The War On Terror is Over
It only took 20 years, but America's post-9/11 foreign policy misadventure has finally ended
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.
So this week I'm on vacation! I'm taking my youngest on a West Coast tour —Southern California, Las Vegas, and finally, the Grand Canyon. But the news never stops, and neither does Truth and Consequences!
If Only They Cared About Americans in America
As US troops finally departed Afghanistan on Monday, after 20 days of war, I couldn't stop thinking about this tweet:
Marsha Blackburn is not exactly the sharpest butter knife in the drawer, so it's easy to ignore what she says about pretty much everything. But this tweet captures, in a roundabout way, everything that was wrong about the US war on terror — and why we should take solace in the fact that, this week, it has finally ended.
The obvious retort to Blackburn's concern over the Americans at risk in Afghanistan is, "now do COVID-19 or guns." Over the past several days, Republican governors, members of Congress, and state legislators have shown an outsized concern about Americans potentially stranded in Afghanistan — as well as America's Afghan allies. But over the past several weeks and months, they've displayed little similar concern over those Americans who are getting sick and dying daily from COVID-19.
But there is larger hypocrisy at play here — one that has infected both parties. America spent 20 years in Afghanistan because 3,000 Americans died on 9/11. Stopping the next major terrorist attack — and preventing Afghanistan from becoming an al Qaeda safe haven — was a rationale used by both Republican and Democratic presidents to justify maintaining a US presence in Afghanistan for two decades. It was also the rationale used for invading and occupying Iraq in 2003. We spent trillions of dollars on these military misadventures — as well as hundreds of billions of dollars in additional spending for the Pentagon, intelligence agencies, and homeland security. We dangerously expanded the national security state, sanctioned torture, allowed for warrantless wiretapping of Americans, and infringed on civil liberties.
Again, we did this because 3,000 Americans died on Sept. 11.
Yet, at home, 3,000 Americans are killed every month by a firearm. Approximately that many Americans die every twelve days from an opioid overdose. Since 9/11, Congress has not passed a single major piece of gun control legislation. A few billion dollars have been appropriated to deal with the opioid epidemic, which is not nearly commensurate to the challenge.
More than two hundred times more Americans have died from COVID-19 than did on 9/11 — and yet Republican lawmakers are suing to prevent the imposition of mask mandates that would save lives. Others are questioning the usefulness of vaccines that are 99% effective.
I've written an entire book on this topic, so my frustration with this bizarre, seemingly inexplicable reality is not new. But the response to America's departure from Afghanistan has only heightened the contradictions. It speaks to something so disturbing in the American psyche — an inclination to freak out over perceived foreign threats and shrug our shoulders at the threats to our daily well-being at home. In fairness, this predilection that many nations fall victim to, but seemingly no one does it as disastrously as we do.
Indeed, in the aforementioned book that I co-wrote with my friend Micah Zenko, we marveled at the fact that when Barack Obama delivered a speech at the West Point Military Academy announcing his intention to surge 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan in December 2009 he spent much of his remarks decrying the lack of focus on domestic challenges at home.
As President, I refuse to set goals that go beyond our responsibility, our means, or our interests. And I must weigh all of the challenges that our nation faces …
Over the past several years, we have lost that balance. We've failed to appreciate the connection between our national security and our economy. In the wake of an economic crisis, too many of our neighbors and friends are out of work and struggle to pay the bills. Too many Americans are worried about the future facing our children. Meanwhile, competition within the global economy has grown more fierce. So we can't simply afford to ignore the price of these wars.
And yet, Obama still sent 30,000 more soldiers to Afghanistan to fight a war that cost $300 million a day and did nothing to make Americans safer.
It's what makes Joe Biden's accomplishment over the past two weeks that much more extraordinary. Since Kabul fell in mid-August, the President has been buffeted by criticism from Republicans, some Democrats, and overwhelmingly the news media. Yet, to my genuine surprise, Biden has stuck to his guns and not retreated from his view that US involvement in Afghanistan must come to an end. From his remarks on Tuesday:
Remember why we went to Afghanistan in the first place? Because we were attacked by Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda on Sept. 11, 2001, and they were based in Afghanistan. We delivered justice to Bin Laden on May 2, 2011. Over a decade ago. Al Qaeda was decimated.
I respectfully suggest you ask yourself this question: If we had been attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, from Yemen instead of Afghanistan, would we have ever gone to war in Afghanistan? Even though the Taliban controlled Afghanistan in the year 2001? I believe the honest answer is no. That's because we had no vital interest in Afghanistan other than to prevent an attack on America's homeland and our friends. And that's true today.
We succeeded in what we set out to do in Afghanistan over a decade ago. Then we stayed for another decade. It was time to end this war …
I disagree with his assessment that the US succeeded in Afghanistan a decade ago. Instead, I would argue that happened in December 2001 when we forced the Taliban out of power and wiped out much of al Qaeda.
But I wholeheartedly agree with this assessment:
This decision about Afghanistan is not just about Afghanistan. It's about ending an era of major military operations to remake other countries. We saw a mission of counterterrorism in Afghanistan, getting the terrorists to stop the attacks, morph into a counterinsurgency, nation building, trying to create a democratic, cohesive and united Afghanistan. Something that has never been done over many centuries of Afghan's history. Moving on from that mind-set and those kind of large-scale troop deployments will make us stronger and more effective and safer at home.
… There is nothing low grade or low risk or low cost about any war."
These last words should be permanently tattooed on every foreign policy think tank in Washington DC.
The simple and tragic reality is that three presidents kicked the can down the road on Afghanistan. Three presidents refused to level with the American people and explain to them that our awesome military cannot solve every problem and there are limits to American power. Three presidents refused to tell Americans that we must be more concerned with the challenges we face at home than the impulse to seek out monsters to destroy far from our shores. Three presidents continued the US war on terror, even as the threat to the American homeland from jihadist terror declined dramatically.
The threat from al Qaeda largely ended in December 2001 when the Taliban were removed from power in Afghanistan. As America strengthened homeland security with simple, inexpensive measures like requiring the FBI and CIA to share intelligence information, strengthening cockpit doors on airplanes, and making it harder to make a fake ID it became far more difficult to launch a major terrorist attack against America. For 20 years there’s been no repeat of September 11. Yet, that reality did little to effect the decision-making of US presidents.
To be fair, it's much easier to have this conversation when there are 2,500 troops in Afghanistan, and the last President signed a deal that requires the US withdraw its forces by May 1. Nonetheless, Biden's decision to end America's longest war is a courageous and historic moment. In effect, he has ended the US war on terror, two weeks short of its 20-year anniversary. Maybe now we can start worrying about the Americans in harm's way here in America.
I'm glad Biden stood his ground. But I'll believe the war on terror is over when we stop intervening and drone bombing in places like Yemen, Somalia, etc.; when Gitmo closes; when I don't have to perform security theater at the airport (shoes), etc.
I generally agree, except I don't think it was the longest war. Korea still has no peace treaty, but should. Indian Campaigns. But, the point about it ending misses the long war problem of terrorism. It isn't likely going away. Further, we haven't much talked about how the Middle East will sort out. Which way does KSA move? And what follows? And Israel? Yes, a step.