Afghanistan
How did this happen?
As one who has served in Afghanistan, I am perplexed on my thoughts on the latest move to withdraw American forces from Afghanistan. I served in Afghanistan in 2012 as a Battalion Command Sergeant Major. Our mission for the Battalion was unique. We were there to close bases down and send equipment back to the States. The Battalion would not count against the force cap numbers established by Congress, instead we were exempt and fell under the CMRE, Centcom Material Recovery Element.
My first analysis of this decision for leaving Afghanistan is, we were starting to turn equipment in 2012 to return to the US. Why did it take until 2021 to get it done? I am shaking my head on this one. I know we pushed, in the 9 short months I was there, over 9,000 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent containers back to the States and into the Army supply system. We also closed numerous or turned over to the local government COBs, FOBs, COPs, firebases, and any other name you could give an outpost during our stay there. During my nine months that was over 280 of them. So why did this take until 2021????
To start out we must know why we went to Afghanistan. We went there to take out the guy that was the mastermind behind the World Trade Center attacks, Osama Bin Laden. Within three months of the WTC attack, the US and Coalition Forces toppled the Taliban and al-Qaeda forces. Then it would take almost another ten years to take out Osama Bin Laden. Some later generations will probably poise the question did we win in Afghanistan? For me, the answer is a definite yes. We immediately overturned the government that backed Osama Bin Laden. We took Osama Bin Laden out. If you compare casualty numbers, they differ depending on where you get them from. I would say a country that has over 237,000 casualties compared to 2354 from the US, the US won. Although there will be people who sit in cozy air-conditioned offices that will try to diminish that fact and lecture us on what is victory now, but to me that fact is obvious, by any conceivable metric we won. Did we stay there too long? The answer is probably yes. That is dependent on what we wanted the outcome to be.
Now I will say, leadership in our nation got comfortable with troops being over there and not really worrying about too much except what is the maximum number of troops on the ground. Because you know, the press gravitated to that. We saw in Germany, Legislators did not have a district there so the troops were more or less out of site and out of mind. At times this seemed similar in Afghanistan. Do not get me wrong, I do not believe any leader, Congressional or Military, had ill thoughts or wanted nothing but the best from our troops or the outcome. I do believe we got complacent and after the take down of bin Laden, we kind of lost what the end state was. No one could really define that. It almost seemed like, maybe if we train the Afghanistan military then maybe the enemy will fade away. Maybe I am wrong here, but these are my feelings on this.
For me I think we should have pursued one of two courses of actions in Afghanistan. One I refer to what has America influenced in a good way in the world and that is countries like, Germany, South Korea, and Japan. What do they all have in common? Each country we fought in and won but the major factor is for over 68 years we still have troops in each country. That was the commitment needed to ensure they were a success. I do not think America would jump for that commitment in the Middle East, but hey that is just me. So that leaves the second course of action, which is once we killed Osama bin Laden we should have left. Mission was accomplished but the problem was we did not know how to leave.
What would have happened if we left in 2011 or 2012 after the death of bin Laden. Let us see here. We lost 2,354 troops up to August of 2020. If we would have came back at the end of 2011, we would have not had 574 American troop deaths. This I hold dear because my family has lost personal friends in Afghanistan well after 2011. This destroying families and leaving a void that can never be replaced. We would have saved billions of dollars. Our posture in the world would not have diminished and we could have walked out on our terms. Here it really seems like we are leaving because we do not know what to do.
I am glad we are out of there, although I do have mixed emotions about it. Finally, the military does not have to worry about Legislators more worried about force cap numbers than accomplishing the mission. More importantly our Soldiers are not in harms way for a mission that is not really defined.
This is my Friday’s Thought to Ponder for the Weekend
The Vet
Originally published at https://shop.thecoachandthevet.com on July 22, 2021.
