From Claire— Our book group convenes today at 15:00 GMT to discuss the first half of Carter Malkasian’s history, The American War in Afghanistan. According to my time zone converter, 15:00 GMT is 08:00 in Los Angeles; 10:00 in Dallas; 11:00 in New York; 16:00 in London; 17:00 in Paris; 18:00 in Moscow; 20:30 in Delhi; and 23:00 in Hong Kong. If you RSVPed, you should have received the Zoom link already. If you didn’t, let us know.
We look forward to speaking to all of you.
Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism’s face
And the international wrong.
The literature of American decline
The anniversary of September 11 sees the Western world sunk in deep gloom. The United States and NATO have suffered a terrible and shameful defeat in Afghanistan. No one believes the United States is in better condition, politically or morally, than it was twenty years ago. No one believes Americans are more secure, more confident, more respected, or more powerful.
A search on Amazon under the term “American decline” illustrates the depth of our frustration and funk. All of the following volumes have been written in recent years:
War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence
From Sadat to Saddam: The Decline of American Diplomacy in the Middle East
The Hell of Good Intentions: America’s Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of US Primacy
Manufacturing Decline: How Racism and the Conservative Movement Crush the American Rust Belt
In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power
Transaction Man: The Rise of the Deal and the Decline of the American Dream
And the Wolf Finally Came: The Decline of the American Steel Industry
Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream
The American Culture Wars: A large study of the decline in American culture
The Rise and Decline of the American Empire: Revealing the Truth
Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil
America in Retreat: The Decline of US Leadership from World War 2 to Covid19
The Decline of the Western-centric World and the Emerging New Global Order
The Rise of Theological Liberalism and the Decline of American Methodism
The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Insecurity and the Decline of the American Dream
Democracy and its Elected Enemies: American Political Capture and Economic Decline
Remainders of the American Century: Post-apocalyptic Novels in the Age of US Decline
American Discontent: The Rise of Donald Trump and Decline of the Golden Age
Social Inequality, Economic Decline, and Plutocracy: An American Crisis
The Decline of Men: How the American Male Is Tuning Out, Giving Up, and Flipping Off His Future
Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline
Fading Glory: Contributing Factors to the Decline of American's Public Schools
The Lost Soul of the American Presidency: The Decline into Demagoguery and the Prospects for Renewal
Decline and Decay: Strategies for Surviving the Coming Unpleasantness
Land of the Fee: Hidden Costs and the Decline of the American Middle Class
The Decline of the American Empire and the Rise of China as a Global Power
The Empire and the Five Kings: America’s Abdication and the Fate of the World
Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle
The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory
Mapping Decline: St. Louis and the Fate of the American City
Losing Military Supremacy: The Myopia of American Strategic Planning
If you search under the terms “American rise,” you’ll find many histories, but not a single book written in the past twenty years. “China’s rise,” by contrast, returns almost as many volumes as “America’s decline,” and not without reason:
When twenty years ago today terrorists killed 2,977 innocents on American soil in a heinous shock attack, I was like every other American convulsed with rage.
I had many questions that day, but one thing I did not ask was whether the United States had the power and the will to respond to this attack with ferocious fury and resolve. I felt astonishment: Who could have thought this a good idea? Did the authors of this attack not realize we were a superpower? That they had signed the death warrant for their pet cause, whatever it was, along with all of their ilk? Al Qaeda had awakened a sleeping giant: I did not doubt we would fight them to the gates of hell.
I must say, I’m surprised by the way things have turned out.
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief,
We must suffer them all again.
Afghanistan’s terrorist all-star government
The Taliban have announced their new government.
Afghanistan’s new Prime Minister, Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund, is a globally designated terrorist. Among his other qualifications for high office, he supervised blowing up the Bamiyan Buddhas. As a Taliban military commander, he was known for psychopathic ruthlessness, even by Taliban standards. His previous achievements in government include banning the education of women, enforcing gender apartheid, and mandating religious dress.
When the Taliban was last in power, Afghanistan’s new deputy Prime Minister, Mullah Ghani Barader, was in charge of whipping, beating, and executing women. (He was released at Trump’s insistence.)
Four members of the Haqqani clan are now among the government. The Haqqani network, one of the most lethal insurgent groups in Afghanistan, sent wave after wave of suicide bombers into Kabul, murdering hundreds of their fellow citizens. They are the liaison between the Taliban and al Qaeda. For years, they gave shelter to Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants. “Ties between the two groups remain close,” the UN Security Council’s Taliban Sanctions Monitoring Committee reported in 2021,
based on ideological alignment, relationships forged through common struggle and intermarriage. … it is impossible to assess with confidence that the Taliban will live up to its commitment to suppress any future international threat emanating from Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda and likeminded militants continue to celebrate developments in Afghanistan as a victory for the Taliban’s cause and thus for global radicalism.
