A Just War or An Unjust Peace
Graphic by User: Der Reisende at wikivoyage shared, CC BY-SA 3.0
I’m not going to pretend that I’m an expert on Afghanistan. Unlike my friend, Andrew Donaldson, I’m not a veteran. I don’t have a military or foreign policy background. I’m just someone that has an interest in the news of the world. So what I’m about to say I hope is presented with some humility, because I don’t know everything.
As I follow what’s been going on as the US ends its mission in Afghanistan, the thought that comes to mind is this: a just war is better than an unjust peace. There are times that it makes sense to fight because the alternative could cause a bigger conflagration down the road. Making peace at the wrong time might give you the prevention or cessation of hostilities, but it is only for a season. Sooner or later, the forces you thought would be appeased by laying down arms comes back with a vengeance.
I understand the drive of getting out of Afghanistan. We had been there for 20 years and many Americans had given their lives. Leaving isn’t a bad idea, what matters is how you leave. Is it done in a way that does the least harm, that can bring the greatest peace? Is it done in a way that makes sure American citizens and Afghans that worked for us were given safe passage out of Afghanistan?
Of course, that’s not how we are leaving. We are leaving just to be done with the matter and that means we are leaving without any care or concern about the people on the ground. Presidents Trump and Biden wanted out of Afghanistan. They wanted it so badly that they were willing to make a deal with a devil, the Taliban, in order to wash their hands of the matter. Our desire for a cheap peace could doom generations to servitude and threaten the world order.
America tends to not like to get involved overseas. In many ways, we are non-interventionists at heart. Our geography separates us from the rest of the world and offers us the illusion that we don’t have to get involved in the wider world. We think we can live our lives and not think about what happens in a far-away country on the other side of the globe. That makes us different from places in say, Europe where nations are close together, and what happens in the Middle East or Africa can affect Germany or France, or the United Kingdom. Believing that Americans are isolationist has led some commentators to believe Americans will forget about the Afghanistan debacle soon enough. There is a certain amount of truth to that.
Now that we are done with Afghanistan, these same commentators think it is time for some to focus on America. Afghanistan is a reminder to our allies to not depend too much on us. Let other nations fend for themselves.
So, the forever war is now over. But is the forever war done with us? Because as the Taliban takes over and Al Qaeda is reestablished, it’s hard to see what happens in Afghanistan will stay in that corner of the world. No one thought on September 10, 2001, that terrorists from the other side of the world could come here and attack us. We thought those oceans protected us and they did — until they didn’t.
The American public wanted peace and I understand that, but our leaders aren’t there to give the customer what they want. Leadership doesn’t mean that we have to stay in Afghanistan forever, but it does mean using sober judgment in determining if we stay or can we leave in a way that does the least harm to the Afghans and also protects us from future attacks. Working for true peace takes time. It would mean working with stakeholders and it would take time. In some ways, there were people on the ground working for that peace. Jonathan Rauch explains how life improved in so many ways for Afghans. Life expectancy increased. Infant mortality decreased. The population was more educated. It wasn’t perfect and it wasn’t complete, but peace was happening.
But we worked for a cheap peace. We decided to work with the group that turned Afghanistan into a version of the Handmaid’sTale. We didn’t care if that meant women would be subjugated again or that gays would be executed. We just didn’t want to be involved anymore. So we got peace, but we got it at a price. At some point, that bill will come due because illiberal groups like the Taliban or Al Qaeda don’t just back off because we leave them alone. As Cathy Young notes, the retreat of “liberal-neocon” American power might make the word less unstable instead of more.
As a Christian, I don’t think war should ever be the first choice. I don’t always think the military is the answer (which is why I opposed the Iraq War). But there are times when the sword has to be used in order to create a just peace. Over the last 20 years that was done however reluctantly and however imperfectly. I believe it was a just war in order to create a just peace not just in Afghanistan but in the world.
Journalist Anne Applebaum reminds us that while we might tire of war, the other side doesn’t. “Afghanistan provides a useful reminder that while we and our European allies might be tired of “forever wars,” the Taliban are not tired of wars at all,” she writes. She adds that they are more than willing to bring the war that we tired of home. “More to the point, even if we are not interested in any of these nations and their brutal politics, they are interested in us. They see the wealthy societies of America and Europe as obstacles to be cleared out of their way.”
We got out of Afghanistan. We got our peace. But it’s an unjust peace and sooner or later there will be consequences. God help us when that happens.
This is unfortunately an example of how the motte of “We should have left in a better way” slides into the bailey of “We should have stayed forever”.
