In my July essay in this space, I suggested we’d soon see reenactment of helicopters-on-the-roof rescues from the Kabul American Embassy. What stands out now is the swift evaporation of the army of 300,000 and partner government we created and the cost to construct that abandoned U.S. embassy — $800 million.
Don’t blame Joe Biden. He’s opposed Afghan occupation all his political life. And retreats are always messy. Don’t blame Donald Trump. One of the few proper things he did was to initiate withdrawal. Blame George H. Bush and Dick Cheney, who thought the best way to arrest the person who claimed responsibility for destroying the World Trade Center was to invade and occupy the country he was in.
What sort of foreign policy is this? Had Osama bin Laden holed up in Paris, would they have invaded France? Did they not know the British Army was defeated by Afghans in 1842, or forget in 1979 Russians floundered in their own 10-year “Vietnam” there. What was the U.S. intent?
The truth is that Bush and Cheney had an agenda. Just as in 2005, Hurricane Katrina’s flooding of 80% of New Orleans allowed these Republicans to promote private, more segregated schools, 9/11 provided them opportunity to seek control of the Middle East, its desirable resources, and to demonstrate U.S. military might. Blatant lies about the dangers Iraq posed allowed exploitation of our vast weaponry simultaneously in two countries.
Hubris, arrogance, deceit, hidden agenda — any number of terms apply. Carefully considered foreign policy does not.
While in recent decades it has been Republicans expressing imperial power, engaging in dominance and attempts at control of other peoples and so-called nation building, the Democratic Party leaders did so years earlier. Harry Truman supported the French effort to restore their colonial empire in Southeast Asia and the resultant Vietnam War belonged totally to Lyndon Johnson. Bill Clinton mercilessly bombed Iraq.
What has been learned from the squander of trillions of dollars, the 15,000 lost U.S. service and contractor lives, the many more — missing arms and legs — we encounter each day, and the millions of civilian dead and maimed? We need to begin putting such plotters on trial.
The lesson of Afghanistan is the same, unlearned lesson of Vietnam and of Iraq: weapons makers and military services providers lobby for weapon sales and profit enormously. Everyone else loses.
Assuming the presidency in 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first act was diplomatically recognizing the Soviet Union. Twelve years of three Republican presidents treating that nominally socialist country as a pariah had not made it disappear.
Roosevelt’s singular action led directly to an alliance which allowed defeat of the fascist powers that had conquered most of Europe. While we played our part, the truth is, it was the Soviet army that, at immense cost, repelled and then defeated Germany in World War II.
Roosevelt was well aware he was partnering with a ruthless dictator. He regarded Winston Churchill as a colonialist and a racist and found Joseph Stalin more honest company.
Inept and unprepared for such responsibility, Harry Truman chose an arrogant, belligerent stance against the Russians, betrayed Roosevelt’s pledge to help the Soviet Union recover from the total devastation of the war, and generated the Cold War. He supported French efforts to reclaim colonies lost to the Japanese in Southeast Asia. This U.S. involvement continued with the Vietnam War.
It is important to understand this Roosevelt to Truman difference in approach in foreign affairs. It has played out dramatically in our relationships in Russia, Iran, Cuba and Israel.
With Russia, mutual threat created an arms race, the lengthened shadow of which was, on either side, the rise and election of “protectors” — more belligerent persons, like Vladimir Putin.
In the 1948 establishment of Israel, Palestinians were violently driven out of their homes. Israel’s 1967 defeat of all surrounding Arab foes in just six days alerted U.S. militants that here was a likely ally to assist U.S. objectives in the Middle East. The U.S. began gifting Israel billions of dollars each year. Osama bin Laden labeled these matters his reason for plotting 9/11.
Iranian hostility to the U.S. is rooted in the 1953 CIA overthrow of its government and protection of the brutal king the intruders installed.
Fidel Castro’s ending of dictatorship in Cuba brought a crippling 60-year embargo. Barack Obama sought normalization of relations with Cuba. Trump increased the embargo, leading to their current domestic stress.
Embracing countries and helping them solve problems would be more productive foreign policy.
Charlemont resident Carl Doerner is an author and historian currently at work on a re-examination of and challenge to the “American narrative.”