The U.S. has been in deep denial. The war is over, it has been for a long time, and the U.S. lost, for all intents and purposes, writes Danny Sjursen.
Cadets assemble for President Barack Obama’s Afghanistan policy speech at West Point, N.Y., Dec. 1, 2009. (White House, Lawrence Jackson)
“Happy Afghan War surrender day, fellas!” So began my flippant group text (which was actually about a whole other topic) with the nine lieutenants who worked “for” me when I commanded a cavalry troop in Southern Afghanistan.
Now these guys, some still in the army, most long out, run the political gamut from centrist conservative to libertarian (very common among military officers) to mainstream liberal. None are as radical, or full-throated antiwar, as I am. Nonetheless, instructively, most responded with some – albeit often sarcastic – level of tacit support for any and all plans to (eventually, and hopefully) get the troops out of Afghanistan.
Furthermore, the fact that nearly all of them lost soldiers directly under their command in one of the war’s most dangerous years, within one of the most dangerous provinces of the country, hasn’t diminished this pro-withdrawal sentiment.
My artillery officer – who I profiled a couple years back in the American Conservative – responded first, with: “Victory or loss, thank Allah we’re out of that quagmire.” Then my first executive officer (XO), my second in command, made a joke about the artilleryman’s use of the word “quagmire,” asking, “What would Rumsfeld say?” (Bush’s former secretary of defense famously eschewed this descriptor for the Iraq War)
XO’s thoughtful successor then wrote: “I’m really glad we are getting out. I hate that it will take 14 months, but I’m thrilled…”. That former lieutenant of mine raised an important point. Much of the critical (and fair) response to my cautious social media support for Trump’s “peace deal” centers around either the rather protracted withdraw timeline or, more generally, skepticism about the sincerity of the U.S. position.
To the first point, Adam Wunische at the Quincy Institute accurately noted:
“President Trump will likely sell the U.S.-Taliban deal as a peace agreement and a U.S. military withdrawal. It is neither. The deal only reduces troop strength to 8,600 from 13,000 [for now], and Trump has said even minor complications will serve as justification to halt or reverse this reduction.”
As to the second matter, the probity of the American commitment to meaningfully “leave” Afghanistan, there are other valid concerns. Not least of which are the “secret annexes” that appear to imply the U.S. will keep special forces soldiers, and, one assumes, CIA-backed militias, on the ground long after the “combat” troops are all out.
Added to the questionable mix is the minor fact that the president of the ostensibly sovereign, Kabul-based state of Afghanistan wasn’t even present at the deal’s signing, and has already reneged (an early, if predictable, first snag) on releasing some 5,000 Taliban prisoners — as the U.S.-negotiated agreement called for.
What’s more, given the linguistic gymnastics that former President Barack Obama seemingly perfected about what, precisely, constitutes “combat” troops or, even what counts as a “boot,” or as the “ground,” it is increasingly difficult these days to believe much of what Trump or the national security state is pronouncing.
Finally, given the reportedly vast, and coveted, mineral resources under Afghanistan’s undeveloped soil, its importance as a thoroughfare for key natural gas pipelines, and its historic position of geopolitical import, many (rightfully) doubt whether Washington is really prepared to walk away from the region. All of that is fair, and crucial to parse out.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo addresses Taliban peace deal gathering, in Doha, Qatar, Feb. 29, 2020. (State Department/ Ron Przysucha)
A Referendum on Trump
Also worrying is the likelihood that in this age of Trump-worship, Trump-hatred, and/or Trump-derangement syndrome, the situation in Afghanistan – where American men and women are still being killed, mind you – will revert to just another public referendum on the competence and character of the president himself.
That would be a huge mistake. To wit, let me plea: please, MSNBC-Obama-squad liberals, don’t make this critical moment all about bashing The Donald and thereby reflexively defaulting to a stay-forever, status quo position. Odds are they will, of course.
