The Forgotten Heroes and the Forgotten War
It's easy to forget what so many of us have done to get us through the COVID-19 pandemic in one piece
I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality of American politics. If someone sent you this email - or you are a free subscriber - and you’d like to subscribe: you can sign up here.
I'm back! After a week in beautiful Cape Cod and a full schedule of weekend concerts, I have returned before I head out to California next week for a solo excursion with my youngest daughter. I haven't done as much traveling as I'd hoped post-vaccine, so, of course, I'm fitting it all into a two or three-week period! Whatever the case, it means newsletter posts may be a bit … episodic.
Still, I've missed all of you, and I can't wait to get back into Zoomcasting again. I'll be on this Friday at 12:30, and I hope to see you there. As a further FYI, I should have been back earlier this week, but I returned from my vacation to start writing and quickly discovered that my computer is … like a former parrot.
This classic Monty Python sketch best captures the essence of my current situation.
Thankfully, a good friend loaned me his old laptop, though it restarts every time the plug comes out (which is frequently). So let's see how this plays out.
Remember The Heroes
Last week, I had a new MSNBC column looking at the hypocrisy of Republicans preaching the virtues of bodily autonomy when it comes to vaccine and mask mandates while at the same remaining stoically anti-bodily autonomy when it comes to the issue of abortion. Of course, hypocrisy is not new to politics. Still, this example is so striking because it exposes not only the hypocrisy of the GOP position on vaccine mandates but also their hypocrisy of abortion policy.
One of the odd experiences of being an opinion columnist is that sometimes you get an idea, start writing, and then the piece goes in a different place than you started. What initially interested me in this topic was exposing the GOP's hypocrisy on vaccine mandates. But somehow, this graf ended up in the piece:
This is not to say many opponents of abortion are not genuine in their moral and ethical opposition. The same, I suppose, can be said for those who oppose vaccine and mask mandates. But living in a society requires putting ourselves in the shoes of others — and even sacrificing some of our individual freedom for a larger and greater good. Wearing a mask and getting vaccinated is, first and foremost, about protecting ourselves, but it's also about safeguarding those around us — both those we love and those we barely know.
Granted, this is not an idea of any great insight, but this communitarian element has long shaped my feelings about the pandemic. The experience of the past 18 months is, at its core, the greatest test of our basic humanity that most of us have or will ever experience. We've all been asked to change our behavior and sacrifice — in minor and major ways — for the greater good of all. We’ve shown empathy and caring and while I can’t speak for others the pandemic has made me, ironically, a changed and better man. I slow down, enjoy life, and look out for others in ways that I didn’t before. I don’t think I’m alone, even if the ones who’ve responded in different and worse ways get more attention.
It's easy to focus on the selfish among us, who refuse to wear masks or get vaccinated, it's vitally important that we not forget the vast majority of our fellow humans, who have acted with selflessness and empathy. The last few weeks — with stories of the unvaccinated getting sick or GOP officials trying to forbid mask mandates or, my god, people drinking horse de-wormer — have tested my faith in humanity. But, in the future, I think we will look back on the past 18 months and recall not them but rather the overwhelming majority of people around the globe who did indeed put themselves in the shoes of others. They, or should I say, you are heroes.
Can We Stop Caring Now?
Of course, the biggest news story this week is the situation in Afghanistan, and, from my perspective, it's hard to think of a worse recent example of breaking news media coverage than what we've seen over the past ten days or so. I wrote a bit about this last week. The same hubris that allowed Americans to believe (wrongly) for 20 years that they could build a stable, secure, Jeffersonian democracy in a place with no history of being stable, secure, or democratic has infected the media's portrayal of events there today.
Why wasn't the US better prepared for the complete breakdown of Afghanistan's security and governing structure in, basically, a week? Why didn't the US execute its withdrawal more effectively as the country descended into complete chaos? These are the questions being asked but the answer should be obvious - sometimes bad things occur, and there is only so much anyone or any entity (like the US government) can do to control the situation. The Afghan government completely collapsing weeks and months before anyone believed it possible is precisely one of those situations. But there is a natural tendency to look for scapegoats, to demand accountability, and to seek explanations for even that which is largely unexplainable. Saying "shit happens" is a decidedly unfulfilling answer, but sometimes it's the correct one.
Indeed, for all the talk about the Biden administration's failure of execution and planning — and it's alleged inability to get out Afghans who worked with us over the past twenty years — the humanitarian mission now being carried out in Afghanistan is simply extraordinary. Since the beginning of last week, more than 75,000 people (Americans and Afghans) have been airlifted out of the country. It's a simply amazing accomplishment, and it doesn't seem possible that no planning or forethought went into the operation. Yet, that story — to the extent it is being reported on — is now being overshadowed by questions of whether the US should stay beyond the already established August 31 deadline for the withdrawal of all US troops from Afghanistan. We’re already moving on to the next controversy! I plan to write more on this specific question, but I'll remind you that the enemy gets a vote — and staying by August 31 to make sure every American and Afghan who wants to leave get out of the country is not simply a unilateral US decision. The Taliban get a say.