The Haqqanis specialize in complex suicide bombings and in packing cars and trucks with massive amounts of explosives. They’re responsible for some of the most bloodthirsty and barbaric crimes of recent decades, including the June 2011 assault on the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, a September 2011 truck bombing in Wardak Province that wounded 77 US soldiers, a 19-hour attack on the US Embassy and ISAF headquarters in Kabul that killed six children, a June 2012 suicide bomb attack against Forward Operating Base Salerno that left more than 100 troops wounded, and a 12-hour siege of the Spozhmai Hotel in Kabul in June 2012 that killed at least 18 Afghans, including 14 civilians. In 2013, they tried to blow up a US base in Paktiya Province with a massive truck bomb. The device failed to detonate, but it nonetheless earned them First Prize in the terrorism Olympics for “largest truck bomb ever built.”
They’ve killed and maimed thousands of US, coalition, and Afghan soldiers. They’re also known for their excellence in extortion, kidnapping, and drug smuggling. (As for the Taliban and ISIS-K being sworn enemies? Nonsense. Also nonsense is the State Department’s claim that the Taliban and the Haqqani network are “separate entities.”)
Afghanistan’s new Interior Minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani, is a globally designated terrorist and member of al Qaeda’s wider leadership. He was named a Specially Designated Global Terrorist under Executive Order 13224 in March 2008. The FBI has offered a reward of US$10 million for information leading to his arrest. Among his other qualifications for high office, he organized the suicide bombing of a police academy bus in Kabul in 2007, killing 35 police officers. He’s believed to have been the mastermind behind the attack on the Kabul Intercontinental Hotel. He was also responsible for an attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul in 2008 that killed 58. He tried to assassinate Afghanistan’s former Prime Minister. He’s famous for commanding death squads and releasing videos of mass beheadings. He moonlights as an occasional contributor to The New York Times’ editorial page. So, he’ll be in charge of law and order in Afghanistan.
His uncle, Khalil Haqqani, will be Afghanistan’s new Minister for Refugees. He too is a globally designated terrorist who has “acted on behalf” of al Qaeda, according to the UN. According to their listing, he was responsible for detaining prisoners captured by the Taliban and the Haqqani Network. There’s a State Department reward of up to US$ 5 million for “information that brings [him] to justice.”
Najibulla Haqqani will be Afghanistan’s new Minister for Communication. He’s been an internationally designated terrorist since 2001.
Sheik Abdul Baqi Haqqani, Afghanistan’s new Minister for Higher Education, is the only member of the family who hasn’t been designated a terrorist by the UN Security Council. He’s been sanctioned as one by the European Union, though.
Mullah Taj Mir Jawad will be Afghanistan’s deputy intelligence chief. He led the Kabul attack network, which organized various jihadi groups, including al Qaeda, in and around Kabul.
Amir Khan Muttaqi will be the new Foreign Minister. He too is on the UN terror list.
Mullah Abdul Manan Omari will be the Minister of Public Works. He’s Mullah Omar brother.
Mullah Omar’s son, Mullah Yaqoob, is the Minister for Defense. His special achievement in governance is plotting airline hijackings.
Former Gitmo detainees include Khairullah Khairkhwa, Afghanistan’s new Minister for Information and Culture; Abdul Haq Waseeq, the new intelligence chief; and Mullah Noorullah Noori, the new Minister of Borders and Tribal Affairs.
NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly sounded surprised by the lineup. “Among the other things that caught my eye,” she said to her guest, the journalist Ahmed Rashid, “you mentioned there are no women in this interim lineup. They also appear to have done away with the Ministry for Women’s Affairs.”
No kidding, Mary Louise.
From our reader CDR Salamander, an Australian account of the last days of our war in Afghanistan. “I don’t think the US press has done anything like this, yet,” he writes. “In a way, perhaps this is best. To get a good view of our great national humiliation, you really need to have a third party provide it.”
Since 9/11, American life has become cheap. In the past two days, 4,008 Americans have died of Covid19. This is no longer unusual, so it isn’t headline news.
According to the Economist’s estimates, between have 760 and 850 thousand Americans have died of Covid since January of 2020. But we are so politically divided, and our minds have been so profoundly scrambled—by mistrust, disillusionment, misinformation, domestic and foreign propaganda, and partisan rancor—that many refuse to be vaccinated against the disease.
In response to Biden’s plan to address this catastrophe by means of vaccine mandates, the governor of South Carolina vowed to fight the President of the United States “to the gates of hell.”
If you had told me twenty years ago that this is where we’d be today, I would have been surprised, to say the least.
It just isn’t how I expected things to go.
