Lessons Unlearned

 

On July 7th, I wrote my The Graveyard of Empires blog, describing how the post-WWII United States somehow believed that long histories of failed conquest did not apply to us. We ignored the realities of Western powers entering rugged foreign lands with unique features well-known to local governments and regional war lords against asynchronous, but well-armed, indigenous military forces driven by religion or philosophical zeal. 

The French abysmal failure, consummated by the 1954 loss in Dien bien Phu, Indochina (Vietnam), did not deter American forces from believing that helicopters could negate fleeing irregulars descending into hundreds if not thousands of miles of networked caves. The withering defeat of Soviet invaders by Afghan irregulars (Mujahedeen) in 1979 after a decade-long military effort contributed significantly to the collapse of the entire Soviet Union a decade later. That those Mujahedeen were supplied by our own CIA with RPG launchers, small and larger arms and even some pretty sophisticated, shoulder-fired antiaircraft weapons… and trained well how to use them against tanks, helicopters and well-trained Soviet soldiers… seem to fall out of our collective memory.

Americans knew how to destroy, to launch the hellfire of super-targeting modern weaponry, invade with well-supplied ground forces supported by extraordinary air cover and the most sophisticated tanks, artillery and missile launchers ever known. The ragtag gathering of lightly armed irregulars that opposed us may have known how to hide, evade, hit-and-run, but surely, we could overwhelm and crush them. Yet our tactics and weapons systems were built to oppose modern cohesive armies, air forces and navies. Our abilities to defeat masses of well-hidden indigenous zealots, fighting for a cause on home turf they knew so well have never risen to a level of dependable sustainability. Whack-a-mole fighting left us breathless. Our track record against guerilla warfare against infinitely patient local fighters is horrible. What’s worse, we have absolutely no clue what to do with captured lands other than trying to instill what we believed was our “democratic” vision for people completely unprepared for that assumption.

With Islamist fundamentalism rising fast in the 1990s, initially among Sunnis (Qur’anic literalists), loose and then more formal bonds formed among a growing body of radicals in the Muslim world. It was a reaction to Western domination, the creeping acceptance of Western values and entertainment as a sacrilegious threat to the Muslim faith. The promises of modernity that came with that Westernization never materialized. Westerners and their cronies got rich from Islamic oil; the lot of the ordinary Muslims did not change… until the never-ending droughts hit.

In the late 1990s, Afghanistan was a natural gathering place for Muslim “foreign fighters.” The exceptionally religiously conservative Taliban rulers, who had been thrust into power by those US-armed Mujahedeen, were anxious to spread the command of Muslim purity to the rest of the world, to do what they fervently believed was their mandate from God. To affiliate with a body of such foreign fighters, al Qaeda, with the same vision and mandate was a natural. Charismatic Osama bin Laden, stuffed with fundamentalist and clandestine Saudi cash (plus the weapons he could buy), was the Taliban’s brother in arms. His zeal to attack and destroy Western targets while spreading the word (and the wrath) of God was completely synchronous with Taliban beliefs. To allow al Qaeda forces to train in Afghanistan, preparing for what would become the 9/11/01 attack against the New York World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, was a natural fit.

After that 9/11 attack, and after a barrage of retaliatory cruise missiles, the United States began its effort at revenge… with a trickle of clandestine incursions (insertion of CIA and parallel military special forces to seek local allies against the Taliban) in that same month, escalating to what would become Operation Enduring Freedom in October. With British forces in tow, a few Taliban cities began to fall. But it was not until a Taliban resurgence between 2003 and 2005, when the United States also became obsessed to conquer Iraq under a mythical notion of stopping weapons of mass destruction, that the United States mounted its massive assault within Afghanistan. We surged into that rugged land, the Taliban seemingly fell, and we installed a “democratic” form of government that was soon labeled by Transparency International as one of the most corrupt governments on earth.

But the Taliban didn’t really fall; they simply receded into the woodwork… slowly to emerge until it was clear that the US-appointed government, with the full support of US forces, never continuously controlled much more than the capital city of Kabul and its immediately surrounding area. The Soviet lesson long forgotten; it was America’s time to wither. Trillions of dollars, massive deficits, death, an American electorate exhausted by a war that ultimately spanned two decades (the longest in our history) with no sign of a successful end in sight… and it was time to leave. 

But after two decades of an American presence, literally the time for new generations to be born with differing expectations than their parents and grandparents, the young savored educational opportunities, Western entertainment, and even the top-to-bottom (kindergarten to graduate school) education of girls and women… female aspirations that would have been and will probably be crushed by the rising Taliban. If we incompletely took care of our allied Afghan translators, who face execution as Taliban moved in, we most certainly left legions of young people, particularly women, with nothing but suffocating desolation and repression as their future. 

Our forces have almost completely left Afghanistan. The message to the Afghan people from the Biden administration is clear: “You’re on your own.” Yet we also know that to preserve those few benefits to the Afghan people, US forces would effectively have a perpetual war to fight. Meanwhile, as the August 9th BBC.com points out, despite the continuing willingness by US forces to provide airstrikes (launched from outside Afghanistan), the Taliban takeover seems inevitable:

“The Taliban have rejected international calls for a ceasefire in Afghanistan, as they push for new territory… They are reported to have overrun the key northern city of Kunduz, as well as Sar-e-Pul and Taloqan. Fierce fighting continues in other northern cities… At least five regional capitals have fallen to the militants since Friday [8/6]. Kunduz is their biggest gain this year.

“Latest reports say the northern city of Aybak, near the Tajik border, may also have fallen to the Taliban on Monday [8/9]… The insurgents entered Aybak, the capital of Samangan province, without a fight after community elders asked for the city to be spared more violence, deputy governor Sefatullah Samangani told AFP news agency… ‘The governor accepted and withdrew all the forces from the city,’ he said.

“Tolo News and Shamshad TV also tweeted that Afghan forces had retreated from the city without fighting. There was no immediate word from the armed forces… Elsewhere, US and Afghan planes have been carrying out airstrikes - the advance of the militants has not been halted, but Afghan officials say dozens of Taliban have died… Heavy fighting has been reported in Pul-e-Khumri and in Mazar-e-Sharif, a trading hub on the border with Uzbekistan. Army commanders say they have pushed back militants from its outskirts.” Afghan soldiers are deserting and retreating with increasing regularity. Afghan women are terrified. The image above, an example of higher education for women, will soon find its way to the ash heap of history. We did this. What exactly have we learned? And will we forget this lesson too?

I’m Peter Dekom, and the cruelty of unthinking American intervention in cultures and societies of which we are abysmally ignorant is unpardonable.