Texghanistan Update

I wanted to let everyone know my MSNBC appearance was cancelled at the last minute this morning because of increased rolling coverage of the fall of the Kabul in Afghanistan. These kinds of last minute changes are characteristic of the news business.

I also want to state clearly that I believe President Biden has made the correct decision to withdraw. He may have miscalculated what would happen as we pulled out militarily, but there is no further hope for American political or military success in Afghanistan. Our country has spent close to a trillion dollars over the course of 20 years, training and equipping the Afghani army, and they have shown no resolve to defend their own country from religious terrorists.

What is happening is tragic, and the terror and oppression that women are about to be subjected to is horrifying to even contemplate. But the question has been answered about whose responsibility it is to determine the course of Afghanistan’s future and it seems clear that had the US spent five or even ten more years, the resolve of the Taliban would have been greater than the rest of the country’s population. After twenty years, we have to assume American presence would not have changed that and it is axiomatic that the occupied always outlast the occupiers. (See also: Vietnam).

This should not be a stain on Mr. Biden’s presidency. Because lives were lost and ruined as a consequence of the decisions of an earlier administration, does not mean more lives should be lost and ruined. George W. Bush is the man who set the Mideast afire, along with his warmongering Secretary of Defense the late Donald Rumsfeld. If they had quickly gone into Afghanistan and taken Osama bin Laden, instead of invading Iraq for revenge and oil, the military and political landscape might be very different for Afghanis.

The United States has long given lip service to a foreign policy that promotes self determination for nations of the world, though we have a history of intervening and even propping up dictators who are friendly to our democracy. In this case, the Afghanis have determined their future by their failure to adequately resist even after two decades of training and equipping. Imagine the problems that might have been addressed in this country with the trillion dollars spent on this adventure.

There was no positive outcome to envision. Afghanistan has long been an eater of empires. It was military and political hubris on the part of America to think we might change the course of the country’s history. We are best absent from there. Whatever becomes of Afghanistan is now in the hands of its own people. If they want to resist the Taliban, they will. But we cannot hold the gun for them any longer, nor should we be pulling any triggers. - JM