21 August 2021
Ending the Afghanistan War
Without apologizing for the disorganized way in which the U.S. has managed its exit from its military intervention in Afghanistan, you must admit that its original objectives there have long been achieved. Let us hope the Taliban has learned it can’t shelter a terrorist camp without reopening the War.
The U.S. has been paying the price for prolonging the Afghan War much beyond what was necessary to protect Americans from catastrophes like 9/11. The Karzai government that it installed in the early 2000s probably would also have fallen quickly if American troops (and those of its NATO allies) had been withdrawn in a timely manner after the assassination of Osama bin Laden in 2011. But U.S. opinion leaders, on both the right and left including the Obama Administration, were convinced that the democratic principles that Western Civilization holds are universal. They aren’t.
It took millennia for nations in the north Atlantic to adopt those principles Centuries of colonialism and atomic bombs instilled those ideas in the cultures of other parts of the world. Americans and citizens of other Western countries no longer have the patience or pocketbooks to conduct such an interminable crusade. In fact, they have found that they are able to live next to people who hold different values. They now have the means to prevent those others from encroaching on their style of life.
Afghanistan has taught the same lesson to foreign invaders for millennia—Mongols, Persians, British, Russians, Americans, to name a few. Some residents of the territory have been seduced by Western values brought to them by modern communications technology. Perhaps that channel will ultimately convert a dominant majority. In the meantime, although war has proven itself to be able to change regimes, it is unable to change a culture.
