“You break it, you own it.”
Colin Powell
“Every data point was altered to present the best picture possible.”
Senior US Advisor in Afghanistan
They were spread throughout the plane, perhaps a dozen of them. Before the stewardess started with the safety directions she gave them a shout out and everybody clapped. When the Captain came on to advise about the trip’s time, he also recognized them, again a round of applause. They all seemed like babies, hardly prepared for what awaited them. Yet all seemed excited to go. Parris Island beckoned.
Since 2001, when America set its sites on the Taliban after 9/11, 775,000 troops have rotated through Afghanistan. Our involvement has stretched so long, the first sons are now deploying to where their fathers’ boots also hit the ground. Think about that. I remember, as a college student, being dumbfounded how America could have been bogged down in Vietnam for so long. Our stay in Afghanistan has been near twice as long.
Many argue that the folly of invading Iraq doomed quick and enduring success in Afghanistan. The recent trove of classified material gathered by the Washington Post doesn’t support their thesis. Instead, like the Soviets before us, America’s military appears to have entered a quagmire from day one, with time and American casualties it produced the only certain measurements of failure our political and military leaders would spare no effort to sanitize and misrepresent.
It ended up being a flight from hades, Earlier in the day an American Eagle plane, the exact same model we were now on, made an emergency landing at Reagan National due to black smoke in the cabin. Between that incident and miserable weather, an operation that tests passenger patience under optimal conditions never recovered. American Eagle flight 4580 from Portland, Maine was a mere 20 minutes out from DC when our captain came on from the flight deck and notified us we were in a circling pattern because of “weather delays.” He didn’t sound particularly hopeful.
Incredibly, when he came on several minutes later he broke the news that, due to fuel considerations, if we couldn’t land within 15 minutes we would be forced to divert to Norfolk! Suddenly, a late dinner became an overnight stay three hours from home!! Needless to say, the boys heading to boot camp were not going to make their connection, and how they digested the news was very interesting and encouraging to witness. There was humor and a certain degree of fatalism as they discussed their options. One youngster demonstrated outstanding leadership skills as he went through the situations and viable options as he saw it. One could imagine them as a unit, on patrol, mapping out how to react to an enemy encounter. What was great to see was how alert and focused all were, with no agitation whatsoever; they were addressing a curveball with humor and comradeship.
If Iraq was defined by hubris, the decision making behind the US invasion of Afghanistan was impulsive and visceral. The mandate was to get even, come what may. The fact most of the 9/11 cabal were Saudis was ignored. And while perhaps no regime in the world needed to change more than the Taliban, long-range planning, which should have benefitted greatly from the lessons Soviet mistakes provided, really never seemed to be a priority. As Douglas Lute, a three-star Army general and planning “czar” within both the Bush and Obama administrations admitted: “we didn’t know what we were doing.” Yet and still, it hardly mattered; as Toby Keith bellowed, it was time to put a boot in their ass, nuff said.
Eighteen years later we remain an isolated and clueless occupier, still trying to figure out how to declare victory and leave. For our trouble we’re more than $1 trillion poorer and have lost more than 2300 of our soldiers, not to mention more than 20,000 wounded. The primary goals that framed the mission remain elusive and largely unmet. While it’s true Afghanistan is no longer a terrorist training haven, nobody is confident it won’t again become one once the remaining 13,000 Americans still in country leave. It’s government remains corrupt and primed to be toppled by the Taliban soon after a US withdrawal. Opium continues to be grown and exported at levels few would argue reflect successful US efforts at intervention.
Now the stunning collection of classified material the Post had to fight tooth and nail to obtain paints a picture of Vietnam 2.0, where spin doctors up and down the chain of command worked tirelessly at painting rosy scenarios none actually believed. There is no other way to put it: successive US administrations lied continuously to cover up failed operations in Afghanistan, without pause or concern. Hundreds of candid interviews, carried out with the promise they were off-the-record, clarify 18-years of aimless policy that never really got past the original motivation… to punish the Taliban for providing a staging area for Bin Laden.
Mercifully, Baltimore’s BWI airport agreed to allow us to divert there. Inconvenient sure, but hardly the burden of heading to Norfolk. The descent was nothing short of harrowing, the commuter plane relentlessly tossed around by the elements. The recruits joked nervously that bad luck might spare them the unpleasant chore of explaining to their DIs why they were late to camp.
While we waited on the tarmac for a gate assignment, I was struck by how not one of these kids seemed at all preoccupied by the the immense life-change they were about to face. As they discussed pursuing plan B or C to make it down to South Carolina, there was order and calm, with ideas offered and assessed. The leader who emerged earlier acted as a clearinghouse for different approaches. I counseled that sitting around BWI waiting for hours to fly 30 miles made no sense at all. My suggestion was they let the American representative know the importance of getting out quickly and book something from BWI, on another carrier if necessary. After all, this was our national security we were talking about. American helped matters by announcing before we deplaned that nothing was getting into Reagan for the next couple hours and vouchers for ground transportation to DC would be issued.
After almost two decades in Afghanistan we appear no closer to the requisites for declaring mission accomplished. Worse, it’s clear, like Vietnam, those essentials were never possible. Create a strong central government determined to resist corruption? It was never going to happen, particularly with millions of unaudited American dollars flowing through the system. As one US official put it: “petty corruption is like skin cancer… corruption within the ministries, higher level, is like colon cancer….. kleptocracy, however, is like brain cancer; it’s fatal.”
And of course for the US to withdraw, Afghan forces have to be able to defeat the Taliban insurgents on their own. Year in and year out they have not improved. Incompetent, unmotivated and “rife with deserters” has been the common assessment since the start. Afghan security forces have suffered more than 60,000 fatalities, a shocking number that US officials deem “unsustainable.” We leave and the Taliban returns; that’s an article of faith. It is a testament to our failure that our hapless President isn’t necessarily wrong about “cutting a deal” with the Taliban, unthinkable in 2001. Other than permanent occupation, few other options exist.
As I left the gate, beelining for what would be a crowded Uber stand, the future Marines were circled around the airline representative, earnestly yet respectfully pressing their situation. Walking away, I was more heartened and hopeful about America’s future than when I began the day’s journey. These young men would give their best and complain little while doing it. They were splendid in every way, our greatest resource. Who could possibly look them in the eye and tell them they have signed on to, not just a failed mission, but a folly that was doomed from the beginning? Who could be so heartless to do that? Who could be so cruel not to? The hell of it! BC