Joe Biden has severely damaged his American presidency. We can argue the history and legacy of 43 years of constant warfare between multiple sides in and over Afghanistan since 1978, but the cameras are on what’s happening now. We can repeatedly declare no one was prepared for the rapid collapse of the Afghan state with bloody chaos in the wake of Biden’s acceleration of American withdrawal despite intelligence reports to the contrary. The perception rings true, however, the events of August 2021 overshadow Biden’s progressive agenda. Who’s thinking about his trillion-dollar FDR-style bipartisan infrastructure package now?
Biden is correct most Americans want to get out of Afghanistan and indeed out of all the “forever wars.” A withdrawal wasn’t supposed to be defeat, however, and now the United States has fallen face down into the Graveyard of Empires. Biden failed to remember Americans hate losing wars more than they hate being stuck in them. Even neverending wars draining the US and its NATO Allies of blood and treasure “should” or “could” have been won despite what Clausewitz wrote of war and politics. Yes, Americans don’t like wasting time, lives, and money in endless wars in faraway, remote places distracting them from more immediate concerns back at home, but they hate losing even more.
Afghanistan hasn’t always been the Graveyard of Empires either. Yes, many conquerors have invaded only to falter and die or leave. Those ancient mountains, valleys, deserts, plains, and cities mark a stark and beautiful land at the crossroads of Eurasia. At different times in history the Persians, Greeks, Mongols, Timurids, and others successfully conquered and ruled Afghanistan, altho usually by slaughtering seemingly everyone in their way.
Such genocide is no longer acceptable today when sometimes the only way to “win” such a protracted guerrilla terror war bogged down in remote farming villages and dense cities is to kill every living thing there. No one does so anymore, not even the Soviets or the Taliban. Oops, the Taliban can’t seem to make up its mind to commit genocide against the Hazaras altho they still murder many of them simply for being Hazaras. All sides in war, however, including the USA, commit atrocities in war time. Such is the ugly nature of warfare, yet to eradicate a people to win a victory doesn’t work any longer.
War is obsolete, a brutal anachronism, yet this extreme form of conflict resolution has its own inertia driven by history, culture, exploitation, hatred, greed, religion…and politics. Our primal fears and desires harnessed to and amplified by technology continues to fuel wars of all kinds around our planet.
The collapse of Afghanistan is rippling around the planet. The EU, the UK, NATO, Canada, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, India, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Israel, South Korea, Japan, Belarus, and many other countries and their alliances are grappling with the consequences of American defeat. All in the midst of a raging global pandemic with the ever-mutating COVID-19 coronaviruses plus catastrophic rapid climate change. Americans, including those within the Biden Administration, are already struggling with the ramifications of defeat. Pulling off the largest airlift in history may be a marvel, and doing so does not hide the ugly truth.
Biden demonstrates courage by staying the course without rushing back into battle and re-reconquest. His lack of tact, grace, and early failure to grasp the magnitude of what happened while on vacation already haunt him and the US Democratic Party. The Republicans, already riven by strife between Trump, the Far Far Right, and the Q-Anonners on one side and the Neo-Cons and Trad-Cons on the other have pulled together in unanimous condemnation of Biden and the Democrats. The Democrats are in turn torn between those supporting Biden’s withdrawal yet appalled at his handling of the crisis and the consequences to America’s Afghan allies and to Afghan girls and women.
Nixon and Ford bungled the end of the Vietnam War. Carter bungled the Iranian crisis. Bush 1 bungled the end of the 1990-1991 Persian Gulf War as Saddam was allowed to slaughter Iraqis encouraged by the US to rise up in rebellion and then left on their own. Clinton bungled the Somalia intervention started by Bush 1. Bush 2 invaded Iraq on false evidence and faulty logic. Obama bungled Libya and Syria. Trump screwed up his own country and America’s alliances. And so it goes. Will the United States as a relatively new nation learn the lessons of far longer-lived countries such as when one engages in war often enough one loses a few wars as well as win a few. Such sage wisdom appears unlikely.
Two immediate lessons from a military and sociopolitical perspectives are apparent. Two choices present themselves:
1) Get in, achieve immediate success, then get out without any intention of occupation, counterinsurgency, and nation building. Be prepared to zoom back in on a raid or assault should the need arise.
Or, 2) Prepare to spend decades – DECADES – on occupation and counterinsurgency, and even longer on nation building.
American leaders tend to ignore the intelligence presented on significant actions in play whether they’re signals the Japanese will attack Hawaii and Singapore or the events leading to 9/11 or the rise of ISIS/Daesh or knowledge of the Afghan military as a paper tiger or the Islamic State is a still force to be reckoned with in Africa as well as in Kabul. So will American leadership truly ever learn? And will the American people in general forgive, forget, and move on? Or will they turn from Biden and the Dems in upcoming elections? The latter would be a disaster for an increasingly polarized and violent United States already drifting towards the horrible possibility of civil war. And while most of the Americans have left Afghanistan, the violence there continues.
William Dudley Bass
Saturday 21 August 202
Revised Wednesday 17 November 2021
Seattle, Washington
USA
Earth
Sol
Copyright © 2021 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved by the Author & his Descendants until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship over and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. Thank you.