By Gordon Adams
In Afghanistan, American hubris – the United States’ capacity for self-delusion and official lying – has struck once again, as it has repeatedly for the last 60 years.
This weakness-masquerading-as-strength has repeatedly led the country into failed foreign interventions. The pattern first became clear to me when I learned on Nov. 11, 1963, that the U.S. embassy and intelligence agencies had been directly involved in planning a coup to depose the president of South Vietnam and his brother, leading to their executions.
I was a Fulbright Fellow, starting a long career in national security policymaking and teaching, studying in Europe. On that day, I was in a bus on a tour of the battlefields of Ypres, Belgium, led by a French history professor.
As I watched the grave markers sweep by, I was reading a report in Le Monde exposing this U.S. effort to overthrow another government and I thought, “This is a bad idea; my country should not be doing this.” And the war, in which the U.S. was directly involved for 20 years, marched on.
The American people were told we had no hand in that coup. We did not know that was a lie until The New York Times and Washington Post published the Pentagon Papers in 1971. By then, 58,000 Americans and possibly as many as 3.5 million Vietnamese soldiers and civilians had died – and the goal of preventing the unification of Vietnam had died as well.
For 15 years, the American foreign policy establishment struggled to overcome what it called the “Vietnam Syndrome” – the rational reluctance of the American people to invade and try to remake another country.
American hubris reemerged, this time as “the global war on terror.” Afghanistan is now the poster child for the sense that the U.S. can remake the world.
‘A sea of righteous retribution’
Osama bin Laden gave American interventionists eager for the next fight a huge justification – an attack on the U.S., which washed the Vietnam Syndrome away in a sea of righteous retribution against al-Qaida.
The al-Qaida attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon also gave interventionists the opening to invade Iraq, as an extension of the war on terror. We built on the terrorism lie – Saddam Hussein was no friend of the 9/11 terrorists – by arguing that he had weapons of mass destruction. American hubris ran the full course as we invaded another country, overthrew its government and aimed to build a new nation, all of which have kept American troops in a dysfunctional Iraq for 18 years.
And the truth, which insisted on penetrating the American delusion, was that the war meant the deaths of 8,500 American troops and civilians and at least 300,000 Iraqis as well. No modern, rebuilt Iraqi nation has emerged.
And now the country faces the dark at the end of the tunnel in Afghanistan, where lying and self-delusion have continued for 20 years.
An initial mission intended to remove the Taliban and close the al-Qaida training camps succeeded, though Osama bin Laden slipped away for another 10 years. But hubris kept the U.S. from stopping there.
The mission expanded: create a modern democracy, a modern society and, above all, a modern military in a country with little history of any of those things.
A new generation of U.S. officials in uniform and policymaker suits and dresses fooled the American people and themselves by lying about how well the effort was going.
The failure was actually there to see, this time, well documented by the systematic auditing and reporting of the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, John Sopko. But government officials and the media blew by those truths, giving voice instead to the lies out of more visible officials’ mouths. The human price tag of hubris grew – 6,300 U.S. military and civilian deaths, and an understated estimate of 100,000 Afghan deaths.
Three strikes and you’re out
Three times now this country has been lied to and the media deluded as America marched stolidly over the cliff into failure.
Recriminations are flying back and forth – who lost Afghanistan is the latest version of who lost Vietnam, Iraq and, for those with long memories, all the way back to 1949 and “who lost China.” What America has lost is, I believe, the capacity to learn, to learn from history and from our own experience.
I’d argue that no one who was paying attention should be surprised that the Taliban swept back into Kabul in a nanosecond. Or that a failed enterprise like the Afghan national army collapsed. Army and special operator trainers who went there could see the corruption, the personnel who left in the night and the disdain for corrupt political authorities in that army.
Many brave, honorable Afghans fought there, but the cohesion and commitment, the belief in their mission, was not there.
By contrast, the Taliban were organized, dedicated and coherent, and armed and trained for the actual combat taking place, not for European-style trench and tank warfare. The Taliban clearly had a plan that worked for that country, as the speed of the takeover shows. It succeeded; the U.S. and the Kabul regime failed in what became mission impossible.
The fall of Kabul was inevitable. Washington, once again, deluded itself into thinking otherwise. The secretary of state said, “This is not Saigon.”
It is Saigon. It is Baghdad. It is Kabul.
c
Gordon Adams is Professor Emeritus at American University School of International Service.
Reader Interactions
Comments
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Weldon B. Ryan says
US meddling in the affairs of so many nations isn’t new. Our government has called the shots on so many policies of countries around the world! Puppet governments or assasinations choose it! Afghanistan would never had ended well! Hearing all these drones and news pundents (who fueled lots of the lies to get us in these wars anyway) was sickening. Both sides!
