Bad Never Ends Well

MEMORANDUM

     To: Citizens of the United States

     From: History

        The present status of Afghanistan was obvious October 7, 2001, the day the US invasion began. 

        A casual knowledge of history would have reminded the President and Congress that Afghanistan is the "graveyard of empires." No less than Genghis Kahn, Alexander the Great, the British Empire and the bully Soviet Union had floundered and failed in the geographically beautiful and resource rich land of warring tribes, and trouble.

        

        The alleged purpose of the invasion was to get Osama bin Laden and to degrade the terrorist network. 

        From the outset there was fraud, mismanagement and perhaps most importantly, no clear view of an end or exit strategy. We stumbled into the notion of "nation building" and got stuck. We failed to learn from Viet Nam. 

        What begins as a mistake ends that way. 

        In the emotion and political blather we should remember and note a few things as a record since we live in an age of public stupidity, historic ignorance and ignorance of history, media hype, hysterical politics and the penchant of politicians to play the blame game.

        Since this post is not without ire and heartburn we'll interlace it with scenes intended to pacify or lower your blood pressure.

        In the immediate news one should look to see the valor, patience, good spirit and character of US service personnel as they maintain order, assist the exodus, soothe and assure the frightened and frazzled, and help to bring function out of brokenness.

        The optics, panic in the first hours, have changed as thousands are being evacuated, and the scene will change again.

        As always happens our attention will be diverted, our screens will be on to something else and the shutting down of a bad war will become old news and likely forgotten by most.

        Most do not know or remember that weeks before the invasion US personnel, CIA, and special forces military including Marines and Army had tracked Bin Laden to the region of Tora Bora and a series of caves. Men on the scene reported Bin Laden could have been had in September. They needed additional support to "close the back door."  Those in pursuit were told by commanders they needed authorization from the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld balked, at the insistence of Vice President Dick Cheney who was masterminding the invasion ramp up that was to become America's longest war. The Battle of Tora Bora did not come until December, and by that time Bin Laden had fled, likely to Pakistan. 

        More than the troops who had tracked Bin Laden were furious about the Cheney-Rumsfeld delay, so was CIA Director George Tenet and Secretary of State General Colin Powell. Inside sources have said Cheney and Rumsfeld blocked the CIA/Special Forces advance on Bin Laden because an early success would have endeared Tenet and Powell to George Bush. Bush already liked Tenet, who suspected the President was being "played" by his vice president.

        Despite the chicanery of Cheney, the W. Bush administration never developed an end of the war exit plan. Members of the Senate were angry that Rumsfeld blew off the request of those plans. They got away with it and they got their bad war. That bad war is now coming to a bad end.

        Afghanistan is a place of tribal loyalty and there is hardly a sense of nationhood. The Brits and the Russians learned it is a place of corrupt politicians and military leaders. It is land of poppies, the source for much of the world's heroin and is a cash rich enterprise. It is a land of deal making and duplicity. Modernity comes slowly because of old ways. Fundamentalism, wahhabism, and superstition dominate the vast number of uneducated. Even today modern Afghan women are being forced to hide, or resort to Sharia law stipulations. US troops were appalled by the brutality of man on boy sexual practices among some Afghan fighters and regional leaders. This is the place were almost 2,500 US troops were killed, part of the 3,500 Allied troops who died there. 

        20 Thousand US men and women were injured. 69 thousand Afghan fighters were killed. 51 thousand civilians died. The financial cost to US taxpayers was 4-6 Trillion for the Afghanistan and Iraq war.

    

        Billions upon Billions of dollars were fraudulent or wasted. 

     

• In just six years, the IG has tallied at least $17 billion in questionable spending. This includes $3.6 billion in outright waste, projects teetering on the brink of waste, or projects that can’t — or won’t — be sustained by the Afghans, as well as an additional $13.5 billion that the average taxpayer might easily judge to be waste. Exhibit A for “You be the judge”: $8.4 billion was spent on counter-narcotics programs that were so ineffective that Afghanistan has produced record levels of heroin — more than it did before the war started. 

        That is from an analysis of the Inspector General's Report on the Afghanistan war.  I urge you to read the analysis published by ProPublica if you do not wish to read the full IG report

            Link here to read the Propublica analysis

        The war that President Biden shut down needed to be ended. There is a simple minded thought being advocated  that that we could have just continued with the low troop presence of the last couple of years and have not withdrawn. How long then should we have done that? Forever?

    

     Afghanistan would never be ready to be weaned from the American breast. The collapse of the government and military in less than two weeks proves it. Our loyalty here is not to Afghanistan but to the US.

        Here is the kind of damage that media, Republicans and even critical Democrats will not tell you. 3 short examples of the kind of drain that comes with a continued presence. 

        --The US Dept of Agriculture funneled 34.4 million dollars to induce Afghans to grow soybeans. Soybeans don't grow well there and Afghans didn't want to eat soybeans.

        --The Dept. of Defense spent 43 Million dollars in developing a concept for a compressed natural gas station. It failed.    

        --The US, through several agencies, spent 2 Billion in building roads that will cost Afghanistan more to maintain than the nation has.

        There are scores of such costs in a "maintenance and support" of a nation that did not want us there, did not want to be pushed into a nation built in our image, that cannot support itself and that allows an old testament band of zealots to take control. Those "maintenance and support" programs were however great for the defense contractors and "beltway bandits." Shouldn't those resources be better applied to needs in the US?

        Things should have been done by the Biden administration. It is still not too late for NATO and the UN to establish an Exit Corridor for all who wish to leave Afghanistan, especially those with visas. Refugees should be escorted to resettlement centers in several nations. Saudi Arabia has facilities to handle hundreds of thousands and they should be tasked to do it. The Taliban can be traced to Saudi history.

        Few understand that when the Intelligence Community reports they offer a range of scenarios and information. Some members of the community may not be sync with others. The President and his advisors have to act with sometimes conflicting frames of information. 

        The visa process for Afghans who assisted the US should have been streamlined, but it is unclear if even the President can cut through the burdensome red tape.

        Some say Biden could have abrogated the disastrous Trump Pompeo surrender plan, they called a peace deal. But had Biden done so, after Trump's inept pulling out of international accords and straining relations with allies, the US would again look like it could not be trusted to keep a deal. 

        Biden campaigned on the idea of getting out of Afghanistan. As much as 70% of US citizens support him.

        

        As a father of daughters and a grand daughter I am especially sensitive to the tragedy and danger facing Afghani women. UN and world attention should be focused, assisting women to leave and monitoring the behavior of the Taliban government.

        The extension of rights in Afghanistan is not the province of the US. Women here still struggle against oppression. The fight of an American President should be here and that goes for the loudest advocate of rights in the US as well. 

        Those who are frenzied now about what a shabby thing the US and the President has done in ending the war and leaving modern Afghans in harms way, would do themselves a favor to recall how shabbily this nation has treated its own veterans, war fighters and first responders.

        During the 20 years of the Afghanistan war, fortunes have been made. Areas around Washington DC have blossomed and have become some of the wealthiest areas in the US. This war had winners, Dick Cheney and his defense contractor allies. They got the war they wanted. 

        Under the best potential circumstance, war is a failure. It is a failure of intellect, diplomacy, human decency and spiritual codes. Bad wars are a worse kind of hell and they do not end nicely, but they must end. History will reward President Biden for bringing to an end America's longest war, a war that 3  President's would not end.

        Those who got us into this war lacked it, but in ending "their" war Biden displayed a virtue, courage. 

        See you down the trail.