Afghanistan Reflections

As the Taliban seize power in Afghanistan once again, a lot of memories from my deployment in 2008 are flooding back, with concern for the safety of the Afghans I met there. The interpreters and security personnel with whom I broke bread and shared tea with on Sunday nights, the baker who made the best naan of my life in a mud-brick stove, or the boys who carried gear up the mountain for a dollar. Those enterprising boys are men now, probably with their own families. I never thought to keep in touch with any of these or other Afghans with whom I interacted, because I kept a healthy distance from them in the interest of operational security and personal safety (mine and theirs). Nevertheless, they are still who I think of whenever the fate of the country comes up in discussion or the news. Those who know me well, know that I don’t mind musing upon my experiences there. I’m fortunate to be able to recall my experience without the symptoms that haunt many others, so I think that those of us who can, should share our accounts. My roommate was good about that, and he actually studied creative writing, so you could probably just stop here, read his essays and be more entertained and informed. But the following are my own thoughts and feelings on the endeavor which I wanted to put into a format that I think is more suitable than Instagram or Twitter.

Active duty service members don’t enjoy the same first amendment rights when it comes to criticizing foreign policy, and some voluntarily continue to wear that muzzle in civilian life. Many remain apolitical, at least in public. I did the opposite. Immediately after separating from the Army in 2010, I talked about the war with whomever would listen. I contacted CNN and they interviewed me for a story they wrote on the 10th year of the war. I heard they were looking for vets to share their accounts, and I feared the public would get 10 veterans saying “hey look what a great thing I did!”, so I talked with them. My perspective was in stark contrast from the other nine presented in the story. This wasn’t because the others were lying and I was telling the truth. It’s that they still believed, and I didn’t. To stop believing in the nobility of the mission was a perilous road to go down. One full of questions whose answers you didn’t want to hear. The deaths, debilitating injuries, broken marriages, and more left in the wake of the experience are too great a sacrifice for 1 year of tax free income and an adventure. The worse you suffered, the more you needed it to mean something.

After a few years, I finally quit trying to convince others, particularly friends, who were mostly politically left-leaning, about the futility of the war and how much damage was being caused by it. In their eyes, once Obama picked up the mantle from Bush it became a worthwhile endeavor. The GOP rarely finds a war they don’t like, so after the anti-war left went quiet, the loudest voices remaining were those on the political fringe: Libertarians and Anarchists. So I climbed into their bed for a few years. I found a lot of people with similar experiences and viewpoints, and that felt good for someone who missed having others to commiserate with.

The war stories I typically share with friends over beers are typically about corruption because they’re the provocative without being too unsettling to hear, but that doesn’t mean that they’re the most true. I also tell them because I have a skeptic’s view of the whole enterprise: That we wasted blood and treasure fighting for a future many Afghans didn’t want while deluding ourselves about it, because lying to yourself is easier than considering that exporting American culture worldwide via the military is both unwelcome, and futile. So I tell the story about the officer on my team who got caught by the FBI collecting bribes from Afghan construction contractors. Or how a couple years after I left, an interpreter with whom I frequently enjoyed tea sabotaged one of our observation posts with our own claymore mines. I don’t generally tell this story, but it was certainly unsettling to read many years later that the suicide which occurred on our small base may have in fact been a murder tied to an international drug smuggling operation. It no longer surprises me to hear that stories like these that transpired under my nose. It’s amazing how blind idealists can be.

Of course all of those anecdotes betray the accomplishments of the Provincial Reconstruction Team to which I belonged. The cost of the infrastructure projects we facilitated in our assigned area (roughly the size of Connecticut) was in the tens of millions. That was their COST, but I have no idea of their value, and how much they were needed. Time and maturity have opened my eyes to the fact that construction contractors were no doubt aware when we were visiting a district for a shura with the elders and district governor. I’d expect that their interests were represented there, i.e. “ask them to build something really big and expensive”. I sincerely hope that the trade school is still training electricians, and people are still traveling over the bridge, but I have no way of knowing for sure.

On a more positive note, there are great not-for-profits like the organization my friend started doing important work developing Afghan girls into future leaders in their community. I am inspired by the bravery of the men and women who remained in country doing necessary work to provide aid without exacerbating the rampant corruption in the offices of Afghan government, and awestruck by the accomplishments of some of the girls who participate. I believe in their mission and the founder but frankly, I viewed my modest financial support as penance for my part in the havoc the military created there. Theirs are primarily the stories I’ve followed over the years. In part because they are uplifting, and show me that there was another side to last 20 years of NATO occupation. They are still operating today, and still need our help.

I don’t claim to know what the right or wrong moves were or are (which begs the question: right or wrong for whom?). I know that before I even returned from Afghanistan I wanted troops out as soon as possible. In my opinion, despite our good intentions, we weren’t a welcomed or useful presence there, and both our adversaries and allies were biding their time until we left while attempting to extract as much wealth from us as possible. For that, I do not blame them. They did not invite us there. But to withdraw this abruptly without evacuating the Afghans who risked their safety while rotation after rotation of soldiers assured them “we won’t abandon you”, feels like a betrayal, because it is. We used terms like “allies” and “partners” to describe these men and women, but it’s clear to me that in the eyes of this administration they are assets.

I have long since wanted Americans to care more about the war and now as it unwinds, it seems that I’m getting my wish, but I am resentful that it’s only now when it is unraveling that it’s trending on social media. Self-proclaimed experts confidently espousing opinions on a subject that, like many complex things, seems simple when you know very little about it. That’s the nature of platforms like Twitter, and I’m accustomed to it, but it feels different this time. I can’t help but think back to last summer when everyone, myself included, was suddenly so performative about their desire to become anti-racist. It’s a noble thing to do, but don’t expect a pat on the back, especially not from those who have long suffered as a result of widespread inattention and indifference.

In addition to the Afghans, I feel for those veterans and their families struggling with the unceremonious end to the conflict. To suffer the reopening of old wounds without the anesthetic provided by the hope for a positive outcome is something no one should endure. I don’t believe in whitewashing the war to make ourselves feel better, because I still believe that it’s more important to tell the truth, and hope that somehow enough truth of that shared knowledge deters similar mistakes in the future. I’m well aware, of course, that we’re not big on learning from the past when it comes to incursions into Asia. I remember as a child hearing my father recall the Vietnam War, in which he fought, as a conflict that we did not “lose” but simply lost the will to continue. I understand why he might have still believed that, or if he didn’t, why he would have wanted me to. 15 years later, returning home from my own war, I brought up the subject again in a fresh context and his reply was much different: politicians knew the war was lost, and continued to sell it to the public anyway. His war had the Pentagon Papers, and mine had its own version. I’d like to think that somehow we won’t let this happen again, but I can’t help but feel like that’s just my mind trying to convince me that if we didn’t accomplish the mission, at least we learned a lesson. I want to believe that, but I’m just not sure that it’s the truth.