Relearning the
Lessons of History
As a Vietnam veteran, I have been especially troubled by
recent events in Afghanistan. We don’t
seem to learn from the lessons of history.
We thought, relative to Vietnam, that military might along
with American know-how could turn around a civil war between North and South Vietnam. We discounted the long history of Vietnam,
including the fact that before French colonization, the country had been an
independent nation. No amount of
American intervention was going to overcome the drive to reunify that country.
In Afghanistan, almost the reverse has happened—no amount of
American intervention was going to unify a country which has had little to no history of being a unified nation
state. When we went to war in Afghanistan,
it was a country run by tribal war lords.
It is still that way.
There will be a lot of negative fall-out from this
capitulation, particularly for President Biden and his administration. A departure date had been set by President
Trump and it was extended a bit by Mr. Biden.
Yet, both men, it seems, were misled by “rosy” intelligence reports put
out by the Pentagon that the Afghan Army, trained by us for 20 years, would
stand and fight for its own country.
If there is one lesson we should have learned from the
Vietnam War, it is that one should not always rely on press releases and unrealistic,
hopeful intelligence reports coming from the defense establishment…especially
when it comes to “nation-building,” which is not its forte.
Before going to Vietnam as a Navy Patrol Officer, I had read
a lot of history about Vietnam including several books written by Bernard Fall
who had lived in and visited Vietnam many times. The culture he described and the politics
associated with it, were much different than what official Washington was
putting out.
I discussed this a bit with a U.S. Army Afghanistan veteran
recently who had spent a year in that country.
He described it as a place where the combatants were primarily motivated
by who would pay them the most—not as to who loved their country more. It was a story of people looking more for
American money than for a more democratic society. Many were mercenaries who would shift sides
depending on who would give them better combat pay.
The British and Russians tried and failed to subdue and
administer this cobbled-together group of mountain tribesmen that someone drew
a boundary around and called “Afghanistan.”
Now, so-to-speak, America is “going down the tubes of history” in the
same place.
It is sad. It is sad
especially for the young women and girls of Afghanistan who will likely be sent
back to limbo and isolation with the probability that they will receive little
or no education. It is sad for the
families of American service men and women who died there. It is sad for our NATO allies who also sent
troops and tried to help the country.
Post-Afghanistan, our national challenge will be in exercising
leadership in a fractured world at a time when it is desperately needed,
especially with a communist, authoritarian China on the rise.
Somehow, in the midst of this debacle, we will need to dig
down deep into our American roots, recommit ourselves to the rule of law, and
strive to continue our engagement in international affairs.
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