The Biden administration is prepping America for the imminent victory of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and it’s a painful narrative. The Taliban’s advance has been quicker than expected, although it was always kind of assumed that the federal government in Kabul could only hang on so long without U.S. assistance.
The Taliban shouldn’t be wished on anyone, and this is a tragedy for human rights and freedom. But I think it’s important that we see this in a balanced perspective. The weakness that the Taliban is now exposing is precisely why we needed to give up on Afghanistan after 20 years of trying to set up a durable government there. While there were certain military advantages to having bases in the country, the main goal was always to create stability so that extremism would not flourish. That meant building something that could endure without the use of our soldiers and weapons.
We just didn’t succeed in that task. Some blame belongs to us, because we have trouble seeing things for how they are rather than how we might wish them to be. We’re also not exactly geniuses at governing our own country, and we’re far from experts in nation building. Our enemies also deserve credit, whether we’re talking about those who fought us directly on the battlefields or we’re talking about regional governments in Iran, Russia, China and Pakistan that had an interest in seeing us fail. And, yes, the Afghans have to take a lot of blame too. There was too much corruption and not enough commitment to overcoming religious and ethnic differences to meet the common threat of religious fanaticism.
We made a huge investment in Afghanistan and it looks like they won’t hold on for six months without us. They ought to have built stronger institutions and defenses than this. But we’re talking about a country that hasn’t enjoyed peace since 1979 and which has seen far too much foreign occupation.
Less important that finding the proper apportionment of blame is the simple sad fact that Afghanistan is still not governable. We were not likely to do better in the next 20 years than we had done in the first twenty, so we had to pick some point in time to call it quits. If the government in Kabul had held on valiantly for a couple of years before succumbing, we might have had reason to question whether we needed to pull our support, but its total inability to hold ground without us shows that they were completely hollow and nowhere near where they needed to be to operate independently.
Ironically, the speed of their collapse confirms the wisdom of our decision.
Now we’re begging the Taliban not to sack our embassy in Kabul.
Shouldn’t we just be getting our people the fuck out of there? Do we want to be dealing with hostage videos or potentially grisly and public executions, like we did with ISIS?
Imagine how all of that will play right now in our fucked up country.
Front page of the NYT’s right now is all about that.
Shit we might have a civil war yet over the mask mandates. Hard to believe. It is fucking nuts.
The mission was always doomed and I said so 20 years ago.
We are led by people corrupt beyond belief.
And they listen to fools.
So we are now asking the Taliban to spare our embassy even as we send in more troops. Your headline is right on. This reminds me all over again of Saigon. We get out with our tails between our legs. Out by end of August maybe from the top of the embassy once again. ISIS will just love to execute a few of our guys oh the way out. What a freaking disaster after twenty years and all those wise men telling us how to do it. And CNN is saying there are still up to 10000 people there who want out. so it is all replete with a humanitarian disaster.
Meanwhile the American strong men in Florida, Texas and Arizona continue to attack us. And good ole’ Joe M and the Pres continue to hold fast on the filibuster so the thugs can declare the winner in future elections.
Our record on nation-building is mixed.
Just 19 years after Japan’s surrender at the end of WWII, the country hosted the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo. In less than 20 years, Japan built a functioning democracy and a vibrant economy. And there was no insurgency fighting against American military forces stationed in the country. A similar story could be told about West Germany.
It took about 40 years, but a functioning democracy eventually took hold in South Korea. Twenty years after the armistice, South Korea was a poor country and a military dictatorship but the economy was growing and the country was relatively peaceful. There was no insurgency fighting against American military forces stationed in the country.
It might be interesting to ponder why we succeeded in South Korea but not Afghanistan.
Japan and Korea were and are nations, in the sense that Belgium and France are nations. Afghanistan is not, never was, and probably never will be. It’s a region of tribes and clans that has never really had a central government worthy of the name, and to which hardly anybody is loyal. Its “army” was a jobs program for people with the right family connections. It was never going to fight for its non-existent government. The Taliban, in contrast, is filled with religious True Believers fighting for God and clan. Leaving was the only sane choice, although it’s definitely going to be ugly.
Afghanistan’s borders were drawn by the European colonial powers. They split the Pashtun homeland between Afghanistan and Pakistan. And the Taliban come mostly from the Pashtun.
There’s a sizable Pashtun minority in Pakistan and a Pakistani Taliban movement: the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Perhaps the Taliban can be seen as a national self-determination movement. The Taliban’s ultimate goal could be a Pashtun state, independent of both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
So now that the Afghan government has officially folded, it appears the right wing wurlitzer is predictably putting the entire responsibility for 20-plus years of incompetence and poor decisions, both here and in Afghanistan, on the shoulders of the Biden administration. And I fully expect the media in the U.S. to play along, with great enthusiasm. After all, the complexity of the history on the Afghan situation is so easily muted with pictures of individual Afghani desperation, the horrific human tragedy, and helicopters plucking people from rooftops. I hope the BIden administration is prepared for just how difficult the politics of this is going to be. The cult of American ignorance will not want to hear nuanced arguments and detailed explanations of how we have arrived at this place. They better damn well be ready with a simple and singular message to discuss this, because the GOP will be beating this drum at every turn, and hanging “defeat”, such as it were, around the neck of every Democrat that even sticks his head into the daylight.
While there is a tradition of not maligning former presidents, Biden should squarely blame Dubya and co. Maybe throw Dubya a bone by saying he got poor advice from Cheney and Bolton. That happens to be true and undeniable with the benefits of hindsight. Hell, there were folks at the time saying this was a big mistake. For himself, he needs to start thinking how to cast his own record in a better light. Lastly, take a dig at the former occupant. No strategy there, and antagonizing Iran by pulling out of the nuclear deal was a giant blunder. Use his so far brilliant communications department to drill that into WH reporter’s skulls to set the narrative.
Seems reasonable. This was always a fucked mission, from the get-go. That’s probably the best narrative, if for no other reason than it’s the truth. Dubya’s administration got us into this particular quagmire. Trump’s efforts at negotiating the terms for US withdrawal of troops were probably every bit as half-assed as everything else Trump did. Whether or not the press in the US will actually grasp the concept, placing some blame squarely on the shoulders of Ghani’s presidency makes sense, given that there were always questions about the legitimacy his election and re-election, and given that we have no idea how much of any funds earmarked for Afghani troops actually made it to them. The fact that apparently many of the troops had not been paid in nearly a year put me in a very bad mood Sunday. Biden could even take some deserved credit for ending this fiction that US has any business in nation building. This debacle, which can be pointed squarely at prior administrations and Afghani administrations drives the point home. The US is a reliable ally when it comes to security threats that affect fellow NATO members, etc. Engage in limited well-defined missions when needed. That’s pretty much it. Anyone complaining about withdrawing remaining troops from Afghanistan needs to ask themselves if they were willing to admit Afghanistan as the 51st state. Anyone willing to tell me that with a straight face and evidence will get me to listen. Beyond that, I’m done.
That said, we do have as a nation an obligation to get any and every US citizen and Afghani citizen out who wants out while the US can hold the airport in Kabul. So many people were given false hope. They at least deserve a chance to expatriate and rebuild their lives as they see fit. I really need to see the Biden administration go to the mat to make that happen to the fullest extent possible. I suspect some of my friends, may sympathetic to Biden, who did multiple tours in Afghanistan, are expecting the same.