By John GRANT
As the US was making its exit from Afghanistan, on August 26th, thirteen United States servicemen and -women were eliminated in a terrorist bomb at the Kabul airport; 20 more were injured. The President saluted the caskets at Dover Air Force Base. Given the nature of a war like Afghanistan, this bombing put pressure on United States forces to react in kind with some kind of tit-for-tat violent attack.
3 days after the bombing, the US military reported it had actually damaged an ISIS target, a white Toyota Corolla. Drone operators had actually followed the car for a long time. By late afternoon the drone operators and their chiefs made a determination that the guy driving the Corolla was an ISIS operative who had actually been packing bombs into his trunk– prepared to be provided and detonated. It was a GO! to “take him out.” As the Corolla pulled up to a home, a Hellfire rocket eliminated it. The military reported a secondary explosion– ie. proof of those bombs in the trunk.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration was battling tooth and nail versus a right-wing Republican onslaught recommending the President was struggling with dementia and was the worst sort of inefficient commander-in-chief possible. He was raked over the coals for “leaving” over 100 Americans and many Afghans who had worked for Americans or still worked for them in some capacity. Journalism pushed hard for the federal government to reduce up on visas and overwhelming red tape to get these Afghans away from the Taliban and to security. For a quick moment, the drone struck on the white Corolla was viewed as a positive act: We ‘d gotten vengeance on the ISIS bombers.
[Marine General Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the last leader of United States forces in Afghanistan, making his mea culpaspeech, and the little brother of among the dead kids in the drone attack.]
Then, in the September 11 problem of The New York City Times, after the paper had actually investigated on the ground, we learned that the drone hit on an ISIS terrorist bomber was, in truth, an overall error; the person hit was, in truth, not an ISIS operator but a respected 43-year-old Afghan working for an American help business who was filling water and food into his trunk to help refugees. To make matters worse, as this honorable US ally was bring up to his home, his kids– grateful to see him!– hurried out to meet him. At that point, the Hellfire rocket hit, leaving 10 dead, seven of them children. And many wounded.
The Pentagon quickly accepted the Times’ story of their deadly error, and the last commandant in Afghanistan– Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr.– fell on his sword and apologized. Reparations are on the method.
What are we to make of this story? Think about it not as a tit-for-tat gotcha! tale, however as a really human story including problematic people. Think about all the various pressures working on all the characters in the story, all with varying motives. There’s the 43-year-old Afghan working for Americans and, as the Americans are leaving, concerned about his own family and his own individuals. There’s the drone operator operating in an air-conditioned hut with a Diet Pepsi on the table in stable contact with his/her superiors nervous for a vengeance killing. Let’s picture the operator is a 27-year-old African American lady from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She signed up with the Army because she had few alternatives after high school, and the military looked like a good opportunity. She went from nationwide hero to baby killer in the blink of an eye. Her head should be spinning; she’s maybe in therapy. Everyone in the story is operating under remarkable uncertainty and worry (the Fog of War?) that can begin to play tricks with the mind. Now that it’s clear you were incorrect, what do you do? Do you rationalize and tell yourself the mistake cost only 10 lives, but if you ‘d been right, it could have been 35 dead American warriors– perhaps a lot more? Does that make the error better? Decisions are tough, and second-guessing results in mental stress. Maybe it’s best simply to carry on and ignore it. The Afghan family in question, obviously, will not forget about it. They’re apparently quite upset.
Shooting First and Asking Concerns Later On
Think back to the beginnings of the war. Think About George W. Bush and the concept you’re either with us or you protest us. Think how Dick Cheney felt the requirement to go to “the dark side.” Think of all the lies and the self-serving trash told to the American individuals by Donald Rumsfeld as they exploited 9/11 and set in motion not one, but 2 full-fledged wars. Shoot first, ask questions later onwas too often the actual method in these wars. Thus, the story of the dead help worker and the 7 innocent dead kids is the best metaphor for both Bush wars, Afghanistan and Iraq. Metaphors are ever present in our language and lives because– by suggesting something familiar can help describe a bigger, more confusing matter– they help us get a grip on complicated things. They work in the world of pattern recognition. As metaphor, the dreadful last drone hit is a very blunt punctuation.