Every argument by Applebaum and Young about how we are in danger from terrorists fails on the fact that there are Afghanistans all around the world, lawless places loosely held by local warlords.
Not only that, but, even the 9-11 attacks themselves didn’t need Afghanistan- much of the planning and organizing was done in places like Florida and Boston.
And even within the context of this argument about the justness of war and peace, one of the conditions of Just War theory is that it be achievable, which this was clearly not.
Only a tiny minority of Afghans actually wanted to fight against the Afghans- we have witnessed this with breathtaking clarity last week.
It simply isn’t possible, was never possible, to free Afghanistan from a force that the very people themselves would accept.
I’m afraid that we are going to see more of this sort of argument, a constant drumbeat of interventionism where we are urged to play the role of Pax Americana and rule the world.Report
This, and the fact that Americans are not practiced at, and frankly don’t have the stomach for, empire.
There’s this idea that just because we turned Japan around after WW2, we could do that anywhere. But everyone forgets the state of Japan at the time and the commitment we made to the country. Sure, we were in Afghanistan for 20 years, but there was no MacArthur directing a central plan. It’s just been a series of colonels & generals who get changed out every couple of years as Congress and the Pentagon get bored and want to put a new stamp on things because a new SecDef or Joint Chiefs is in charge.
Frankly, we suck at nation building, and we really shouldn’t be trying to.Report
Examples abound. Iran under the Shah; Iraq post Sadam; Afghanistan; hell even Haiti. Or most of Central American in the 1980’s.Report
Reconstruction 1865-1876.Report
It depends what you mean by nation-building. In fact, that’s a term we probably shouldn’t use at all. It implies a comparison between some place we just finished bombing to, say, 17th century France. We should be comparing the place to what was there before, or we could realistically hope the place to become.
We don’t want to be empire-builders, and we haven’t been (outside the 50). We can’t be civilization-builders, because it takes time and a mindset we don’t have. We can be improvers. And actually, before we condemn America’s nation-building, we have to acknowledge the success of our efforts in Japan.Report
Japan is the wrong comparison, in as much as we had bombed them into submission, and after surrender they followed our leads for a variety of cultural and economic reasons. They wanted to be rebuilt in a way we could work with.Report
I don’t think Japan, West Germany, or even South Korea are apples to apples. These nations already existed and had strong senses of themselves. Korea was messier but Japan and Germany also both were highly advanced countries with modern administrative states before we got there. It’s also maybe notable that we were willing to let S. Korea be a military dictatorship until its people chose democracy in the 80s. Bottom line is we weren’t starting from scratch like we are in these tribal and/or highly sectarian societies held together only by dictatorship or patronage.Report
I chose Japan specifically and I think it’s a great example. We didn’t “nation-build” Germany, agreed. It was already a nation, and more civilized than America. We gave them a boatload of money, guarded their borders, and replaced only the worst of them. Likewise, we protected South Korea. permitting it to get caught up in the East Asian Miracle. We did rebuild some of Japan, but also built plenty of it, governmentally, culturally, economically.Report
The Japanese were terrified of the soviets. Same with the Germans
We went from enemy to protector from the soviets fast. They wanted us over the soviets. We did not have that advantage in Iraq or Afghanistan .Report
Even after the devestation of World War II, Japan is a very different place than Afghanistan. Japan was the most modernized and industrialized country in Asia with a strong central government and an active civic life. They already had at least some practice with liberal democratic institutions even if flawed. The population was literate and well-educated by world standards at the time. This made reforming Japan a lot easier than Afghanistan because we were starting from a stronger base.Report
The biggest issue with Afghanistan – as with many middle eastern or near eastern countries – is they exist because various European powers wanted them carved up that way to control resource extraction. They aren’t really cohesive countries in the Western sense and thus always started on a different side of the 8 ball . . .Report
Ought implies can. The Taliban running Afghanistan, to the extent anyone can “run” Afghanistan, sucks for the Afghanis, but, to be blunt about it, who “runs” Afghanistan matters far more to the immediate parties than it could possibly matter to us. As an old soldier once told me, unless you’re prepared to exterminate the brutes, a war is over when the loser says it’s over. And short of a war for national survival, a war of extermination is both impracticable and immoral.
So what, exactly, can we do about the unfortunate condition of Afghanistan? At a price rational actors would be willing to pay. If you mean endless war, have the guts to say so. If you mean something else, say something specific enough to grapple with. No ponies.Report
“More to the point, even if we are not interested in any of these nations and their brutal politics, they are interested in us. They see the wealthy societies of America and Europe as obstacles to be cleared out of their way.”
