War is always a tragedy. Our ‘forever’ wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are tragic for so many reasons and have had almost an endless series of heartbreaking events. The latest one, the death of 13 service members and over a hundred hopeful Afghani civilians by an ISIS suicide bomber, is one more sad reminder that we must only commit human lives to military operations when it is absolutely necessary and there is no other choice.
The tragedy of 9/11 produced understandable horror and outrage. Unfortunately, that triggered a crusade for vengeance that precluded a more sober and sensible approach to seeking justice for those killed in the attacks. The subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have reaped a harvest of death and destruction that dwarfs the 9/11 attacks and has diminished the USA in the eyes of much of the world.
Over 7,000 U.S. service members and over 8,000 contractors have died in the post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Over thirty thousand post 9/11 U.S. service members have died of suicide. Were these deaths necessary to quench our thirst for revenge?
It would no doubt have been difficult to root out Al Qaida in Afghanistan without invading, but when one looks at the cost in human lives and suffering to kill Osama Bin Laden and other Al Qaida meambers (who by the way have been replaced by innumerable new extremist volunteers and new terrorist organizations such as ISIS) then only a very contorted rationalization can justify it.
These wars have done nothing to improve the situation in the Middle East. Indeed, they have arguably worsened it considerably. They have also been unsuccessful in stemming the growth of extremism and terrorist acts. Violence begets violence.
The current debacle of our withdrawal from Afghanistan may have been exacerbated by inadequate planning or haste, but I would argue that there was no way to leave the country without chaos and death ensuing. No matter when or how we left there were going to be tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Afghanis desperate to leave with us. The Saigonesque scenes were bound to occur in some form.
An earlier mass exodus would not have been a logical plan, as it would have undermined the Afghani government and caused panic in the country. But the exact nature of the planning, the decisions, and the mistakes made should be studied for the future, in the likely event that we still have not learned from the horrible mistakes of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Veterans of these cruel wars have spoken of their understandable despair in the realization that nothing was gained by their sacrifice. I commiserate with their frustration, but a sacrifice should never be assigned value based on the success it achieves. It is the nobility of the sacrifice itself, not its result, that deserves our recognition and praise. A fireman who gives his or her life by racing into a building to save a child is no less noble if the child is not saved or if the child had been rescued earlier.
The time has come for the USA to make a sober appraisal of the utility of military exploits and the extent to which our employment of the empire-style manipulation of other nations and people has caused more harm than good. The world is inter-connected now by global trade, tourism and cultural exchange in a way that should allow us to solve problems in a less catastrophic manner than warfare. The calculus of war has always been problematic – more people die, and more lives are ruined in warfare than in the situations that warfare is attempting to solve.
Diplomacy and international cooperation on terrorism and other ills of the modern world are often painfully slow and frustrating and require patience that has historically been in short supply in US foreign policy. But the alternative of endless warfare is clearly a solution that is a tragic and unnecessary mistake.
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