A Bungled End to the War in Afghanistan

It is finally over...almost The 18-year war the United States fought in Afghanistan, to defeat, er, rather, to bring to justice, that is, not lose any ground to…uh, Osama bin Laden, no-no, al-Qaeda, I meant, the Taliban, wait, we’ll just call it terror…has ended, maybe in 14 months, with a truce signed February 29, 2020, by the U.S. and Taliban representatives in Doha, Qatar. Strangely, it was U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, not Mike Pompeo, who signed for the U.S. even though Pompeo was at the signing, almost as if he knew there was dishonor in signing it. 
        The current Afghan president Ashraf Ghani was not included because “talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban are due to follow.” In other words, they haven’t started yet. This treaty, or truce, or whatever it is, is strictly between the U.S. and the Taliban. Trump left it up to the Taliban to make peace with the Afghan government. This took Ghani by surprise and he lashed out at several points Trump guaranteed the Taliban. For one thing, Ghani will NOT agree to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners! The Taliban immediately responded that they “would resume fighting Afghan forces.” Think there will be any lasting peace once U.S. and NATO forces leave?

In the name of peace......fire!

        While it appears this could be more of a withdrawal or retreat without surrendering (like a poor man’s version of the truce we have with North Korea where technically we’re still at war) than a treaty document, Pompeo claims the Taliban has committed to certain peace moves that aren’t clearly spelled out (about like Trump wrangled from Kim Jong Un at Singapore – a lot of words but no substance), but somehow this is a glorious day for our military and a bold move by Trump. The Taliban has however continued to gain momentum and last year the BBC found they were in control of 70% of Afghanistan. When the U.S. invaded in 2001, the Taliban controlled about 55%.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urgently stressed "the importance of sustaining the nationwide reduction in violence, for the benefit of all Afghans" in the looming withdrawal of U.S. forces in areas that have been repeatedly contested. All the Taliban has to do is wait until U.S. forces flee and then any ‘contesting’ will be to their advantage. We are leaving the NATO troops to fend for themselves. We are leaving President Ashraf Ghani and the Afghan government high and dry, defenseless, and without a fallback plan. Trump is simply withdrawing our forces, destroying what equipment is left that we don’t want to fall into someone else’s hands, stuffing the flag in a bag and hightailing it out of Afghanistan like rats deserting a sinking ship. Surrendering is the foremost trait of a coward.

Did we win, draw even, or at least can hold our heads high? No.

         But I am celebrating the end of the U.S. involvement in the war. Not for a second do I believe the killing has ended. It is just the end of U.S. military forces doing a majority of the fighting, killing, and being killed. So, what did they ultimately die for? To Trump, what does that matter?
The U.S. suffered over 2,400 KIAs, over twice that number injured. NATO troops paid in blood with over 3,500 casualties. Between the Taliban and US-led forces, well over 50,000 Afghani civilians were killed simply to fight, or prop up, an unpopular government (that Bush and Cheney thought would do their bidding.) The U.S. tried to fight the war in a more streamlined way, yet in a similar fashion to the Soviets. It’s no wonder we couldn’t succeed. The British discovered the same damned thing earlier in the century. Afghanis have to settle Afghanistan’s problems and challenges. Anyone else involved in their ceaseless feuding unites the Afghanis just long enough to savagely bleed the invaders, drive them out, and then they go back to killing each other as they’ve done for centuries. Their fighting is religion-based with the Sunnis and Shiites believing the other holds a heretical view of Islam, deserves no mercy, and must be destroyed. The Taliban is the political and military muscle of the Sunnis in Afghanistan. As long as any religion is used to justify bigotry, hatred, differences, and divides, the killing won’t stop.