The really salient questions are twofold: could/would a different president (say Hillary “the hawk,” or “Iraq War-cheerleader” Joe B.) do any better with such a decidedly weak military hand? And, what other option, besides eventual withdrawal, does Trump have with respect to this inherited war? I’d submit the discomfiting answers are “no” and “none,” respectively.
Truth be told, I, like the crew over at Quincy, think the U.S. ought to have ditched the Afghan debacle long ago, and that a more rapid – immediate, even – comprehensive withdrawal is in order. Never trust the hyper-interventionist establishment when it whines about the inefficacy and supposed danger of a sudden troop exodus from a failed war. That’s never anything more than a sleight-of-hand canard for indefinite occupation.
Count me sympathetic to the plain, earthy logic of Ron Paul, when he asked, “Why the dilemma? [regarding Iraq]” and when he asserted, “We just marched in, and we can just march out.”
That was back in 2007! As in Iraq, so in Afghanistan, and as always: that’s unlikely. Uncle Sam rarely, if ever, leaves a purportedly conquered country of his own volition. That just ain’t Sammy’s style. More often than not, the U.S. military requires an insurgent bouncer to toss it to the proverbial curb…you know, like the Vietcong, for instance.
Like it or not, this is where matters stand: Look, one way or the other, folks, the Afghan War is over, and has been for a long time. We lost, for all intents and purposes, by not achieving the government’s (always fantastically) stated goals.
As a nation, but especially so for the bipartisan foreign policy establishment, we’ve just been in deep denial about that inconvenient truth. Bottom line: there’s little left that the U.S. can accomplish in Afghanistan, and that’s been the case for at least a decade.
So, sure, there’s lots to criticize about the world’s “greatest” dealmaker’s deal. Some will say it doesn’t go far enough (it doesn’t). The interventionist hawks on the other side will counter that it amounts to surrender (it kind of does). Still, there’s scant alternative available other than for Uncle Sam to tuck his tail between the ole legs and beat feet out of the Afghan “graveyard of empires.”
To channel Ron Paul: why all the dramatic hoopla about this? After all, rumor has it, that in war, the losers don’t get to dictate the peace terms. It’s time to “deal” with it…
Danny Sjursen is a retired U.S. Army officer and contributing editor at antiwar.com. His work has appeared in the LA Times, The Nation, Huff Post, The Hill, Salon, Truthdig, Tom Dispatch, among other publications. He served combat tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point. He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, “Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge.” His forthcoming book, “Patriotic Dissent: America in the Age of Endless War” is now available for pre-order. Follow him on Twitter at @SkepticalVet. Check out his professional website for contact info, scheduling speeches, and/or access to the full corpus of his writing and media appearances.
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43 lied to the American public to get them behind his war. The large majority of dumbed down Americans and especially those in congress gave him a green light and Iran comes out the big winner.
I’d suppose that Trump seeing what a lie could by, did what else but “Buy In” to lying to Americans, especially after witnessing Obama support was efforts to the hilt.
The Iraqis told the US to get out and so the US surrendered and left.
I’d suggest if you haven’t read “The Iran Cables” you do at once.
Osama Bin Laden was right about what would happen to America, spot on I’d say.!.
“FOR WHAT IT IS WORTH”, BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD 1967, “THERE IS A MAN WITH A GUN OVER THERE TELLING ME I GOT TO BEWARE!”
4rth verse last two lines “They say we must fight to keep our freedom, … But Lord knows there’s gotta be a better way!”
From a relatively naive citizen to the awoken vets,
I am sorry, please forgive me, thank you and I love you.
Like all wars the war profiteers win…the CIA and its heroin dealing is winning. This is all just distraction and I am surprised that these smart folks do not put this front and center of their analysis. Wars are for profits that is why capitalism thrives….war…the ultimate in planned obsolescence
US agencies have participated in an opium trade since 2001. It’s likely that this can now be done without a lot of overt military presence, at least not overt in the sense that it is apt to receive coverage in the US.
