波爾曼 阿富汗的事注定以這種方式結束

波爾曼：阿富汗的事情總是會以這種方式結束

https://www.pressherald.com/2021/08/17/polman-it-was-always-going-to-end-this-way-in-afghanistan/

作者：迪克·波爾曼 2021 年 8 月 17 日

任何聲稱對塔利班在阿富汗的勝利感到震驚的人都沒有注意到。

這總是必然發生的。 它之所以被推遲，隻是因為山姆大叔把他那萬億美元的手指放在堤壩上20年了。 我們是否注定要永遠留在這片對英國人、俄國人和亞曆山大大帝來說已經極其不適宜居住的土地上？

失敗的預兆早已顯而易見，但大多數因戰爭而麻木的美國人早已不再關注。 2019年，有消息稱，負責支持阿富汗政權的美國官員對自己的門徒感到厭惡，他們在備忘錄和私人采訪中表示，“經過華盛頓近二十年的幫助，阿富汗軍隊和警察仍然太弱，無法抵禦”。 擺脫塔利班。”

他們之所以軟弱，很大程度上是因為他們腐敗嚴重。 用前美國大使瑞安·克羅克(Ryan Crocker)私下的話來說，“他們作為一支安全部隊毫無用處，因為他們的腐敗程度連巡邏隊的級別都不如。” 然而，正如另一位美國官員 2015 年向政府采訪者承認的那樣，“他們表現得越少，我們向他們投入的錢就越多。”

不管公平與否，拜登總統都會承認撤退的恥辱形象——但事實上，阿富汗的災難是美國兩黨總統一手造成的。 我們現在看到的是兩黨的混亂。

它是由喬治·W·布什發起的，他讓我們承擔了國家建設這一不可能完成的任務。 （在他 2005 年的就職演說中：“美國的政策是尋求和支持每個國家和文化中民主運動和民主製度的發展，”盡管他承認，“我們的國家已經承擔了難以履行的義務”。 實現。”）

它得到了巴拉克·奧巴馬的支持，他在 2009 年批準了增兵，其軍事發言人不斷表示隧道盡頭出現了曙光（詹姆斯·馬蒂斯將軍 2010 年向國會表示：“我們現在正走在正確的軌道上。” ）。

它落在了唐納德·特朗普的寬闊腿上，他決定是時候離開了，他在 2019 年邀請塔利班來到戴維營（“我們與塔利班相處得非常非常好”），並設定了 5 月的目標。 美軍撤軍截止日期為 2021 年 1 月 1 日。

盡管如此，共和黨人不出所料地攻擊了拜登，他們很容易忘記了反戰情緒在他們自己的隊伍中長期以來一直很猖獗。 2012 年共和黨總統候選人米特·羅姆尼 (Mitt Romney) 在 2011 年談到阿富汗時表示：“我們已經了解到，我們的軍隊不應該試圖為另一個國家打獨立戰爭。”

就在去年四月，特朗普還支持拜登宣布的撤軍意向：“撤出阿富汗是一件美妙而積極的事情。 我計劃在 5 月 1 日退出，我們應該盡可能遵守這個時間表。”

曆史學家、資深保守派評論員丹尼爾·拉裏森（Daniel Larison）寫道：“拜登明白，他的選擇是要麽退出，要麽陷入看不到盡頭的困境，他正確地判斷，前者對美國更好。” “阿富汗政府如此迅速地失去如此多的陣地這一事實證明，美國未能建立一個能夠自力更生的運轉良好的國家……這遠非表明拜登決定的愚蠢，而是證實了其決定的智慧。 像這個國家這樣搖搖欲墜、無法保護自己的國家，再推遲幾個月甚至幾年的撤軍是無法挽救的。”

正如拜登周六所說，“如果阿富汗軍隊不能或不願保住自己的國家，美國的軍事存在再多一年或五年也不會產生什麽影響。 美國無休止地卷入另一個國家的內戰對我來說是無法接受的。”

這種觀點也符合大多數美國人的情緒。 短期內，他可能會受到打擊，因為投降的形象在全球範圍內引起共鳴——盡管這類似於指責傑拉爾德·福特總統導致我們 1975 年最終從越南混亂的撤離——但事實仍然是，目前的撤軍得到了 70% 的支持 的美國人，其中包括 56% 的共和黨人。

