Wither the US in Afghanistan?

For John, BLUF:  What are we going to do about our nearly two decade engagement in Afghanistan, an engagement costing us billions of dollars and hundreds of US lives, Military and civilian?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Here are conflicting views on Afghanistan; should we stay or should we go.

The first submission is from Professor Andrew J Bacevich, writing for The LA Times, 10 September 2019.  Professor Bacevich is a retired US Army Colonel.

Trump’s Afghanistan ‘peace’ will be Vietnam all over again:  A mess America leaves behind

Here is the second submission, from two Afghan tour Army Officer Kevin Carroll, a Lawyer and previously senior counselor to Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly.  His opinion piece appeared in The Washington Examiner on 11 September 2019.

In canceling on the Taliban, Trump dodged a bullet aimed at his legacy

Here is the introduction to the Bacevich article:

On the day that Saigon fell, and the conflict that the Vietnamese call the American War ended, I was a captain in the U.S. Army attending a course at Ft. Knox, Ky.  One of my classmates — let’s call him Nguyen — was a captain in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam.  I wanted at least to acknowledge the magnitude of the disaster that had occurred.

“I’m sorry about what happened to your country,” I told him.

In my dim recollection, he didn’t even bother to reply.  He simply looked at me with an expression both distressed and mournful.

Our encounter lasted no more than a handful of seconds.  Today I recall my presumptuous apology with a profound sense of embarrassment and even shame.  Worse still was my failure — inability? refusal? — to acknowledge the context:  The United States had, over years, inflicted horrendous harm on the people of South Vietnam.

It’s a wonder Capt.  Nguyen didn’t spit in my eye.

Our war in Indochina — the conflict we call the Vietnam War — officially ended in January 1973 with the signing in Paris of an “Agreement Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam.”  Under the terms of that fraudulent pact, American prisoners of war were freed and the last U.S. combat troops left for home.  Primary responsibility for securing the Republic of Vietnam thereby fell to ARVN.

Meanwhile, despite a nominal cessation of hostilities, approximately 150,000 North Vietnamese regulars still occupied a large swath of South Vietnamese territory.  In effect, our message to our enemy and our ally was this:  We’re outta here; you guys sort this out.  In a bit more than two years, that sorting-out process would extinguish the Republic of Vietnam.

And so again today.  At the end of the 17th year of what Americans commonly call the Afghanistan War — one wonders what name Afghans will eventually assign it — U.S. military forces are moving on.  However we might define Washington’s evolving purposes in its Afghanistan War — “nation building,” “democratization,” “pacification”— the likelihood of mission accomplishment is nil.  As in the early 1970s, so in 2019, rather than admitting failure, the Pentagon is changing the subject and once again turning its attention to “real soldiering,” which means refocusing on Russia and China.

Here is Mr Carroll's first six paragraphs:

President Trump’s secret plan to meet the Taliban at Camp David, to negotiate the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan, shows his misunderstanding of our enemy’s character and dangers they pose to the United States.

I was an Army veteran and junior associate at a Wall Street law firm on Sept. 11, 2001.  Like most New Yorkers, I lost friends that day.  Fortunately, I held a reserve commission, so I could simply volunteer for duty, and I did so on Sept. 12.  I served twice, briefly, in Afghanistan, although I never fired a shot in anger.

No veteran should purport to represent the views of all who served, and none ought to presume to speak for the fallen.  Yet Saturday’s news gave me, and many Americans of all backgrounds, pause at how confused we have become.

It is not wrong to pursue peace with enemies; American diplomats coolly negotiated with communists from North Korea and North Vietnam in Panmunjom and Paris.  But for Trump to invite the Taliban to Camp David was a mistake — as if Chamberlain had invited Hitler to Chequers.

Any veteran can tell you about the Taliban’s depravity.  Around the time of my second tour, the Taliban bombed a nearby girls' school, disfiguring its students by throwing acid in their faces; they wired a baby donkey with explosives, to lure the children of a local police official from their home and kill them; elsewhere, they attacked new mothers, their babies, and staff at a maternity clinic.

These are not traditional military enemies.  To invite such people to the weekend family home of presidents since Franklin Roosevelt, in an admitted attempt to obtain a political goal before an upcoming domestic election, is just a bad idea — in poor taste, to put it mildly.

I see both sides of this issue and don't like any of the answers, especially because it is bigger than Afghanistan.  There is Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence or ISI, which runs a lot of what happens in Afghanistan.  Will that change.  Then there is the Whabbi branch of Islam in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.  What are their longer terms goals?  We need to know more.

Regards  —  Cliff