A Lament About Help, Or Truth, In The World

I lived in London from 2012 to 2018. I was thus in London for the first two years of the Trump administration. My flat was around the corner from the BBC. I’d occasionally stroll over to be part of a live audience (of 200 or 300 people) when radio shows were broadcast. Sometimes, I watched political shows, such as “Any Questions.” After Donald Trump was elected president, every time Trump’s name came up in a question, the audience laughed.

(I know I’m about to receive endless nasty emails telling me that this didn’t happen, or I must have been smoking something, or who cares what the damn Brits think anyway? I’ll live with those emails for the sake of sharing this story with you.)

As an American, I heard that laughter, and I was aghast. I couldn’t help but think: “Someday, the United States is going to need these people, or people in other countries who resemble this audience, to support us. It’s terrible for America if our choice of president has literally made us the laughingstock of the world.”

I flashed back to London and 2017 when I saw the collapse of Kabul last week.  Whether the decision to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan was right or wrong, I couldn’t help but think of the Afghans being left behind:  “The United States is sure to engage in some military operation overseas in the future. We’re going to need these Afghans, or people in other countries who resemble them, to help us in that future conflict. Those future people would be insane to help the United States in the future. This is bad.”

I also read the reports of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fleeing Kabul, perhaps in a helicopter loaded with money. I couldn’t help but think of Alexei Navalny, the Russian dissident who was safely overseas but chose to fly back into Russia, well aware that he’d be arrested, imprisoned, and possibly killed immediately upon his return. One of those men epitomizes cowardice; the other, bravery. I couldn’t help but wonder how the average American member of Congress would react under similar circumstances.

Finally, I thought about the entire situation in Afghanistan. Frankly, the United States has had tens of thousands of troops stationed in Germany since 1945, and in South Korea since 1953, and in Japan since 1951, each at the cost of billions of dollars every year. As of a couple of weeks ago, the U.S. had 2,500 troops stationed in Afghanistan. If leaving those 2,500 troops in Afghanistan, at a cost of a few billion dollars each year, would have prevented the Taliban from taking power, that might not have been a bad choice.

The response to this is that 2,500 troops would have been insufficient to maintain the status quo in Afghanistan. The Taliban was gaining power. The Taliban knew the United States was leaving the country and so waited for the U.S. to withdraw before launching its attack. But if the United States had not announced that it was leaving the country, the Taliban would have attacked anyway, and it would have required an infusion of many thousand more troops to resist that attack.

That’s a pretty compelling argument, if true. How am I to decide if it’s true — if the Taliban would likely have attacked if the U.S. had left 2,500 troops in the country basically in perpetuity?

In today’s world, there is no credible authority on this point. I don’t for a minute believe what the Democrats have to say on this point — they’re Democrats. I don’t for a minute believe what the Republicans have to say on this point — they’re Republicans. I don’t for a minute believe MSNBC — it’s MSNBC. I don’t for a minute believe Fox News — it’s Fox News. I don’t for a minute believe what the military or intelligence officials have to say on this point. Those folks were supposed to understand the situation in Afghanistan, and they plainly didn’t. They’re either incompetent — because, even though it’s their job, they didn’t anticipate what was about to happen — or they’re liars, telling us that all would be well while knowing that it wouldn’t.

Perhaps the media will eventually reveal someone who has been consistently right about Afghanistan — someone who, years ago and in writing, spoke the truth about the country — and I’ll be able to trust that person. But I haven’t yet learned of that trustworthy source, and I’m left to my own devices to decide whether leaving 2,500 troops in Afghanistan in perpetuity was a viable option.

How sad.

I see these horrors and deplore them.

And there’s neither truth to be heard nor help in the future.

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Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and is now deputy general counsel at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at [email protected].