Armies of Irresolution
Blame the resolvers for they will inherit our mistakes.
August 31
Biden’s tone during his public address on the “Evacuation of Afghanistan,” piped today from the White House was that of a chastened, exasperated, Gold Star father.
To whom was Biden speaking? Critics of the evacuation? Critics of “the manner” in which the evacuation was carried out? Critics, who conflate the evacuation effort, which Biden owns, with a 20 year undeclared war, America’s “longest,” which Biden inherited?
Today Biden was speaking to a free-floating audience charmed by arm chair strategists and the predictable stream of ‘woulda-couldas.’ An unsympathetic audience traipsing the high wire between defeat and surrender. A difficult audience (“Biden’s Bad Week,” Brett Stevens and Gail Collins, NYTimes, August 31).
Speaking today was a humbled voice lacking grandstanding, the default posture of a career politician. Delivered today was authentic empathy for the fallen.
Biden extolled sacrifice — not the presence of “our commitments” — but the absence of those who sacrificed their lives and the memories of their families. He praised their acts, curbing a moralistic and preachy tone. He praised the patriotism of a an army of souls, decamped to Doha and Washington, who through a communication network mandated by the United Nations, “guided” Afghanis to the C-17 transports.
Biden wants to meet the patriots, rescuers of the “left-behinds.”
Missing was the presumed Chief Executive rationality behind a failed commitment. Not to forget the “previous administration(s) who cut out what was left of Afghani self-governance. Biden’s rationale for evacuating “like now” resembled a prepared mantra: an election campaign commitment to end the war, a unanimous consent to evacuate NOW from his military and diplomatic advisors, the largest airlift in American history, an end to the longest war, and a history of ignominy.
In sum Biden offered America a lesson in what we can’t do and what we don’t hear, facing an army of irresolution.
Missing was mention of the SID fiasco which originated in the previous administration’s incompetence and State Department gutting. Missing was mention of the efforts brought to bear on the humanitarian crisis. Missing was mention of the military contracts sustained by a false optimism that leaving seemed always worse than staying.
What America learned was another coined-for-the-moment military phrase — ”over the horizon.”
For the armies of irresolution, a shallow victory.
September 1
Postscript, September 2
A common mistake in crafting an opinion is disregarding the forces of solidarity. So we hear endless opinions fomenting around the question, ‘stay or go.,’ most recently on the topic of evacuating Afghanistan.
We left.
America has been defeated in Afghanistan. America’s nearest embassy to Afghanistan is in Qatar. American troops have left Afghanistan, taking their drone technology and air support with them. ‘Evacuation is messy,’ sounds hollow. Remediation for quitting Afghanistan is suddenly elusive. The resistance to Taliban prerogatives will be fought, we are assured, “over the horizon,” whatever this means.
Who’s left? Three powers with geo-political agendas — China, Russia and the Taliban-Al Qaeda-Saudi consortium. All have embassies in Kabul; all presumably will oversee humanitarian aid. And all, without the Western allies, will be dictating the future of Afghanistan. These forces have stayed in Afghanistan bereft of America’s presence.
No, we don’t negotiate with terrorists.
We left.
Some ask, has America lost its mind?
The political AUP has expired and President Biden is left trying to delineate a military transition in the region, a ‘new way of preserving our vital interests.’ Chief among these is the sublimation of “American exceptionalism,” that ‘we can learn from our mistakes,’ that our hubris at ‘doing no wrong,’ ‘doing no harm,’ will be checked and monitored.
Really?
For the time being 96 countries are pressuring the Taliban, the new occupying force, to respect safe passage for a generation of Afghanis who clamor for exile and are set on fleeing a dismal, oppressive future. As one writer offered recently in these pages, “Have you met the Taliban? I have.”
Experience has a point. But experience without an engaged solidarity is an opinion, nonetheless. “ Stay or go,” the question remains. Many among us do not have a choice. And that is a very dismal future.
