What went wrong in the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan? Two lawmakers weigh in For more context on the volatile situation in Afghanistan and the U.S. response, Judy Woodruff speaks to Republican Congressman Peter Meijer of Michigan, ...
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As the Afghan government crumbled and bloody catastrophe swept the country, a somber Joe Biden stepped to the podium. "I am president of the United States of America," he said, "and the buck stops with me." That was a refreshing change from a President slinking away from "any responsibility at all", but it didn't seem to faze the Taliban and Monday-morning quarterbacking will probably be the only sanction. If the buck stops with Biden, what does that even mean? Does it imply responsibility, blame, or accountability? If the buck isn't his, whose should it be instead?
I honestly thought "The buck stops here" had something to do with money (bucks) until I did some research. Harry Truman didn't coin the phrase, but a reporter saw a plaque with it on Truman's desk and made it famous. It's a callback to frontier poker games where players passed a 'buck' (a marker like a buckhorn knife) to indicate the dealer, a beautiful metaphor for passing responsibility among people who would rather avoid it. (Interesting that there's no term like 'passing the buck' for good things!) Biden now sits in the lonely place where bucks stop so in some ways he deserves the blame he'll get for ending the war. Is he responsible?
Joe Biden's fingerprints are on Afghanistan from the beginning when he helped create and voted for the flawed AUMF authorizing force in Afghanistan and Iraq, but every member of Congress has fingerprints on it as well. (Except for Barbara Lee, the sole vote against the AUMF and the only person in government who can say 'I told you so' 20 years later). The Afghan invasion was George W. Bush's answer to the Taliban so it's rightly his responsibility, but if it's easy to see his responsibility for starting things it's harder to meaningfully blame him for the situation 20 years later. Obama and Trump both had opportunities to find workable solutions or bring our people home, but both abdicated their responsibilities and passed the problem to their successors. Which brings us full-circle to Biden, who ended the bloodshed for OUR people while the death and misery unleashed on Afghans is only getting started. On his watch.
FAUX News and their allies will gleefully blame Biden the every misstep and blunder, and every politician who sees any benefit at all will join in piling on. Biden should obviously be held accountable for real failures, but blame isn't responsibility and Biden isn't responsible for everything he'll be stained with. If he's not, though, who is?
Maybe I was right thinking "the buck stops here" is about money. To use another political maxim, maybe we should "follow the money" to where the bucks start instead of where they stop. We'll find they all lead back to Eisenhower's Military-Industrial Complex, which has chugged along happily through every Afghani up and down. 10 years ago, the Commission on Wartime Contracting reported the federal government had already lost $31 to $60 billion to contractor fraud and waste since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq started. Stocks for the top 5 defense contractors rose between 331% and 1,236% during the war. The US dumped about $2 TRILLION into Afghanistan, $100 billion every year for 20 years, and most of this money went into a pig trough lined with defense contractors and politicians. Only a small part went to the Afghan people. The defense industry spends roughly $200 million per year in lobbying for their seats at the trough. The Afghanistan war was a disaster in blood and treasure for the US, but for our patriotic defense contractors it was a 20-year Christmas. They benefit from every conflict the US is involved in, as well as the ones to come
We blame presidents, we blame politicians, but 'We', the United States, are directly responsible for Afghanistan's latest 20 years of hell. Now both sides have the opportunity to rebuild but the Taliban there and the Military-Industrial Complex here make it very unlikely, at least for now. When we wonder who's responsible for this tragedy I hope we look past the blame of where the buck stops. By avoiding blame and properly fixing responsibility, perhaps one day... one day... we can move on to accountability as well.
Make a great day,
Digging Deeper...
The Afghanistan Papers- A Secret History Of The War, Whitlock, Shapiro, and Emamdjomeh in the Washington Post, Dec 2019
The All-Time 10 Worst Military Contracting Boondoggles, Adam Weinstein in Mothor Jones, Sep 2011
The military signed contracts for Afghanistan well into 2023. That's their problem. According a new report private companies could sue if the U.S. pulled troops out May 1., Kelley Beaucar Vlahos in Responsible Statecraft, Mar 2021
If Liz Cheney's Assigning Blame for an "Epic Failure" in Afghanistan, She Can Start With Her Father, John Nichols in The Nation, Aug 2021
Afghanistan War Went Wrong For These 7 Reasons, U.S. Watchdog Says, Joe Walsh in Forbes, Aug 2021
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