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The Unfortunate Legacy of George W. Bush
On Saturday President Trump sent out a series of tweets that acknowledged that he had planned to meet this past weekend at Camp David with the leaders of the Taliban and the President of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, to engage in peace talks. When it was rumored in the past that President Obama sought such talks, private citizen Trump was highly critical. Something has obviously changed his mind.
Wrote the President, “Unbeknownst to almost everyone, the major Taliban leaders and, separately, the President of Afghanistan, were going to secretly meet with me at Camp David on Sunday. They were coming to the United States tonight. Unfortunately, in order to build false leverage, they admitted to an attack in Kabul that killed one of our great great soldiers, and 11 other people. I immediately canceled the meeting and called off peace negotiations. What kind of people would kill so many in order to seemingly strengthen their bargaining position? They didn’t, they only made it worse! If they cannot agree to a ceasefire during these very important peace talks, and would even kill 12 innocent people, then they probably don’t have the power to negotiate a meaningful agreement anyway. How many more decades are they willing to fight?”
That great military mind, David French (did you know he served as a JAG lawyer in Iraq?), responded:
These kinds of tweets, cheering on the collapse of talks, drew a response from former Ricochet editor Mollie Hemingway. “Disappointing,’ she wrote, “if unsurprising, to watch the swamp seek to extend the War in Afghanistan, which is nearing its 18th – 18th! – anniversary.”
We will soon see young men and women enter boot camp for our armed forces who will be asked to fight in a war initiated before they were even born. They will be asked to fight, perchance to die, but even after 18 years they will not be asked to win it. Because those who refuse to negotiate are the same people that also refuse to define victory.
In August 2017, French praised Trump as learning on the job that there were to be “no more Saigons.” And he also wrote, “As should be obvious by now, when fighting a militaristic theological movement conventional military ‘victory’ simply isn’t attainable. While there may be political settlements in given regions at given times, there won’t be a USS Missouri moment with al-Qaeda, ISIS, or any successor jihadist group.”
Was it only obvious two years ago? Or should it not also have been seen and clearly articulated 16 years before that? And how do you achieve French’s suggested “political settlement” if there is never, ever, ever to be negotiations?
Americans, unlike their European ancestors, have never sought empire. If we could state the nation’s philosophy of military engagement, in a nutshell, it would probably be nothing more complicated than “Get in, kick ass, come home.”
There was not a man, woman or child in America that did not fully support George W. Bush in the days following 9/11. But his legacy seems to be that he doomed us to the curse of the endless war. We have had the burden of Empire thrust upon us whether we asked for it or not.
This, forming of militias starting from the family compound and moving up to the village level is exactly what we should have been about as the Taliban was initially defeated as the ruling gang.
There has never been a dearth of firearms in Afghanistan.
From the get-go the rules of engagement were nonsense. This “hearts and minds” thing (based on a Vietnam War era quote from Lyndon Johnson) is a pipe dream. If we had used that strategy against the Germans and the Japanese we’d still be fighting WWII.
If the Afghan people were insufficiently appreciative of American efforts to help them defeat the Soviet invasion of the 1980s, what made us believe that our rules of engagement would?
That’s the difference between the US direct role in WWII Japan (for eg) and the US role in supporting the Mujahidin to get the Soviets out of Afghanistan.
There are pros and cons to both approaches, but a definite con of the Afghanistan approach was empowering a group that went off the rails once the US took a step back.
Apparently there were no Moderate Rebels in Afghanistan back then either.
No, the Germans were competent. They would have stopped us from fighting.
Indeed. Just look up Khyber Pass gunsmithing. I know the region is in Pakistan, but the works are distributed all over the region. The quality, of course, ranges from amazing to abysmal, but those folks will try to replicate about anything from a pistol up to a medium machine gun. And that doesn’t count the leftover Soviet gear, stuff we supplied to counter the Soviets, other stuff sent in from Iran or China, or any number of other oddments that have made it there.
I have a couple of KP “Enfields” I bought for fun. I would never dare fire them (I know others who will do so, but I value my appendages, eyes, and my life), but they’re clever. Not a damned screw is interchangeable between them, of course, and the forged armory proof marks have a creative grammar, but they make for fun wall hangers and conversation pieces.
The people in San Bernardino and the pulse nightclub could not be reached for comment.
So, rebuilding the Navy after the Obama years is not important?