The events of the last week in Afghanistan have given all of us pause. As a former soldier and combat veteran I have found myself oscillating from bewilderment to anger. I’m bewildered because I know that the U.S. has the wherewithal and leadership to conduct an orderly withdrawal from Afghanistan, but this isn’t orderly. What we are witnessing is a fiasco. That makes me angry. None of this needed to happen this way. After many years—too many—of nation-building in Afghanistan, it was time to close this chapter in our history. But there is a right and a wrong way to do that, no matter how critical you may be of the nation-building policy the U.S. pursued or how badly you want America to leave Afghanistan.
In moments like this, it is particularly important to see things as they are, not as we would wish them to be. America’s involvement in Afghanistan resembles the title to the 1966 Italian epic spaghetti Western starring Clint Eastwood, “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.”
First, the good. The U.S. went into Afghanistan to kill the al-Qaeda snakes who slithered into America on 11 September 2001 to kill 2977 innocent men, women, and children whose only sin that day was they went to work or were otherwise living their lives. The al-Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan were vermin. The deserved to die and we were right to mount the offensive to kill them.
That said, we did not follow the advice found in what is known as the Weinberger–Powell doctrine. Derived from the post-Vietnam War and the experience of the Multinational Force in Beirut Lebanon in 1982–84, this doctrine was developed by Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger and expounded on by Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Colin Power a few years later. It was implemented during U.S. combat operations in Grenada, Panama and—most impressively—during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. In sum, it asserts that there should be no use of force unless success is all but guaranteed. Moreover, that force should be used decisively and applied quickly. Then, as soon as the objectives of U.S. forces are accomplished, they should return home to avoid potential entanglement in politico-military quagmires. More importantly, the image of America’s armed forces is to be protected to ensure U.S. national credibility. As a matter of warfighting, this makes absolute sense. That is a good thing.
However, that is not what happened in Afghanistan after we completed our initial mission to kill al-Qaeda. President George W. Bush decided we should remain in Afghanistan and build a democracy there. Afghanistan is a tribal nation with a multitude of warlords, village elders, and ethnicities that could care less about democracy. Bush went against Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s advice to forgo the nation-building approach. But Bush rejected that advice.
President Barack Obama declared in 2014 that “our combat mission in Afghanistan is ending.” But he kept troops there for the rest of his administration and left office continuing to ignore the Weinberger–Powell doctrine.
President Donald Trump campaigned on ending the Afghanistan War. He went on to actually negotiate with the Taliban. I would have counseled against that. Negotiating with the Taliban is like kissing a rattle snake in the mouth. You can only expect one result. Yet Trump did settle on a “conditions-based” approach to withdrawal for Afghanistan, as opposed a “date-certain” departure. That was good. But in sum, no President after Bush got things right in Afghanistan. That was indeed bad.
And then there is the ugly. President Joe Biden’s Afghanistan exit is a disaster. In truth, he rejected the advice of his military leaders and those in the intelligence community who warned that a date-certain approach—the options he demanded—would accelerate the Taliban’s seizure of power. That may have been inevitable. But the rapidity of the Taliban’s takeover was precipitated by Biden’s hapless actions. Recall he first insisted the U.S. leave on 11 September of this year. But then some of his more lucid advisors—they are scarce—warned him that leaving on the 20th anniversary on 9-11 would be a propaganda coup for the Taliban and the remnant of al-Qaeda they safeguard there. So, he punted, demanding a withdrawal by 31 August. The Taliban may be feudalistic barbarians, but they are not stupid. They saw Biden’s eager cut-and-run strategy as a green light to advance on provincial capitals and boldly enter Kabul. Unfortunately, now all that will be cut are the throats of innocent Afghans and all that will run is their blood in the streets.
As for Biden’s 31 August deadline? He might as well have chosen the “32nd” of August, which would have been consistent with the impossibility of his planning.
That is very ugly.
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