Escape from the Graveyard of Empires

Watching the hurried evacuation of American citizens, troops, and Afghani allies from the Kabul airport in August might seem to be an embarrassing defeat for the U.S. and the Biden administration. However, considering that the “former guy” had nearly a year to begin the withdrawal and did little, America’s exit from Afghanistan is nearly as remarkable as WWII’s Miracle at Dunkirk.

It’s all the more remarkable considering the long saga of failed ventures to occupy Afghanistan by some of the most powerful empires in history, from the Persians to the Mongols. After initial successes, these empires ultimately met with failure if not outright defeat. Even Alexander the Great’s unmatched record of conquering countries met its end in this country that is often called The Graveyard of Empires.

What we today call Afghanistan was Alexander the Great’s last stop on his rampage to conquer much of the known world. After defeating the Persians in Afghanistan, Alexander tried to push on to what is now called Pakistan (then the northern portion of India). Alexander left a good portion of his army lying dead in the Kindu Kush mountains. While trying to tame Afghanistan, Alexander began a physical and mental deterioration that led to a rebellion among his forces, forcing him to pull back to Babylon. He died not long after.

Britain's First Retreat

Britain fought two wars in Afghanistan in the 1800s; both failed to gain control over the region. (A Third Anglo-Afghan War was fought in 1919, but most of the fighting took place in neighboring India.) The First Anglo-Afghan War led to one of Britain’s worst military defeats.

Remnants of an Army by Elizabeth Butler shows the only British solider to

survive Britain's 1842 retreat from Kabul.

After occupying Kabul for three years, British forces were forced to evacuate the city in 1842. More than 16,000 troops and camp followers marched out of Kabul and into the Khyber Pass, a mountainous route through the Kindu Kush that links Afghanistan and Pakistan. Like Alexander before them, the British littered the mountain range with the bodies of their people. Out of the 16,000 troops and camp followers, only one British officer made it out the other end of the pass.

The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 intending to prop up a pro-Russian government in Kabul. The ten-year Soviet-Afghan War was not only unpopular in the USSR (it was referred to as Russia’s Vietnam), it was also extremely costly in both blood and national treasure. When Soviet leadership was taken over by moderates like Mikhail Gorbachev, the decision was made pull their troops out.

The End of the USSR

The Soviet pull-out was not as disorderly as Britain’s 1842 withdrawal. The USSR allowed itself nearly a year to slowly evacuate Afghanistan, beginning the withdrawal in May 1988 and completing it in February 1989. While orderly, it wasn’t without problems. At one point, Soviet troops had to fight their way past a recalcitrant Afghan warlord and his fighters.

While the Soviet withdrawal was ultimately successful, the die was cast for the fate of the USSR. In December 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

In nearly each case, the cause of the occupation’s failure lay in the fact that Afghanistan was never really a country to begin with. The region has always been a hodgepodge of tribal factions led by warlords who form and destroy alliances based on who they saw as common enemies. There was no sense of nationality or common interest. Even when the Taliban “ruled” Afghanistan in the aftermath of the Soviet withdrawal, they still had to deal with dozens of individual warlords who refused to bend fully to their reign.

Trump's Failure

Donald Trump signed a withdrawal agreement with the Taliban in February 2020 after months of “negotiation” in which he handed them everything they asked for. There can be no doubt Trump’s military advisors, pointing to the Soviet example, told him the withdrawal would take as long as a year to accomplish properly. While troops began withdrawing in mid-2020, Trump never ordered the evacuation of nonessential personnel like the families of embassy staff, contractors, and Afghani allies, which should have been the first step.

In fact, Trump policies that made it harder to organize the evacuations. For instance, his immigration policies made it nearly impossible to issue Special Immigrant Visas (SIV) to Afghani who worked for the U.S. and NATO during our 20-year war there, leaving a backlog of more than 17,000 SIV applications when President Joe Biden took over. In fact, Trump refused to even brief Biden and his transition team on the situation in Afghanistan, leaving the new president in the blind until he took office.

That Trump did little to accomplish the withdrawal from Afghanistan for nearly a year—despite the fact he said he want to be out of the country by May of this year—forced Biden into a quick and hasty withdrawal process. The massive C-17 air transports flying out of Kabul this August did not carry military personnel, they carried those people who should have left Afghanistan last year.

Considering how little had been done by Donald Trump after signing the withdrawal agreement, what we watched happening at the Kabul airport was nothing less than a miracle in military logistics and a sign that for the first time in four years, we have real leadership in the White House.

Trump Not Alone in His Attitude Toward the Military

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"

But it's "Saviour of  'is country"  when the guns begin to shoot

—Rudyard Kipling (Tommy)

Recent reporting by The Atlantic magazine that Donald Trump referred to U.S. Marines killed during WWI as “suckers” and “losers” hardly comes as a revelation to anyone who has followed his comments and actions toward the military. From claiming the late Sen. John McCain was “no hero” because he was captured during the Vietnam War, to disparaging Gold Star parents of service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan along with the country’s senior most leadership, to summarily firing Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and his twin brother for simply performing their sworn duties, Trump has shown nothing but disrespect to anyone who ever served in uniform. (See: Every time Trump has attacked American veterans or military families)

The sad truth, however, is that attitude toward service personnel is not uncommon among the American people, especially rich Americans.