Jimbo99 says
The withdrawal from Afghanistan dates back to Obama & Biden. As SC Congressional Lindsey Graham said it best, after 9/11/2K1 the best way to fight terrorism was on their soil, not try to fight it at our airports and largest cities. Obama & Biden don’t understand that. In 7 months Biden has found a way to have another Mid East Crisis, now he’s destabilized Afghanistan. The POTUS elect that was supposed to get Covid under control, hasn’t. Re-watch the debates, Biden & Harris called Trump & Pence liars for the way 2020 was handled as they sabotaged every effort to develop even a single vaccine in 2020. Let’s get the facts right and be totally fair about what has transpired in 1.5 years. We’ve had 2 failed impeachment attempts, Biden-Harris have constantly strived to destabilize areas that were under control. Yes, Biden stands behind his decision, actually Obama’s deal nearly a decade ago. That deal and coalition forces were supposed to be out of Afghanistan by 2024. Biden wanted that credit so bad that he got what he was after and it blew up in his face. This collapse of Government & Army in Afghanistan is Obama’s legacy & work. In their overzealous efforts to show Americans they are competent, the Democrats demonstrate their incompetence. Anyone hearing anything out of Pelosi these days ? She got her “D” leadership and control of Congress. This is where we are in this mess.
End of the day here, it’s money, Afghanistan’s government & army were on board until the USA was pulling out and that money disappeared. That same solution is the approach Biden-Harris has for illegal immigration that will blow up. What exactly did Biden expect ? The Taliban are the alpha males in Afghanistan, not the one’s that were propped up. As long as Afghanistan had a big dog (USA) to fight there, things were relatively in control. Biden speaks of not sending Americans to fight & die in the civil war in Afghanistan ? I get that, what are the casualties of any of those war zones ? And what is that number in comparison to 9/11/2K1 WTC Tower collapse ? With the Taliban, POWs are being released from prisons there. Did Biden actually think that anyone that was locked up for nearly 20 years is going to forgive & forget that their lives and freedoms were stolen from them for being in prison ? Nope, if anything those folks are coming out with a chip on their shoulders for either guilt or innocence for being jailed for 20 years. They will not be fans of the USA for that.
The USA-Mexico border has never been less secure than under Biden-Harris. Anyone else see that Afghanistan terrorists => Mexico => Across the US Border isn’t a bigger/real threat. The cartels, human trafficking & drugs, we can now add terrorism to the list. Biden may not want to hand off the Afghanistan situation to the next 5th POTUS, but the next or even the current POTUS may very well have to invade Afghanistan and have to start fresh from ground zero with no airport or base to start that operation from.
oldtimer says
As someone who was there when Saigon fell, this is exactly the same except no one is pushing choppers into the ocean. It’s good to see after 46 years our government still makes the same mistakes.
snapperhead says
Of course the politicians lied. They always do because they wouldn’t keep their power if they told the truth. You think any politician would be elected or re-elected if they said “America’s health care crisis is because Americans eat too much and are a bunch of fat asses.”
mausborn says
Donald Trump ― the one who agreed to the “peace” deal so heavily skewed in favor of the terrorist group that it essentially assured its returned to power.
THIS is ALL the explanation anyone needs for what happened to Afghanistan.
It’s the reason THE TALIBAN ENDORSED Trump in 2020!
trailer bob says
Can you show me where it states THE TALIBAN ENDORSED Trump in 2020″?
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/taliban-on-trump-we-hope-he-will-win-the-election-withdraw-us-troops/
Pogo says
@You are correct
https://www.google.com/search?d&q=THE+TALIBAN+ENDORSED+Trump+in+2020
The moving finger writes; and, having writ, moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.
— Omar Khayyam
https://www.google.com/search?d&q=Omar+Khayyam
Ray W. says
My memory may be hazy on this point, having read this so many decades ago, but didn’t we send Pershing into Mexico to chase Pancho Villa around and around because Villa and his followers invaded across the U.S. border and killed Americans? If my memory is correct, we may have a loser here: Jimbo99, for claiming the border has never been less secure than it is today under Biden/Harris. I suppose exaggeration flows through Jimbo99’s veins, as exaggeration, perhaps more appropriately gross exaggeration, seems to be second nature to him. He fails the giggle test. As Jimbo99 keeps losing these kinds of points, the jury, i.e., FlaglerLive readers and commenters, will start laughing at all of his points.
Wait, Jimbo99 blames Biden for not getting Covid-19 under control. He loses another point, for failing to properly recognize the anti-vaxxer component of American culture. Big fail on Jimbo99’s part. I doubt he will ever be able to recover full credibility after this mistake.
Jimbo99 blames Biden for Israel announcing it was about to demolish Palestinian homes, triggering a 10-day shooting war. I remain unconvinced that Biden persuaded the IDF to announce the demolitions. Jimbo99 loses another point. I am beginning to suspect that Jimbo99 personifies action without thought.
Biden did roll back Trump’s plan to have U.S. and NATO forces leave Afghanistan by April, so Jimbo99 has a smidgeon of a point there, but no one believes that the Afghan army was stronger in April than it was in July/August, so he loses the overall point, though I concede it was a lesser loss than the others described above.
Yes, POW’s are being released from Afghan prisons, so Jimbo99 scores a possible point, but Trump arranged for the release of thousands of Taliban prisoner, including a Taliban leader, as part of the Doha Accord that the GOP is so eager to distance itself from now, so Jimbo99 on balance may have barely lost the overall point for that, solely because he left out that important Trump administration fact. Otherwise, he might have snuck by with one point, if only barely so.
Ray W. says
How apropos!