Have lessons been learned in Afghanistan?

 

Bill Knight column for 4-26, 27 or 28, 2021

 Fifty years ago last week, more than 1,000 members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War descended on Washington, D.C. for days, dramatically demanding an end to that war by testifying, lobbying lawmakers, and protesting – throwing back their medals onto the Capitol steps.

It was a turning point, though peace was years away.

As President Biden recently announced his plan to bring home the last 2,500 or so U.S. troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, one suspects veterans of the Afghanistan war had influence on the difficult decision.

Of course, troubling uncertainties remain, and second-guessing is under way.

In Illinois alone, hundreds of National Guard personnel and regular service members served there, among the 775,000-plus U.S. troops sent there since 2001, with 2,400 dying, and 20,000 injured. Their experiences undoubtedly mattered, as well as flagging support for the war among veterans and the general population.

Pew Research in 2019 showed 58% of all veterans said the Afghanistan war wasn’t worth it; this year, 54% of those who’ve served after 9/11 favor reductions (NORC at the University of Chicago), and 76% of American adults support withdrawal (from the conservative Charles Koch Institute).

When President George W. Bush launched Operation Enduring Freedom in October 2001, the goals were to punish al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden for the 9/11 attacks, and to defeat Afghanistan’s Taliban, which harbored the terrorists. Bin Laden escaped until he was killed in 2011, but the Taliban was quickly toppled.

However, U.S. and NATO forces then shifted the focus to nation building, stopping the illicit drug trade, emancipating women, and reforming corrupt government – a mistaken “mission creep” that turned swift military victory into a “forever war” trying to impose a new structure by means of air power, ground forces, drone strikes, etc.

Illinois’ U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin said, “We have long since lost sight of our original mission.”

The longest war in U.S. history, its occupation falls between Great Britain, which left in 1919 some 80 years after invading, and the Soviet Union, which withdrew 70 years later after almost a decade.

It’s cost the United States $1 trillion, plus more for future care for veterans. About 100,000 Afghan civilians and another 58,000 Afghan security forces also died.

In 2019, the Washington Post’s “Lessons Learned” series exposed the war’s folly.

“The ‘Lessons Learned’ interviews contradict years of public statements by Presidents, generals and diplomats,” the series said. “Officials issued rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hid unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable. Several of those interviewed described explicit efforts by the U.S. government to deliberately mislead the public and a culture of willful ignorance, where bad news and critiques were unwelcome.”

Congressman Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) scolded members of the 15-member Afghanistan Study Group – made up of military, political, economic and diplomatic figures – which recommended staying. “Those who had any part in getting us into this 20-year war should not be opining about keeping us mired in it,” Khanna said. “This is what makes people so angry about Washington.”

Biden inherited a commitment by President Trump, who impulsively agreed to a May 1 withdrawal but had no plan to do so. (Trump also sent more new troops to the Middle East than he recalled, according to the Institute for Policy Studies).

Biden’s choices seem to have been leaving hurriedly in a few weeks, staying indefinitely, or bargaining while organizing a withdrawal. (NATO said it’s withdrawing its 7,000 troops, too.)

Working with the U.N., Turkey and Russia, with input from China, India, Iran and Pakistan, U.S. diplomats have proposed a power-sharing “peace government” to maintain order while writing a new constitution and planning an election. But the Taliban is unwilling to compromise, much less share power.

Also hesitant are Afghani President Ashraf Ghani and his chief rival, Abdullah Abdullah (who also claimed the presidency last month, when they held dueling inaugurations).

Nagging questions loom about what happens until Sept. 11, and beyond. A renewed civil war may occur, a grim and bloody result after which women could lose the rights they’ve gained. What about the many private contractors and special forces, intelligence personnel, support and security staff to help secure the capital Kabul? What about those left behind, such as tranerslators? And does withdrawal reflect a change in U.S. foreign policy or a new anti-war or isolationist direction? Conservative William Ruger, an Afghanistan vet at the Koch Institute, said, “It is past time we bring our troops home from Afghanistan. A speedy and full withdrawal from the country is what the American people want and what best serves American interests.”

