Our options in Afghanistan

(Nick Anderson)

Oh, we've got options in Afghanistan, just no good options. It's too late for that. And that's all our fault.

We had plenty of good options before we started the war - and the war, with even less justification, in Iraq. After all, we were attacked by a mere handful of religious fanatics on 9/11. The whole point was to provoke an overreaction.

But Osama bin Laden knew his enemy. The Bush White House viewed the attacks as a political gift. They were just as eager as bin Laden to spread fear (Republicans still are), and they were just as willing to overreact as bin Laden was eager to encourage it. Well, that's the best way to accomplish your goals, giving your enemy what he wants, isn't it?

A smart, courageous America would have refused the trap. We would have viewed 9/11 as a criminal act (which it was) and enlisted the rest of the world, who were eager to help during that initial outpouring of sympathy and support, into tracking down the other criminals responsible. True, Afghanistan wasn't willing to hand over bin Laden, not at first, but we had a lot of good options then.

We could have maintained our honor and our reputation. We could have held onto our moral leadership. We could have kept thousands of young Americans - and hundreds of thousands of Afghan and Iraqi civilians - alive and uninjured. And maybe we wouldn't have destroyed our own economy or, nearly, our own military in a foolish adventure with no clear exit strategy.

But no, George W. Bush wanted to prance around in a flight suit, playing "Commander-in-Chief," rather than acting as our constitutional president. Republicans, who inevitably love war as long as they don't have to fight it themselves, wanted to watch as our lovely bombs exploded amongst enemies (any enemies, they're not particular). Right-wing ideologues wanted to push through their political extremism, with "a time of war" being their excuse. And the rich wanted deficit spending and tax cuts.

We had good options back then, but we consistently chose the bad ones. Well, as I say, bin Laden knew his enemy. The whole nation was "roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice," as Ralph Waldo Emerson once warned America, and almost no one was courageous enough to stand up against the mob. We chose the bad options - the worst of options, in fact - and we consistently continued to do so for years.

Now, Osama bin Laden is still at large, respected more than ever, heading up an al Qaeda which has become the worldwide symbol of resistance to America. George W. Bush got re-elected as planned, and now he's out of office, peddling his memoirs and attempting to rewrite history. Republicans are capitalizing politically on the bad economy they caused, the huge deficits they created, and the endless wars they started. So everyone is happy, huh?

But in Afghanistan, America is left with no good options. That's our fault - in a democracy, we the people pretty much get what we deserve - but no one wants to blame himself, right? Well, there's always Barack Obama to blame. Luckily, we have no long-term memory at all, so two years might as well be prehistory, for all we know.

These days, there are many issues where we still have good options. We don't seem to be taking them, but they do exist. If we suddenly wised up (I don't expect it), we'd still be able to do some good. And I have strong opinions about most of those issues. But I don't have any idea what we should do about Afghanistan. We're long past the point where we have any good options there.

As with our current economy, we're paying the price of poor decisions made years ago. (Yes, there is a price to be paid for our poor decisions, and much as you'd prefer to push it off onto your children and grandchildren, much of it inevitably comes due in our lifetimes. But don't worry, your children and grandchildren will also be paying for them, and paying dearly, too.)

I don't see any good options when it comes to Afghanistan, none at all. At this point, our options are all bad. This is our fault. In particular, this is the fault of Republicans who supported George W. Bush and of Democrats who timidly went along with it. And it's especially the fault of people who couldn't be bothered with their civic duty at all. But in a democracy, we make decisions collectively, so this is our collective fault.

Of course, we'll almost certainly blame someone else, won't we? We left Barack Obama with no good options, but he'll certainly be blamed for the bad ones, whatever he does. I'm not going to suggest anything in this post, because I see no good answer to this mess now. Maybe if I had a time machine...

But no, forget the fantasy. This is the real world. In the real world, we must live with our mistakes. In the real world, no one rescues us from our own idiocy. In the real world, we can only do the best we can, and when we screw up this badly, vow to do better in the future (that, at least, shouldn't be hard).