We should always think twice before insulting someone. My daughter’s teenage grandson recently laid his hand on my shoulder and said “Papaw, you’re bald.” I replied, “Grandson, do you not understand genetics?” Likewise, at his age, I told an uncle he was fat. It is now obvious to me that he didn’t weigh any more than I do presently. My point is that ill-conceived statements often come back to bite you on the backside.
I thought about that when I started to criticize President Biden for his withdrawal from Afghanistan. Many on the right criticized him, though they were silent when President Trump announced the deadline for the withdrawal. We can argue that the withdrawal was slipshod, but when you review the numbers of Americans and Afghanis airlifted out, the results were pretty remarkable. I am not happy that we didn’t get out all the Afghanis who aided us, but at least we did not utterly abandon them as America did the Kurds when Trump abandoned our Syrian base to the Russians.
Frankly, there is no perfect way to withdraw from a 20-year long war. Biden was right to decide not to leave this unnecessary war for another president.
It is arguable that we made an enormous miscalculation in invading Afghanistan. Certainly, we wanted to get Bin Laden and punish the Taliban for aiding him. But Bin Laden, we now know, was hiding in Pakistan, as that “ally” most likely was aware. In hindsight, why attack the Taliban for aiding Bin Laden with a temporary home while the vast majority of his support came from our other ally, Saudi Arabia? We did manage to drive out the Taliban leadership to — guess where — Pakistan. Of course, they returned within 18 months and re-established their control over much of the country. Why did we not then destroy their capability to fight? Primarily, because that was never our mission. So why not leave years ago? Three American presidents, Bush, Obama, and Trump were dishonest when each claimed we were not engaging in a nation-building effort. The truth is we were there doing a half-hearted effort on building up a democracy in that ancient, backward country. We wasted trillions of dollars in doing so. We trained a pathetic army with men who enlisted primarily for the money, not a cause, as their lack of efforts showed as we departed.
A very capable local writer, Linda Dunn, in a recent column in this paper, explained the problem with this war better than I could. We poured millions upon millions into the military-industrial complex with no clear purpose for a nation whose centuries-old culture stood steadfast against change. The best we can say about our involvement there is that, unlike the Soviet Union, we were not there to support a puppet government. There were, of course, many Americans who sought to do the best for those people. But America never solidified our aims there.
There are lessons to be learned from our misguided Afghan venture, but we Americans do tend to correct our errors only after repeating them. Historians will likely look back on our response to the 9/11 attacks as poorly done. If we had relied almost solely on covert operations, which is how we found and killed Bin Laden, rather than fighting a 20-year war in Afghanistan, rather than invading Iraq and destroying the government there, which led to the creation of ISIS, imagine how much we could have saved economically and in the world’s view of us. In the meantime, let’s all be careful about our criticisms and think thoroughly first.
Michael Adkins formerly was chair of the Hancock County Democratic Party.