This is exactly the sort of ridiculous thinking that got us into this mess. The Taliban saw as as obstacles, alright: obstacles in their country. Even when in power, they made no attempts at expanding out of Afghanistan. There’s no reason to believe they have designs on global domination, particularly when their own country is difficult enough to rule. The same is true for pretty much every country we’ve been engaged in some level of “forever war” with, or within.
Argh, that is infuriating. People who say such things should never be listened to again, on any subject whatsoever.Report
The problem with the current state of media/punditry is that it can complain but not come up with any alternatives. The media, the defense industry, and the foreign policy establishment (aka the blob) are all saying that there could have been a better way or should have been one. They never say what that better way is and I think would go on the defensive if you asked them. They have created a whole defense to ensure they are never asked that question.
The State Department has been advising Americans to leave Afghanistan for a month. Why did people remain including media? How much time has the media dedicated to Afghanistan for the last two years compared to the last week? Why do we call mercenaries contractors now?
Biden is correct. If not now, when? And then answer is likely years down the road with more money wasted on a failed endevor and bloated corpse but with more defense contractors getting to remodel their kitchens so it contains a Viking Range or Aga Range. The whole thing is rot.Report
Courtesy Anne Laurie over at Balloon Juice, here is Sarah Chayes, writing about her decade long experience of working inside Afghanistan, and her experiences with the government there.
https://www.sarahchayes.org/post/the-ides-of-august
A different perspective, from a Marine who served:
https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/readers-opinion/guest-commentary/article253641358.html?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4Report
Another perspective, from an Iranian scholar at Columbia:
https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/readers-opinion/guest-commentary/article253641358.html?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4Report
Corrected link:
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/8/23/the-new-and-improved-taliban-the-us-parting-gift-to-afghanistanReport
Courtesy Anne Laurie over at Balloon Juice, here is Sara Chayes writing about her decade long experience of working in Afghanistan, living there and speaking their language:
https://www.sarahchayes.org/post/the-ides-of-august
and here is the perspective of a MArine who served there:
https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/readers-opinion/guest-commentary/article253641358.html?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4Report
Presidents Trump and Biden wanted out of Afghanistan. They wanted it so badly that they were willing to make a deal with a devil, the Taliban, in order to wash their hands of the matter.
“They” didn’t make the February 2020 deal; only one did. By the time Biden became president, that deal was old news, because of it the Afghan military had dissolved itself, and the alternatives were leaving or starting all over. Does anyone really think the latter could succeed?Report
I’ve noticed (possibly imagined) a note of apprehension creeping into the media howling about the Afghanistan withdrawal. Now that over thirty thousand people have been evacuated and the number keeps climbing without a major casualty debacle for the west the wheels on the “the withdrawal was a disaster” narrative have started to wobble a bit. Especially as we’re learning more and more about the details of the withdrawal: the weapons lost had been given to the Afghanistan army and thus couldn’t be removed; the westerners in Kabul had been warned months ago to leave and, as they are free people, couldn’t be compelled to depart etc.
Biden definitely got caught flat footed by the optics but it seems to me that if things keep going the way they are going it’s going to get increasingly hard to sustain the “withdrawal was a debacle” narrative.Report
Biden definitely got caught flat footed by the optics but it seems to me that if things keep going the way they are going it’s going to get increasingly hard to sustain the “withdrawal was a debacle” narrative.
Sadly, it won’t be hard at all. Your mistake is assuming that facts matter.Report
if things keep going the way they are going it’s going to get increasingly hard to sustain the “withdrawal was a debacle” narrative.
I imagine that the “debacle” people will just have to show articles that talk about people falling from planes. If they are allowed to quote European leadership, they’ll also have a leg up. (Maybe “who gives a crap what Germany thinks?” would work?)Report
Tell us all the story about people falling from planes in a way that makes Biden look bad.
Start with what alternative course would have prevented that.Report
For your specific question, a secure airfield, preferably two, which proper preparation would have considered.
Biden the president isn’t wholly responsible for the bad deal and arbitrary deadline (and Taliban wanted, BTW, a massive failure of the Trump admin to agree to leave in the prime o fighting season but I digress) he was handed when he got into office. Biden as commander in chief is not blameless in how this withdraw happened. If nobodies like me could read reports in mid-June how the Taliban already had taken half the country and publicly stated you had two months or less till they had the rest, they should have known and prepared better.Report
This a fair point, and I don’t have enough expertise to say if it is accurate or not.