So: Afghanistan’s future will be the responsibility of Afghanis, not Americans?

Lesson learned, finally?

Remembering great columnist Ernie Pyle

 

Bill Knight column for 4-22, 23 or 24, 2021

Annually, National Columnists' Day is April 18, which is also National Animal Crackers Day (appropriate, some might say) and National Lineman Appreciation Day (which I love, as the son of a power-company lineman).

Columnists decided on that date to honor Ernie Pyle, and this year I spent some of that day re-reading a Pyle essay I wrote for the encyclopedia “Forties in America” 10 years ago. With the Greatest Generation fading with time, Pyle’s story is worth re-telling, if in abbreviated form. After all, few recall even ideal members of the vocation.

(New York newspaperman and satirist Stanley Walker once wrote, “What makes a good newspaperman? The answer is easy. He knows everything. He is aware not only of what goes on in the world today, but his brain is a repository of the accumulated wisdom of the ages.  He is not only handsome, but he has the physical strength which enables him to perform great feats of energy. He can go for nights on end without sleep. He dresses well and talks with charm. Men admire him; women adore him; tycoons and statesmen are willing to share their secrets with him. He hates lies, meanness and sham but keeps his temper. He is loyal to his paper and to what he looks upon as his profession; whether it is a profession or merely a craft, he resents attempts to debase it. When he dies, a lot of people are sorry, and some of them remember him for several days.”)

            Ernest Taylor Pyle was born in rural Dana, Ind., on Aug. 3, 1900. As a youngster he helped his tenant-farmer father and attended school until he enlisted in the Naval Reserve during World War I. The war ended before he shipped out, and he enrolled at Indiana University, where he studied journalism. He left in 1923 before graduating to be a La Porte (Ind.) Herald reporter, then moved to Washington to work as a reporter, then copy editor, for the Daily News.

In 1925, he wed Geraldine Siebolds to start what would be a rocky marriage. He worked at both the New York World and the New York Post before returning to the Washington Daily News in 1928. There, Pyle was a wire editor, aviation columnist and managing editor until 1935, when he became a roving reporter, writing six columns a week for Scripps-Howard, eventually published in hundreds of newspapers.

After World War II broke out, Pyle went to England in 1940 and covered the Battle of Britain and the war in Europe for about six months. He returned to the United States in mid-1941 but returned to Europe in June 1942 as a correspondent for United Features. Accompanying troops through North Africa, Italy, the D-Day invasion and the liberation of Paris, Pyle wrote columns featuring regular soldiers and everyday life and death.

Producing about 2.5 million words of simple, effective journalistic writing over a decade, Pyle became a craftsman of short nonfiction that took readers to people and places they hadn’t known – or thought much about.

Pyle’s coverage in more than 200 daily and 400 weekly newspapers for three years largely avoided stories about generals or armies, instead writing from the point of view of the common GI. He was so loyal to the troops that he lobbied Congress to enact extra “combat pay” for soldiers.

Pyle briefly returned home in 1944, the year he won a Pulitzer Prize, then in January 1945 he joined Allied forces in the Pacific, where he was killed by a Japanese sniper on the island of Ie Shima, on April 18.

The aftermath of his death included posthumous honors, including a Medal of Merit from the Army, Navy and federal government, presented to his wife at a July screening of the film based on Pyle and his reporting, “The Story of G.I. Joe,” starring Burgess Meredith as Pyle and featuring Robert Mitchum. Not long after, Geraldine’s health deteriorated and she died of complications from influenza that November.

Pyle eventually was buried alongside Army and Navy dead in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Punchbowl Crater on the island of Oahu Hawaii.

Indiana has an Ernie Pyle State Historic Site, his Albuquerque home is now a library, and the Albuquerque Museum has a collection of who they call “America's Most Loved Reporter.”

