Leaving Afghanistan is a tragic blunder

 

If you haven't seen Tom Hanks in Charlie Wilson's War, I recommend it. It's a true story about how an obscure and not necessarily all that ethical congressman got the fedayeen in Afghanistan American aid sufficient for them to kick the Russians out and, arguably, played a significant role in bringing down the Soviet Union.

At the end of the film, there's a sad postscript pointing out that once the Russians were out, we lost interest- and the Taliban took over. 

Then came 9/1l, and the decision by the Taliban to shield Osama bin Laden.  We responded by going to war and kicking the Taliban out, putting in power a regime that, though imperfectly democratic in many ways, wasn't corrupt and wasn't run by militant Islamic terrorists. The "forever war" in Afghanistan- the longest in our history- has been an effort to keep the Taliban terrorists out of power in Afghanistan,  2,352 Americans have died in this "endless war." By contrast, some 57,000 died in Vietnam. 128,650 Americans died in Korea. 116,516 killed in World War I, and 670,846 died in World War II. As wars go, while Afghanistan's conflict has been long, it has not been terribly costly.

But General Giap, the North Vietnamese army leader, once explained his country's victory over the United States very simply. Democracies, he said, lack the patience and staying power to continue conflicts for the long haul. The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong defeated the United States in Vietnam simply by waiting us out. We lost interest. They did not.

We're doing it again in Afghanistan. Donald Trump buys into the same idiotic isolationism as do the Pauls, Pat Buchanan, and others on the goofiest fringes of the American right. As a result, he decided to throw in the towel in a war that it's very much in America's interest to win, that we are winning-  and which has been waged at a cost that has been relatively low as the butcher's bill in our wars has historically gone.

Obviously, a Gold Star mother or widow whose son or husband died in Afghanistan would see the price we paid in a different light. But the bottom line is that we're throwing in the towel because we're tired of being at war in Afghanistan. It has nothing to do with casualties. It has everything to do with Gen. Giap's insight about the short attention span of democracies and their lack of appetite for prolonged struggles.

President Biden has been critical of our involvement in Afghanistan for a long time. He has decided to follow through on the Trump administration's decision to give up. The consequences of our throwing in the towel are easily predictable. Without the United States in the fight, the people who shielded Osama bin Laden will be running things once again and be actively involved in terrorism against the United States and the West.

Yes, the war in Afghanistan has gone on for a long time. Yes, if we stayed the course, it would have gone on for a long time to come, But the decision to leave Afghanistan is a geopolitical blunder of the first magnitude. The consequences are inevitable.

American heads will roll- literally, having been severed by Taliban or al Quaeda knives- because of this decision. And it's frustrating as hell that even though there are people like Gen. Petraeus who warn us of what we're letting ourselves in for, both of our major political parties are showing the white flag- and the white feather.

If only nations could be put on Ritalin.

ADDENDUM: Here is an excellent article on the likely consequences of our abandoning our allies in Afghanistan. We seem to be developing a reputation for abandoning our partners. That is not a good thing. Makes people less than enthused about being our allies, for one thing.

ADDENDUM II: Thomas Joscelyn of Vital Interests thinks that Mr. Biden is right about leaving Afghanistan, though for psychological rather than geopolitical reasons. Yet his article in The Dispatch demolishes the president's argument for withdrawing and draws a realistic scenario of the likely consequences.