I have been watching fact, perception, and opinion clash over the past two weeks as President Biden has been doing the right thing about our 20-year involvement in Afghanistan. How many of you are old enough to remember the Vietnam-era song “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy (and the big fool said to move on)”?
For the second time in my life, the United States has rejected the commands of a big fool and backed out of a big muddy. The first time was in Vietnam in 1974; the second time was last month in Afghanistan. Neither time was pretty. It has been chaotic. People have been hurt. People have died. And people have been left behind.
On the other hand, remember this: armed conflict isn’t pretty. It’s chaotic. People get hurt. People die. People get left behind.
In Afghanistan, the United States got into the big muddy, and the fools who got us in were smart enough to know we shouldn’t go further in but too dumb or too proud to order us to back out.
Deft departure
It fell to Joe Biden to be smart enough to see that it was past time to get out, and determined enough to push the military and diplomatic corps to get the job done — and he did it.
Furthermore, as time goes by and we learn more about:
- How the world’s best trained and equipped military planned for this evacuation.
- How plans were implemented as conditions rapidly changed when our client Afghan government and military rapidly collapsed, allowing the chaotic situation to worsen.
- How much was really accomplished to airlift more than 115,000 Afghan people who have risked everything to have a chance for a better life?
When we get the whole story, we will find out that our military achieved a prodigious mission under rapidly changing conditions deftly and successfully.
As far as the Republicans are concerned, their negative reaction is expected. It drips with hypocrisy and is filled with lies. The real shame is their refusal to at least keep quiet in public during an obvious foreign crisis. I am impatient with carping from critics who should know better; or who have axes to grind because of their past actions that kept us the Big Muddy over the past 20 years. Finally, some are political critics who will take any opportunity to trumpet messages through pet media outlets like Fox News that attack Joe Biden.
Personally, I am ashamed of Democratic Party leaders who have chosen to find fault with the President’s decision and action. But, at least, we Democrats should give the President, the military, and the State Department the benefit of the doubt. We should let our representatives know that we expect them to support the administration now, and stay out of the chorus of Congressional critics now in full hue and cry.
In any event, the momentary criticisms of the past two weeks will fade as we learn more about the planning and execution of the evacuation mission and the changing conditions in which it was conducted.
Afghani immigrants
One notable result of the flight from Afghanistan is that more than 115,000 Afghani people who left their country in the airlift, and many more who will be leaving with the help of our State Department, will want to re-settle in the United States. In addition, many have American friends and acquaintances who were stationed in Afghanistan with the military and a range of businesses and non-government organizations working there over the past 20 years.
Eventually, most of these Afghani people will work through the opaque, byzantine, and apparently independent process of becoming legal residents. This will happen because their American sponsors will keep the pressure on the independent and unresponsive bureaucracy tasked with this process.
I am not surprised that most of those who criticize the administration for not getting more people out are also among those who would close our borders and reject these people. This is not only wrong; it’s stupid. Immigrants always have and will continue to help our economy grow and have enriched our pluralistic society. Maybe this latter result is what alarms these narrow-minded and insecure fellow citizens.
In Arizona, we have shown a great ability and willingness to welcome immigrants seeking the stability, freedom, and opportunity that America offers. We need to support the agencies and volunteers across the state that built our reputation. Let’s look for ways to be helpful in this enterprise.
Suppose we Americans cannot assimilate immigrants who don’t match a narrow view of what a “true American” is. In that case, the American experiment of a democracy in a republic is indeed ending.
“…remember this: armed conflict isn’t pretty. It’s chaotic. People get hurt. People die. People get left behind.”
I’m going to reserve judgement on the US exit from Afghanistan until more information is available. Biden had no good choices, and it appears that he picked the one that he believed was in the best interest of this country and his administration.
What does seem to be happening in Afghanistan now is the worst case scenario. The Taliban are cracking down on protesters, mostly women, and I’m afraid if these people persist we could eventually see a massacre.
Our post-WWII warmongers aren’t very good at owning the aftermath of their military interventions. It’s just time to move on, time to get going, nothing more we can do here.
How many Americans know or care what happened to Vietnam after 1975? Everyone has heard this, “Between 1965 and 1975, the United States and its allies dropped more than 7.5 million tons of bombs on Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia—double the amount dropped on Europe and Asia during World War II.” How did those countries, particularly Vietnam, recover from that? Here in America, we don’t even talk about it. We’re not the ones still dealing with things like unexploded ordnance and birth defects. We’re not the ones who had our country bombed into the Stone Age.
The plight of these women and girls in Afghanistan is something that should weigh heavy on all of us.
Somehow, “People get hurt. People die. People get left behind” sounds pretty damn callous.
To anyone who believes and pushes the notion that our Afghanistan evacuation was a disaster, ask for an example of a non-winning country’s foreign evacuation that went smoothly? Spot them a time frame going back to the Punic Wars.
Well said Paul. From the initial group-think rush to war, to 20 years of flawed making it up as we go, a tragedy for all.