{"id":5792,"date":"2021-08-11T11:43:33","date_gmt":"2021-08-11T11:43:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=5792"},"modified":"2021-08-11T11:43:33","modified_gmt":"2021-08-11T11:43:33","slug":"what-america-didnt-understand-about-its-longest-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=5792","title":{"rendered":"What America Didn\u2019t Understand About Its Longest War"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“In recent weeks, the Taliban have advanced across the north of the country. Bereft of U.S. support, the Afghan army and police have reportedly lost more than two dozen districts over the course of a month and are now fighting on the outskirts of key cities such as Kandahar and Mazar-e-Sharif. Senior U.S. officials have warned of a civil war, while intelligence reports are said to forecast the fall of the Afghan government \u2014 which the United States has worked to strengthen for two decades \u2014 within a year.”
…
“I have found no single answer to why we lost the war. While various explanations address different parts of the puzzle, the one I want to highlight here can perhaps be seen most clearly in the conversations I\u2019ve had with the Taliban themselves, often in their native Pashto. \u201cThe Taliban fight for belief, for janat<\/em> (heaven) and ghazi<\/em> (killing infidels). \u2026 The army and police fight for money,\u201d a Taliban religious scholar from Kandahar told me in 2019. \u201cThe Taliban are willing to lose their head to fight. \u2026 How can the army and police compete?\u201d
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Taliban had an advantage in inspiring Afghans to fight. Their call to fight foreign occupiers, steeped in references to Islamic teachings, resonated with Afghan identity. For Afghans, jihad \u2014 more accurately understood as \u201cresistance\u201d or \u201cstruggle\u201d than the caricatured meaning it has acquired in the United States \u2014 has historically been a means of defense against oppression by outsiders, part of their endurance against invader after invader. Even though Islam preaches unity, justice and peace, the Taliban were able to tie themselves to religion and to Afghan identity in a way that a government allied with non-Muslim foreign occupiers could not match.The very presence of Americans in Afghanistan trod on a sense of Afghan identity that incorporated national pride, a long history of fighting outsiders and a religious commitment to defend the homeland. It prodded men and women to defend their honor, their religion and their home. It dared young men to fight. It sapped the will of Afghan soldiers and police. The Taliban\u2019s ability to link their cause to the very meaning of being Afghan was a crucial factor in America\u2019s defeat.”   
…
“More Afghans were willing to serve on behalf of the government than the Taliban. But more Afghans were willing to kill and be killed for the Taliban. That edge made a difference on the battlefield.”
…
“A popular tale related to me in 2018 by an Afghan government official illuminates the reality:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“An Afghan army officer and a Taliban commander were insulting each other over their radios while shooting back and forth. The Taliban commander taunted: \u201cYou are puppets of America!\u201d The army officer shouted back: \u201cYou are the puppets of Pakistan!\u201d The Taliban commander replied: \u201cThe Americans are infidels. The Pakistanis are Muslims.\u201d The Afghan officer had no response.””<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

…
“in a country where people have eagerly tried to convert me to Islam, where religion defines daily life, and where insults to Islam instigate riots. The largest popular upheaval I witnessed firsthand in Afghanistan was not over the government\u2019s mistreatment of the people or Pakistani perfidy. It was hundreds of angry villagers marching miles to the dusty bazaars of Garmser, protesting a rumor that an American had damaged a Koran.”
“Will the situation change with U.S. departure? Will the credibility of the Taliban\u2019s war against the government weaken when we are gone, allowing Ghani\u2019s government to stem the tide of their advance? Maybe, but I am skeptical. Twenty years of foreign support has tarred the government in Kabul. It is all too easy for the Taliban to paint it as a puppet. In the summer of 2014, I was eating dinner, cross-legged in a garden, with two old friends \u2014 one a tribal leader, the other a security official \u2014 in Lashkar Gah, a town that is today surrounded by Taliban forces. We were talking about the pending departure of U.S. troops, which was then the plan, and I mentioned the dangers of Afghans appearing too frequently alongside Americans. They rolled up their sleeves, pointed to their arms, and said: \u201cThe paint is already all over us. There is nothing we can do.\u201d”
…
“If any U.S. leader wanted to leave Afghanistan, they had to confront the prospect that the Afghan government was likely to fail, a humiliating future.”
https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/magazine\/2021\/07\/06\/afghanistan-war-malkasian-book-excerpt-497843<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“In recent weeks, the Taliban have advanced across the north of the country. Bereft of U.S. support, the Afghan army and police have reportedly lost more than two dozen districts over the course of a month and are now fighting on the outskirts of key cities such as Kandahar and Mazar-e-Sharif. Senior U.S. officials have warned of a civil war, while intelligence reports are said to forecast the fall of the Afghan government \u2014 which the United States has worked to strengthen for two decades \u2014 within a year.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“I have found no single answer to why we lost the war. While various explanations address different parts of the puzzle, the one I want to highlight here can perhaps be seen most clearly in the conversations I\u2019ve had with the Taliban themselves, often in their native Pashto. \u201cThe Taliban fight for belief, for janat (heaven) and ghazi (killing infidels). \u2026 The army and police fight for money,\u201d a Taliban religious scholar from Kandahar told me in 2019. \u201cThe Taliban are willing to lose their head to fight. \u2026 How can the army and police compete?\u201d<\/p>\n

