Men clinging vainly to troop carrier planes till the winds of ascent drop them to their deaths. Panicked calls from former translators and embassy workers warning of their imminent execution. Women’s advertisements painted over to prepare the streets for the coming fundamentalist government.
These images, and many worse to come, beam into our homes from Afghanistan. And it’s difficult for us (or at least for me) to feel anything but resigned despair. This always seemed like the endgame for Afghanistan- death, failure and futility.
But it didn’t have to be this way. And it says something about our political culture that this end seemed inevitable.
Imagine this alternate reality- President Biden, fresh from his election as President, begins the process of withdrawal from Afghanistan. But, instead of echoing platitudes about Afghan forces standing up to the Taliban, he levels with us.
It’s possible, says Biden, that the Afghan government will prevail- but it’s also possible that soon after we leave the Taliban will retake the country.
Biden acknowledges that this Taliban takeover could set the stage for mass oppression against women, the deaths of American allies and the spiritual defeat of Afghans who yearned to make their country a liberal democracy. That, says our President, can be fixed.
He turns to Congress and proposes a new program for refugees from Afghanistan- an expedited visa process whereby, by the time American troops leave, each and every Afghan who worked with us, who wants freedom from religious oppression and who yearns to live in a free society can settle in America.
The usual xenophobic voices decry the move, but the American people, and their representatives, meet the President’s challenge and give his initiative broad support. Refugees are quickly processed and flown in. Just like the South Vietnamese before them, an influx of grateful Afghans begin to naturalize on American soil and become patriotic and active citizens. The Taliban takes over, but they find their best, brightest and most free-thinking citizens have left for another nation.
Or, imagine this possibility of how the next weeks could play out in Afghanistan. Shocked by images of desperate Afghans, filled with anger from reports of women forced into burkas and American translators murdered, Biden and his generals decide it is not too late.
They order an intervention- thousands of troops secure the airport in Kabul, thousands more fly in and begin to take territory nearby.
Amidst this buildup, the aim of this American intervention is announced: the Taliban will have this country, but it will not have its people. Until the Taliban allows free passage of anyone wanting to flee to the United States to the airport, aggressive American military action will continue. If need be, the U.S. will send troops to take territory outside of Kabul to facilitate the airlift of trapped civilians.
Thousands flock to the airport. Maybe the Taliban orders an assault on its fleeing populace, maybe they engage American troops directly, maybe, sporadically, but soon in greater amounts, they look the other way.
Some American troops die in battle, holding airstrips so that desperate innocent Afghans can flee to safety. But, the losses seem worth the gains- our troops died so many more could be saved.
“LOL, this is fucking stupid?.Come on. The people who elected Donald Trump would rather set an American flag on fire than let a single Afghan refugee in.”
“Typical of a colonialist power to play out the white man’s burden and “Save” these poor Afghan women by granting them entrance to a country where women are second class citizens”
“ROFL at the idea that America can stage a successful intervention without massacring TONS of the innocents we were meant to save.”
“What a dumb, hokey American exceptionalism argument- Neocon 2.0 stuff- soon they’ll be asking us to invade Pakistan to ‘Save’ their people too”
When I typed the last two sections of the article these were the voices I felt echo in my head. If this piece of writing got any traction at all I could image the tweets spilling out- the ratio growing- a collective gag at my naivete.
Maybe that’s part of the problem? We simply cannot imagine ourselves in a heroic posture. We are cautioned by the Iraq war that humanitarian intervention is simply futile nation-building with massacres on the side. Our revulsion at elite American culture colors any collective call to action as manipulation. Images of children in cages makes the idea of an outstretched arm to the huddled masses seem like a fairy tale.
And, maybe, these scenarios I laid out are truly impossible. Maybe they have logistical obstacles, maybe they ignore obvious facts on the ground, maybe they overestimate American military might and government competence.
But these scenarios seem more than impossible- they seem inconceivable. It is simply too difficult to imagine a truly righteous use of American power without cringing. And maybe that is part of the problem too.