In its protection of the story, Times reporter Alissa J. Rubin wrote this: “Over much of the last twenty years, the United States has actually repeatedly targeted the incorrect people in its efforts to pursue terrorists. … [T] here is a well-documented record of strikes that eliminated innocents people from almost the very first months of its presence in Afghanistan.” Decisions were made and the “evidence” to back them up was frequently either produced or it was insufficient and distorted– while excellent details that did not support the cavalier use of violence was neglected. Too often, the intelligence was back-filled to validate what they wished to do– what they felt they had to do, which was to respond strongly to the forces that had actually attacked the most effective country on the planet. The point was to throw US military power around (Shock & Wonder) until the regional terrorist hierarchy understood opposition was useless and cried “uncle.”
So now the Afghan War is over and the United States is interred with the Brits and Russia in the popular Afghan Graveyard of Empires. It’s ungraceful to say “We informed you so.” But the antiwar Left did just that starting 20 years ago. Some kind of response to 9/11 was definitely required. However two huge military invasions that developed into a “country building” boondoggle?
If having fewer costly, losing wars in the future matters at all (and it might not for some) then we require to basically re-think– in a time of profound technological change– how Americans associate with other individuals in the world. The truth we are able to bomb a place into the Stone Age doesn’t mean we should. For one, morally, the world will not let us get away with that. The place to start is to understand why Afghanistan went so wrong while focusing on the ongoing diplomatic negotiations with the Taliban government of Afghanistan. These negotiations are going on in Qatar, the country that created and runs the genuine news operations of Al Jazeera. They host a substantial US base. And dialogue with Taliban leaders is barely brand-new. Prior to 9/11, Taliban leaders made a number of journeys to Texas to speak to oil business about oil offers; they met with Guv George W. Bush. This was OK, as long as the subject was oil offers and earnings. Now, it’s how to work with the Taliban to make post-war Afghanistan a livable country.
Reports suggest the current negotiations between the United States and the Taliban are working. Americans and Afghans who worked with the United States continue to drip out through different paths, one being aircrafts from airports besides the one in Kabul. When you consider it, a Taliban leadership that has, like the Vietnamese before them, effectively driven the powerful United States military from their land does not want the US to linger as it exits; it desires a tidy exit. The more we linger the more difficult things will get for them. While the Taliban might have “won” the war, they understand the US can still cause fantastic damage and havoc if it wants to.
The Taliban of 2021 are not the Taliban of 2001. We’re told 70-percent of Afghans have a smart phone and 30-percent of them are on social networks. Combatants learn a lot from their enemies over 20 years of war, which goes for both sides. Taliban leaders are dealing with food shortages and other crises. Hard-ball settlements in conjunction with food deliveries would be wise; plus, we have billions of dollars of Afghan money secured that we might negotiate with. As folk wisdom has it, you get more with sugar than with salt.
I recently listened to Texas Senator Ted Cruz demagogue the unpleasant intricacies of Biden’s exit plan from Afghanistan. Cruz was grilling Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a hearing; he was conceited and belligerent and focused nearly completely on the 13 dead soldiers from an ISIS bomb. Although it had been made public, he made no mention of the 10 allies we eliminated with an US drone strike in action to those dead soldiers. Cruz was trying to utilize the ISIS bombing of 13 dead US soldiers as his simple metaphor for the entire war; as if, the 9/11 attack itself could be utilized as a metaphor for understanding the 20-year war United States leaders set in movement to revenge that terrorist act. Cruz and company want to make the original justification a metaphor for the United States response. Metaphor does not work that way; propaganda and bullshit work that way.
As someone who has actually opposed the Afghan and Iraq Wars from the very beginning, the fact is at this late date we have a United States administration with the courage to exit from the 20 year war. On the other hand, on one extreme, ISIS opposes the United States withdrawal and wants to stimulate violence to keep the US in Afghanistan as the decadent western, royal Boogie Man that justifies their existence. While on the other side, domestic extremists like Senator Cruz are doing exactly the exact same thing: Trying their best with rhetoric to keep US troops in Afghanistan– in the words of Fox’s Sean Hannity, to safeguard Americans and Afghans “stuck behind enemy lines.” It’s the best playing a timeless Stabbed In The Back Mythblame game. The truth is Afghanistan’s borders are not the very same thing as “enemy lines”– especially in the internet age.
