Letters
1
Before he left for combat,
he took care of everything:
someone to plow the driveway,
cut the grass.
And the letter he wrote me,
just in case, sealed,
somewhere, in a drawer;
can't be opened,
must be opened
if he doesn't return.
I feel for my keys,
hear his voice:
Less is better. Late
for work, still,
I linger
at the window of the Century
Florist, a bowl of peonies,
my face among the tulips.
2
Last Mother's Day, when
he was incommunicado,
nothing came.
Three days later, a message
in my box; a package,
the mail room closed.
I went out into the lobby,
banged my fist against
the desk. When they
gave it to me, I clutched it
to my chest, sobbing
like an animal.
I spoke to no one,
did not apologize.
I didn't care about the gift.
It was the note I wanted,
the salt from his hand,
the words.
– Frances Richey, author of The Warrior: A Mother’s Story of a Son at War (2008)
President Joe Biden gave historic remarks on April 14 announcing his plan to fully withdraw American troops from Afghanistan by the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks this year.
"We cannot continue the cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in Afghanistan hoping to create ideal conditions for withdrawal and expecting a different result," Biden said.
Biden acknowledged that U.S. objectives in Afghanistan had become “increasingly unclear” over the past decade. Biden said …
“It was never meant to be a multi-generational undertaking. We were attacked. We went to war with clear goals. We achieved those objectives … It’s time to end the forever war.”
Biden noted that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed by American forces in 2011 and said that organization has been “degraded” in Afghanistan.
A senior administration official told reporters on Tuesday that the withdrawal would not be conditions-based, as Biden had deemed such an approach "a recipe for staying in Afghanistan forever."
Biden also said the U.S. will continue diplomatic and humanitarian work in the country, including assistance to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces. But he said it was also now time for other countries to play a bigger role in Afghanistan – Pakistan in particular, but also Russia, India, China and Turkey. Each of those countries has its own overlapping interest in the country – interests that don't necessarily intersect with U.S. goals in Afghanistan.
It is understood that by pulling out without a clear victory over the Taliban and other radicals in Afghanistan, the United States opens itself to criticism that a withdrawal represents a de facto admission of failure for American military strategy.
That is an unfortunate acknowledgement that has to be faced. I believe it is time to do so.
It's Time To End the War
The war has cost the lives of 2,312 American service members as of April 13, 2021. 20,066 American service members have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since 2001. And the war has consumed an estimated $2 trillion.
U.S. troop numbers in Afghanistan peaked at more than 100,000 in 2011. Officially the Pentagon says now there are about 2,500 American troops serving in Afghanistan as part of an advise-and-assist mission to help Afghan security forces. However, U.S. officials have acknowledged the number is slightly higher as U.S. counter-terrorism forces are not counted in the official training mission number.
United Against Inhumanity reported (2019) that “the war, and the way it is conducted, is a key factor in the rising toll of civilian casualties in Afghanistan.”
Pro-government forces including NATO allies caused more civilian deaths than anti-government armed groups in the first half of 2019 accounting for 52% and 39% respectively; 9% of deaths were attributed to both sets of warring parties in cross-fire incidents. The war remained lethal for children who comprised 84% of all civilian casualties “from explosive remnants of war” between January and June 2019.”
A United Nations report in February 2020 says Afghanistan passed a grim milestone with more than 100,000 civilians killed or hurt in the last 10 years since the international body began documenting casualties in the war.
(Kathy Gannon and Rahim Faiez. “UN: 100,000 civilians casualties in Afghanistan in 10 years.” Associated Press. February 21, 2020.)
In addition, Afghans constitute one of the world’s largest and most protracted refugee populations which, coupled with rising numbers of compatriots who are internally displaced, “adds up to some 5 million people who have fled their homes in search of safety elsewhere.”
(Norah Niland. “Afghanistan: human costs of war, impunity and indifference.” United Against Inhumanity. January 2020.)
Note (2007):
“The ACLU reports that since U.S. troops first set foot in Afghanistan in 2001, the Defense Department has gone to unprecedented lengths to control and suppress information about the human costs of war.
The ACLU pointed out that during both the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Defense Department has instituted numerous policies designed to control information about the human costs of war. These policies include:
Banning photographers on U.S. military bases from covering the arrival of caskets containing the remains of U.S. soldiers killed overseas;
Paying Iraqi journalists to write positive accounts of the U.S. war effort;
Inviting U.S. journalists to "embed" with military units but requiring them to submit their stories for pre-publication review;
Erasing journalists' footage of civilian deaths in Afghanistan; and
Refusing to disclose statistics on civilian casualties.
(“ACLU RELEASES U.S. ARMY DOCUMENTS THAT DEPICT AMERICAN TROOPS’ INVOLVEMENT IN CIVILIAN CASUALTIES IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN.” ACLU. September 4, 2007.)
And, even though some officials like CIA Director William Burns say that the departure of American troops from Afghanistan will leave a "significant risk" of terrorism resurgence in the region and withdrawal will diminish the U.S. government's ability to collect and act on threats, others point out there is virtually no possibility of a military victory over the Taliban and little chance of leaving behind a self-sustaining democracy in Afghanistan.
