Afghanistan 2021

 Kabul fell to the Taliban less than a week ago.  I’ve had friends here and in Pakistan as what I thought about it.  I’ve been trying to draft this blog post ever since.  It’s difficult because there is so much that floods my mind when I think of Afghanistan.  I’ve been following developments in Afghanistan since just before the USSR entered in force in 1979.  I decided that rather than focus on Bush’s stupid decision to rebuild the Afghan Govt in 2002, or on Trump’s selling out the Afghan Govt to the Taliban during talks in Doha, I’d just concentrate on what I know from first-hand experience.

 

I spent 2 deployments supporting Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF).  The first was in 2009 at Bagram, Afghanistan.  I was stationed at Bagram but traveled to Kabul, Jalalabad, Hairatan, Sharana and the Panjir Valley.  Most of this travel was in civilian vehicles with contractors whose petroleum distribution sites I was inspecting.  I was there for over 6 months.  Then in 2013/14 I spend 15 months working at the embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan providing logistics support for the Pakistani military.  Before traveling to Pakistan I was told by Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer that I was nuts to go there.  He was of the opinion the Pakistanis and Taliban were inseparable.  I understand why he thought so.  But, I also see the complexities in much greater detail than he does. 

 

I still have a number of Pakistani friends.  In Afghanistan, I was largely prevented from having much contact with Afghans.  My experience, with the Afghans I did come into contact with, was mostly positive.  It was a strange place to be.  It’s a beautiful, country.  The people are like people everywhere, they want life to be a bit better.  They want their children to have things a bit better than they do.  But when I arrived, they had been involved in either civil war or armed occupation for 31 years.  Farming families in parts of the country had lost the knowledge of properly farming.  It’s a strange thing to visit a place so ravaged repeatedly by conflict.  If things calm down I will go back.  There is so much I still want to see there. 

 

I was not surprised by how quickly the Taliban rolled up the country.  Afghanistan is famous for being tribal.  If you want to understand what that actually means please read “The Secret History of the Mongols”.  It is a biography of Genghis Kahn written shortly after his death.  It illustrates, how in tribal societies, tribes and villages with shift allegiances based on their best interests, rather than some abstract construct like nationalism or ethnicity.  The military largely saw that the government didn’t have US support.  The government had been cut out of the peace talks between the USA and the Taliban.  When the Taliban began taking over border crossings, I am certain the Afghan military saw the writing on the wall, and decided to switch sides.  The same thing happened in 2001/2 when the US entered the country.    

 

Am I concerned?  Yes.  But I am also cautiously optimistic.  The Taliban who ran the country from 1996 to 2001 lost scores of leaders in the 20 years the US was there.  They are not the same organization.  The country has had quite a bit of foreign influence over those same 20 years.  So, the population, their expectations and experiences, have also changed.  But ultimately it is, and has always been, up to the Afghan people to decide their own method of governance.  The USA had a very heavy hand in the formation of the Afghan Govt that replaced the Taliban.  It was terribly corrupt and inefficient.  Now governance is squarely back in the hands of the Afghan people.  If the majority of Afghan’s decide the Taliban do not represent them well, another civil war will erupt.  If though, the Taliban moderate their approach, perhaps Afghanistan will finally be on a path toward peace.

 

I have a great deal of criticism for the way the situation was handled by Western powers.  But I don’t think the deaths and casualties we suffered were in vain.  Time will tell.  If the violence on Afghanistan abates, then those losses will have helped the people of Afghanistan.  I’ll be paying attention, as I always have.  It’s a beautiful place full of proud people.  I with Afghanistan the best of luck in their movement forward.