I experienced some of that attitude when, as a young Coast Guardsman, I was stationed in Virginia in 1973 just as the U.S. began its withdrawal from Vietnam. The local population was so jaundiced toward military personnel, we were ordered not to place base access stickers on our vehicle windows. To do so invited baseball bat-toting redneck good ol’ boys to bash in your car’s windows. We also could not wear our uniforms off base for fear of having those same bats used against our heads. Signs saying “Sailors and Dogs Keep of the Grass” spotted the landscape.

While some Vietnam vets complained about being disrespected by hippies and war protesters, my discussions with other vets of the period showed just as many experienced the same hostility I did from the good, God-fearing people of the American South. Apparently, people in the South—the same South that committed treason by seceding in 1860—felt those of us in uniform toward the end of the Vietnam War needed to be taught a lesson for “losing the war.” In fact, David Morrell’s post-Vietnam thriller, First Blood, featured a Vietnam veteran named Rambo targeted by a Southern sheriff and his town folk. Morrell said news reports about the mistreatment of vets in the South gave him the idea for his book. (Ironically, the movie made from the novel moved the story to the Pacific Northwest to spare southern feelings.)

Not Limited to Modern Times

This attitude toward the military isn’t limited to modern times. On March 15, 1783 officers under George Washington's command discussed mutinying because Congress failed to provide them with long-promised back pay and pensions for serving during the Revolution. The mutiny was averted when Washington addressed his officers with a speech about the sacrifices they all made that brought tears to the officers’ eyes.

In the aftermath of the American Civil War, thousands of disabled Union veterans were left hanging while Congress argued over whether pensions or other remuneration should be provided to the former soldiers. It was years before Union veterans received any benefits; Confederate veterans received nothing—notably, not even from the southern states they fought for.

Following the Civil War, soldiering as a career fell into disfavor. If you watch a western movie about the U.S. cavalry, with few exceptions all the soldiers will be white. However, in the real Wild West one out of every three soldiers—cavalry and infantry alike—were black, members of two regiments of the segregated U.S. Colored Troops, the legendary Buffalo Soldiers.

Even among the white troops, there were few patriotic Americans. Most were immigrants from England, Ireland, Poland, Germany, and other European countries because soldiering was widely considered beneath a “real” American. (The same was true about police officers; hence, the stereotype of the Irish beat cop.)

During the Spanish-American War, Buffalo Soldiers—by now professional fighters—stormed Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill alongside Teddy Roosevelt’s untested volunteers, the Rough Riders. Yet it is the Rough Riders, led by a wealthy socialite, who received the most credit for that battle victory.

When America belatedly entered WWI, her soldiers were sent “over there” with parades and patriotic songs. Once home, however, they were less heralded. In 1932, suffering from the indignities of the Great Depression, veterans marched on Washington, DC, demanding payment of bonuses Congress promised them for their service. The veterans were treated as traitorous “Reds” by the Hoover administration, which launched a deadly military attack on them. (See: Nearly 100 Years after the Bonus March, Trump is Making the Same Mistakes)

Veterans of WWII were treated better—if they were white. The GI Bill provided them readjustment and educational benefits. But 1.2 million black veterans were denied the full range of benefits provided by the bill, thanks to racist Southern Democrats who feared it would provide African American vets with a chance to socially advance. (See: How the GI Bill's Promise Was Denied to a Million Black WWII Veterans)

A Deeper Chasm

The end of the Selective Service draft in 1973 created an even deeper chasm between those who serve and those who don’t. According to the U.S. Census Service, 18 percent of the U.S. population were veterans in 1980; by 2016 that was down to seven percent. Some of that decline, of course, was due to older vets passing away. But during the height of the Vietnam draft, there were 3.5 million men and women on active duty; today there are only 1.3 million on active duty, or less than .5 percent of the population.

In the days following the 9/11 attacks, I was discussing whether the draft would be reinstated with a fellow veteran I worked with. I pointed out that if it were brought back, it would have to include women. A young female colleague became horrified at the idea she might be drafted to fight in a war. “Why me!” she shrieked. “There are people who enjoy doing that.” Doing what? we asked. “You know,” she said. “Killing people.”

So, that’s what she thought about us.

In the cluster-you-know-what that became the Bush administration’s response to the terrorist attacks, yellow ribbon magnets with “Support Our Troops” were displayed on cars, and people started thanking us for our service (I was on a reserve Coast Guard boat crew, and later became a medical service corps officer in a component of the California National Guard). Sailors, soldiers, Marines, and airmen were suddenly “warriors,” as if they belonged to a separate social stratum. And still the Bush administration forbade the media from photographing or videotaping aircraft filled with flag-draped coffins bringing home our country’s honored war dead.

It’s gratifying to see America’s outrage over Trump’s reported comments about our war dead, but I wonder how long it will last or if it will have any impact at all. Despite Trump’s multiple Vietnam draft deferments—the last due to a spurious diagnosis of bone spurs—and despite his dismissal of John McCain’s military service, and despite so much more, he was still “elected” president. And the bulk of those who voted for him were the good, God-fearing people of the American South and other rural areas, the same people who treated those of us in uniform so badly 47 years ago.

And that’s why I fear Trump’s slandering those who served and sacrificed as “losers” and “suckers” won’t make a difference at the polls.