The Afghanistan tragedy unfolds in real time

Buggering out real soon

American soldier on a Chinook helicopter over Kabul last Sunday

The New York Times writes:

The United States and its NATO allies spent decades building Kandahar Airfield into a wartime city, filled with tents, operations centers, barracks, basketball courts, ammunition storage sites, aircraft hangars and at least one post office.

Once the base is stripped of everything deemed sensitive by its American and NATO landlords, its skeleton will be handed over to the Afghan security forces.

And the message will be clear: They are on their own in the fight against the Taliban.

The scenes over the weekend were almost as if a multitrillion-dollar war machine had morphed into a garage sale.

On the other side of the base that morning, an Afghan transport aircraft arrived from Kabul. It was loaded with mortar shells, small-arms cartridges and 250-pound bombs to supply Afghan troops under frequent attack by the Taliban in the countryside.

The American withdrawal, almost quiet, and with a veneer of orderliness, belies the desperate circumstances just beyond the base’s wall.

The NYT goes on to report that Maj. Mohammed Bashir Zahid, in charge of a small Afghan air command center at the Kandahar airbase, was desperately trying to get air support for Afghan security forces on the ground and in nearby outposts under attack by Taliban fighters. The American presence in the area around Kandahar never cleared out Taliban resistance. Never. 

Maj. Zahid, center, desperately calling for help

The Taliban is coming for him and, if he has one, his family

US aircraft from the carrier USS Eisenhower are now bombing US military equipment on the Kandahar airbase. The Afghan military desperately needs that equipment but the US is destroying tens or hundreds or millions of dollars worth of US military equipment. The NYT makes the reason clear: “Americans most likely destroyed the vehicles to prevent them from being sold off, given the rampant corruption in much of the ranks.” 

Once again, rampant corruption helps destroy civil society, common decency, honesty and any hope for any form of real democracy. Centuries ago, Machiavelli warned the Prince not to be too corrupt and not rape too many peasant women. The men in Afghanistan either didn't read The Prince, or they know the warning doesn't matter because they believe they are beyond reach of a vengeful, powerless, deceived populace.

A commentator at CNN wrote this a few days ago:

The lies American officers told were necessary ways of pretending the country they were handing to the next rotation of troops was better off than when they found it. “Turning the corner” and “winning hearts and minds” each summer and year being the "most important yet" to “turn the tide.”

The lies the British -- the largest NATO ally there -- told were smaller, perhaps pettier, in the extremely violent and sparsely populated desert of Helmand they tried to control. Always said to be underfunded compared to their allies, always courageous, always carrying on and always maintaining their plan was working, even when it clearly was not. In the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, I was once told I could not see the frontlines until I had met the area's commander. He was in Dubai for a few days, I was told, so I would have to wait until then. I saw him five minutes later at the neighboring urinal. The deceit was often as clumsy as it was unnecessary.

The Taliban was an insurgency the West enjoyed painting as an implacable monster that could not be dealt with, until, of course, it had to deal with the group in order to leave. Rural poverty, decades of violence and loss and an inexplicable foreign presence dictating how to live help explain why the Taliban persist and grow. It took the West years to realize these Taliban would be in Afghanistan regardless of what it did, no matter how many were killed in combat.

For America, the final truth of this war is that for outsiders with limited patience, understanding and resources, any occupation is by definition unwinnable.

Yet for Afghans it goes on. Without American airpower holding back Taliban advances, the truths will be more violent, unpalatably bitter and lead to more lies, as a new chapter in decades of violence churns and swirls.

Questions: Is it unfair or counterproductive for me, America or democracy in general to be this brutally honest, assuming the information relied on is at least reasonably accurately reflects the real situation? What is an objective basis for hope, something I very much want to see but cannot? What am I not seeing? (I want to see it) Am I racist?