Does Trump deserve credit for ending U.S. involvement? Yes, in the same way that the driver who crashes a car into a wall to stop the pinging noise in the engine is responsible for putting an end to the annoying sound. Trump didn’t have many options in order to get out without actually surrendering. Plus, this is an election year; he needs something to brag about since the coronavirus and the slowing economic conditions around the world are going to impact how he is viewed. And while he’d never admit it publicly, the germ-o-phobe in Trump has him near panic over the coronavirus. This is what happens when you don’t read. Trump spends more time watching TV, refuses to learn or listen to others, and has the least scientifically-inquisitive mind of any president in history. Does anyone trust Trump to come up with a responsible plan that he just staples together on the fly? Trump is retreating from the world because he doesn’t know what to do, he doesn’t understand foreign policy, diplomacy, and honoring our word. So in order to avoid the realities of dealing with a world he’s too ignorant to understand and work with, Trump retreats from it like a turtle pulling back into its shell but puffing himself up to project a tough guy image to a world that is not even looking in his direction anymore.

        Here is Trump qualifying his ending the war, as reported by the BBC. Speaking at the White House, Mr. Trump said the Taliban had been trying to reach an agreement with the U.S. for a long time. (Yes, the Taliban has been trying to get the U.S. to leave for 18 years!)

        He said U.S. troops had been killing terrorists in Afghanistan "by the thousands" and now it was "time for someone else to do that work and it will be the Taliban and it could be surrounding countries". (If Trump is saying the Taliban will now have to kill ‘the terrorists,’ then who have our troops been killing for 18 years? The U.S. has been switching designated enemies from al-Qaeda or Taliban to terrorists since 2002 right after U.S. troops ousted the Taliban from Kabul. Who are the 'surrounding countries' who should now step into Afghanistan's affairs? Iran? Pakistan?)

        "I really believe the Taliban wants to do something to show we're not all wasting time," Mr. Trump added. "If bad things happen, we'll go back with a force like no-one's ever seen."

Check out Trump’s language: “If bad things happen, we’ll go back with a force like no-one’s seen.”

Really?

You’ll go back after you turned tail and ran? You got nothing for your treaty. The Taliban agrees to “not to allow al-Qaeda or any other extremist group to operate in the areas they control.” How about in areas they don’t control? How will that be enforced once U.S. and NATO troops are gone? What constitutes “bad things?” But the ‘reveal’ so to speak, might be the phrase “no-one’s seen.” If you don’t do anything, will anyone see it? Trump is a coward to his core. He’d no more go back to Afghanistan than he’d go back to Marla Maples.

This Afghan debacle is a war George W. Bush launched immediately after 9/11 in which we never should have been engaged. Afghanistan didn’t attack us, Iraq didn’t attack us. Elements of bin Laden’s al-Qaeda attacked us and they were spread across the Middle East; from Saudi Arabia to Indonesia, with a heavy concentration in Pakistan. Yet Bush chose Afghanistan because he thought - as primitive as they appeared to be - the Taliban would be easy to knock off and he could claim he was keeping the caves in eastern Afghanistan out of al-Qaeda's hands. Now, Trump is ending it like the fiasco it has been for the U.S. all along; like a cowering cur with its tail tucked between its legs, limping off the battlefield dragging the flag in the mud behind it. This is Trump’s foreign diplomacy. This will be his legacy. He has no honor, and he has no pride in anything except when he looks in a mirror.

            Addendum-dum: On March 4^th, Trump authorized dozens of drone airstrikes on Taliban positions in southern Afghanistan after the Taliban launched numerous attacks on Afghan Security Forces on March 3rd, which is exactly what the Taliban said they’d do. They did not attack US forces, but Trump ordered US forces to respond. This will unravel any treaty and I fully expect Trump to accelerate withdrawal in an almost panic mode that will increasingly appear to be a rout of US forces.

Trump told reporters on March 3^rd that he spoke on the phone with the leader of the Taliban, He stated, “We’ve had a good conversation. We agreed there’s no violence, we don’t want violence. But we’ll see what happens.” Does that sound like a confident statement or that anything was ironed out? Less than 24 hours later Trump sends in the drones to attack the Taliban. How good was that conversation again?