Don't Blame Biden

President Biden might not have gotten us out of Afghanistan in the calm, orderly way we wanted. But he finally did get us out of that war…which was more than any of his three predecessors could accomplish. Biden said he’d do it, then he actually did it. He ended America’s longest war — a war that had become known as “the forever war.”

In the wake of unforeseen challenges involving our nation’s pandemic, economy, welfare, and now women’s reproductive rights, he managed to get a lot of people out of Afghanistan in a short period of time. And yet, he’s gotten unfairly criticized — no, mercilessly condemned — for his handling of the withdrawal by the GOP machine, the media, and some angry members of the military.

In fact, the same Republicans, reporters, and veterans who are now criticizing him the most also had the least patience about his exit strategy from this “forever war.” As if Biden was supposed to magically withdraw everyone and everything from Afghanistan in a couple of weeks, even though the last three Presidents hadn’t been able to do it for the last two decades?

Didn’t anyone ever think that his years of public service as a US Senator and Vice-President of The United States might have given Biden some expertise with such international matters? Or access to information not available to the general public? And, that after publicly voicing his opposition to the occupation of Afghanistan, he could have also possessed research data from military intelligence that would enable him to make the best decisions possible about ending this war in the way he did? Or that his withdrawal plan might have been contingent on the Afghan Army actually defending their country and not letting the Taliban take over so rapidly?

Apparently not.

No, instead of providing factual information — which, by the way, wasn’t always readily available — media focused on chaotic visual images of anguished Afghanis desperately trying to leave their homeland. Their chant “We helped you, now you help us!” became a familiar one, thanks to journalists who embraced it worldwide. Once again, heartfelt emotional imagery superseded factual information because credible, reliable info was in short supply, but citizens fleeing the Taliban were everywhere.

Remember. pictures are always better than mere words. But live-action footage of moving pictures creates a special kind of reality that shudders the intellect. So this media focus on masses of frightened Afghans at the airport adversely affected basic reporting and subsequent discussion about what was really going on. And more important questions so vital to our understanding of this unfolding drama were also completely ignored.

Q. How was it that the Taliban — this small, reactionary group of terrorists armed with rifles and jeeps — managed to take over an entire country in a matter of weeks?
A. Either the Russians or the Chinese were supplying them with military hardware; or else, the Afghan Army didn’t really want to fight the Taliban.

At this juncture in time, all signs point to the latter explanation. This highly trained, highly equipped, highly expensive(billions or trillions of dollars) army wouldn’t fight. Why?

Why would they refuse to defend their newfound democracy that America had helped them establish?

That question deserves special consideration because it provides the key to understanding what really happened over there.

It also reveals an embarrassing collective amnesia about why we went to Afghanistan in the first place.

The United States initially invaded Afghanistan in pursuit of Osama Bin Ladin, the mastermind behind 9/11. As American forces hunted Bin Ladin down and ultimately killed him, they also introduced democracy to Afghanistan.

That is, America gifted Afghanistan with our brand of democratic life. You know, things like voting for a President and other elected officials, giving citizens fundamental rights and freedoms, letting girls go to school, allowing women the right and opportunity to work outside the home. Stuff like that. Our expectation — unfortunately, a tacit expectation — was that they would fight to keep their better way of life. They would fight to protect this democracy, whenever the Taliban would try to take over and regress everything back to the 3rd Century.

That’s why the United States stayed so long in Afghanistan. We helped them set up a democracy that would improve their lives.
We also helped them set up their government and military to protect it. The unspoken idea was that the majority would band together to preserve their newfound freedoms and democratic way of life. It didn’t happen that way, though.

It didn’t happen because they didn’t want to fight “brother-against-brother” — even with state-of-the-art weaponry that would ensure their victory. Unlike 19th Century Americans who were willing to wage war against their own families and fellow Americans in a bloody Civil War, most of the Afghans in their newfound democracy didn’t want to fight their Muslim brothers. It’s a cultural thing on their part. It’s also a religious thing. Think back on the way Christian sects like the Quakers and other Evangelicals have conscientiously objected whenever America has gone to war, regardless of the situation or intended enemy. Maybe that’s why our familiar military tropes about “defending our homeland” and “safeguarding our freedom” fell on deaf Afghan ears.

Then too, maybe that’s because every democracy has its own cultural imprint. Democratic ideals might be present in every Democracy, but abstract principles, values, and M.O.’s might not apply to each and every democratic state.

For example, the Founders of our American Democracy were descended from predominately white Europeans. Because they had been so accustomed to their socio-economic culture of orderly planning, they gave their dream democracy a highly organized yet flexible structure. They gave their new country room to grow with sensible boundaries and legal protections. Read the Declaration of Independence sometime. Check out our Constitution. Those guys really knew how to plan and protect their brave new world with details and common sense. My point here is that socio-cultural familiarity can play a major role in creating any democracy. Things like background, history, personal upbringing, familiar social norms, and cultural conditioning all come into play when a new way of living is created.

What we did in Afghanistan was noble yet dangerously presumptuous. We gave our 21st Century American-inspired democracy to a nation that was deeply rooted in another time, in another bygone century. Things just didn’t work out the way we thought they would because we neglected to understand how much these ancient cultural ideas would affect their behaviors.

To make matters worse, we, as inhabitants of the 21st Century, assumed all Afghans would want to live in the same Century. We assumed ALL Afghans wanted rights and freedoms for ALL Afghans. Not just civil rights, but basic rights, for all women. Of course, a lot of women did want(and quickly welcomed) these freedoms. But the men? Let’s face it, not ALL of the Afghan men wanted a new nation of veilless women who could read and write and make their own money. Oh, they might have said otherwise during their discussions with their new American friends. They probably lied because they suspected Americans wanted to hear the lie and not their truth. But it sure seems that a lot of Afghan men didn’t want that newfound female self-determination in their country because that would mean female self-empowerment. And empowered women are not going to keep obeying men.(Uh-oh).

Come on, even in our own democracy, a lot of men(and even some women) don’t want women to have reproductive rights. They actually think American women would be happier if they stayed home, barefoot and pregnant. They just don’t want to actually admit their prejudice because it sounds so 3rd Century. So it should come as no surprise that some Afghans must have also believed that Afghan women would be happier if they stayed home, veiled up and blindly obedient to The Man.

Did anyone even bother to ask the Afghan people what kind of democracy — if any — they wanted? Or did the American Powers-That-Be neglect to ask Afghans if they wanted to empower their countrywomen with the same rights and freedoms that the men would have?

Only when history looks back at America’s 20 year involvement in Afghanistan will these questions be clarified — but not necessarily answered. Only when this clash of cultural expectations, misunderstandings, and miscommunications get acknowledged will these missteps get addressed. Unfortunately, these answers will probably not be forthcoming during our lifetime, dear readers.

Meanwhile, we can stop trashing Biden for every single thing that went wrong in Afghanistan.

We can also stop protecting Republican Presidents who were responsible for this Afghan snafu. Dubya got so immersed with his war in Iraq that he almost forgot about Afghanistan. Then POTUS 45(whose name shall not be mentioned here) helped negotiate a problematic accord that was a gift in every way to the Taliban. Enough with this “both sides of the aisle” lame excuse!

And while we’re at it, let’s shift some blame over to the Military/Industrial Complex and hope there won’t be another Afghanistan in America’s future.