But you’ve at least put forward your alternate, which about 0.0% of critics have.Report
I try to be fair, as best I canReport
No. By the time Biden took office, he was down to 2,500 troops (of unknown mix) and Bagram. How many troops would Andrew deploy and how many casualties would he accept in order to retake Kandahar or (more likely necessary) one of the western airfields? How much material and personnel loss to secure it, bring in tens of thousands of people claiming sanctuary, and airlift them out? How many embassy and NGO staff when the Taliban says, “You violated the agreement, gloves off.”?
No matter what anyone says, the losses to this point are small compared to a single suicide bomber (or shoulder-launched SAM) taking out a C-17 full of people.Report
10,900 people have been evacuated from Kabul in the last 12 hours and 48,000 in the past nine days.Report
We have the greatest airlift capability the world has ever seen. Should have been using it for months already to get folks out.Report
Even though the Afghan government asked us not to? Seems to me we’d have arrived at the same place even if we had started months ago – the dominos would have fallen as regional government and military folks fled or accepted whatever deal the Taliban had laid before them.Report
Chip, the proposition was not “the stories about people falling from planes make Biden look bad”.
The proposition was “the stories about people falling from planes bolster the narrative that the withdrawal was a debacle”.
And… yeah, I’m pretty sure that I could argue that fairly well.
The idea that the Afghanistan withdrawal was the best we could have hoped for is panglossian. And I’m not using the term in the complimentary way.Report
You COULD argue for it, but you very pointedly aren’t.Report
Because I care more about leaving Afghanistan than about leaving it well.
You can’t make an omelet.
Edit: Now, if you want me to say that it’s unfair that Biden is getting tarred with the fact that the withdrawal is a debacle, I’ll say that. I think that there are a ton of heads that need to roll because of this. It’s not Biden’s fault. He’s innocent. But Biden’s innocence doesn’t point to the withdrawal not being a debacle.Report
Oh sure, a few Afghanis falling from planes will make the neocons and their enablers stroke their chins and nod sagely in agreement that withdrawal was botched but if that ends up being the enumeration of the casualties from withdrawal the general voters won’t give a damn.Report
I think that the narrative that the withdrawal was botched is a separate one from the whole “is it good that we’re no longer there?” question.
It is exceptionally possible to hold, at the same time, these two propositions:
1. It is good that we are no longer in Afghanistan
2. Man, the withdrawal was botched, though
It seems to me that the best play is something like “you wanted us out of Afghanistan, hey. VIOLA! You can’t make an omelet!”
This whole “well, sure, some bad things are happening but our current withdrawal from Afghanistan is the best case scenario and people who don’t agree with me are somewhere between ‘wrong’ and ‘bad'” doesn’t seem to be effective at persuading others. (Granted, everyone I’ve seen use it seems to be exceptionally persuaded by it.)Report
Quite possibly so. I don’t think the “big withdrawal botch” will hold up well unless the casualty math changes a lot with a lot more deaths on the ledger and, to be crass, deaths of people that the voters would care about dying.Report
I see “people caring” as a different proposition than “the withdrawal was the best one that we could have possibly expected, given the fallen and sinful world we live in”.
I mean, I think that there are a bunch of intel guys and military brass that need to be fired because of this debacle.
The argument that this is not a debacle and is, instead, about as well as we could have possibly expected is an argument that doesn’t think that anybody should so much as get a letter of reprimand for this.Report
I am inclined to agree with that. I hope that we get treated to the spectacle of a line of civil servants and military brass streaming out of the Pentagon and various office buildings, boxes in arm. I don’t know if I’m willing to pay for it though. I fear the price tag is too high.Report
It would be nice but I think it’s unlikely. The length of time this has gone on is one of the more confounding factors is assessing accountability.Report
Yep, it’d require all out war with the DoD, what’s left of State and the Pentagon not to mention all the private sector entities with their snouts in the till. Biden could fire an absolute slew of people but they’d retaliate with a huge barrage of leaks with an eager assist from their handmaidens in the access media sphere. I doubt the Admin thinks the rewards would outweigh the risks of such a conflict.Report
“Especially as we’re learning more and more about the details of the withdrawal: the weapons lost had been given to the Afghanistan army and thus couldn’t be removed; the westerners in Kabul had been warned months ago to leave and, as they are free people, couldn’t be compelled to depart etc.”
Are you implying some people lied, omitted critical details, and spun this?
Of course they did. There is a small, but rather vocal group of journalists, pundits, and quite a bit of the military-industrial complex, that really liked Afghanistan. Whether for ideology or for money, it was something they were quite invested in.