大多數美國人似乎都明白——即使他們大多不關注戰爭——離開阿富汗基本上是最不壞的選擇。 僅僅為了繼續滿足精神錯亂的定義，即為了期望不同的結果而被迫一遍又一遍地做同樣的事情，投資更多萬億美元和更多的美國機構是沒有意義的。 麵對現實需要智慧和政治勇氣。

迪克·波爾曼 (Dick Polman) 是一位駐費城的資深國家政治專欄作家，也是賓夕法尼亞大學的駐校作家，在 DickPolman.net 上撰稿。 給他發電子郵件：[e-mail]

Polman: It was always going to end this way in Afghanistan
https://www.pressherald.com/2021/08/17/polman-it-was-always-going-to-end-this-way-in-afghanistan/
BY DICK POLMAN August 17, 2021

Anyone who professes to be shocked by the Taliban victory in Afghanistan has not been paying attention.

It was always bound to happen. It was merely delayed because Uncle Sam kept his trillion-dollar finger in the dike for 20 years. Were we fated to remain forever, in a land that had already proved fatally inhospitable to the British and the Russians and Alexander the Great?

The harbingers of failure had long been obvious, but most Americans, benumbed by the war, had long ago stopped paying attention. In 2019, word leaked that the U.S. officials entrusted with propping up the Afghan regime were disgusted with their proteges, saying in memos and private interviews that “after almost two decades of help from Washington, the Afghan army and police are still too weak to fend off the Taliban.”

They were weak largely because they were deeply corrupt. In the private words of Ryan Crocker, a former U.S. ambassador, “they’re useless as a security force because they are corrupt down to the patrol level.” Nevertheless, as another U.S. official admitted to government interviewers in 2015, “The less they behaved, the more money we threw at them.”

Fairly or not, President Biden will own the humiliating images of retreat – but, in reality, the Afghanistan debacle was authored by American presidents from both political parties. What we’re seeing now is a bipartisan clustermuck.

It was launched by George W. Bush, who committed us to the impossible task of nation-building. (From his 2005 Inaugural address: “It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture,” even though, he admitted, “our country has accepted obligations that are difficult to fulfill.”)

It was sustained by Barack Obama, who approved a troop surge in 2009 and whose military spokesmen kept saying there was light at the end of the tunnel (Gen. James Mattis to Congress in 2010: “We’re on the right track now.”).

It landed in the capacious lap of Donald Trump, who decided it was time to get out, who invited the Taliban to Camp David in 2019 (“We’re getting along very, very well with the Taliban”), and who set a May 1, 2021 withdrawal deadline for U.S. forces.

Nevertheless, Republicans are predictably hammering Biden, conveniently forgetting that antiwar sentiment has long been rampant in their own ranks. Mitt Romney, the Republican’s presidential nominee in 2012, said of Afghanistan in 2011: “We’ve learned that our troops shouldn’t go off and try and fight a war of independence for another nation.”

As recently as last April, Trump endorsed Biden’s announced intention to withdraw the troops: “Getting out of Afghanistan is a wonderful and positive thing to do. I planned to withdraw on May 1, and we should keep as close to that schedule as possible.”

“Biden understood that the choice was between getting out or being stuck there with no end in sight, and he rightly judged that the former was better for the United States,” wrote historian and veteran conservative commentator Daniel Larison. “The fact that the Afghan government has lost so much ground so quickly proves that the U.S. failed in building a functioning state that could fend for itself… Far from showing the folly of Biden’s decision, it confirms the wisdom of it. A state as rickety and incapable of protecting itself as this one would not have been saved by delaying withdrawal a few more months or even years.”

As Biden said on Saturday, “One more year or five more years of U.S. military presence would not have made a difference if the Afghan military cannot or will not hold its own country. And an endless American presence in the middle of another country’s civil conflict was not acceptable to me.”

That view also jibes with the sentiments of the most Americans. He’ll likely take a hit in the short run as the images of surrender resonate globally – although that’s akin to blaming President Gerald Ford for our chaotic final departure from Vietnam in 1975 – but the fact remains that the current withdrawal is supported by 70 percent of Americans, including 56 percent of Republicans.

What most Americans appear to understand – even while mostly tuning out the war – is that leaving Afghanistan is basically the least bad option. There’s no point in investing a few more trillion dollars and more American bodies just to keep meeting the definition of insanity, the compulsion to do the same thing over and over again in expectation of a different result. It takes wisdom and political courage to face reality.

Dick Polman, a veteran national political columnist based in Philadelphia and a Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania, writes at DickPolman.net. Email him at [e-mail]