The longest war in modern US history approaches its 16th anniversary Saturday, and so far there is no end in sight. The war in Afghanistan began in the aftermath of the Sept 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, DC, with the promise of vengeance aimed at the Taliban, hosts of al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden. But that original justification–still as morally questionable now as it was then–has gotten lost amid the open-ended rhetoric of ‘fighting terrorism.’
The Pentagon recently disclosed that the actual number of US troops currently in Afghanistan is 11,000 – significantly higher than previously acknowledged. The announcement came just days after President Donald Trump announced an open-ended escalation of the war. With 4,000 more troops now heading to Afghanistan, Sen Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, confirmed in an interview that US troops will remain in Afghanistan for at least another decade.
It is a pity that neither Trump nor Corker has been asked to justify the presence of troops in the country for another decade when the first 16 years of the war appear to have yielded little of value. Indeed, few American politicians who have supported and extended the war year after year are able to articulate past failures or envision any future strategy that holds promise. And so the war continues, seemingly because we have no idea how or why to end it.
When questioned about the war strategy by the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, Trump administration officials were hard-pressed to respond, saying only that the Afghan military was more likely to win against the Taliban with US troops advising and supporting it. But the past 16 years of US military involvement have been variations on the same theme: training, supporting and advising Afghan forces while dropping bombs and conducting raids in parallel. If that strategy hasn’t worked for 16 years, why would it work now?
Afghan civilians are caught between corrupt, US-backed warlords in government, US troops on the ground and airstrikes from above, Taliban forces, and now an emerging Islamic State presence. The war has hardly improved their lives and will likely mean many more years of violence.
The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, the oldest women’s political organization in the country, warned 16 years ago against US intervention. A member of RAWA (who uses the pseudonym Heela to protect her identity) told me in a recent interview that Trump’s plan is “not really a new strategy for Afghanistan or for the Afghan people. Nor was it a surprise.” She explains that his plan “is actually a very small tactical change in the wider strategy that the US has in the entire region and especially in Afghanistan.”
That broader plan, which Heela sees as unchanged despite the addition or withdrawal of a few thousands troops by various presidents every few years, is continuing the US use of Afghanistan’s “geographic location to keep its rivals like Russia, India, China, Iran, under its thumb.” She adds, “That strategy is not going to change under Trump or any other president for many years to come.”
If reducing terrorism was its goal, the US has spectacularly failed in Afghanistan and appears to not care one way or another. Aside from the terror it has rained down on Afghans year after year, US presence there has only resulted in the Taliban gaining strength, the US-backed government becoming more corrupt and the emergence of new formations based on fundamentalist ideologies.
But if, as Heela suggests, the goal is to maintain a strategic presence in Central Asia, near the territories of political rivals, the war is ostensibly achieving that goal – albeit at a heavy human and financial cost.
Already this year, well before Trump announced his position on the war in Afghanistan, US violence in the country was on the rise. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism has tracked American airstrikes there since 2015 and has found a near-exponential rise in bombings.
This article has been excerpted from: ‘No Good Reasons to Continue America’s Longest War.’
Courtesy: Commondreams.org