The Time Will Never Be Right to Leave Afghanistan
If anything has been truly bipartisan in Washington, D.C., it's commitment to endless war. There is stirring on the left, as lonely figures from the height of the War on Terror era, like the legendary Barbara Lee, are joined by a new generation of leaders who can see clearly that there is no scenario in which the conflicts in Afghanistan and beyond end with American victory—and, just as important, with the maintenance of American self-image. There are few more cherished commodities than American innocence, and the accompanying—and, at this point, deranged—belief that our interventions in other nations' affairs are virtuous, a force for good. But finally, it seems, we're starting to get honest with ourselves.
How many trillions of dollars that we could have spent on educating our citizens or making them healthy have we devoted to this project? How many American men and women have died for it? How many more have injuries that will haunt them for the rest of their lives? Will they find it difficult to work, or play in the backyard with their kids? How many sleepless nights lie in wait from here to a lifetime? And what do we have to show for it? It risks devaluing their sacrifice to ask the question, but it must be asked. We cannot send more 20-year-old kids to make the same sacrifices when we know the outcome already, we just refuse to face it. And then, of course, there are the people who live in these places—whose countries these actually are. 10,000 Afghan civilians were injured or killed in 2019. The number for the last decade hovers around 100,000. They have kids and backyards and sleepless nights, too.
Even Donald Trump has some instinctive sense that we must extricate ourselves from these quagmires of our own making, though it rarely manifests in his policy. When it does, it's haphazard, as he announces on a whim that we're getting out of Afghanistan only to reverse himself within the week, presumably under pressure from political allies and military brass. It would be preferable to have a real plan for leaving the country we have waged war in for two decades, one that gives the people who live there the best chance at a good life when we're gone. But it feels sometimes as if every one of these plans is doomed, that the framework becomes a continuing justification to stay longer.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers on the House Armed Services Committee reinforced this notion Wednesday, as The Hill tells us.
The House Armed Services Committee voted Wednesday to put roadblocks on President Trump’s ability to withdraw from Afghanistan, including requiring an assessment on whether any country has offered incentives for the Taliban to attack U.S. and coalition troops.
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) amendment, from Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), would require several certifications before the U.S. military can further draw down in Afghanistan.
The amendment was approved 45-11.
Here, it looks like folks from both parties have concerns around the mounting evidence that Trump has failed to, or has simply chosen not to, deal with Russia's offering the Taliban bounties on American and British soldiers. It's a dereliction of duty on the president's part, and the confirmation Thursday that he will do nothing in response continues to call into question where exactly his loyalties lie. The Democrats on the committee in particular are trying to use the annual NDAA to get answers on this.
But as we hear more about it, the mission creep creeps in.
Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), the No. 3 House Republican, argued the amendment “lays out, in a very responsible level of specificity, what is going to be required if we are going to in fact make decisions about troop levels based on conditions on the ground and based on what's required for our own security, not based on political timelines."
Uh oh. A Cheney's on the case. The Hill tells us military officials believe any further troop drawdowns would be based on conditions that have not yet been met, but you once again begin to wonder whether military brass will ever believe the conditions are right to leave. Trump's motivation probably is political—there's talk he wants the withdrawal before Election Day—but what other motivation is going to get us out of there?
“There's been bipartisan criticism of what a weak deal [Trump] got with the Taliban, a deal that is already falling apart,” [Democrat Seth] Moulton said. ... “We clearly need more oversight over what the president is doing in Afghanistan.”
Crow’s amendment would block funding to dip below 8,000 troops and then again to below 4,000 troops unless the administration certifies that doing so would not compromise the U.S. counterterrorism mission in Afghanistan, not increase risk for U.S. personnel there, be done in consultation with allies, and is in the best interest of the United States.
It would also require an analysis on the effects of a drawdown on the threat from the Taliban, the status of human and civil rights, an inclusive Afghan peace process, the capacity of Afghan forces and the effect of malign actors on Afghan sovereignty.
This all sounds like The Right Thing to Do, but it also sounds like we're never going to leave. Is there really a scenario where Afghanistan is a stable country, sturdily rebuffing "malign actors," when we leave? I mean, now we're trying to usher in a deal with the Taliban, the bad people—and they are certainly bad—whom we went in to remove from power in the first place. We're nowhere. Does anyone truly believe we'll successfully oversee a deal between the Taliban and the Afghan government that safeguards the human rights of the Afghan people for good? The big thing two decades ago was that the Taliban has no respect for human rights, particularly the rights of women.
And more than that, there's the enduring truth that our commitment to this battle will never match that of the people who actually live there—or in Iraq, or in Syria, or in North Africa. The war is invisible to most Americans. Only a tiny slice of our people are at war with Afghanistan. But everyone in Afghanistan is at war. It brings to mind an incident from Fox & Friends two years ago, when a former Navy SEAL named Jake Zweig came on and gave Brian Kilmeade a conversation he did not anticipate having.
"We're going to have to take a different approach," Zweig said. "We're going to have to stop dropping bombs on their head and creating more terrorists. Probably going to have to go to an educational piece. What we're doing isn't working at this point. ... They've been at war for 2,000 years. And if you remember what Osama bin Laden said, he's willing to fight this for generations. Is the American people, and the Western world, are we as committed as they are to this battle? I doubt that, highly."
In the Hill article, it was the odious Matt Gaetz, Trumpist apparatchik, who was the only member of Congress quoted who said the plain truth.
“A great nation does not force the next generation to fight their wars, and that's what we've done in Afghanistan,” Gaetz said. “I think the best day to have not had the war in Afghanistan was when we started it, and the next best day is tomorrow.
"I don't think there's ever a bad day to end the war in Afghanistan," he added. "Our generation is weary of this and tired of this.”
Maybe Donald Trump is not the one to get us out. Maybe he lacks the strategic thinking to do much of anything of worth. Or maybe we just need someone to declare we're leaving. No more studies, no more conditions requirements, no human rights deal with the Taliban. We're leaving. The conditions will never be met. The victory will not be won. What even is victory, at this point? Can anyone tell us? We cannot stay there forever, afraid of what comes next—particularly if, as we're now told, the new fear is that Russia will seek a foothold in our absence. The Russians know better than anyone what it means to try to hold down Afghanistan. They know how slippery it is in the sand and rock. We should have learned from their lessons, or from our own.
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