I supported, with deep reservations, the United States military intervention in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
I do believe there are \u201cjust\u201d wars. When attacked, self-defense does seem justified. Unfortunately, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda not only coexisted, but collaborated on attacks against not only the United States but Pakistan and other nations.<\/p>\n
President George W. Bush had the support of the nation, and our allies, when seeking to dismantle Al-Qaeda. (Notice, I\u2019m not commenting on Iraq\u2026 a total disaster in every conceivable way.) Pres. Barack Obama defended the Afghan intervention, and he made some difficult choices with which Vice President Joe Biden disagreed.<\/p>\n
Let us never forget, never, that the United States helped create the Taliban through our absurd anti-Soviet policies. As with so many problems in the twentieth century, obsessive opposition to \u201ccommunism\u201d led us ethically astray.<\/p>\n
Faced with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, we needed to remove the leadership of those loosely organized ideologies.<\/p>\n
When I read people claiming we were engaged in \u201cnation-building\u201d in Afghanistan and Iraq, I cringe. No, we did not try to support and build viable nations. We could have, and should have, engaged in actual nation-building. Instead, we engaged in a military occupation that fed into anti-Western sentiments.<\/strong><\/p>\n We could have build schools, hospitals, and infrastructure. We could have focused on agricultural and industrial improvements. We could have helped the people of Afghanistan create an alternative to their drug-based economy.<\/p>\n We didn\u2019t have to waste time and energy engaged in a low-intensity conflict for two decades.<\/p>\n Technically, we weren\u2019t really engaged in even low-level conflict since 2013, a year in which the U.S. lost 85 people to conflict.<\/p>\n More Americans die of violence during a single weekend in Chicago than died in some recent years<\/em> in Afghanistan. That\u2019s a disgusting commentary on violence within our nation. It\u2019s also a testament to have stable our presence was in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n Once there, we could have continued with 2500 to 3000 troops, primarily supporting Afghan military and police training. We had no reason, none at all, to continue operating or overseeing any prisons, interrogation centers, or whatever else we had been doing.<\/p>\n I do not support or endorse using\u00a0\u201cover the horizon\u201d capabilities such as drones.\u00a0<\/strong>Dropping bombs from the air and using weaponized drones are both highly inaccurate. Far more innocent lives become \u201ccollateral damage\u201d when you fight using remote weapons and intelligence.<\/p>\n Exiting Afghanistan, while vowing to pursue\u00a0\u201cenemies\u201d remotely, is a recipe for disaster.\u00a0<\/strong>This will be a recruiting advertisement for radicals. There are no \u201cover the horizon\u201d capabilities. It\u2019s total nonsense that just feels good because no American soldiers are on the ground. Sometimes, it\u2019s good to be afraid and cautious.<\/p>\n War should never, never be like a video game. Drones, air attacks, and naval missiles encourage us to deny or ignore the humanitarian suffering caused by our cavalier use of arms.<\/p>\n Having military or law enforcement personnel stationed abroad isn\u2019t unusual. After all, we\u2019re still in South Korea with 29,000 military-related personnel. We\u2019re in Japan, Germany, and the Saudi Peninsula.<\/p>\n Deterrence stinks, but it is a reality of geopolitics. Pragmatism requires asking when a presence helps the people of a nation, not its leaders, and if the presence helps protect other allies and our national security. It\u2019s a messy calculation, trying to weigh the variables.<\/p>\n After 20 years, we have nothing to show for the Afghan people.\u00a0<\/strong>South Korea, Japan, and Germany are stable nations that had a history of national identity. There were social institutions in place, which we simply helped defend or rebuild. Even these three examples have their unique cultural complications, but we weren\u2019t starting from scratch after conflicts.<\/p>\n In Afghanistan, and to a much lesser extent Iraq, the cultural cohesion was missing. We did nothing to help create that national identity and desire for communal identity.<\/p>\n The classical liberal isn\u2019t an isolationist. We believe in trade and travel. We believe in all people, everywhere, participating in a global economy of goods, services, and ideas.<\/p>\n Most libertarians I know and read oppose military foreign interventions. They also largely oppose financial embargoes, boycotts, and other forms of coercion to address the problems internal to another nation. The theory, widespread far beyond classical liberalism, holds that trade and travel foster better relations and, eventually, greater tolerance.<\/p>\n Of course, coercion remains limited to the more vulnerable nations, such as Cuba or Iran. Military interventions are limited to pariah nations with few serious alliances with global powers.<\/p>\n Simplistically, we hope that interactions and trade lead to liberalism in the classical sense suggested by Enlightenment notions of liberty. Trade with China, for example, was assumed the best way to change a nation so populous and dominant in a region.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not an idealistic free trade or cultural exchange proponent. I don\u2019t expect Russia or China to change through osmosis.<\/p>\n When one nation or group of nations decides to use military force to change the behaviors or leadership in another nation (or nations), this must be done with great caution and trepidation. It should scare us to engage in wars.<\/p>\n Within the United States, coverage of our military activities has faded dramatically since 2013. We\u2019re still using drones, dropping bombs, and killing people\u2026 often the wrong people. Yet, there\u2019s little coverage of these actions.<\/p>\n Why did the media stop reporting on Afghanistan after 2013? Because the US causality average dropped to less than 1 per month. We lost 2300+ lives from both military action and accidents from 2001-2012, and then\u2026 it statistically became safer than policing a large U.S. city, at least for the U.S. personnel serving in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n During the entire Afghan operation, the United States lost 2,461 personnel. Of the lives lost, 1,928 were killed in action. (Sadly, training accidents and routine mishaps represent a significant number of lives lost globally within the U.S. military branches.)<\/p>\nWhy the News Coverage Faded<\/h3>\n
Killed in Action<\/h3>\n