The whole win|loss thing is more than a bit out of date and generally irrelevant with respect to asymmetrical wars. There really is not much perspective about US military goals or operations at all when one leaves out the organized crime aspects.
The war in Afghanistan was lost before we even invaded in 2001, but U.S. geostrategy requires the perpetual occupation of this impoverished, tribal nation at the heart of Central Asia.
When Carter approved Operation Cyclone in 1979 and the U.S. began funding the mujaheddin (Arab-Afghan mercenaries) that quickly led to the Soviet intervention and near total destruction of Afghanistan, the Afghani people learned that the U.S. was not honorable and could not be trusted. The fact that once the Soviets were driven out, at great cost, the U.S. then totally abandoned the Afghani people to years of lawlessness and the despotic rule of the Taliban, only underscored this lesson.
Carter’s National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, was critical in convincing Carter to authorize and fund Operation Cyclone. Brzezinski also promulgated an imperial U.S. geostrategy which posited that control of Afghanistan was critical in order to control Central Asia which was, in turn, required to control Eurasia and the rest of the world. Halford Mackinder put forward a similar geostrategic theory in 1904 which has been widely accepted by the western elites since. This helps explain China and Russia’s counter-strategy which is focused on creating economic alliances with the rest of Asia, Africa and South America; in addition to prying western Europe away from Anglo-American domination.
Thus, even though the U.S. has been directly responsible for over forty years of death, destruction and misery in Afghanistan; don’t expect them to leave any time soon.
The honorable thing for the U.S. to do would be to leave immediately and quickly, take as many arms with them as they vacate, and offer meaningful and substantial reparations to the long suffering people of Afghanistan.
[I find it interesting, but not surprising, that there is no mention of the billion dollar opium/heroin industry in Afghanistan in the above article. This also plays a key role in the ongoing U.S. occupation, but is rarely mentioned, especially by the military class who assiduously avoid the subject]
” Who are these people in Washington who have so much more influence on policy than their numbers, experience, and intelligence warrant.”
That is easy to answer. Why they are the high priced Psychopathic Warmongers!
The tribal groups of Afghanistan, some supported by the Pakistanis, and also the Saudi-financed Jihadists, and of course our own sadistic and incompetent CIA, have been fighting each other (and the Soviets, who were stupid enough to stay engaged for 10 years, about half as long as the US) and will continue fighting each other forever. Much of the fighting in the 1980s and 1990s were over pipelines. If the US wants rare minerals why not give something in return (like money?) It’s called TRADE.
When Obama surged the troops to 100,000 there was no questioning as to WHY? Fighting is a way of life in Afghanistan since Alexander the Great. There is nothing there worth Americans dying over.
I am amazed that such an article can be written and not mention the word “heroin” but instead use the phrase “mineral wealth”.
CIA corruption seems to be missing as well.
So far in this article and comments, the truth again is a casualty.
Credibility, zero.
And if anyone thinks that the US is leaving Afghanistan, dream on.
Afghanistan- “a thoroughfare for key natural gas pipelines, and its historic position of geopolitical import,” and this was the real reason for the invasion in the first place, after discussions with the Taliban did not succeed. This was often in the media in 2001, and the quick entry into the country so soon after “9?11” was certainly NOT in response to the Twin Towers attack, and nobody could really have “known” (Rumsfeld!!) that the Taliban and/or the Afghan people were the cause of the events on September 11. So the whole 19 years are a sham!! Graveyard of empires!
Failed and at what cost ? How many lives and how many trillions $ .All to shore up an economy that thrives on armaments mfg.
About the only thing Joe Biden ever said that I agree with was in 2008 when he said we should partition Iraq and be done with it. Even that wouldn’t work in Afghanistan, where empires have gone to die since before Christ.