The observances of the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 struck me as glum rather than solemn. President Biden did much to set the tone. After botching what was in any case an ill-advised bugout from Afghanistan, he tried to change the subject just before September 11 by announcing an absurd, doubtless unworkable, vaccine mandate. That failed to get him off the hook and he was too fearful of public opinion to officiate at the observances, offering no more than a lame prerecorded message. So now his humiliation and that of his minions is complete. Cosmic justice has rendered its judgement, transforming Joe Biden's 9/11/21 victory lap into a cowardly skedaddle.
There is surplus blame to go around, of course. The voters who put Biden in the White House, and those who put Trump in the White House before him, are culpable in this. Trump's criticisms of Biden's pullout fiasco may be on the mark, but he's the wrong messenger. There's no reason to think that things would have ended differently if Trump had been reelected in 2020. Perhaps the debacle would have been more drawn out, but leaving Afghanistan, however it was managed, meant leaving it to the Taliban.
As for those who advocated ending a "forever war," I must be rudely frank and observe that they were talking nonsense. Despite the mistakes that had been made—and all wars are full of mistakes—the US ultimately achieved a stalemate in Afghanistan. If the Taliban had not been destroyed, it had been barred out of power. And the commitment necessary to maintain that stalemate was not onerous. There was no powerful groundswell of public opinion in favor of withdrawal; for most Americans the issue was abstract. For no good reason, therefore, the US abandoned a key strategic position, handing it back to the very people who enabled the 9/11 attack.
The whole thing is a national disgrace and much as I despise Joe Biden, I'm not willing to pin the blame on him alone—any more than the sole blame for the appeasement of the fascist dictators and its terrible consequences in the 1930s can be blamed solely on Neville Chamberlain.
Oh, Claire, you woke up on the morning of the anniversary of 9/11 way too pessimistic. Instead of focusing on everything that’s gone wrong in the past 20 years, turn your attention to everything that’s gone right. The list is long and varied.
We learned that men can menstruate and even become pregnant; thank goodness we’ve done away with dastardly terms like “mom” in favor of “birthing people.”
We learned that there aren’t two genders but many, potentially hundreds. There’s a gender for every color in the rainbow; that’s been a critical revelation, hasn’t it?
We learned that men in their 70s make great leaders and hence great presidents. Why is this important? Because it motivates us to go for the gold! Up next, octogenarian presidential candidates. Wait patiently; can presidents in their 90s be far behind?
We strengthened our democracy. In New York we just ejected a thrice-elected Governor for the heinous act of asking a subordinate if she dated older men. In California, with a mere year to go before the next election, we’re on the cusp of recalling a Governor who had the temerity to eat in a fancy restaurant without his mask. To add insult to injury, the name of the restaurant contained two words Americans justifiably hate; “French” and “Laundry.”
Twenty years ago we knew that the urban, inner city masses could be hopeless enough to succumb to the ravages of crack. But now we know we can share the prosperity. The Midwest masses have joined the party with opioids of many flavors despite the fact that crack has gone out of style.
If you remember, Claire, 20 years ago Americans and their Government alike spent money like drunken sailors, but at least we had the decency to worry about deficits. Look how far we’ve come! Happily, now we realize we can spend money with reckless abandon. There’s no need to worry at all. A trillion here, a trillion there; who’s counting? It’s great that we learned that we can buy whatever we want without every worrying whether the piper will ever want to be paid. Let the good times roll!
20 years ago we had the disgusting habit of referring to native Spanish speakers as Latinas and Latinos. We’ve made tremendous progress since then. Now we know we should use the far superior term “LatinX” and that we should use that phraseology whether Latinos and Latinas like it or not. Claire if you don’t count that as progress, I don’t know what’s wrong with you.
20 years ago, we suffered under the delusion that crime was bad and that we needed to strengthen the police to fight it. Thank goodness we’ve learned that it’s the police who are the enemy, not the criminals. We’ve defunded the police and elected prosecutors who realize that we need to learn to love murder and mayhem. You have to admit, that’s real progress.
20 years ago the United States had a border with Mexico, it was porous, but it was still a border. We’re much wiser now. We’ve learned that borders are racist and we’re enlightened enough to realize we should throw open the border to anyone who wants to live here. Same in Europe, Claire. Europeans are now enlightened enough to welcome anyone from the Middle East or South Asia who aspires to a better life. The more, the merrier. Aren’t we so much better for it?
And speaking of the Europeans, 20 years ago, they were deluded enough to actually think spending money on defense was important. Thank goodness they’ve learned that hot air is a fantastic substitute for missiles, bombs and planes. What’s the great news? Hot air is free.
20 years ago an Iranian nuclear weapons was little more than an Ayotollah’s wet dream. Now we’re on the verge of a far better era when an Iranian nuclear weapon will further the American interest in off-shore balancing. What’s not to like?
I could go on and on, Claire but you get the idea. America isn’t getting older, it’s getting better. Shed your pessimism and get with the program!