And they’d have quite liked to stay.Report
https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/readers-opinion/guest-commentary/article253641358.htmlReport
I have to say looking at the whole Afghanistan situation with the policy education and experience I’ve attained over that time is illuminating. Because what I see in the US’s Afghanistan intervention is something I see all too often in government policies.
Something bad happens, so the government commits to making it better. This becomes a sprawling commitment to make everything better without putting any thought into how to do that, or even if tis possible to do that. So then officials (in this case, the military) are handled a bundle of money and told to fix things. They flap around doing random things because when there are no success criteria activity becomes a substitute for accomplishment.
And that’s how you waste 20 years, billions of dollars and countless lives.
I don’t think there was ever a way Afghanistan was going to work out, a narrowly-targeted intervention (attack the Taliban as a punitive strike for harbouring Al Qaeda) could have succeeded, but there is no known way of turning a country like Afghanistan into a modern liberal democracy. All Biden has done by withdrawing is acknowledge the failure. The way so many people have reacted is precisely why failed projects carry on for so long in government.
The one thing I think Biden does deserve criticism for is the shambolic state of the withdrawal. The US government should go out of its way to ensure everyone who worked for the US government can get to safety, along with the people the Taliban are likely to kill once they have secured the countryReport
Sending the military in to do nation building was the wrong tool for the job.
It’s like using the police to deal with the mentally ill. Sure, it works out OK every once in a while, which is great, except for the rest of the times when it all went pear shaped and people were killed.Report
“Sending the military in to do nation building was the wrong tool for the job.”
Really? Thus far in history, the US military has been the only US organization capable of building a nation.Report
The State Department, and specifically USAID, would like a word . . . .Report
The job of the military is to kill people and blow shite up. Where in that description do you see restructuring local political entities or establishing democratic systems of liberal government?Report
I think you’re absolutely right but judging by the military’s own recruiting ads sometimes I wonder if they actually agree.Report
Recruiting* ads are ads. Remember when beer companies were selling sexual innuendo instead of beer?
*Also, rule #1 of all military recruiting: Recruiters LIE!Report
This is where a heroic caped figure swings in from the rafters, and announces that Socialism Man is here from the military and He Is Here To Help!
Thrill!
As Socialism Man directs cadres of SeaBees to build schools, bridges and airports!
Gasp!
As Socialism Man directs the medical corps to distribute free healthcare to all!
Be Astounded!
When Socialism Man uses the weaponry of JAG legal teams and CENTCOM bureaucrats to crush the old patriarchal social norms and construct new ones, offering freedom and equality to women and girls!
Then with a cheery salute Socialism Man bounds up, up and away leaving a land of peace and plenty!Report
*Andy Kaufman voice* HERE I COME TO SAVE THE DAY…Report
Let us quicken our hearts and steel our souls to the necessary thing…
Take up Socialist Man’s burden—
The savage wars of peace—
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch Sloth and Pashtun Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.Report
It’s always a fine day for Kipling.Report
I kippled yesterday.Report
Dude! TMI!Report
I posted those three links upthread, and to them I would add Andrew Donaldson’s essay in which he located the root of the failure in the American domestic political failure.
Those are four separate perspectives by four very different people who had radically different experiences with Afghanistan.
Yet there are some common threads in all of them.
The primary thread is that the actors involved where themselves either wildly inept, or insanely corrupt, and definitely completely indifferent to the fate of the people of Afghanistan.
All four writers agree that there never was a plausible outcome whereby the Taliban were obliterated as a political force, and Afghanistan became a liberal democracy, because of inherent failures with the nations involved.Report
We should have left a long time ago.Report
Exactly. It took us 10 years in Afghanistan to find Osama bin Laden living in Pakistan. 10 more of aimlessly driving and flying around shooting at stuff. We’re out a bunch of money and thousands of lives for nothing.Report
Check out the framing of this poll!
Check out the answers anyway!
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Yeah that’s why the beltway howling isn’t rocking me back on my heels much. The Afghan war is like libertarianism or woke twitter; the noisy people you hear on the media and the internet are all for it but the voting masses are not interested. If Biden keeps hauling thousands out of there and ends up departing without significant casualties* this’ll be off the news feeds by fall.
*Obligatory cynical, awful note that significant casualties do not include Afghani casualties unless the number of Afghani casualties piles up to a truly astonishing number.Report
Here’s how bad it’s looking:
NPR correspondent admits that Biden shares blame with Trump, Obama, and Bush.
Report