Let's Not Pretend That The Way We Withdrew from Afghanistan Was The Problem

[kpete]

Ezra Klein has a good column this morning.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/26/opinion/afghanistan-us-withdrawal.html


......

Focusing on the execution of the withdrawal is giving virtually everyone who insisted we could remake Afghanistan the opportunity to obscure their failures by pretending to believe in the possibility of a graceful departure. It’s also obscuring the true alternative to withdrawal: endless occupation. But what our ignominious exit really reflects is the failure of America’s foreign policy establishment at both prediction and policymaking in Afghanistan.

“The pro-war crowd sees this as a mechanism by which they can absolve themselves of an accounting for the last 20 years,” Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, told me. “J......

................

To many, America’s pretensions of humanitarian motivation were always suspect. There are vicious regimes America does nothing to stop. There are vicious regimes America finances directly. It is callous to suggest that the only suffering we bear responsibility for is the suffering inflicted by our withdrawal. Our wars and drone strikes and tactical raids and the resulting geopolitical chaos directly led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Afghans and Iraqis.

This is the deep lacunae in America’s foreign policy conversation: The American foreign policy establishment obsesses over the harms caused by our absence or withdrawal. But there’s no similar culpability for the harms we commit or that our presence creates. We are much quicker to blame ourselves for what we don’t do than what we do.

My heart breaks for the suffering we will leave behind in Afghanistan. But we do not know how to fix Afghanistan. We failed in that effort so completely that we ended up strengthening the Taliban. We should do all we can to bring American citizens and allies home. But if we truly care about educating girls worldwide, we know how to build schools and finance education. If we truly care about protecting those who fear tyranny, we know how to issue visas and admit refugees. If we truly care about the suffering of others, there is so much we could do. Only 1 percent of the residents of poor countries are vaccinated against the coronavirus. We could change that. More than 400,000 people die from malaria each year. We could change that, too.

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The choice we face is not between isolationism and militarism. We are not powerful enough to achieve the unachievable. But we are powerful enough to do far more good, and far less harm, than we do now.

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the rest via:
https://www.eschatonblog.com/2021/08/morning-thread_26.html#comment-5509044866

[Irish_Dem]

1. We are a superpower squandering our power. Making the world worse, not better.

20 years of dropping bombs on brown people, and $trillions didn't do a damn bit of good for anyone.
Except it made some people very wealthy.

[Jetheels]

12. And firing up the anger in people who hold grudges generationally.nt

[Irish_Dem]

13. Whether overseas or here in the US.

Same thing, stirring up generations of grudges and hatred.
Seems evil to me.

[spanone]

2. K&R

[2naSalit]

4. K&R

[Solly Mack]

5. K&R

[leftstreet]

6. DURec

[Demsrule86]

7. That is a great column. K&R

[Mosby]

8. Bunch of populist garbage.

He's playing the same games as the rest of the MSM.

[thesquanderer]

11. What in his article do you disagree with? (n/t)

[Moebym]

14. I was wondering the same thing.

I hope he/she elaborates.

To me, the article is pretty reasonable.

[LanternWaste]

17. What specifically leads you to allege as such?

[Phil the Kilibuster]

9. We should have left a 5,000-troop garrison in Kabul

Leave the rest to the Taliban, But at least Afghans who helped us would have a relatively-safe area, as would other Afghans who were able to make their way to the Capital Zone.

[oldsoftie]

10. That number was both securing Kabul & providing air support.

Air support is what kept large scale taliban attacks at bay. You're right; we could've kept it that way without spending hundreds of billions.

[markpkessinger]

19. We weren't keeping the Taliban at bay at all . .

. . . They were continuing to honor the Doha agreement, under which they aqreed to refrain from attacking U.S. forces in exchange for a complete withdrawal by (originally)l May 1. What Biden understood, that apparently you do not, is that having already extended the withdrawal date by three months, the Taliban could at any moment claim we had breached the agreement, and could resume attacks. Then Biden would be forced to commit still more troops, and the whole, sorry mess would have continued for God knows how long!

[oldsoftie]

22. Before the Doha agreement, most large population areas were held by the govt.

The Taliban fully controlled about 1/4 of the country at that time. Yes, they were a problem in other areas too, but With air support, the govt forces were actually fighting back. And if we'd ramped up the gunships a bit more, it would've helped even more. The Taliban never fully lived up to Doha anyway
Now we're faced with horrible optics going into an election yr regardless of who did what when. I'm not gonna whitewash it just because its my guy in charge.

[markpkessinger]

23. I agree the Doha Agreement is terrible . . .

. . . But if you think President Biden should have just unilaterally abandoned it, consider this: whenever we lelave Afghanistan, be it now or five years ago, it will require negotiation with the Taliban. If we establish ourselves as untrustworthy with respect to our negotiations, what do you think that does to our ability to negotiate later? The Taliban may not have fully lived up to all of the terms of the Doha Agreement, but they have lived up to the part of it that concerns our forces.

And btw, one of the major problems with the Doha Agreement -- for which we can thank Trump -- is that the agreement committed the Afghan government to certain actions, yet the Afghan government was not included in the negotiations and was not a party to the agreement. And they balked at the actions they were expected to perform. So we can't very well criticize the Taliban for not fully living up to the terms of the agreement, now can we?

[Moebym]

15. I agree with him for the most part.

The American foreign policy establishment obsesses over the harms caused by our absence or withdrawal. But there’s no similar culpability for the harms we commit or that our presence creates. We are much quicker to blame ourselves for what we don’t do than what we do.

is an especially powerful statement.

[Hekate]

16. KnR

[markpkessinger]

18. Brilliant column!

I was thinking, as I read it, about how interesting it has been to observe Klein's growth as a journalist. 10 0years ago, I thought of him as a snot-nosed kid who was altogether too sure of his opinions for his age. Now, in his late 30s, a much deeper and more mature perspective has entered his writing. It's a nice thing to see!

[McKim]

20. This is a Must Read......

This is just excellent as it calls into question our entire foreign policy strategy of forever wars.
We saw this movie before during the War on Vietnam where my brother in law died for a lie.
Ezra Klein says he believed Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld that there were WMD. Our family knew better and we spent 20 some years in the Peace Movement serving our country. If Klein had lived through Vietnam he would have known to question the generals and "leaders" about Sadam's WMD. Do read this!

[Locrian]

21. just cut to the chase and SAY IT

This is and always was about profiting off war for the defense contractors: 1 trillion, 2 trillion? Perpetual war does that ....

Enabled by *corruption* in the US government that allowed it to happen - but also by the incessant support of the media and their love of advertising dollars from the same companies: Lockheed, Boeing, GE, etc, etc.

Just SAY IT damn it.


Kudos to Biden - it took guts to finally end this.