In the US pursuit of American exceptionalism and self-interest, we conveniently forget how the Taliban pertained to leadership in Afghanistan. The United States funded and equipped a mujahadeen force in Afghanistan to oppose the Russian occupation; some recommend the United States, starting under President Carter, sought to produce a “Russian Vietnam.” When that worked and the Russians took out– so did the United States! Afghanistan was left a roiling mess with a management vacuum. Importantly, it was the Taliban (the word implies traineesor hunters) who filled that vacuum. Coming out of an especially brutal war and faced with a damaged society, the Taliban handled the nation with an extremely harsh hand. However the exact same goes for the Wahabi Bedouins in Saudi Arabia and leadership in many other places.
Whatever changed with 9/11. A frightened and furious United States started to manage itself, not unlike the Taliban, with an extreme hand. Susan Sontag openly stated: “By all means let’s grieve together; but let’s not be foolish together.” However speaking fact to power at that point wasn’t encouraged. Sontag and others like her were damned and threatened to the point of silence. The need to job United States royal military violence was overwhelming, lest we lose the edge as the dominant world power.
Who’s To Blame?
In a recent New York Times column, Jamelle Bouiemakes an excellent case that, “The war on horror deteriorated the institutions of American democracy and fed our most reactionary impulses.” Hence, Bouie discovers George W. Bush’s September 11, 2021, speech in Shanksville, PA, the website of Flight 93’s crash, to be disturbingly hypocritical. “The reality is that Bush is one of the leading architects of our present crisis.”
Former President Bush has actually remained in hiding for a long time. His routine can arguably be viewed as supplying the United States among its worst diplomacy disasters. Given that leaving workplace, he’s spent a lot of time establishing a soft, human image as a painter of wounded veterans, the men and women he sent to Iraq and Afghanistan. One may argue he’s a injuredpresident looking for restitution. Now, with his Shanksville speech, he wants to have it both methods: He’s against Trump and Trumpism, while his routine probably started much of the un-democratic problems that came to full flower in the Trump administration.
Let’s begin with Bush’s election in 2000. Bush lost the popular vote; he just won the Florida recount since the Republican ground forces there were a lot more insistent and potentially more violent than Gore’s Democrats. The emotions went like this: Democrats had had their eight years; now it was the Republicans turn! The deal was sealed by a foul-smelling Supreme Court ruling. Even the supreme court justices who sealed the offer appeared to know it smelled, since they said the judgment could not be utilized as precedent– as they sat in robes atop a legal system based entirely on precedent. Now, obviously, Republicans have actually proceeded to even more obnoxious and un-democratic postures, with the capacity for violence and the possibility of more Supreme Court chicanery a looming reality.
In his column, Bouie quotes from Spencer Ackerman’s book Reign of Fear: How the 9/11 Period Destabilized America and Produced Trump:
“A war that never specified its opponent became an opportunity for the so-called MAGA union of white Americans to merge their grievances in an atmosphere of exemplary emergency … [T] his opened a panoply of authoritarian possibilities that extended far beyond the war on fear.” The concept of an opponent was moved and mixed around so that it now consisted of United States residents. You’re either with us or versus us. As a Trump check in my community states: “Make liberals weep again!”
In this sense, Donald Trump, Trumpism and the debilitating of American democracy are not new phenomena. The roots are in the post WWII increase of United States imperialist militarism and wars like Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, corrupt election messes like 2000 in Florida and in the essential dishonesty of the George W. Bush administration and the unbelievable idea of Mr. Bush as a “war president” appeasing afraid residents crying out for violent vengeance. Like a bad prosecutor of an astonishing murder requiring an accused to carry out, it didn’t appear to matter whether the target of the cruel violence was guilty of the criminal activity in concern.
As such, George W. Bush and his administration provided the US with a suppurating disaster that nobody till Joe Biden had the temerity to end. It left a terrible legacy. We need to apply the blame for the Afghan debacle where it belongs prior to we can even begin to get a grip on our wasteful militarism.