The September 11th attacks eleven years ago today produced a swift response by the United States.
Under the leadership of President Bush and with the overwhelming support of Congress, the U.S. began major combat operations (Operation Enduring Freedom) in Afghanistan less than one month after the attacks. The goal was to destroy Al Qaeda forces and remove from power the Taliban, which had provided safe haven for Al Qaeda.
Within two months, the Taliban had fallen, but that’s when the real challenge began.
President Bush believed that the United States, operating in conjunction with international forces, could bring stability to the country, avoiding the chaos that followed the Soviet withdrawal in 1989. President Obama has altered the approach somewhat, but many of the goals have remained the same.
But as we have found out, nation building is dangerous, expensive and perhaps impossible.
Last month, Army Specialist James A. Justice became the 2,000th American service member to die as a result of the fighting in Afghanistan. The sad milestone hardly made news, except for a thorough and provocative look at the 11-year-old war by the New York Times.
Max Boot, a military historian and defense analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations, told the Associated Press that the war in Afghanistan seems to exist in a vacuum, except for the service personnel and their families. “It is almost as if the war isn’t happening at all,” he wrote.
According to the Congressional Research Service, through fiscal year 2012, the United States will have spent about $550 billion on fighting the enemy, training and equipping Afghan security forces and direct foreign aid. A partnership agreement between the U.S. and Afghanistan signed last May guarantees that our country will continue to provide an unspecified amount of aid until at least 2024.
We still have more than 60,000 troops in Afghanistan, down from a peak of 99,000 in June, 2011. The U.S. and its NATO partners are supposed have all fighting forces out by some time in 2014, transferring responsibility for securing the country to over 300,000 members of the Afghan military.
It’s unclear, however, whether the Afghans are up to the challenge or whether the timetable for withdrawal has simply emboldened Taliban forces to wait for the opportunity to seize power again.
Despite the long fight and billions spent, Afghanistan remains a highly factionalized country, split by tribal loyalties with no particular allegiance to the central government. Additionally, the government of President Hamid Karzai is rife with corruption. In 2010, the Kabul Bank nearly went under after making $1 billion in bad loans that were linked to Karzai’s family members and cronies.
The fight against drug production in Afghanistan remains a losing battle. The Huffington Post reported last month that opium poppy production, the number one cash crop in Afghanistan, has actually doubled since the fighting began in 2001. War lords finance their operations through poppy sales and collect protection money from peasants who grow poppies.
It’s possible that the United States and its allies are relearning the tough lesson of history: Afghanistan is simply ungovernable.
America owes a permanent debt of gratitude to the men and women who have served, and continue to serve, in Afghanistan. Many of the soldiers in the line of fire were just nine or ten when the twin towers and Pentagon were attacked. 9/11 might be just a vague memory to them.
On this anniversary the country will pause to remember the sacrifice as well as the risks ahead, but it’s likely our attention will quickly return to the economy. Amazingly, we don’t seem to be willing to debate the ongoing struggle in Afghanistan and the best policy going forward, despite the significant cost in blood and treasure we continue to pay.