“I Really Don’t Care. Do You?”
What makes the coverage of the current situation in Afghanistan so frustrating is that it comes at the end of a two-decade-long period in which the American news media largely ignored the war in Afghanistan. Years ago, when I used to write regularly on Afghanistan (and, in particular, the decision to send 30,000 more US troops to fight there) it was hard to get anyone to care — be it the American people or the media gatekeepers whose job it was to inform them about the war being fought in their name.
Afghanistan is a tough country to cover. It is not easily accessible, and security is always an issue. It was particularly difficult to get an unvarnished and honest analysis of the situation there. If you relied on the US military, as many reporters did, you were fed an unending stream of Panglossian bullshit. "Things were improving," "America is turning a corner," "we should expect to see progress soon," were just a few of the usual empty platitudes that you always heard. It wasn't hard to tell that things were not as they seemed — mainly by reading between the lines of Pentagon reports, listening to Afghanistan experts, or relying on the handful of reporters who provided a more honest take, like CJ Chivers and Matthew Rosenberg at the New York Times.
Back at home, many of the foreign policy experts were either relying on NATO and US military "fact-finding" trips for information about the current military situation or simply had a predisposition toward believing that the US had vital national security interests in Afghanistan and we couldn't leave before "the job was done." One of the advantages I had when traveling to Afghanistan in 2011 was that I didn't go with the US military (not that they ever would have invited an Afghan skeptic like me). I traveled with Democracy International on an election observation mission. I had the opportunity to talk to actual Afghan journalists, researchers, and rarely cited Afghan experts who were far more knowledgable about the situation on the ground. But I also got to talk to actual Afghan civilians.
I'll never forget going to a ballot counting center in Mazar-i-Sharif and speaking with a local election volunteer who told us an absolutely harrowing story about his team being ambushed and several killed by Taliban guerrillas (and this in a province that was considered relatively secure). I don't remember all the details of what he told us, but I'll never forget his thousand-yard stare. I also remember the confident young woman, who had removed her burqa (one of the only Afghan women whose face I actually saw), telling us how bad the security situation was in Mazar. The disconnect between their tales and what I was hearing from them and the US military (and their enablers in the think tank world were saying) was palpable and disconcerting. I had never believed the US mission in Afghanistan could succeed, but that trip solidified my views.
To be fair, it's not as if reporters didn't cover these stories. Much of what I learned about Afghanistan was from on-the-ground reporting. It's that their stories never seemed to impact the broader coverage of the war. None of it could outweigh the Pentagon's public relations efforts, and, truth be told, most Americans simply no longer cared. During the 2008 campaign when Barack Obama said he would focus again on the war in Afghanistan, rather than Iraq, many Democrats dutifully cheered. But few questioned whether any of it made sense. When Obama held a policy review in 2009 and decided to surge more troops to Afghanistan most Americans simply shrugged.
By 2010-11, the war in Iraq had lost popular support and was winding down. Americans focused on matters at home — the economic crash and the faltering recovery. The war in Afghanistan affected only a tiny percentage of Americans, and most of us had stopped paying attention. I'm guilty as well. After a few years of writing and advocating on Afghanistan, I gave up. None of what I had written seemed to matter anyway. I paid little attention to Trump's signing of the Doha agreement in February 2020, ending the US combat presence there — as did much of the news media. The story was bookended by impeachment, the 2020 Democratic primaries, and the pandemic, and Americans had other things to focus on.
The sad reality is that when US troops finally depart next week, it won't be long after that Americans — and the news media — again stop caring about Afghanistan. We’ll get the occasional news story about Taliban rule and the impact on women’s rights. There’ll likely be stories about those left behind, but it will soon fade from national consciousness, as it did for the past 20 years. It will be a fitting coda to the US war effort there and the larger failure of the American mission. The fact is, we never truly cared about Afghanistan’s future or the war that America fought there.
Musical Interlude
Charlie Watts, the long-time drummer for the Rolling Stones died yesterday. The Stones are my favorite non-Grateful Dead band and arguably they are the greatest band in the history of rock ‘n roll. Actually, it’s not really much of an argument. They’re clearly the best. A big part of the reason was the solidity of Watts’s drum work - understated, not ostentatious, but always effective. More than any member of that band he drove the beat and he drove the music. What always made Keith’s riffs, Mick and Ron’s leads, and Jagger’s vocals work so well was the rock behind them.
He is perhaps the most influential and yet also underrated drummer in music history (though on the latter point there’s a strong case to be made for Ringo Starr). There are lots of great Stones tunes that capture the essence of what Watts brought to the band. My personal favorite, however, is “Tumbling Dice.” Not only does he drive the song with a slinky, greasy beat but the way, near the end, that he propels the song forward from the bridge back to the chorus is simply fantastic. It’s one of my favorite all-time drum parts.
The Ringer had a really nice obit with a great “Charlie Cam” video of Watts performing “All Down The Line.” At New York Magazine, Caryn Rose looks at six songs that capture what made Watts’s drumming so damn effective. RIP Charlie.