"The initial warnings about the history of Afghanistan as the graveyard of empires turned out to be unfounded."

(Henry Kissinger, former US National Security Adviser) (1)

"What we see now proves that no military force can change the course of events in Afghanistan, which is known as the graveyard of invaders."

(Joe Biden, US President) (2)

We are now looking at two quotes that talk about the same patch of land, issued by prominent officials in one country, the United States, but the difference between them is 20 years. The first quote was made by the former US Secretary of State and National Security Adviser, Henry Kissinger, in his analysis of the Afghan situation in his famous book “The World Order”, in a clear quest to legitimize and support the decision of former US President George Bush Jr. to invade Afghanistan and overthrow the Taliban regime. Kissinger's pride in the American achievement reached the point of describing what happened as a "radical invention of Afghan history", considering that the American intervention resulted in a transparent, democratic, pluralistic Afghan government with control over the entire country, with an Afghan national army capable of assuming responsibility for security on a national-national basis. , and that all this happened "with an astonishing amount of idealism" (3).

After 20 years, specifically on the sixteenth of August, the current US President Joe Biden stated in his full withdrawal speech what we mentioned in the second quote above.

To complete the irony, Joe Biden did not forget to blame the Afghan army, on which the United States spent more than two trillion dollars, but he fled, as he described it.

US President Joe Biden:

• We went to Afghanistan 20 years ago to eliminate those who attacked us on September 11, 2001, and we succeeded in our mission

• Our mission in #Afghanistan was not to build a nation or form a democracy but to prevent any terrorist attack on our lands pic.twitter.com/vInyOYlhAE

- Al Jazeera Mubasher (@ajmubasher) August 16, 2021

Among the folds of contradiction between the two statements, there are many paradoxes and analyzes. Yes, a lot of data and priorities have changed during the 20 years in which the United States has become more focused on issues that are more important to it, both internally and externally. But this wide conflict makes it legitimate to question the real causes of the foreign wars led by the United States, and the justifications that American presidents give to enter into a war, and those they also offer to justify their withdrawal. This happened in Afghanistan today, just as it happened in Vietnam more than seven decades ago.

Wars usually begin with enthusiastic popular crowds, leaders dreaming of a short war, and political discourses that rationalize war and make it a "necessity", but soon it turns into a "ghoul" that swells and swallows a huge amount of money, weapons and people. Contrary to the first melodies of enthusiasm, the cards are rearranged, and events take other turns. In an article for the New York Times, former Captain Timothy Kudow, in the US Navy who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, states that he recalls the voices from the past twenty years that motivated him and his soldiers to enter battle, as well as the evening news that persuaded them to stay, and adds: There is enough blame to include everyone, Republicans, Democrats and independents alike, who, for 20 years, have voted for these presidents and members of Congress to mislead us and abuse our administration."

There are many similarities between the wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan, and the two wars summarize two eras;

The first is the era of the “war on the communists,” or what was known as the Cold War against the Soviet Union, and resulted in the Vietnam War with numerous wars and military interventions, direct and indirect, leading to the era of the “war on terror” that produced the war on Afghanistan and Iraq.

During the first era, America invaded Vietnam under the pretext of eliminating communism, in a 20-year war with heavy economic, military and human losses, with which the United States was forced to withdraw, leaving behind the same nightmare for which it came, and soon the "communist forces" took control of the whole of Vietnam.

After the withdrawal, a telegram came to then-US President Gerald Ford, saying that Saigon, the former capital of the Republic of South Vietnam, had fallen, and that "it happened faster than we expected."

Today, after another 20 years spent by the American forces in Afghanistan since 2001 under the pretext of the war on terror and the removal of the Taliban from the rule of Afghanistan, the United States is withdrawing to open the door wide for the Taliban to take control of the country again, and Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, has also fallen faster than the Americans expected.

War has a scent that precedes its outbreak, a scent mixed with an enemy around which the people are mobilized, and a military ambition for expansion always mixed with a mixture of fear and force.

Fear of the "enemy"'s expansion, with a force that allows you to dispel that fear.

America has always had this mix.

Over the course of the last century, specifically after the Second World War, and with the escalation of the Cold War and the competition with the Soviet Union; The United States invaded several countries, in parallel with indirect interventions to overturn the balance of government in a number of countries in the world. But the direct invasion in particular was accompanied by a number of experiments that had severe impacts on American policy. The most famous of these incidents and the most heinous on the American interior is the Vietnam War, which extended between 1954-1975, knowing that the extensive American intervention began in 1964 and continued until 1975, and left huge military, economic and human losses whose internal effects are still present today.

The main reason for the United States to enter the war there was to support its ally in South Vietnam, and the most important thing was to prevent the communists who settled in eastern Vietnam from expanding and controlling the entire country, and then spreading to Asia. This intervention was part of a broader war against the Soviet Union and communism. It began with limited financial and military support for the South Vietnamese, expanded in 1961 to reach 3,000 military advisors by a decision of former US President John F. Kennedy, and escalated sharply by 1968 to reach more than half a million American soldiers on the ground, with an annual cost of $77 billion In one year only. According to the US Department of Veterans Affairs, the total of those who served in that war amounted to two million and 700 thousand male and female fighters.