(Lucien Bruggeman. “US troop withdrawal invites 'significant risk' of terrorism resurgence in Afghanistan, CIA director warns.” ABC News. April 14, 2021.)
For many years the American people have supported withdrawal from Afghanistan. Robert D. Kaplan, senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a senior adviser at Eurasia Group, explains …
“No other country in the world symbolizes the decline of the American empire as much as Afghanistan …
“While many American troops stay behind steel-reinforced concrete walls to protect themselves from the very population they are supposed to help, it is striking how little discussion Afghanistan has generated in government and media circles in Washington. When it comes to Afghanistan, Washington has been a city hiding behind its own walls of shame and frustration …
“The United States appears to have little commercial future in the country, even though it spends about $45 billion there annually. The total cost of the war could reach as high as $2 trillion when long-term costs are factored in, according to Brown University's Cost of War Project. All that to prop up an unstable government that would most likely disintegrate if aid were to end.”
(Robert D. Kaplan. “Time to Get Out of Afghanistan.” The New York Times. January 01, 2019.)
According to a March 2020 Economist/YouGov poll, 44 percent of Americans surveyed believe sending U.S. troops into Afghanistan was a mistake. An April 2020 poll commissioned by the Concerned Veterans of America found 73 percent of veterans and 69 percent of military households support the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan – a 13-percentage point increase compared to the year prior.
The Charles Koch Foundation has found that nearly three-quarters of Americans support bringing U.S. troops home from both Iraq and Afghanistan. If the American people had their way, the U.S. military would have been out of Afghanistan years ago.
(Daniel DePetris. “It's time to leave Afghanistan.” The Hill. August 11, 2020.)
Other data suggest that “vocal, concerted grassroots campaigns currently conducted by veterans groups represent just one subset of veterans.” More specifically, veterans who served after the 9/11 attacks are more likely to feel strongly about ending our involvement in Afghanistan.
According to a NORC poll, 40% of veterans who served prior to 9/11 supported troop reductions and 32% opposed them. Yet 54% who served post-9/11 supported reductions, and 29% opposed them. It is perhaps not surprising that veterans of the post-9/11 wars are more weary of these wars.
(Madiha Afzal and Israa Saber. “Americans are not unanimously war-weary on Afghanistan.” Brookings. March 19, 2021.)
The American people are entirely justified in heaping skepticism on Washington's policy in Afghanistan. The U.S mission, after all, long ago transformed into a collection of expensive, tedious, impractical tasks totally beyond the U.S. military's capacity to achieve.
In the back of our minds? We are terrified of a repeat of 1975, when panicked South Vietnamese fled Saigon as Americans pulled out and North Vietnamese forces advanced on the city. That humiliation of desertion is alive today. An abrupt withdrawal from Afghanistan could conceivably provide a new symbol of the decline in American military policy.
Kaplan says, “The point is, we remain in Afghanistan out of fear of even worse outcomes, rather than in the expectation of better ones. He explains …
“But let’s be honest with ourselves: Afghanistan is like the huge and hugely expensive aircraft carriers we continue to build, increasingly obsolete in an era of sophisticated missile technology and hypersonic warfare. It is a vestigial limb of empire, and it is time to let it go.”
(Robert D. Kaplan. “Time to Get Out of Afghanistan.” The New York Times. January 01, 2019.)
Let's get real. If Korea was “the forgotten war,” then Afghanistan is “the disregarded war.” Most of us take no notice of this war after two decades of conflict. That is horrifying in itself – armed forces are still there – fighting and dying – and few even notice. The two presidential debates ahead of last year's election took place without a single discussion of any of the U.S.'s ongoing wars. Imagine being a veteran.
Most of us go about our daily business with rarely a thought given to the fact that our military accomplished its goals with the crippling of al-Qaida and the death of Osama Bin Laden. Despite legitimate criticisms and concerns about withdrawal, the time has come to end our involvement in Afghanistan.
Why? It is painfully clear, we cannot "fix" Afghanistan with foreign military force … at least, at not an acceptable cost of lives and money. And, even if a Taliban victory might occur after an American military withdrawal, this does not necessarily present a serious security concern to the United States.
John Glaser, director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, points out …
“Particularly, the threat of a terrorist safe haven is minimal and based mostly on the myth that territorial harbors provide great utility in conducting transnational terrorist attacks.
“Moreover, fears of regional disintegration and destabilization are misplaced, as are concerns about a loss of credibility: there is good reason to expect stability to emerge following a negotiated withdrawal, and the war itself seems to inflict greater damage to America’s image than defeat likely would.
“Narrower elements of the mission, including quelling the opium trade and securing a lasting human rights regime, have substantially proven to be futile over almost two decades of effort and are not objectives that the U.S. military, a tool for protecting the country from threats overseas, is well suited to addressing.”
(John Glaser and John Mueller. “Overcoming Inertia: Why It’s Time to End the War in Afghanistan.” Cato Institute. August 13, 2019.)
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