The headline in Wednesday’s Sun Journal read, “Taliban promise women’s rights.” Yeah, I could hear thousands of women reply. “I’ve been lied to before.”
The astounding and confusing news from Afghanistan has brought all manner of claims that the new Taliban is kinder and gentler, that this egg-in-our-face was inevitable, that we had no business trying to westernize Afghanistan. All we can say for sure is that no matter how it appears, it is likely something else.
Here is how it appears at the moment.
We are three weeks shy of the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attack on Sept. 11. In its aftermath, we united behind President George W. Bush’s call to invade Afghanistan and rout the Taliban, which had harbored Al Qaeda’s terrorists.
We were so united that U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee was the only vote against invading. Lee, D-Calif., was condemned for her vote. (A movie about her and that vote, titled “Speaking Truth to Power,” is set to open on Aug. 27 at Railroad Square Cinema in Waterville.)
Our 9/11 unity held longer than Bush’s interest held. He turned to perhaps the most-foolhardy-ever decision by an American president, invading Iraq under false pretenses. How did that work out? I recall discussions then as to whether our military could fight two wars at once. That’s the wrong question. It was our president who couldn’t fight two.
After Bush, Barack Obama approved requests for more troops, to repeat the “surge” so often credited with turning the tide in Iraq. The decision wasn’t unanimous. The strongest voice against the “surge” was Joe Biden, Obama’s vice-president. Omen of the future?
Soon, 100,000 Americans were deployed. In 2011, we killed Osama bin Laden, leader of Al Qaeda. I heard a war vet the other day say the killing should have ended the war.
It didn’t. But, Obama began drawing down forces and announced two months before the 2012 election that America would turn over the fighting to the Afghans. I’ll bet the 77,000 still-deployed U.S. troops would say they were still fighting.
By the 2016 election, 8,400 Americans remained, and Obama said the final decision on continuing the war would be made by his successor. Donald Trump had campaigned on pulling out all troops — remember when he said he knew more about the war than did the generals? — but he got weak-kneed and left 3,500 troops there.
Trump launched “peace” talks with the Taliban that ignored the elected government in Afghanistan and, analysts have written, thereby ensured that the Taliban would take over when we left. Those negotiations were about as successful as Trump’s talks with Kim Jong-un of North Korea and Vladimir Putin of Russia. Do you see a pattern there?
Biden walked into a trap. We knew months ago the Taliban was amping up. We knew months ago the Afghan army was weakened when Trump pulled the rug of legitimacy out from under the government. And we knew thousands of U.S.-friendly Afghans had to flee. But the processing of those thousands of soon-to-be refugees was pitifully slow. Thus the chaos at the Kabul airport of Afghans trying to get onto planes.
In mayhem’s wake we see all sorts of blame being hurled. Ryan Crocker, who served honorably for decades in the State Department and was ambassador to Kabul during the troop buildup, put heavy blame on Biden. In an emotional interview, he said America hadn’t stayed long enough to do the job. Isn’t 20 years enough? How long is enough?
Secretary of State Tony Blinken said 300,000 Afghan soldiers cut and ran. As many reporters have noted, 300,000 Afghan people may have drawn army paychecks but perhaps no more than 50,000 were actually in the army. Did I mention that Afghanistan may be the most corrupt country in the world? And the most transactional? It’s not how can I fight for my country, it’s how much will you give me to fight for my country?
Only time will tell what we have learned. But, Gwynne Dyer, a Canadian analyst, wrote in the Bangor Daily News that the final outcome when major powers lose to indigenous fighters (Mau Mau vs. the U.K., Algerians vs. France, etc.) is losing face briefly but with no long-run meaning. Tom Friedman wrote in The New York Times that time may prove Biden was correct that we couldn’t avoid disaster so he might as well get it over with fast.
So, is this a kinder, gentler Taliban, as its leaders are saying for public consumption? The organization’s spokesman told an NPR reporter it would be “up to judges” under Sharia (Islamic) law whether thieves’ hands would still be chopped off. And women can go to school and hold jobs so long as they follow the Taliban dress code, he said.
In the action-speaks-louder-than-words category, when protestors raised the Afghan flag Wednesday in the last province not controlled by the Taliban, at least two were shot to death and many were beaten by the Taliban. Afghan women have told reporters they are afraid even to go to the airport to flee because the Taliban may attack them on the way.
Plus ca change, plus c’est le meme chose. Bob Neal falls back often on that French sentence. The more things change, the more they remain the same.
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