AUGUST 24, 2021 – Yesterday I watched an exchange on FoxNews—my “go-to” source for rightwing propaganda. Tucker Carlson, a highly compensated creature of the rightwing audience-rightwing media feedback loop, was interviewing Brit Hume, the outlet’s stately “senior policy analyst.” The subject was “Biden’s botched evacuation” from Afghanistan. Mr. Snarly and Mr. Stately reveled in Biden’s “disaster.”
I’m open to evidence that Biden did, actually, botch our exit from Afghanistan; that he ignored reliable intelligence; that he didn’t follow seasoned advice; and so on, creating the departure debacle that gives FoxPropaganda a field day and CNN/MSNBC a chance to prove they’re “fair and balanced” by raking a Democratic president over the coals.
Until the record is examined and understood, however, it seems that Biden faced a catch-22: if he’d ensured our ability to slip out of town, he would’ve ensured that we couldn’t have slipped out of town.
As Joseph Heller wrote in his famous 1961 novel, Catch-22, about the absurdity of war and military life, “The case against Clevinger was open and shut. The only thing missing was something to charge him with.” Lindsey Graham thinks Biden should be impeached over his handling of Afghanistan but offers no specifics. Nor can anyone, except armchair pundits and military types, who’ve been largely discredited for their overly optimistic assessments over the past two decades.
The logistical challenge of withdrawing from Afghanistan is as daunting as the country’s physical terrain. It’s not northern Ohio. (The elevation of Kabul is 5,876’ vs. Cleveland at 653’—guess where it’s easier for a fully loaded C-17 to take off.) It’s on the other side of Iran from our closest military bases, which, in turn, are on the other side of the world from home base. Evacuation of the remaining 2,500 American troops was one thing, but to remove all American nationals (11,000), to say nothing of other Westerners, was quite another. And then there are the Afghans—about 80,000—who’d tied their wagons to American stars. (As of this writing, about 37,000 people have been evacuated, with seven days left until the Taliban’s “red line” deadline.)
To get so many people out requires sending more troops in. More troops in necessitates more ground support—a tall order, when both your tactical and strategic objectives are to get the hell out of Dodge. Moreover, the added support and concentration of evacuees increases the danger of terrorist attacks by . . . ISIS, enemies of . . . the Taliban . . . who are the ones forcing the panic-ridden evacuation.
As Mr. Stately acknowledged in his exchange with Mr. Snarly, our “nation-building” mission in Afghanistan ended in failure many years ago. Given that Afghanistan isn’t a traditional nation-state and further, that the Taliban “leadership” doesn’t have complete control over maniacs on the ground, it’s naive to think we could’ve negotiated “terms of orderly withdrawal” as one could arrange for United Van Lines to remove apartment furniture five days before the end of a lease.
Through the lens of short-memory, domestic politics, however, Biden’s catch-22 will quickly fade after America’s “23-skidoo.”
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© 2021 by Eric Nilsson
