America’s war in Afghanistan will officially end on Aug. 31, 2021. President Joe Biden delivered the message Thursday in the same room that former President George W. Bush commenced the original War on Terror roughly twenty years ago.
The objectives have been achieved, Biden said, noting the success of America’s mission to capture and bring to justice those responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. US forces, according to the president, will continue the withdrawal “in a secure and orderly way,” with the goal “speed is safety.” American military personnel will provide missional support to the Afghan military until August, thereafter maintaining a presence only in Kabul — the nation’s capital. While America’s military objectives in Afghanistan have ended, the US government will continue supplying aid to the Afghan people, in addition to engaging in counterterrorism efforts in the region.
Clean, Cut and Dry
America’s mission is over; for, in the end, the Washington consensus presumes that justice was achieved and retribution was delivered, despite killing millions of innocent civilians and displacing tens of millions more.
Even in the triumph of peace, Biden pretends that America’s cause was noble and just. “We did not go to Afghanistan to nation-build,” Biden remarked. Instead, American military force has “degraded the terrorist threat,” allegedly allowing Americans and Afghan people alike to feel secure in their person and community. This is a false history, said David Swanson, manufactured to maintain “the false dichotomy of shoot them or abandon them.”
Biden indicated that he’s bringing the troops home and diminishing America’s role in fighting terrorism in Afghanistan. According to his plan, however, “Our military and intelligence leaders are confident they have the capabilities to protect the homeland and our interests from any resurgent terrorist challenge emerging or emanating from Afghanistan. We are developing a counterterrorism over-the-horizon capability that will allow us to keep our eyes firmly fixed on any direct threats to the United States in the region, and act quickly and decisively if needed.” A pretense of future terrorism is already established.
The United States, launching its War on Terror in the wake of 9/11, attacked Afghanistan in 2001; invaded Iraq in 2003; and launched separate but continuous raids in Syria, Libya and Yemen in subsequent years. Under the executive command of George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump — and for a period of time, Joe Biden — the youth of America earned the privilege to fight terrorism, defending the stars and stripes in the Middle East, Central and East Africa and parts of Asia. The Congressional Research Service estimates that roughly 7,000 US military personnel have died during operations primarily in Iraq and Afghanistan, sustaining approximately 50,000 casualties. And the perpetual invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan alone have cost the American taxpayer an estimated total of $1.55 trillion, averaging around $47 billion per year. Loss of life and limb — ignorant of the financial burdens of war-making — America’s War on Terror is the blueprint for societal suicide.
But as the complete withdrawal nears, Biden’s pronouncement ought not surmount the sadness and strife of what it has caused.
The Afghan people now live amongst civil conflict and factional warring. Their longing for stability is of no concern to Washington. If any brains existed within the beltway, they may ascertain that people prefer goods and commerce over weapons and disorder. But the beltway consensus continues to contend that American interests cannot be attained and protected without peace by violence. After 20 years of fighting, Washington is leaving the Afghan people in a political and humanitarian mess.
Taliban and Afghan officials met in Iran this week to re-establish peacetalks and establish the regional parameters around which a post-America Mid-East might function. In all likelihood, however, peacetalks will prove fruitless. Taliban fighters launched an offensive to capture lands in the Herat province in recent months, claiming control of at least 85 percent of the nation’s territory. The fighting has resulted in hundreds of Afghan military personnel fleeing to Iran and Tajikistan. Despite the renewal of peacetalks, the civil conflict ebbs and flows. Again, instead of bombs and arms, what about reparations and sovereignty?
‘War-making is the state’s medicine.’
A dismal reality awaits Americans; while the fighting in one country may conclude, America’s war in the Middle East still largely persists, and there is no institution or body capable of challenging the status quo. America’s governmental institutions now sustain a perpetual war effort.
Hoping to escape the ire of its constituents, Congress — those happily ignorant and full of folly lawmakers — voted to repeal the 1957 and 1991 Authorization for the Use of Military Force declarations weeks ago. And some lawmakers attempted to end the war in Yemen, to no avail. But the institution has relinquished its constitutional war-making authority to the executive by legal fiat and decides routinely to appropriate more money to the defense budget. How does one justify increasing the defense budget during a period of peacetime?
America’s political factions also play an important role in peacetime war-making. The one area in which bipartisan support remains on the table is war. Republicans and Democrats alike benefitted handsomely from Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Technologies campaign contributions, giving the two party’s an estimated $12 million during 2019 and 2020. How can a war end when there is money to be made, and the state can become evermore rich?
And, currently, at the healm sits Joe Biden — a seemingly docile character willing to reign hellfire on a village thousnds of miles away. His leadership style is bold. And boldness requisites an imperialistic internationalist policy.
America’s support for the Saudi-led war against the Houthis in Yemen continues, despite Biden campaigning to end America’s role in the conflict. Without congressional approval, the president launched air strike attacks on Iranian-backed combatants in Syria and Iraq earlier this year, prompting the Iraqi government to issue a condemnation against Washington. And he’s cast aside stipulations of the US – Taliban peace deal by prolonging America’s military presence in Afghanistan. These are ordinary acts, nonetheless — the US government has rich experience in the craft of treaty-breaking.
The biggest threat to American security does not emanate from the Middle East, nor Beijing or the Kremlin; it is from Washington itself. The American people have no control over the decision of war and peace. The decision to descend into war — that materially exhausting and societally endangering enterprise — should be one a decision in which voters and taxpayers are, at the least, involved. Could it be that the US government’s imperialistic foreign policy might serve as a cancerous stain on the Republic?
