I was talking to a friend the other day and he asked me if pulling out of Afghanistan was a good or bad idea, I said yes. There’s not a good answer. Since president Biden announced removing troops from Afghanistan by September 11th, I've been having conversations with other veterans and they also have mixed feelings about it. This war has lasted 20 years is weighed heavily on the active duty, veteran, and military communities. There are multiple reasons why it is good to get out, there are also multiple reasons why we should stay. At the end of the day, there is not a good option, I believe President Biden is choosing the best bad option.
What most people don't understand about Afghanistan is others have tried to control it for centuries. From what I can find in history, the Mongols, Alexander the Great, British, Russians, and now the US to name a few have tried and failed. It should be obvious, that this part of the world doesn't want to be controlled by a single power. Many of the Afghani people do not consider themselves Afghans. They are tribal and do not recognize a centralized government. The mountains are alive with tribes more than willing to do what it takes to save their way of life. To me, it appears obvious that the Afghans want to control their destinies. They're willing to fight anybody who stands in their way. Not everyone wants democracy, and it appears the Afghani people just want to be left alone.
The best thing about pulling out of Afghanistan is, we will not lose any more troops. We have lost more than 2400 troops because of our 20-year war in Afghanistan. That does not include those injured. So many active-duty families have been destroyed by this war. Mental health issues, physical injuries, and constant deployments caused the destruction of a lot of families over the last 20 years of this campaign. The destruction of families will continue just like Vietnam did. Military families and veterans have endured 20 years of constant deployments, increase ops tempo’s, and failed policies. On top of the losses to families and our troops, the money used to fund the war can be used elsewhere to combat the enemies that we are facing today, China and Russia. Terrorism will still be alive, but I feel the true threat is a cyber-attack.
The bad part about pulling out is allowing the Taliban to come back in and have a place to train their terrorist. Those who will lose the most are the Afghan women who had made large strides to become a huge part of their society. Those gains will be lost and can create a host of issues when it comes to human rights. Losing a foothold in the region also can be problematic, and the fear of ethnic cleansing is a real fear. But the one thing that most veterans will be struggling with is the feeling that they lost their friends for nothing. The loss of their comrades and a multitude of injuries can cause veterans who fought and lost their friends to struggle with depression and anger.
What is disheartening is less than 1% of Americans have fought since September 11th, 2001. Those of lower Socio-Economic Status (SES), poor people, have been the ones that paid the largest price. When I started writing this column, I went looking for the details in the news about the pull out of Afghanistan. The headlines were not the pulling out of Afghanistan, the news was David Hasselhoff’s daughter on the front page of Playboy magazine and Britney Spears. I had to dig to find details on the US pulling out of Afghanistan. The American people and the media do not care, most don’t have dog in the fight.
What we need to remember if you are against pulling out of Afghanistan. It has been proven time and time again that our military is capable to deploy anywhere quickly. During Desert Shield/Storm my unit was flying combat missions 24 hours after we left Langley AFB in Virginia. We arrived in Saudi Arabia loaded and ready to go. I am glad we are pulling out. I feel we need to change our focus on the bigger threats like Russia, and China. If they gain the capability of taking out our satellites and Global Positioning System (GPS), the United States will be dead in the water, literally.
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