How is it that we believe we “lost” the war in Vietnam and Laos? What was “victory” supposed to look like? Vietnam and Laos were utterly destroyed. Millions dead. The landscape littered with millions of pieces of unexploded ordnance which is still live. Continued devastation from the chemical warfare, in the form of birth defects and more. And now, Vietnam is subsisting on race to the bottom jobs for corporations supplying the US market with textiles and more. If that was a victory, the only thing achieved was no US military presence there. The US corporate state got exactly what it wanted and the rest of us paid for- especially our 57,000 plus dead and the veterans whose lives were destroyed or diminished by their participation.
Ah! But seeing the USA trying to escape Vietnam from rooftops was did not look like the USA was winning to most of us!
@ “How is it that we believe we “lost” the war in Vietnam and Laos?”
When the U.S. military went there, the goal was to establish a South Vietnamese government under U.S. patronage that would block the North Vietnamese from invading and establishing a single government over the North and South. All under the banner of “containment of communism.”
But the U.S. got chased out of Viet Nam, defeated by Vietnamese patriots.
Why was that not a loss?
P.S. as one who was there in a combat role, I can let you in on a little secret: there are no winners in war; everyone loses except the weapons manufacturers.
It will not be until the world demands, and gets, Nuremberg-style war crimes trials for all US, our, government officials to the highest levels of government going back for many decades that we and and world will ever see peace. Millions of people have been murdered, countries destroyed and people’s lives destroyed because of these government officials crimes and complete disregard for the suffering they have caused. The military, intelligence and defense budgets have grown so large as to cripple our country and most likely will destroy us just as it did the old USSR. We must take back control of our country or lose it completely. We are a better people than our apathy indicates. Until there is justice for all and the proper government officials are punished in courts of law for the misery and loss of life their assumed power has caused the world as an example to future leaders that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated by a civilized world and comes with serious consequences is there any chance for peace.
Skip! You are a brave and True Human Being. My heart is with you.
What about the opium? Minerals maybe small potatoes compared to the CIA’s control over the opium trade? History of CIA complicity in the heroin trade is Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War (Air America) is well documented. Fast forward to the Afghanistan War, the Taliban, who were restricting farmers from growing opium, were pushed back by the US, causing the resurgence of opium farming. Afghanistan returned to becoming the major supplier of opium for the global heroin trade. The amount of money generated from this crop maybe reason enough for CIA and special forces to hang around as quietly as possible?
The rare earth minerals are not small potatoes and are worth many billions, but you are correct in bringing up the opium/heroin trade. Isn’t it odd how this subject almost never gets mentioned, even in the alternative media? (rueful smile)
Let’s not forget about the CIA’s role in moving cocaine from South America through Central America into North America and the rest of the world, still going strong after all these years.
The billions generated through the illicit global drug trade fund all kinds of off-the-books activities, and the alliances with various cartels provide channels to outsource a wide range of said illegal activities.
As a Vietnam veteran, I am very impressed by former officers speaking frankly about the realities of war. Too often we turn on the news media of our choice to hear selected officers spouting nonsense. Thank you all for your cogent and humane responses. Here’s a poem I wrote a few years ago lamenting your absence.
A PENTAGON PRIMER (2016)
(Instructions for officers
when questioned by the press)
Never speak of war
in the present tense
let alone with active voice
Rather, couch its grotesqueries
in euphemisms
snappy salutes, sad cliches
and always use the passive voice
Like this:
— say “returning warrior”
when you really mean
seething unexploded ordnance
— say “post traumatic”
when you know you mean
burning right now, right now
— say “have returned from a theater of war”
when you actually mean
is still — and will always be —
deep in shit
— say “sacrificed for their country”
when you really mean
wasted.
———-
“— say “sacrificed for their country”
when you really mean
wasted.”
Thank you so much for these words. Our fellow soldiers and theirs!
Wonderful comment, Doug.
Congratulations Danny Sjursen you continue to deliver rational and experienced body blows to the Neocon chickenhawks!
Danny, a very brave man with words I try to never miss.
“Good luck getting the Taliban to admit to that. Largely because they’re not beaten.”
Analysis tends to take effort and looking in the mirror tends to take less effort.