The Taliban had an advantage in inspiring Afghans to fight. Their call to fight foreign occupiers, steeped in references to Islamic teachings, resonated with Afghan identity. For Afghans, jihad \u2014 more accurately understood as \u201cresistance\u201d or \u201cstruggle\u201d than the caricatured meaning it has acquired in the United States \u2014 has historically been a means of defense against oppression by outsiders, part of their endurance against invader after invader. Even though Islam preaches unity, justice and peace, the Taliban were able to tie themselves to religion and to Afghan identity in a way that a government allied with non-Muslim foreign occupiers could not match.<\/p>\n

The very presence of Americans in Afghanistan trod on a sense of Afghan identity that incorporated national pride, a long history of fighting outsiders and a religious commitment to defend the homeland. It prodded men and women to defend their honor, their religion and their home. It dared young men to fight. It sapped the will of Afghan soldiers and police. The Taliban\u2019s ability to link their cause to the very meaning of being Afghan was a crucial factor in America\u2019s defeat.” <\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“More Afghans were willing to serve on behalf of the government than the Taliban. But more Afghans were willing to kill and be killed for the Taliban. That edge made a difference on the battlefield.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“A popular tale related to me in 2018 by an Afghan government official illuminates the reality:
\n“An Afghan army officer and a Taliban commander were insulting each other over their radios while shooting back and forth. The Taliban commander taunted: \u201cYou are puppets of America!\u201d The army officer shouted back: \u201cYou are the puppets of Pakistan!\u201d The Taliban commander replied: \u201cThe Americans are infidels. The Pakistanis are Muslims.\u201d The Afghan officer had no response.””
\n…<\/p>\n

“in a country where people have eagerly tried to convert me to Islam, where religion defines daily life, and where insults to Islam instigate riots. The largest popular upheaval I witnessed firsthand in Afghanistan was not over the government\u2019s mistreatment of the people or Pakistani perfidy. It was hundreds of angry villagers marching miles to the dusty bazaars of Garmser, protesting a rumor that an American had damaged a Koran.”<\/p>\n

“Will the situation change with U.S. departure? Will the credibility of the Taliban\u2019s war against the government weaken when we are gone, allowing Ghani\u2019s government to stem the tide of their advance? Maybe, but I am skeptical. Twenty years of foreign support has tarred the government in Kabul. It is all too easy for the Taliban to paint it as a puppet. In the summer of 2014, I was eating dinner, cross-legged in a garden, with two old friends \u2014 one a tribal leader, the other a security official \u2014 in Lashkar Gah, a town that is today surrounded by Taliban forces. We were talking about the pending departure of U.S. troops, which was then the plan, and I mentioned the dangers of Afghans appearing too frequently alongside Americans. They rolled up their sleeves, pointed to their arms, and said: \u201cThe paint is already all over us. There is nothing we can do.\u201d”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“If any U.S. leader wanted to leave Afghanistan, they had to confront the prospect that the Afghan government was likely to fail, a humiliating future.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[435,552,272,355,314,1049,619,158],"class_list":["post-5792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-afghanistan","tag-conflict","tag-foreign-affairs","tag-foreign-policy","tag-international-relations","tag-taliban","tag-united-states","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5792"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5793,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5792\/revisions\/5793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}