{"id":29572,"date":"2017-08-22T06:04:17","date_gmt":"2017-08-22T14:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=29572"},"modified":"2017-08-22T06:04:17","modified_gmt":"2017-08-22T14:04:17","slug":"william-astore-on-trumps-afghan-war-speech-more-of-the-same-with-more-killing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2017\/08\/22\/william-astore-on-trumps-afghan-war-speech-more-of-the-same-with-more-killing\/","title":{"rendered":"William Astore on Trump’s Afghan War Speech: More of the Same, With More Killing"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a private citizen and presidential candidate, Donald Trump railed against the Afghan war. A waste, he said. Americans should withdraw<\/a>, he said. But in last night\u2019s speech<\/a>, Trump went against his own instincts (so he said) and went with the failed policies of his predecessors. The war will continue, no timetable set, no troop levels determined, with conditions on the ground dictating America\u2019s actions, according to the president.<\/p>\n

What caught my attention, beyond the usual paeans of praise to America\u2019s \u201cwarriors\u201d and \u201cwarfighters,\u201d was the specious reasoning to justify the continuation of the war. Trump gave three reasons, so let\u2019s take them one at a time:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \u201cFirst, our nation must seek an honorable and enduring outcome worthy of the tremendous sacrifices that have been made, especially the sacrifices of lives \u2026\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    It\u2019s piss-poor reasoning to argue that, because a lot of people have sacrificed and died in a war, the war should continue (with more people dying) to justify those previous sacrifices. By this logic, the more who die, the more we should keep fighting, meaning more dead, meaning more fighting, and so on. Where is the honor and \u201cworthy\u201d outcome here?<\/p>\n

    <\/p>\n

      \n
    1. \u201cSecond, the consequences of a rapid exit are both predictable and unacceptable. 9\/11, the worst terrorist attack in our history, was planned and directed from Afghanistan because that country was ruled by a government that gave comfort and shelter to terrorists. A hasty withdrawal would create a vacuum that terrorists, including ISIS and al Qaeda, would instantly fill, just as happened before September 11th.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Actually, the consequences of an American withdrawal are both unpredictable and (most probably) acceptable. Sure, terrorist organizations may gain impetus from an American withdrawal. It\u2019s also possible that a notoriously corrupt Afghan government might finally negotiate with the Taliban and other organizations, and that regional power brokers like Pakistan and Iran, who have their own interests in regional stability, might broker a settlement that Americans could live with.<\/p>\n

      Trump further argued that a rapid U.S. withdrawal from Iraq in 2011 led to \u201chard-won gains slip[ping] back into the hands of terrorist enemies. Our soldiers watched as cities they had fought for, and bled to liberate, and won, were occupied by a terrorist group called ISIS.\u201d The truth is far more complex. The prolonged US occupation of Iraq helped to create ISIS in the first place, and failed American efforts<\/a> to create and train reliable Iraqi security forces contributed to easy ISIS victories after US forces left in 2011.<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. \u201cThird and finally, I concluded that the security threats we face in Afghanistan and the broader region are immense. Today, 20 U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations are active in Afghanistan and Pakistan — the highest concentration in any region anywhere in the world.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Isn\u2019t it remarkable that, after sixteen years of sustained effort by the US military, the Af-Pak region is now home to 20+ terrorist organizations? The \u201chighest concentration\u201d in the world? Is this not an admission of the utter failure<\/a> of US policy and actions since 2001? How is this failure to be rectified by yet more US attacks?<\/p>\n

        Trump said the new American goal is to kill terrorists. This is not a strategy. It\u2019s a perpetual and deadly game of Whac-A-Mole. That\u2019s what Trump\u2019s vaunted new strategy boils down to, despite the talk of economic pressure and working with Pakistan and India and other regional powers.<\/p>\n

        On Afghanistan, Trump should have listened to his instincts<\/a> and withdrawn. Instead, he listened to \u201chis\u201d generals<\/a>. With Trump, the generals won this round. What they can\u2019t win, however, is the war.<\/p>\n

        William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF). He taught history for fifteen years at military and civilian schools and blogs at Bracing Views<\/a>. He can be reached at wastore@pct.edu<\/a>. Reprinted from Bracing Views<\/a> with the author’s permission.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        As a private citizen and presidential candidate, Donald Trump railed against the Afghan war. A waste, he said. Americans should withdraw, he said. But in last night\u2019s speech, Trump went against his own instincts (so he said) and went with the failed policies of his predecessors. The war will continue, no timetable set, no troop […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-29572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29572"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29574,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29572\/revisions\/29574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29572"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=29572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}