Pipeline controversies linger amid possible compromises

Bill Knight column for 4-19, 20 or 21, 2021 

President Biden recently declined to shut down the controversial Dakota Access pipeline while an Army Corps of Engineers review continues, a setback for dozens of Democrats who urged the shutdown, plus environmental and Native American groups that for years have fought the 1,200-mile underground project bringing oil from the Dakotas to Illinois – and threatening the Missouri/Mississippi River.

It’s part of the Bakken Pipeline System planned to deliver oil to a Patoka, Ill., hub and the Energy Transfer Crude Oil Pipeline, which moves oil to the Gulf Coast for export, not domestic use.

A federal judge gave the corporation until late this month to justify its operations, but a lawyer for the Sioux tribe expressed disappointment.

“The company gets to keep the benefits of operating the pipeline that was never properly authorized while the community has to bear the risks,” said attorney Jan Hasselman. “It’s not right.”

Elsewhere, pipelines are the subject of other conflicts, although some common ground is emerging.

In June, work is set to start on Line 3 of a pipeline planned by Enbridge, part owner of Dakota Access, at a time when other pipelines – and their jobs – are in flux.

Pipeline-job disagreements pit union against union, with National Nurses United (NNU), Steelworkers and Teachers versus the North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU), Teamsters and Mine Workers.

Last April, a judge blocked a permit for a pumping station owned by Keystone, a 1,100-mile project from Canada to Nebraska built under a Project Labor Agreement benefiting Laborers, Teamsters and other unions who’d hoped for 20,000 jobs (although only 7,000 have materialized).

On Biden’s first day in office, he blocked Keystone’s construction license for its tar-sands pipeline, responding to concerns about oil spills, unfair use of Native American land, and opposition from NNU and other unions that object to the heavy oil’s high carbon and sulphur content.

Ironworkers president Eric Dean said, “We aren’t climate-science deniers but [ask] that the administration understand those pipelines provide meaningful, high-paying jobs.”

James Williams Jr., vice president at large at the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT), said it’s time to seek and see mutual interests.

            “I would blame labor a lot of the time for this [argument],” he said, “but there have to be deeper conversations about the fact that labor is going to lose jobs that have been really good jobs for a really long time.”

            Unlike Trump’s divide-and-conquer approach while favoring corporate polluters, Biden seeks common ground, saying, “Dealing with the climate crisis and revitalizing our economy with well-paying jobs are one and the same. We’re going to take money and invest it in clean energy, millions of dollars in wind, geothermal and solar.”

AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka endorsed Biden’s zeal to fight climate change, which the President calls “the existential threat of our time”– IF it prioritizes fossil-fuel workers with future union jobs.

“The clean-energy economy must be built on a foundation of family-supporting union jobs, and President Biden is committed to that vision,” Trumka said.

Jason Walsh, director of the BlueGreen Alliance  – made up of the Teachers, Bricklayers, Painters, Service Employees, Plumbers, Steelworkers, and other unions plus environmental groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council and Sierra Club – said, “We are also excited to see [Biden] support workers and communities impacted by our nation’s transition to cleaner, cheaper forms of energy. These workers powered our nation for decades and we must ensure no community or worker is left behind as we move toward building the clean economy.”

            Environmental groups back demands for union jobs, teaming up with labor in ventures such as the “Good Jobs for All” campaign organized by the youth climate group Sunrise Movement.

NABTU issued a cautious statement of support: “We welcome this administration and the opposition for this and hundreds of other projects to engage with us on a rational, national strategy going forward that does not treat workers, their families, and entire communities as an afterthought.”

Last month, Democrats introduced the BUILD GREEN Infrastructure and Jobs Act, which would invest $500 billion over 10 years in state, local and tribal projects to help move to all-electric public transportation – reducing climate-damaging greenhouse gas emissions and unhealthy air pollution while expanding clean mass transit and creating up to one million new jobs with strong labor provisions.

Introduced by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Andy Levin (D-Mich.), the measure is supported by about 60% of Americans, according to Data for Progress polling.

“We cannot Build Back Better without building back greener,” said Markey, who called the bill “our opportunity to invest in a clean-energy revolution across our country, transform our transportation sector to be climate-smart, and create millions of good-paying union jobs.”