During the war years, US leaders insisted that military force was necessary to defend a sovereign nation - South Vietnam - from external communist aggression, and this was stated more than once by US President Lyndon Johnson in 1965. But as the fighting continued, the death toll increased the Americans, which in the sum reached nearly 50 thousand dead; An American domestic climate was formed that was pressing to end this war.

Eventually, this massive internal pressure re-asked the tough questions, turning the rhetoric of the "necessity of war" into one that Vietnam "no longer poses a threat to the United States."

In 1975, the US military forces withdrew after incurring heavy economic, military and human losses.

As for the cause of Saigon's rapid fall, the government there was wholly dependent on American military and economic support to survive against its enemies, including the many non-communist parties and factions in the south.

(US President Richard Nixon's speech announcing the end of the Vietnam War)

The defeat of the United States in Vietnam left a deep scar on the American body. Even Henry Kissinger, who was the American National Security Adviser at the end of the Vietnam War, described the war, saying: “The internal debate over the Vietnam War has proven to be one of the most profound wounds in American history.” (4) This defeat was followed by thousands of articles and dozens of short, documentary and cinematic films that dealt with the war there, and shed light on the causes of failure and miscalculation that accompanied American presidents who did not strike the optimal time to withdraw, and their rapid withdrawal led to a series of crises.

“States are only interested in a balance in which the balance is tilted in their favour.”

(Nicholas Spikeman, American political scientist) (5)

The Vietnam War was the most severe impact on the American interior, but the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, and then the fall of Baghdad in 2003, were among the most profound incidents affecting our Arab and Islamic surroundings, and they came as a result of the American intervention in the region during the first decade of the new millennium. Just as Kissinger was astonished by the “ideal intervention” in Afghanistan, he himself described the American intervention in Iraq as “transforming Iraq from one of the most repressive countries in the Middle East into a pluralistic democracy that would inspire a process of democratic transformation in the region” (5) And that this success "will send messages to Tehran and Damascus that freedom can be the future of all nations and peoples."

Similar to the communist threat that led the United States to intervene in Vietnam during the Cold War, the events of September 11 represented the first episode of the series “The Making of the New Enemy” and the locomotive of direct American intervention in the region. A few days after the famous events, the George W. Bush administration decided to invade Afghanistan, with the goal then to be focused, effective, and limited attacks. In his speech to Congress, Bush said: “These carefully targeted actions are planned to thwart the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations, and to attack ability of the Taliban regime. (6)

The difference here from Vietnam is that America did not penetrate deeply into Afghanistan inflicting heavy losses on it like Vietnam. Rather, the US policy at the time was aimed at maintaining a sufficient number of forces to prevent the Taliban from returning to power, in addition to preventing "terrorist groups" from using the country as a base for their operations again. With this "limited" policy, the number of combat soldiers there amounted in a total of 20 years, approximately 775,000 soldiers, at a cost of more than two trillion dollars. But the similarities are more than incalculable. In the end, the blitzkrieg lasted 20 years, and the government and army in Afghanistan did not survive the American withdrawal, just as the government of South Vietnam did not.

Over time, Washington had come to the conviction that eradicating the Taliban, which has deep roots in Afghan society, is impossible, which prompted the administration of former US President Donald Trump to sit at one table with yesterday's enemies to reach understandings that eventually lead to the withdrawal of the United States. The United States, with the Taliban providing guarantees that the Taliban will not launch any military operations against US forces and their allies in Afghanistan, and not allow any party - including al-Qaeda - to use the territory of Afghanistan to threaten the security of the United States and its allies.

With the withdrawal of US forces last July from the Bagram military base, which is the last US stronghold in the country, the Afghan government became the de facto responsible for security.

With the displacement of the only reason for the survival of the Afghan government in power, the Taliban launched a massive offensive campaign during which they took control of most of the capitals of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, all the way to the capital, Kabul.

As the defeat of Vietnam followed thousands of articles and dozens of short, documentaries and films, articles have already begun to be written in the United States, with films waiting in the coming days, to address the same issues: Why did the Americans fail?

And why did they miscalculate in determining the optimal time to withdraw?

Perhaps the coming months will bear similar events in Iraq if the remaining American forces withdrew, but the most important aspect of all of the above is that those who pay the greatest price are the forgotten victims of the American intervention, those countries whose people were promised good and prosperity, so they woke up to the scenes of killing and destruction.

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Sources:

  • Henry Kissinger, World Order, 311

  • US President Joe Biden's speech on: 8-16-2021

  • Henry Kissinger, same source, p. 313

  • Henry Kissinger, same source, p. 292

  • Quote from the book "American Foreign Policy and Its Thinkers", Perry Anderson, p. 24

  • George W. Bush, Presidential Address to a Joint Session of the House of Congress 7-10-2001