of progress there. Even without decisive conclusion we established our power projection footprint as a global power. Terminating it now as part of Biden “reset” of the Trump foreign affairs missteps, seems hasty and simply not serving our best interests.
Watching the debacle on the Kabul airfield reflected a life and death dimension that is not in consonance with the tenor of President Biden’s dialogue about why we were leaving. Our very presence in 20 years had serious consequences not just on Afghanistan but our NATO partners, regional allies, displaced millions.
The very notion that after asserting ourselves in the region for 20 years now after all we come in compliance with the intents of the Osama bin Laden is simply an unacceptable closure of the 9/11 atrocity.