Not everyone is framed by a reflection in a mirror and consequently the perceptions of some are not bound by win/lose or other constructs based on binaries.
“We’re Out of That Quagmire”
Certainty always affords opportunities of surprise.
When I came back from Viet Nam as an Army medic, my core belief system was totally dismantled. I was nothing more than a mercenary soldier for a government that belonged in a straitjacket. It has taken me most of my life to accept the fact that the U.S. Government is evil. Lying is the most powerful weapon in war. My father was a career Army office and World War II combat veteran. I believed America was the greatest country in the world. It took the Vietnamese to catapult me into another dimension. I just wish my generation could have been able to pass on the truth to the generations that came after us. They bought the same lies that my generation consumed. Most Americans just don’t believe that the United States is a Global Empire. Their belief system just can’t digest this awful truth. You cannot feed a steak dinner to a newborn. Whenever the truth threatens one’s core belief system, there is an urgent need to deny its reality. Hard core truth simply cannot be aligned and defined by a mind that has been totally propagandized. It is simply too painful to bear, too threatening to focus on. So, in order to survive in a fantasy world, one’s life has to remain out of focus. As a soldier, how do you face the horrible truth that YOU are the enemy? That the system you come from is a stage 4 cancer. I found out the truth when I was a patient in two psychiatric facilities when I came back from Viet Nam. And, even the people who worked there had no idea what I was going through. My world was way beyond them. Seeing the truth was like breaking an Enigma Code. It was like coming out of a lifelong coma. It’s a rebirthing journey that few people will ever experience. It is a death of a core belief system. It was an escape from Free-dumb to Freedom. As Bob Dylan once wrote: ” The truth was obscure, too profound and too pure, to live it you have to explode.” I am finally coming home to myself, a long painful journey that saved my life.
Mike Hastie
Army Medic Viet Nam
March 6, 2020
WAR ( Wealthy Are Richer )
American Corporation can’t
make a killing off of peace.
Mike, while I never suffered any of what you went through, I was an officer-pilot, C-141, during the latter years of Vietnam. Our crew flew many caskets containing our soldiers who had been killed in Theater back to Dover AFB and many wounded to Chicago and the severely burned to a base in Texas. These are sights and memories which never escape me. Thanks for your words, of which these particularly struck me. “It has taken me most of my life to accept the fact that the U.S. Government is evil. Lying is the most powerful weapon in war.” When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn!
Mike you have opened the Pandora’s Box of war myths. It took me quite a while too, even though thank God I never had to go fight. But when you finally get it, that this is Empire and its soldiers are the Legions of old, it begins to make sense. Guys have come back from Afghanistan telling about guarding poppy fields. While the US was supposedly interdicting the poppy crops, their production nearly doubled. Oh, and we’re out of Syria-except for the oil fields of course.
Thank you for such a very well said comment.
Mike, I could have written the same comment as you, except that I was only in one mental hospital after my return.
My wisdom acquired from the Viet Nam War experience:
1. When you find yourself part of an invading force in a foreign land fighting patriots, it’s time to run a reality check on your worldview; and
2. Other people’s slogans are rarely, if ever, worth dying for
Peace, brother.
Could not agree more. Another reason for the empire to stay, is to try to muck up the BRI, if possible. Since, working for development and progress is just not our thing anymore.
I understand that sense of triumph in the failure of folly, although it is never defeated. If it were not such a tragedy, the US involvement in Afghanistan would be the greatest joke in history, walking into our own trap set for the USSR in the 1980s, exactly as Britain did in the 19th century.
Britain invaded Afghanistan and failed three times in the nineteenth century, each invasion larger and longer than the last, their oligarchy afraid of a “threat” to “their” India, of an invasion by Russia that never began. They were never harmed by Russia, found no Russian troops to fight, lost many thousands, and two centuries later their oligarchy still claims that Russia is about to attack. They never had any goals there at all.
