What I Wrote Ten Years Ago About the War in Afghanistan

In August, when news broke about the disaster unfolding in Afghanistan, my husband and I watched in horror. Like the rest of the country, we were aghast at the stories of our Afghan allies being abandoned to the Taliban; the images of people desperately clinging to a U.S. plane as it took off from the Kabul airport were heart-stopping.

We had both taken classes on Vietnam War history in college. This war had always reminded us of that one — an unwinnable war begun with American hubris, and perpetuated, it seemed, by stubborn politicians afraid to lose face by ending it. Now, with people clinging to the plane, it was impossible not to think of the Fall of Saigon.

On the day of Biden’s speech defending his decision to withdraw, we were packing and leaving for a camping trip. All morning, we felt disturbed and subdued. As we ate breakfast, packed, and drove to the trailhead, we spent hours debating what was happening.

We had always disapproved of this war. While there’d been a good argument for striking the Taliban after 9/11, a full-scale war against them was another story. They were too powerful; they could too easily retreat into Pakistan and regroup; the idea of U.S. nation-building in Afghanistan was naïve.

And yet, our country had committed to that war, and that nation-building. That complicated things. Once we’d made those commitments, the equation had changed.

After seeing what had happened when we’d withdrawn, Ron and I couldn’t decide whether withdrawal had really been the right thing to do.

On the one hand, our ongoing presence in Afghanistan perpetuated our apparent “war on Islam,” helping drive anti-American sentiment across the Muslim world. It also resulted in thousands of casualties every year — a handful of Americans, and large numbers of Afghan troops and civilians.

But on the other hand, withdrawing meant abandoning our Afghan allies and all the people who had cast their lot with us, working to build a better, freer, and more egalitarian future for Afghan women and society as a whole. Withdrawing also meant a situation likely worse than before in terms of our national security. Now the same extremist, anti-American regime was back in power — but more heavily armed, with weaponry we’d abandoned.

In all our discussions, one of the only things we felt sure about was that the two of us couldn’t be sure of the right course of action. I had vaguely supported full withdrawal, until I watched it unfold. He had leaned the other way. But both of us were uncertain, and both of our minds would change more than once as we continued to talk and research what was happening.

For one member of our family, the U.S. withdrawal was especially poignant and personal. My uncle, a retired attorney and full-time philanthropist, has devoted the last twenty years to education projects in Afghanistan.

Ron and I hear about these projects when we make summer trips to the family cabin in Eastern Washington and through my aunt and uncle’s holiday newsletters. Through fundraising and leadership, my uncle has fostered construction of Afghan schools that support young women’s education, helped provide computers and technological training to young people, and coordinated an exchange program bringing Afghan doctors and other professionals to the U.S. to enhance their skills.

For years, he made annual trips to the country himself, working closely with an Iranian-American woman who traveled with him. It was only a few years ago that they reluctantly stopped going, when the war finally made it too unsafe.

My uncle is a strong Republican, but his work crosses political divides. After 9/11, in an era of anti-Muslim sentiment and warmongering, he turned instead towards peacemaking through education and poverty alleviation. I don’t share many of his political views, but I’m in awe of the work he’s done. He has changed many lives for the better.

So as my family watched the country fall to the Taliban, we were filled with trepidation about my uncle’s projects. Taliban rule might mean serious trouble for some of the people he’s helped. We can only hope that, no matter what happens, the education and training they’ve gotten will help Afghanistan far into the future.

Ron and I still haven’t landed on a cut-and-dry answer on whether withdrawal was ultimately right. At the moment, we feel the best course might have been to keep a toehold in Afghanistan, with a small U.S. military force that could hold the Taliban at bay in perpetuity — but this stance could shift again.

What we are sure about, though, is that at the very least, Biden made grave errors in how we withdrew. There had to be a better way — a way to avoid abandoning so many allies, and a way to avoid the U.S. airstrike that killed an innocent aid worker and Afghan family, including seven children.

I feel deeply ashamed of my country over all this. Our botched, shameful withdrawal was the first time I’ve seriously disagreed with Biden’s judgment since he became president. My confidence in him has been shaken.

Thinking about it all, I remembered an essay I wrote about the war ten years ago.

Ron and I were just beginning to get involved in politics back then. We were making an effort to educate ourselves — we’d begun meeting with a Republican couple to learn about conservative perspectives, and we were reading up on major issues like health care and unions. It seemed important to learn about the war in Afghanistan, which had already lasted ten years.

So we read journalist Bob Woodward’s book Obama’s Wars, which gives background on the war and details many of the decision-making meetings that led to the surge of 30,000 additional troops in 2010.

I didn’t yet have an online presence at the time, but I was itching to write something in response to the book, to summarize and organize my thoughts. Like a good student, I produced an essay that reads like a paper for a college history course, complete with a thesis paragraph and citations. I showed it to Ron, my mother, and my sister — but after that, it never saw the light of day.

I had finished the essay on Saturday, February 12, 2011. That was the day after Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker announced the “Budget Repair Bill” that would ignite protests across my state the following week. Soon I was spending every lunch and dinner with thousands of others at the Capitol, the Democratic senators had fled the state to prevent a quorum, and the protests were making international news. I started a blog to write about it all, and in the excitement, my Obama’s Wars essay was forgotten.

But I dug it up last month, and I found it interesting and sobering. From my bird’s eye perspective, at least, it appears that very little changed in the ten years since I wrote it. It was already clear then that the war was unwinnable — and in the ten-year interim, 991 more American troops have died in the war, along with many thousands of Afghan troops, hundreds of aid workers, dozens of journalists, and something like 26,000 Afghan civilians. This is part of why Biden withdrew.

Maybe now is as good a time as any to unearth this old essay. I’m sharing it here, at the bottom of this story. Reading it helped me remember Woodward’s book and many of the war’s nuances, and it swayed me more towards Biden’s view. Perhaps complete withdrawal was right.

At the same time, I’m still unconvinced.

It seems that with this war, one of the only answers is that there were no easy answers.

Here is a Google Doc of my 2011 essay: Time to Grow Up: A Response to Obama’s Wars.

Originally published at http://katiesonger.com on October 8, 2021.