IMPERIAL HUBRIS, OVERREACH, & INCOMPETENCE: FROM SAIGON TO KABUL

 

This past Sunday our church’s worship service should have been a joyous event. Our choir was back after a hiatus of 17 months, and we heard an uplifting report from a visiting Sudanese pastor about God at work in his country despite the martyrdom of several pastors. But my mind slipped to images of the US evacuation from Saigon then to the US evacuation then currently happening in Kabul. I thought of the Afghan women and girls to Taliban bondage and illiteracy. I thought of our service men and women killed and those wounded mentally and physically. I thought of our Afghan friends facing certain executions. Finally, I noticed tears on my face.

In the summer of 1975, I was a young soldier stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas. I watched on television our helicopters flying from the roof of our embassy in Saigon rescuing our diplomats and some of our Vietnamese friends from the advancing Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces. “What a mess! I hope we never experience this again!” I thought. Well, I guess if one lives long enough one could see a repeat of events. It has indeed happened again in the last several days. I offer three reasons for this repeating disaster- imperial hubris, overreach, and incompetence.

Hubris: We Americans despite our good and idealistic intentions cannot repair all broken things on our planet, fix all the problems. Our military’s mission to seek out and kill or capture the enemy. Soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen are trained to fight, not to “nation build.”

Overreach: Paul Kennedy in his book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers proffers the idea that great powers are tempted to overreach their limitations and thus suffer tragic consequences. The US did this in Afghanistan and we are now seeing the tragedy occurring there. But this is nothing new in world history. Philip Matyszak masterfully chronicles the military mission to Sicily by the Athens city-state of ancient Greece in his book Expedition to Disaster. The study of history can enrich our policies. Everyone in the current Administration should start with Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision Makers by Richard Neustadt and Ernest May,

Incompetence: Overpromising and underperforming are sure clues to incompetence as well as repeating actions and expecting different results are allegiantly linked to insanity. When we entered Afghanistan in 2001 responding to the 9/11 attacks, we had two limited and clear goals: 1) destroy the Al-Qaeda network and 2) kill Osama Bin Laden. We disrupted the network but did not end it. We also attempted to kill OBL in late 2001 in the Tora Bora region. Delta Force Major Thomas Greer led a multi-national task force of American and British commandos in the search but according to his book Kill Bin Laden (written under his pseudonym Dalton Fury) political interference from Washington was in part responsible for OBL escaping to Pakistan. Missing those realistic and obtainable goals we settled for “nation building” which has proven to be impossible. By the way, after 20 years of war in Afghanistan, why did we not have a feasible and operational exit plan for Americans, our Afghan allies, and other nationals? Lack of one is pure negligence, not just incompetence.

My recommendations as an informed citizen and Army veteran:

1.     President Biden must take full responsibility for this debacle, offer no excuses, and blame no one but himself.

2.     All of President Biden’s chief national security advisors- including his secretary of state, secretary of defense, national security advisor, chair of the joint chiefs of staff, director of national intelligence, and CIA director among others- must offer their resignations to the President.

3.     Forget political correctness, wokeness, and critical race theory. Instead, read and discuss the following books-

·       The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers by Paul Kennedy

·       Thinking in Time by Richard Neustadt & Ernest May

·       Expedition to Disaster by Philip Matyszak

·       Kill Bin Laden by Dalton Fury (aka Thomas Greer)

·       The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam (how we enlarged the Vietnam conflict into a full war)

4.     Return to the ideal expressed by then secretary of state and future President John Quincy Adams that the US must not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.

5.     If war is necessary, then Congress must declare war not merely authorize prolonged conflict. Then Congress must be updated on the progress of the war every 30 days.

Later in that worship service our pastor was preaching on a text from the Book of Revelation in the Christian New Testament. He declared that the politicians will not have the last word- God will have the last word. My sad and angry mood lightened as I once again realized that my God will not desert me in times of trouble.