Finally "Mission Accomplished" in Afghanistan! But obviously, not the way we should have exited

An Unwinnable War echo report published in Commonweal:
Leaving Afghanistan is the right thing to do.

On September 11, 2001, the United States suffered the worst attack in its history. 

Three thousand Americans perished on September 11, 2001, in the World Trade Center terrorist attack and many more were wounded. Moreover, the way Americans saw the rest of the world changed overnight. 

Many were shocked that Al Qaeda, a relatively small group of religious Muslim extremists with little in the way of traditional military might, could cause such destruction in the centers of American power. In retaliation, the United States under President George W. Bush invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, with the goal of eradicating Al Qaeda and ensuring that such an attack could not be repeated.

Now that the United States has at last left Afghanistan, two decades and three presidents later, it’s hard to say just what we were doing there during most of that time. In the years after the initial invasion, the mission morphed and expanded: first it was about uprooting Al Qaeda and capturing or killing the mastermind behind 9/11, Osama bin Laden; then it was also about removing the ruling Taliban that had harbored the terrorists; and finally it was about establishing a liberal democracy in Afghanistan and training the Afghan military to fight like ours. Meanwhile, the war in Afghanistan became the longest foreign war in U.S. history. For Americans, it cost thousands of lives and more than $2 trillion. But the toll for Afghans was far worse: there the war meant not only occupation by a foreign power, but also constant political instability, corruption, drone strikes, civilian deaths, starvation, and displacement.

When President Joe Biden announced in April that U.S. forces would be withdrawn by September 11, it was clear this date was no coincidence. “War in Afghanistan was never meant to be a multigenerational undertaking,” he said. “We were attacked. We went to war with clear goals. We achieved those objectives. Bin Laden is dead and Al Qaeda is degraded.”

On July 8, Biden confidently reassured Americans that the prospect of “the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.” 

But intelligence reports, by then, were warning that this was indeed a possibility. In the weeks that followed, the Taliban captured city after city until finally, on August 15, they conquered Kabul in a single day. 

(Failed!) President Ashraf Ghani resigned and fled the country- like a coward. Many ordinary Afghans also tried to flee; countless others have been internally displaced. In some parts of the country, women and girls have already been forbidden to leave their homes without a male relative and are being kept from school. Those who aided or worked with Americans fear for their lives and the lives of their families, despite the Taliban’s promises of amnesty.
Our politicians whistled through the graveyard and let the war grind on.

Afghan Army soldier inspects a junkyard filled with destroyed American equipment in Bagram, Afghanistan on July 2, 2021. (Photo by Kanika Gupta)

Only a few months ago, Biden insisted that the Afghan security forces, which have received twenty years of training and $88.3 billion in aid and materiel from the United States, would be able to defend themselves against the Taliban. Biden’s tone changed once we saw how quickly Afghanistan would fall. “Afghan leaders have to come together,” Biden told reporters. “They’ve got to fight for themselves, fight for their nation.” The White House spokesperson Jen Psaki put it more bluntly: “They have what they need. What they need to determine is whether they have the political will to fight back.” In other words: this outcome isn’t America’s fault, because we did our best.

The day after the fall of Kabul, President Biden addressed the nation, defending his decision to pull out of Afghanistan, while acknowledging that the Taliban’s takeover “did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated.” His candor in this regard was welcome—a refreshing change from his predecessor’s reflexive bragging and deceit—but the overall tone of the address was oddly complacent. Biden put nearly all the blame for what had happened on Afghanistan’s government and security forces and almost none on our own country’s military and civilian leadership, which had systematically deceived the American public for years.

As the Washington Post’s 2019 report on the Afghanistan Papers showed, our military leaders knew for a long time that the war was unwinnable, that its objectives were too ill-defined, and that the United States wasn’t capable of installing a functioning liberal democracy at gunpoint. But our politicians whistled through the graveyard and let the war grind on.

If Biden was wrong to try to absolve us of guilt, he was right to pull the plug—thus rejecting the advice of the military establishment and much of the media. As the analyst Andrew Watkins told Foreign Affairs, “Many of the country’s drivers of conflict could never plausibly be resolved as long as American troops were present. Afghanistan’s war will not be over just because U.S. forces leave, but it was never going to end as long as they stayed.”

Of course, this is an unsatisfying conclusion for Americans. It should be. The damage is done; all we can do now is accept as many Afghan refugees as possible. We should feel sorrow and shame for the destruction we have caused, while recognizing that we can’t always fix what we’ve broken. We should also recognize that for many Afghans the difference between one regime and another may be less important than the difference between peace and perpetual war. Even Afghans who despise the Taliban may care less about who rules in Kabul than whether they can travel to work, plow a field, or attend a wedding without the constant fear of being shot at or bombed. “Give me liberty or give me death” is heroic, but “Give them liberty or give them death” is obscene.

ISIS an insidiously growing evil in our midst

Americans are eternal optimists. That's one reason why we were blindsided by the horrific September 11, 2001 attacks on our nation by Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban.  We just didn't expect it.

Now, we're faced with the potential for another evil ISIS attack on our nation. How did all of this evil permeate our nation's borders?

I'm completely mystified about how Osama bin Laden took a particular hatred towards America. Is seems to me, he was a man of some independent means. He was born into a well connected Saudi Arabian family. American didn't do anything of particular significance to cause his hatred to become so incensed that he had delusions of grandeur about taking over the world.  Obviously, Bin Laden was infused with a strange euphoric evil.

Post the Osama bin Laden brazen assassination by the Navy Seal Team 6, on May 2, 2011, there were other splinter groups, like the evil Islamic State or ISIS, that began to claim a sort of mob revenge.  

