Getting in and out of wars

 Ken Burns's documentary on Vietnam made it clear that all of the presidents who oversaw that war knew that our efforts were failing. But certain attitudes and habits of thought made it very difficult to get out. The main argument for staying in seemed to be that, by abandoning the war, we would be dishonoring all the Americans soldiers who had died thus far. That attitude led to a long war, unwinnable, and still more American deaths. It was a vicious cycle, but the United States wasn't accustomed to losing in those days.

We should have learned more from that experience, perhaps. Our war in Afghanistan lasted twenty years, and our departure was as chaotic as the one from Vietnam. One thing we need to learn is when long enough is long enough, on the basis of whether the mission has been accomplished, whether it can be accomplished, rather than making the decision based on notions of honor or dishonor.

Joe Biden made the decision to leave now, reasoning that "nation-building" was not possible in Afghanistan's case, and that twenty years was more than long enough to find that out.

Getting out of wars is very hard. Getting in is much too easy. When 9/11 happened, we were keen to punish the terrorists, who were being sheltered in Afghanistan. There was discussion at the time on whether this was a matter of war, or a matter for law enforcement. Since Al Qaeda was not a country, the law enforcement option made sense to me. But George W. Bush sold us on a "global war on terror," which, in fact, was pretty much limited to Afghanistan and Bush's personal obsession, Iraq.

An attitude that needs changing when war decisions are being made, in my opinion, is that once a president declares his attention to take the nation to war, the patriotic thing to do is to get behind him and see it through. But how quickly should that falling in line happen? It seems to me that our politicians were getting behind George W. Bush before a proper discussion on whether or not war was a good idea. And most Democrats were as guilty of this rush to war as anybody else. Republicans have portrayed themselves as national security tough guys, and I fear that Democrats are too often intimidated by the accusation that we are soft in that department.

Not going into all-out war in Afghanistan and Iraq would have spared us all the pain of those wars and the anguish about when and how to get out.