Joseph Sabino Mistick: The end of an endless war

Any discussion of the withdrawal of all American troops from Afghanistan must start with the recognition of the troops themselves and the essential duty they have met for the rest of us.

They were sent there to protect us from another terrorist attack like 9/11, and they did that. They were sent there to pursue Osama Bin Laden, and eventually he was found and killed. And they gave the Afghan people a taste of American freedom that has changed lives and dreams forever.

There has been a lot of talk about the American “blood and treasure” lost there in 20 years. Over $2 trillion has been spent, but that is nothing compared to the loss of life: 2,448 American service members died there. We will honor them, but we can never repay our debt to them and their families.

And over 20,000 American troops were wounded in action and returned home facing seen and unseen challenges because of what happened there. Their lives and the lives of their loved ones are changed forever, and we owe them all the support they need.

Wars rain down living hell on soldiers and civilians alike. Wars were easier to understand when there were clear beginnings and endings. The Confederate attack on Fort Sumter ended at Appomattox, and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor ended with Victory in Europe Day and Victory in Japan Day.

Modern wars are not like that. They begin and end with presidential actions, leaving them open to questions about whether they are “just wars” and whether and when we should have ended them.

This war has led to a jumbled grouping of the last four presidents: Bush started it, and Obama continued it. Trump entered into an agreement with the Taliban to end it, and Biden ended it.

“It is wrong to order American troops to step up when Afghanistan’s own armed forces would not,” President Biden said last week.

“I stand squarely behind my decision. After 20 years, I’ve learned the hard way, that there was never a good time to withdraw U.S. forces.”

If it were left to the military- industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us about in his farewell address in 1961, we would be fighting “forever wars” forever. It took political courage to end this war knowing that the end would be ugly.

There are big questions that will be debated for decades and that must be answered. How could our intelligence have been so bad that we were surprised that the Taliban conquered the country in 11 days?

Was there a better way to protect our friends who were sent running for their lives and hiding after Kabul fell to the Taliban over a weekend?

And have we forgotten everything we learned from the Vietnam War? For two decades, military commanders, intelligence operatives and state department officials gave rosy descriptions of the war in Afghanistan, and it is now clear that they were cooking the books. We should have seen this coming.

Finally, about one thing there is no question. Young Americans always answer the call to arms. They make the world safer for the rest of us, giving their all without hesitation.