Afghanistan has been a wonderful test of the corruption of the former democracy of the US. The US is there solely because it profits the MIC and brings in zionist election bribes. This is the ancient scam of the huckster generals with vague goals in the “graveyard of empires” where no empire has won or had any interests whatsoever: that we are never “able” to hold elections or negotiate with “insurgents” who resort to “crime” and so we must kill forever.
Clearly our imperialism is a coverup for oligarchy, like that of Britain.
Danny, to quote Mad Dog Mattis. You’ve won the war when you’ve beaten the enemy and the enemy admits that he’s beaten. Good luck getting the Taliban to admit to that. Largely because they’re not beaten.
Can an occupying power build a nation when the existing nation(s) are willing to fight the invader? Hindsight says no in the case of Viet Nam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Washington seemed to believe it force a faux state on long standing nations. Is direct experience by debacle and FUBAR the only way we can learn? Apparently so.
I actually thought General Franks had it right. I understood him to mean that Afghanistan would be just a truck stop on the way to a cemetery full of al Qaeda.
But the Bushiviks wanted to do Iraq. We still don’t know the rest of story since we are too damn dumb to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The mineral wealth of Afghanistan is no reason to occupy it given the domestic supply and the minerals to the north and south. If only Washington could learn to play it straight and stop overthrowing governments.
The people simply do not want war. Who are these people in Washington who have so much more influence on policy than their numbers, experience and intelligence warrant?
The whole story is actually quite clear. The U.S. will never leave Iraq and Afghanistan as long as it wishes to maintain its imperial status.
The driving reason for both invasions and occupations was/is to control the region and its energy resources in order to maintain the U.S. PetroDollar, which is the financial foundation for the U.S. economy and allows a select few elites to maintain their power and wealth. This geostrategic economic reality also explains the decades of sanctions against both Venezuela and Iran, the total destruction of Libya under Obama and the ongoing destruction of Syria, as well as all of the disruptive Special Ops missions throughout Africa and elsewhere.
The very location of Afghanistan is what makes it such a perfect base from which the U.S. can cause ongoing problems for China, Russia, India and Iran; the first three being clear economic rivals and Iran being an oil rich (created) nemesis.
RE
“John Wright
March 6, 2020 at 17:31
“The whole story is actually quite clear.”
To claim omniscience of the “whole” is always unwise.
” The U.S. will never leave Iraq and Afghanistan as long as it wishes to maintain its imperial status.”
The self-designated ” United States of America” is a complex/matrix of social relations based on “equal but different” where “but” precludes equal deemed necessary through difference – the lateral transcendence of which is based on equal and different where “and” facilitates co-operation, difference and equal – social relations based upon from each according to her/his ability; to each according to their needs practiced in increasing assay in part due to the half-lives of prevailing relations and ideologies.
These social relations have extended their geographical presence and ideologies through time; including but not restricted to “exceptionalism” a component and derivative being “individualism” which attempts to make manifest sole/prime agency – often by way of the propagation of myths, including but not resricted to, “manifest destiny”, “full spectrum dominance”, “indispensable nation” and “the end of history”.
When these social relations have extended outside that are temporarily deemed to constitute “The United States of America” they tend to be described by some others as “Imperialism”.
“Imperialism” is a quantitative moment/position within the linear frame of these coercive social relations, not a qualitative transcendence of these coercive relations, and hence assigning a unique designation of “Imperialism” is to become complicit in attempts to deny the genus, its presentations, its symptoms, and its outcomes, thereby deflecting qualitative challenges of transcendence.
Consequently the self-designated “United States of America” is not engaged in “regime change” but in “regime conformance within tolerances”
Consequently your assertion – “The U.S. will never leave Iraq and Afghanistan as long as it wishes to maintain its imperial status – is a misrepresentation by omission.
Among the omissions are:
That the self-designated “United States of America” will cease to exist, but its social relations and some of its ideologies will have a half-life less than ever.
Your assertion is quite understandable and an illustration of the half-lifes of some of its ideologies and social relations.