I’ve tried to write a column on Afghanistan several times over the last two weeks, but it evolved only into angry tweetstorms.
I began covering Afghanistan in 1993 and worked counterterrorism throughout my entire career, so the withdrawal of U.S. forces earlier this week engendered deep, painful, and conflicting emotions. In my view, two successive U.S. administrations engaged in historically poor diplomacy with the Taliban, ultimately leading to an ignominious end to the two-decade conflict.
My basement walls are filled with dusty awards and citations, framed front-page newspaper stories from global counterterrorism operations, and photos of colleagues and indigenous partners who were killed. The wall is not a celebration of success nor a monument to failure, but rather a timeline of a career that saw both triumph and awful tragedy. Perhaps this is an appropriate reflection of the global war on terrorism — we prevented another attack on the homeland, but the costs were exceedingly high, including in Afghanistan.
Who gets put on the CIA’s Afghan account in the early 1990s?
Newbies, the most junior officers on the totem pole. This was a time in Afghanistan when a civil war was raging, Kabul was a humanitarian disaster, and America was disinterested. A group called the Taliban had risen up in 1994 through the madrassas of Pakistan. It had the help of the Pakistani intelligence service. Do I remember the current political chief Mullah Baradar?
Of course, I do — he was a co-founder of the movement and the Taliban’s deputy defense minister when they ruled between 1996 and 2001. Brutal and repressive, the Taliban terrorized Afghanistan with an iron fist, plunging the country into a medieval hell. We likely will see such scenes play out once again one day soon.
What did I learn from my role as an Afghan watcher in the early 1990s that are relevant today?
The Afghans often defect and switch sides. In every government transition over the last three decades, the transfer of power occurs somewhat peacefully, after wild bouts of violence. Afghans are survivors, and they often will fall back on tribal, ethnic, and linguistic commonalities, vice fight to the bitter end. There was an old saying that Afghans could always be rented. That was simplistic and a bit colonialist. I prefer to say that Afghans will always try and live to fight another day.
Why does this understanding matter? The recent gaslighting by the Biden administration, shaming Afghans for not fighting even as the United States pulled support (including airpower), proved a key accelerant that led to the dissolution of the regular Afghan army. Morale matters in war, and I would argue that it can be a determining factor in conflict. Dissing the Afghans publicly was a terrible idea. More than 60,000 Afghan soldiers died over the last 20 years. Afghan special operations units trained by the U.S. military and the intelligence community did not give up. They fought until the bitter end. My heart burns with pride thinking of these units as they held the line, protecting U.S. forces during the evacuation.
One of the first projects I worked on in 1993 was a lengthy review of the “Afghan Arabs,” the 10,000-plus fighters from the Arab world who traveled to Afghanistan during the Afghan mujahedeen’s struggle against Soviet occupation. Many of these Arab fighters later joined the ranks of al Qaeda. I recall briefing the National Security Council about these Afghan Arabs, and one individual we had on our radar named Osama bin Laden. As al Qaeda may now strengthen again in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, some of these old Afghan Arabs surely will return to leadership roles. And the CIA once again will need to place valuable operational resources in place to monitor these terrorist movements.
It feels like Groundhog Day. I served a short stint in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in early 2002 as a case officer co-located with a U.S. Army special forces unit. Taliban leader Mullah Omar had fled his home months earlier, yet signs were everywhere of how the Taliban brutalized the population (and how they may do so in the future, as well). We found the widow of an agent of ours, who was hung by the Taliban in the soccer stadium.
I provided her with death benefits, upholding a sacred oath that we make to our agents. Our job was to find Taliban members on the run, and we did so successfully. In one operation, we flew by helicopter to Helmand province. I sat with a tribal elder, negotiating the release of a Taliban target. Our interpreter pulled me aside and quietly noted that the village elders had betrayed us and that a Taliban ambush was planned. With the assistance of a U.S. military aircraft overhead, we pointedly noted to the elders that no harm should come to us if they wanted their village to remain intact. The interpreter saved our lives that day. I hope he is among those that escaped.
I later served as a base chief for a year along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, leading a small group of Americans and hundreds of Afghan fighters. I buried some members of our indigenous units, who bravely gave their lives in the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban. I’ll never forget having the blood of our Afghan unit commander all over my hands and clothes as we carried his body from a vehicle after he perished due to an improvised explosive device. He was a warrior, a friend.
We must honor him by helping our Afghan allies adjust to their new lives in America. So as I am angry at what I consider a fatally flawed withdrawal plan based on disastrous diplomacy, I’ll try and channel my energy productively.
The extraction of 100,000 persons at grave risk was an incredible logistical feat, although the task remains woefully unfinished. It is imperative that the Biden administration use any levers of influence and power to pressure the Taliban to allow our remaining allies to return. I have helped CIA assets resettle in the U.S. in ones and twos. It is a difficult task even in small numbers, where one plays administrative assistant, social worker, and psychiatrist all at once. With tens of thousands of Afghans arriving on our shores, we will need to do this on a massive scale. The Afghans and their families will need to learn English, go to school, get a driver’s license, and learn a new trade.
We will need Americans to rally together. We will need to work with members of Congress, religious groups, and other charities. We have a moral obligation to assist these heroes, who I will be proud to call my neighbors. The Afghan war’s final chapter has begun.
Marc Polymeropoulos is a former CIA senior operations officer. He retired in 2019 after a 26-year career serving in the Near East and South Asia. His book, Clarity in Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the CIA, was published in June 2021 by Harper Collins.
