DEC 13, 2019
So now we know that which many
of us long surmised. The generals
lied, repeatedly; in fact, the whole damn Afghan War was a
lie. I wish I could take some pleasure in the vindication, but I can’t seem
conjure any. Too many of my own boys died in, or took their own lives after,
that ongoing nightmare of a war. Deep melancholy seems, for an Afghan veteran,
the only appropriate response. No amount of “I-told-you-so’s” will bring
back the 2,440 American
soldiers, and more than 30,000 Afghan
civilians who’ve perished (so far), in that aimless, endless conflict.
What, then, can one learn from
The Washington Post’s recent release of the Afghanistan
Papers? Perhaps this: Forever war is a bipartisan enterprise (the lies
spanned three administrations) and more importantly, the time has come to stop
trusting the generals—although I’m not sure we Americans ever will. The latest
revelations most certainly count as the (remarkably similar) Vietnam-era, Pentagon
Papers of my generation.
In 1971, there was a large,
active antiwar movement in the streets, and Daniel Ellsberg’s leaked documents
enflamed it. Today, in the absence of a broad military
draft, and with President Trump’s impeachment-as-entertainment hearings
dominating the media, I doubt the Afghanistan Papers will amount to much in the
way of results.
If, as an activist-writer, I
felt a touch vindicated, and as a career soldier, I felt sad, then as a
historian, I can’t say I was surprised by the Post’s disclosure. Back in
the Vietnam
War, successive commanding generals—most famously William Westmoreland just
before the massive enemy Tet Offensive—had assured the White House and the
American public that there was “light at the end” of the conflict’s “tunnel.”
Similarly, throughout the
Afghan War, and across all the countless theaters of America’s expansive
post-9/11 theaters, literally dozens of generals provided optimistic
predictions that the U.S. military had “turned the corner.” For almost
two decades, Washington insiders and an entertained-to-death public took the
resplendently dressed, strong-jawed flag officers at their word. The
Afghanistan Papers should, but probably won’t, break the spell.
In the wake of the
revelations, the most famous Afghan War commander, former four-star general and
CIA Director David Petraeus, couldn’t help but take the bait and
self-righteously defend himself within a day. His defense made me want to vomit
in my mouth a bit. “I stand by the assessments I provided as the commander in
Afghanistan,” Petraeus said in a
statement emailed to The Daily Beast. He said he believes “the
security gains, while very hard fought and fragile, were indisputable. We
clearly reversed the momentum the Taliban had on the battlefield.”
Is he serious?
The self-styled intellectual,
“enlightened” general sounds, in this mea culpa, like a defensive,
impetuous child. Just as “King
David” never divined that his own stated purpose in the Iraq surge—to
create space and time for an ethno-sectarian political settlement—hadn’t come
to pass, he can’t seem to admit that a temporary lull in Taliban violence was
irrelevant. Sorry, general, but if Afghanistan is worse
off today than it was when you left, well then, your pet
counterinsurgency strategy—by its very
definition—failed. You lost … deal with it. The whole damn military, myself
included, lost.
Sure, maybe I do have
a vendetta, of sorts, against Petraeus. Why shouldn’t I? I met the prima donna
general back in mid-2007 in Iraq. In preparation for his visit, my squadron set
up for hours, repeatedly practiced our stock briefings, so he could proceed to
pay no attention to us as he devoured the snacks we’d prepared—“the general
loves fresh fruit,” one of his aides had told me—then treat us to one of his
anodyne, canned lectures on counterinsurgency theory.
On a grander scale, Petraeus
must stand as the biggest, most unapologetic villain of all. No one better
personifies the gilded military culture of the “terror wars.” Under his
carefully self-promoted veneer lay defeat in the two wars he led, his wrong-on-all-counts Vietnam
War Ph.D., and a profound moral
scandal—a criminal conviction for sharing classified data with his young
mistress-come-biographer. Symbolically, at least, Petraeus is the
forever war.
Nonetheless, he’s not the only
vacuous general or senior intelligence official to blow smoke up our proverbial
you-know-what’s. Consider recently retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen.
Joseph Dunford. It wasn’t too long ago that this clown—in an impressively Orwellian
stretch of the English language—claimed it
was “premature” (after 18 years!) to discuss withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Let that sink in. The hard truth is, all of us officers in that war
were complicit—up and down the chain of command—by deceiving each other about
the “progress” on the ground.
To please the bosses, keep
them away from my outpost and protect my troopers, I, too, played
the game.
Promotions, especially for
general officer careers built on the terror wars, depended on the
illusion of success. Senior colonels and budding flag officers had a status,
and a pecuniary interest in reporting improvement in their sectors. The
Afghanistan Papers prove, indisputably, that the generals lied to us. But it’s
far more complicated (and unsettling) than all that. I truly believe they also
lied to each other, to themselves. They had to believe, wanted to
believe, needed to believe, that their wars could be won. A good
number graduated from West Point, where we were forced to memorize General
Douglas MacArthur’s famous mantra: “There is no substitute for victory.”
Seen in that light, the entire
war was, for those who led it, one grand delusion. Thus, when the statistical
measures of effectiveness—unsustainable Afghan Army casualties and the
number of districts contested by the Taliban—proved inconvenient, the generals
had them classified, or they simply quit counting. Perhaps that’s why it took
The Washington Post so long to
compile these documents; to force the U.S. government to release them.
Yet there’s something else at
work here that society must grapple with: Why are Americans so apt to
trust the generals when, throughout modern U.S.
history, they’ve been wrong time and again? I, for one, blame the
contemporary (post-Vietnam) penchant for—rather dangerous—public military
adulation.
Take, for example, the charade
that is generals’ testimony before Congress. Whether it’s Petraeus—who absolutely
reveled in the spotlight—or another senior general, the military man shows up
in an intimidating dress uniform replete with a “fruit salad” chest-full of
superfluous medals. Frankly, they look sharper than the poor schlub legislators
attired like country lawyers. Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, when those
congresspeople veritably kowtow before the generals–fawningly “thanking” them
for their service both before and after they are questioned.
It is not supposed to be
that way. Congresspeople are the bosses. The generals are supposed to answer
to them, and by extension, to the People. Legislative oversight, hearings
and questioning, are by design meant to be like legal trials, confrontational.
So, assuming it’s the fancy uniforms intimidating the congresspeople, I’ve got
a ready proposal: Until further notice, generals summoned to Capitol Hill must
wear rumpled, ill-fitting, Bernie-style civilian suits. Let them win a few wars
and speak some hard truths before they earn their snazzy attire back.
By the way, there’s precedent
for this. In a far more modest era, Army Chief of Staff Gen. George
Marshall—architect of victory in World War II—wore
civilian clothes at government meetings in Washington, D.C.,
declaring: “I didn’t want to antagonize the public and the Congress with the
easily aroused feelings toward the military that always existed.” Let us bring
back a tad bit of that humility.
I, for one, doubt that I’ll
ever again trust the assertions and promises of most generals. And I’m not in
bad company. Recall that some 56 years ago, President John F. Kennedy, himself
a heroic young officer in the Second World War, mistrusted his senior military
advisers. After they, to a man, all recommended outrageously pugnacious
policies almost certain to cause worldwide nuclear war during the Cuban
Missile Crisis, JFK flippantly—but correctly—reflected that “These brass
hats have one great advantage in their favor. If we listen to them, and do what
they want us to do, none of us will be alive later to tell them that they were
wrong.”
Will we never learn?
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