Now, instead of the Osama bin Laden Taliban being America's enemy, it's the amorphous evil ISIS group that's declared an end to civilization, as we know it. In their jihad plan, the United States is ground zero in the group's horrific quest to destroy humanity.  

American patriotism is roused to combat the evil intentions of ISIS. Nevertheless, for some unknown numbers of sympathizers, it seems the insidious social networking communications, conducted 24/7 by the Islamic terrorist group, are unbelievably attracting militant followers in the US.

Even worse, there's enough chatter from weird communications networks to lead domestic security organizations to believe an ISIS threat on the US is inevitable.  Of course, in the philosophical realm, the possibility of an ISIS  motivated attack on the US is certainly a potential reality. Except, with the attack of a free speech program in Texas by two, now dead, ISIS militant sympathizers, the concept of another copy cat attack seems even more likely.

CNN reports that the United States is "certainly vulnerable" to becoming a new front line in the fight against ISIS, reported by Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson on Sunday.

Johnson chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. He told CNN's Jim Sciutto on "State of the Union" Sunday that attacks inspired by ISIS, like one against a provocative cartoon contest in Texas a week ago, are allowing the group to convey a "winner's message."

"The best strategy the U.S. can employ to defeat this is actually defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria so that the reality is conveyed that this is not a winning organization, it is a losing organization," he said.

In other words, defeat ISIS where they live, in the Middle East.

Although this strategy, outlined by Senator Johnson, makes sense because it keeps ISIS contained, the fact is, there are obviously ISIS sympathizers here in the US.  In my opinion, this is evident by the visible fact that few, if any, Muslims are organized to combat the ISIS messaging.

It's impossible to understand why extremist Islamic groups like ISIS and splinters of the Taliban are determined to destroy civilization. Moreover, it's tragic to realize how the US is a ground zero target for the evil these zealous groups permeate among their wrong minded followers.

Nevertheless, the reality is that the evil ISIS absolutely exists and, because of the group's anhilistic intentions, they must be eradicated.

Unfortunately, I don't think fighting ISIS in Syria and Iraq will do the job. American Muslims must organize to denounce the intentions of Islamic extremist groups. Moreover they must do something soon. Otherwise, in my opinion, by maintaining their mysterious sociological reticence, the American Muslims are appearing to be complicit in the intentions of an evil that civilized people are totally unable to fathom. Consequently, our collective response, over time, is becoming less and less measured.

ISIS exists because of the US led Iraq invasion under false pretenses

Pundits are second guessing America's resolve to destroy ISIS, but have short term memory loss about how the world wound up in this turmoil. 

This evil mess is the result of the failed invasion of Iraq.

After the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the crash of United Airlines flight 63 in Pennsylvania, the sympathy of the international community was our nation's to loose. And so, we invaded Iraq, a nation with no ties to the terrorists who assaulted us.  In fact, all the terrorists who flew the suicidal airplanes on September 11, 2001 had Saudi Arabian passports.  Nevertheless, under the banner of "Iraqi freedom!", America invaded Iraq. As a result, we're stuck with the consequences of engaging in a war we couldn't afford, didn't have to fight in the first place and was launched on the false premise of searching out weapons of mass destruction, that didn't exist. Meanwhile, terrorists continued to recruit and train fighters to defeat and kill all westerners, especially Americans. 

ISIS, an acronym that sort of means "Islamic State", isn't Islamic nor a state. Rather, it's an evil movement of sadistic extremists intent on murder for any reason.  ISIS or "IS" exists because Iraq has no government capable of defending it's own people against this evil terrorist group.  

Consequently, America is still trying desperately to fix the mistaken and wrong minded invasion of Iraq. Now, Secretary of State Kerry is seeking out Arab partners to control the growing ISIS threat.

BBCNews reports:

Egypt has a key role to play in countering Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, US Secretary of State John Kerry said on a visit to Cairo.

He met Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi and Egypt's President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi as part of his campaign to form a broad coalition to tackle IS militants.

He has already enlisted the support of 10 Arab states so far but he has ruled out Iran joining the US-led coalition.

On Friday, the CIA said IS has as many as 30,000 fighters in Syria and Iraq.

IS controls large parts of both countries and its fighters have become notorious for their brutality, but in recent weeks they have been targeted by US air strikes.

On Wednesday, President Barack Obama unveiled plans for an expansion of the US campaign against IS.

Shia militias have joined forces with the Iraqi army and Kurdish fighters to try to fight back against IS

The 10 Arab countries to have signed up to the coalition are: Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Egypt is "on the frontline of the fight against terrorism, particularly when it comes to fighting extremist groups in Sinai," Mr Kerry said, after talks with Mr Arabi and President Sisi in the latest leg of his Middle East tour.

He acknowledged Egypt's reputation as "an intellectual and cultural capital of the Muslim world," saying it had a "critical role to play in publicly renouncing the ideology that IS disseminates".

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri, speaking at the same news conference, said that ties existed between IS and other militant groups operating in the region, who must also be dealt with.

He had earlier signalled a desire for the campaign against IS to be broadened to militants active in the Sinai who have expressed support for IS, says the BBC's Barbara Plett-Usher in Cairo.

Foreign fighters cross through the Sinai en route to Syria, with some offering expertise and training to local militants there, a senior state department official has said.

But US officials say they need to keep the focus on IS as the biggest danger because it crosses borders and would expand if not stopped, our correspondent adds.

Mr Kerry says military and intelligence experts will spend the coming days working out how each state will contribute.

But speaking in Turkey on Friday, he said it would be "inappropriate" for Iran to join the group because of its "engagement in Syria and elsewhere".

Thirteen years after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US, our nation is still at war because our retaliation was wrong minded.

Our response was not succinct but, rather, too broad. Now, we're engaged in preventing even more evil, but without the resources

to target the enemies we've allowed to be home grown, as a result of our failed invasion of Iraq.