Last week, an American soldier was killed, and two of his comrades were wounded in an apparent insider attack in Afghanistan. These casualties ought to spur the Trump administration to ask exactly what we’re doing in that country, nearly 17 years after we launched our post-9/11 attack on the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
I have a personal occasion for a moment of reflection. This week marks 10 years I have given to the Army, some of which I spent in combat in Afghanistan. I do not regret a single day of service. But we are at war, and all signs point to the government forgetting that and the American people don’t really know what we’re fighting for.
“I say with confidence, because of all of you and all those that have gone before and our allies and partners, I believe victory is closer than ever before,” Vice President Mike Pence said addressing troops in Bagram, Afghanistan in December.
The sentiment was uplifting, but Pence wasn’t able to point to any recent military victories, or any concrete improvements. In fact, the White House simply hasn’t explained what our military is trying to accomplish in that volatile country where its sons and daughters are still coming home in coffins or without limbs.
President Trump seems to have been more occupied with his war on the press than the war in Afghanistan, only mentioning the country once this year on Twitter in January.
The only major action the administration has reported to the public is deploying the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb (MOAB), which the Department of Defense claims killed 94 Islamic State fighters including four commanders.
Like many of the actions of the administration, the bombing was solid TV and made us feel good. But it’s a reminder that Afghanistan is not like Nazi-occupied France in 1944: there’s no town to take, no single figurehead to take prisoner, and no capital city to bomb. In fact, we have no measurable gains in Afghanistan.
It’s time for the administration to shoot straight with the American people. Right now, it is difficult getting an accurate count on the number of troops deployed. It looks like the administration is concealing its plans in Afghanistan, trying to sweep this conflict under the rug to keep it out of the public eye. Or worse, there is no plan for this war.
Some of the questions the Trump administration need to answer: Towards what end are these troops dying in Afghanistan? Is the massive federal spending in this conflict worth it? What does victory look like?
A full withdrawal from the region would almost certainly lead to the collapse of Afghanistan’s government. So is the U.S. committed to war in Afghanistan for a hundred years. If so, that fact needs to be spelled out so Congress and the public are dealing with reality.
And if Afghanistan falls: Does that materially affect American interests? It is a brutal question, but we need to decide if we’re staying handcuffed to this country or not.
One study shows the Taliban control 70 percent of Afghanistan, some of which I patrolled half a decade ago.
Soldiers are still are getting into gunfights on the same mountains I did years ago. There’s no clear evidence killing a gunman in Helmand Province makes me safer going to Home Depot in Virginia.
I am proud of my service, and I feel my friends and I did a lot of good work in Afghanistan. But there’s potentially poor management on the Department of Defense’s end when places where I slept are in worse condition today than they were years ago. This feels like less of a war with great strategic minds behind the scenes and more of a game of kick-the-can in which leaders today hope someone emerges down the road or dynamics change in a way that brings a natural conclusion to the war.
The burden on the administration’s shoulders is to give the public an acceptable explanation as to why we’re at the point where a father and son can be deployed to the same war and with little to show for it.
