Regarding the letter “Trump’s Fault“ (PDN, Sept. 14.)
I found the letter credible and well written. However, to fully comprehend the debacle of Afghanistan, one must start at the beginning.
Post 9/11, U.S. policymakers decided that Afghanistan could not be a semi-state with a regime that allowed its territory to be a haven for al Qaeda and a launch site for global terrorism.
Prosecuting that mission was the worst possible leadership in U.S. history.
They were President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
What followed was a fool’s errand.
Every Afghan institution to include political, economic, cultural, ethnic and religious was never fully understood by that or any other administration. Their society, a severe Islamic state governed by Sharia law, was patriarchal, brutal to women and rife with regional warlords.
Opium production was central to rural economies.
Tajik and Pashtun hated each other.
Open-air executions were common.
Afghanistan never knew or fully grasped democracy.
Building a nation state there had more hidden obstacles than can be listed here.
Afghanistan was and probably always will be a 14th century-type failed state, earning the nickname Graveyard of Empires.
The snowball rolling down the hill unfortunately landed with a big thud in the Biden administration.
Bart Kavruck
Port Townsend