Afghanistan, the Tragedy and Folly of War. Part 1

​The last United States military transport plane left Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan just before President Biden’s self-imposed deadline of August 31, 2021. This brought an end to the U.S.’s twenty-year war in Afghanistan. But there were no parades or celebrations (except by the Taliban) to mark the end of America’s longest war. The chaotic evacuation from Kabul, the rapid collapse of the U.S. backed Afghan government and military, and the takeover of the country by the Taliban, exposed the political deceptions and failed policies of the U.S. government over the past twenty years.

The tragedy in terms of human costs will never be fully known, but the folly of an open-ended war and nation-building is now visible for the world to see. This sad chapter in American history ends, but the epilogue to the Afghanistan War will be written over the following weeks, months, and years. I dare say it won’t make you proud to be an American. So why were we in Afghanistan and what were the costs? 

​Why the U.S. Went to War in Afghanistan: As our nation commemorates the twentieth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, it is important to remember that the Afghanistan War was started to avenge these attacks and to bring the perpetrators to justice. U.S. Intelligence agencies linked the attacks to Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader who was operating inside of Afghanistan with the Taliban’s blessing. The Taliban had been ruling Afghanistan since the mid-1990s under strict Islamic fundamentalist laws. The U.S. demanded that the Taliban turn over bin Laden and members of his network, and close all terrorist training camps. The Taliban refused the U.S.’s demands and the rest is history. 

​Brief History of the Afghanistan War:  

• September 15, 2001: President George W. Bush signed into law the “Authorization for Use of Military Force”. This gave the President the authority to “use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States”. So began the “War on Terror”, and President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld had the legal authority needed to initiate the Afghanistan War.
• October 7, 2001: Along with its NATO allies, the U.S. launched “Operation Enduring Freedom”, marking the start of the war. Emotions were raw in the U.S. following 9/11, and most Americans (including me) were in favor of the bombardment of al -Qaeda and Taliban targets within Afghanistan.
• November 13, 2001: By this date U.S. warplanes had destroyed the training bases and strongholds of al-Qaeda and the Taliban all across Afghanistan.  Special Operations Forces and the Northern Alliance (anti-Taliban militia men) forced the Taliban from Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital.
• December 9, 2001: Taliban leaders surrendered the group’s final Afghan territory, marking the end of their regime. It was a swift and remarkable success by U.S. and allied forces with very few casualties. This should have marked the end of the war. But the mission had failed to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. He had managed to escape from his stronghold in Tora Bora and cross the mountains into Pakistan. So, the period of nation-building began and the hunt for Osama bin Laden continued.   
• March 19, 2003: The Iraq War began. One war just wasn’t enough for the Bush administration! Many analysts believe that the Iraq war was a major distraction for the U.S. and diverted attention and resources from Afghanistan. So, the war dragged on.
• August 8, 2003: NATO assumed control of the International Security Forces in Afghanistan.
• 2004: Afghanistan adopted a new constitution which called for equality for women. Elections were held and Harmid Karsai was elected President.
• 2006: Violence increased across Afghanistan. Taliban fighters reemerged from their strongholds in Pakistan and began reclaiming territory in Afghanistan. As the Taliban gained momentum, NATO expanded its peacekeeping operation to more of Afghanistan.
• February 17, 2007: New President Barack Obama announced a renewed commitment to the Afghanistan War effort. 17,000 more troops were sent to the country to counter the resurgent Taliban. This was followed by additional troops to aid Pakistan along the border and to launch a major counterinsurgency against the Taliban that summer.
• March-July 2009: More troops were sent to dismantle al-Qaeda strongholds along the Pakistan border. U.S. Marines launched a major counterinsurgency against the Taliban.  
• December 1, 2009: President Obama announced a major escalation, and an additional 30,000 troops were sent to Afghanistan. He called the troop surge temporary and set July 2011 as the start of a troop drawdown.
• May 1, 2011: U.S. Navy Seals killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. Finally, the original mission had been accomplished.  Time for the troops to come home! Well, as you know, it didn’t quite work out that way. U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan reached a peak of approximately 110,000 around that time.
• June 2013: NATO handed over control of the country’s security to Afghan forces, and turned its focus to military training and counter-terrorism efforts.
• May 27, 2014: President Obama announced a timetable for withdrawing most U.S. forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2016.
• January 2017: There were approximately 9,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan as President Trump took office. Even though he campaigned on ending the war, President Trump deferred to his military commanders and pressed ahead with an open-ended commitment in Afghanistan.
• February 29, 2020: The Trump Administration brokered a deal with the Taliban to withdraw all U.S. and allied troops from Afghanistan by May 1, 2021. This agreement gave legal recognition to the Taliban and undermined the U.S. backed Afghan government.
• January 2021: Only about 3,500 U.S. troops remained in Afghanistan as President Biden took office.
• April 14, 2021: President Biden announced that the U.S. would not meet the May 1, 2021 deadline and extended it to September 11, 2021.
• July 8, 2021: President Biden announced that all U.S. and allied forces would withdraw by August 31, 2021.
• August 15, 2021: The Afghan government collapsed as the Taliban took Kabul.
• August 16, 2021: The U.S. deployed 6,000 troops to Kabul to secure the airport and evacuate U.S. and allied personnel.
• August 26, 2021: A suicide bomber linked to ISIS-K killed thirteen U.S. service members and sixty Afghans at the Kabul airport.
• August 31, 2021: The U.S. completed its evacuation of all U.S. military troops from Afghanistan, marking the end of the twenty-year war. In the chaos and haste to complete the evacuation, a few hundred U.S. citizens and several thousand Afghans who wanted to be evacuated were left behind.   We left Afghanistan a broken country, reliant upon foreign aid for economic survival, and in the hands of the same repressive regime that was in place at the start of the war.

