This morning I posted about a soldier from my town who was killed in Afghanistan. I did not know him, though in my few years living here in small-town Georgia, I have met more soldier boys than in the decades I lived in NYC.
The post included only the facts and only three people commented. But those three comments spanned the gamut of opinion, from honoring the dead to criticizing the president, to criticizing our presence there.
I don’t know what I think we should do in Afghanistan. I wouldn’t want to be in the president’s shoes. I am inclined to think we should stay. Try to make right out of what we’ve begun. Start anew. But I continue to read, and listen to, arguments from all perspectives.
One I heard today is from journalist Mark Danner, author of Stripping Bare the Body, an exploration of the politics and violence he’s seen in three decades of reporting from conflict and war zones. He was a guest on Bill Moyers Journal.
MARK DANNER: I think it’s important to say this. One [of] the goals of 9/11 itself, of that attack, was to draw the United States into Afghanistan to fight a counterinsurgency as the Soviets had done before them. And like the Soviets, to destroy the remaining superpower. That was actually what they were thinking.
It’s one of the reasons why a major northern alliance leader was assassinated, was blown up a couple of days before 9/11. The anticipation was this would draw the United States in, and the United States would be defeated on Afghan soil.
The fascinating thing is that the Pentagon, of course, at the time in 2001 avoided this. They didn’t want a major ground involvement. They used air bombardment and Afghan allies on the ground. They’ve been much criticized for this. But, in fact, they were trying to avoid what is exactly happening right now, which is a major land involvement, which will become, in David Halberstam’s famous words, a quagmire.
BILL MOYERS: Well, you say our boys, our soldiers there are bait.
MARK DANNER: They are indeed. I mean, it’s fascinating when you look at what the procedures are. You have at the moment anyway a lot of quite small bases. You know, where you have 20, 40 soldiers. And they go out each day on patrol. It’s very difficult territory. Very often, these bases are at the bottom of valleys.
They go out on patrol, essentially trying to elicit or encourage what soldiers call contact, engagement. That is, people shooting at them. It’s the only way they can find the Taliban. So, they use themselves as bait. And then, hope to be able to respond. And they have an enemy who, you know, it’s their territory. They can blend into the population.
BILL MOYERS: Taliban.
MARK DANNER: Yes. And they’re extremely experienced. It’s a thankless, thankless job, I think for the soldiers.