Say Their Names - Afghanistan and America Post-US Withdrawal (July 20, 2021)
SAY THEIR NAMES
The war is over; lost. For those left behind, those who helped us, and those innocents who will be killed - remember their names. We're leaving behind not just people who helped us but people who hoped for better lives afforded to them by an honest and stable government that guarantees them equal rights.
Many may die as a result of our actions, and we ought to know their names. We ought to know the consequences of our choices in the age of occupation and the years following. For every additional Afghan who perishes because America decided to shun its responsibility to them, we ought to be haunted by their violent deaths and remember every day that we need a far more conscious foreign policy. It is our fault they will die or suffer some other oppressive future. It is our fault another refugee wave moving west is on the march (or about to be).
Biden's withdrawal isn't doing anything positive for the American people. On the contrary, we lose our self-esteem. Or perhaps, for better or worse, our pride.
We had several jobs to do after the defeat of Al Qaeda:
Unseat the Taliban
Treat the disease of fundamentalism by eradicating the poverty and corruption that fed its growth.
In reality, we lost the War on Terror. Osama Bin Laden's plan became manifest: we invaded, we occupied, we exhausted ourselves, and we destroyed ourselves.
The Taliban is an organization that keeps its promises because it manages its clients' expectations, and they do it with minimal resources. Now we have done them a favor by standing out of the way as they execute collaborators, force moderate men to become zealots, and re-subjugate millions of women who only enjoyed a modicum of better living standards in schools and offices run by foreign aid organizations.
Security vacuum
The world knows the U.S. and NATO are leaving a massive security vacuum that is currently attracting rightfully interested parties, including Iran, Pakistan, Russia, and China. They will be given priority in security cooperation and may even win rights to mineral exploration (Afghanistan contains $1-3 trillion in Rare Earth Metals). The U.S. and NATO, on the other hand, will be hard-pressed to maintain an intelligence advantage as a hostile government destroys and replaces the one we propped up for twenty years.
If the government in Kabul endures, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), Afghanistan's intelligence and security agency, won't have anything like the reach they had before the Taliban's 2016 resurgence. Meaning its western partners (CIA, MI6, etc.) won't have the same situational awareness as the country once again becomes an attractive home for international terror groups. That means, assuming there still are Islamic extremist outfits that want to attack the west, they will once again have bases to develop their operational capacity to do so.
While western intelligence and security capabilities have mostly evolved with the times these past two decades, we are essentially back at square one as Afghanistan (and other failed states) can offer land to criminal and extremist organizations, rendering them persistent threats. That is, after all, why the coalition could never vanquish the Taliban; the group always had support in Pakistan.
No more trust
I don't imagine us going back into Afghanistan the same way we did in Iraq in 2014 after the rise of the Islamic State. That makes two consecutive Democratic presidents who withdrew prematurely from America's foreign wars making way for a bloodbath. I voted for both of those presidents.
Less than two years ago, Donald Trump betrayed our Kurdish allies in Northeastern Syria by withdrawing hundreds of U.S. soldiers whose presence near the Turkish-Syrian border deterred an incursion by the Turkish military. With US support, the (primarily Kurdish) Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) defeated the Islamic State on the ground in Syria and took thousands of casualties in the process. Just one phone call with President Erdogan of Turkey convinced Trump to abandon them outright, a decision widely condemned by senior U.S. military officers. The Kurds were forced to cut a deal with our enemies and bring Syrian government forces supported by Russia back to the Turkish border after the SFD already suffered casualties and territorial losses to a Turkish offensive.
The United States will lose influence worldwide if potential allies expect that example of our foreign policy in future flashpoints. Nations will seek assistance from authoritarian regimes whose intentions, though cold, will at least be honest.
The lesson? The United States cannot be trusted anymore by any wartime ally to keep its word. How will this knowledge affect faith in NATO? Will despots and genocidaires be unphased by America's fleeting stance as a defender of international human rights? Will nations seek mutual defense pacts with Russia or China on the cusp of a bloody domestic crackdown to deter us?
Unfortunately, the consequences of the Afghan withdrawal will be far worse than the episode in Northern Syria. Abandonment, betrayal, these things make enemies, especially when incurred at decisive intervals. Therefore, it behooves us to wonder: Who and how many of those that we've abandoned in hostile lands far away is still angry with us? How many want revenge? Is it possible that we will face a new wave of terrorism perpetrated by those victims?
Teach their history:
The Global War on Terror launched after 9/11 killed over one million people when including all participating countries. Some countries hosted wars: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, the Philippines. Others followed America's lead and later became victims of terrorism: Spain, France, Britain. Some of those nations overlapped. Pakistan, for example, fought several costly insurgencies and experienced countless acts of terrorism.
Let's start fresh with a new domestic policy to offset future fiascos that humiliate us, weaken us, and drain our credibility. American students from primary school to university should learn the history of Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, and all the countries that paid an enormous price in human lives due to our belligerence or policies of vested interests. These curricula should have been mandatory additions to the commitment of foreign occupation. Furthermore, we should teach the histories of Iran, Venezuela, Russia, China, and whomever we might rattle sabers at or go to war with next. Our pupils should learn that people inhabit these places; human beings, not unlike themselves, who want to live in peace, find prosperity, maintain their limbs, fall in love, and grow old. We have much to learn from them.
In my estimation, the age of occupation is over. At least for America, there will be no more twenty-year wars. Still, we should make mandatory teaching the history of each country we've subverted, invaded, and destroyed. That way, while we're thinking about doing it again, future leaders have the knowledge to give them pause and consider another path to take – the path of least belligerence.
Say their fucking names:
I want to reiterate that every time an Afghan dies in the current struggle for their nation, it should be the first piece of news we read every day. Their pain should be considered our pain. For some, if we are not careful, they may want to share that pain. So say their names because the people we left behind will have to live with our legacy every day for unknown years, but we won't.
Ian Strome is a writer with three years of experience in counterterrorism and political/military analysis serving the U.S Government.