 

​The Costs in Lives and Treasure: The human and monetary costs of the war in Afghanistan are staggering, but the true costs will never be known. We can measure the direct monetary costs, and have a fairly accurate accounting of the dead and injured. But how do you place a cost on the suffering of families who have lost loved ones, or on the emotional toll on families caring for those injured or traumatized by the war? 

There was no shared sacrifice in this country during the past twenty years of war. About 800,000 U.S. service members were deployed to Afghanistan over the past twenty years, many for multiple deployments. Only a small fraction of the U.S. population was engaged in any aspect of the war. Did the people on the home front go without material goods or pay higher taxes to support the war effort? No, there was no call from our leadership to share in the sacrifices of those on the front lines. Presidents Bush and Trump actually lowered income taxes during the war to encourage consumption. All the money used to execute the war and to rebuild Afghanistan was borrowed. It will be up to future generations to pay the bill.
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According to an ongoing study by Brown University’s “Costs of War Project”, the monetary costs of the war could reach $2.313 trillion. This figure does not include money the U.S. government will spend on lifetime care of wounded veterans, nor does it include future interest payments on money borrowed to fund the war (https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2021/human-and-budgetary-costs-date-us-war-afghanistan-2001-2022). 

​The human toll of the war was also horrendous. It is estimated that 243,000 people have died as a direct result of the war. Here is a partial list of the casualties:

• U.S. service members killed:              2,461
• U.S. service members injured:        20,744
• U.S. contractors killed:                         3,846
• Afghan civilians killed:                      47,400
• Allied service members killed:           1,144
• International aid workers killed:         444
• Journalists killed:                                        72
• Afghan military and police killed: 66,000

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These grime statistics don’t capture the plight of the millions of Afghan civilians who have been displaced, or the tens of thousands who are now refugees in foreign countries. Families destroyed, livelihoods ruined, a shattered economy, a tenuous security situation, and an unknown future are the costs of war to the Afghan people.
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In part 2 of this blog series on Afghanistan I will examine whether or not President Biden did the right thing in ending the war, and the legacy of the war.

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Thanks,
Armchair American