911 and The Phony 20-Year Afghanistan War

Hindsight is 20-20 vision. The 20-year Afghanistan War led by the United States (US) with NATO forces, among 39 participating countries, ended as abrupted on 30 August 2021 as its beginning on 7 October 2001.

20 years ago, on 11 September 2001 (often referred to as “911”), a total of 19 men hijacked 4 commercial US planes and crashed 2 of them into New York’s World Trade Center, destroying the towering buildings and sending plumes of debris shooting through the most populous US city. A 3rd aircraft struck the Pentagon just outside of Washington, DC, and a 4th plane crashed in a field in rural Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after the hijackers onboard were overpowered by its passengers. Around 3,000 people belonging to 92 countries were killed. 

Osama bin Laden claimed responsibility on Arab TV for the hijackings in the name of his Jihadist group, Al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden admitted to being behind the 911 attacks.

The Taliban had in fact earlier offered to surrender Osama and his leaders provided the US could provide proof of their complicity in the 911 attacks. Alternatively, they would hand over Osama for trial in a country other than the US without seeing any evidence.  Both proposals were dismissed by the US.  

The US also wanted Bin Laden for both the September 11 attacks and for masterminding the bombings of two US embassies in East Africa in 1998 in which 224 people were killed.  He was also suspected in other terrorist attacks, including the suicide bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen the year before.

Evidence would emerge over time that Pakistani agents and a Saudi Arabia diplomat were also involved in the 911 bombings.  In fact, 15 of the 19 hijackers involved in the 9/11 attacks, were also Saudi citizens like Osama. The Saudi government has repeatedly denied any involvement in the attacks.

As Osama and his leadership team were surrounded in the mountainous region of Tora Bora in early December 2001, they were assisted by the Taliban forces and Pakistani intelligence in their escape to Pakistan. On 16 Dec 2001, before the multinational ISAF and US forces arrived in Afghanistan, Osama had already escaped to Pakistan.  The ISAF and US forces did not pursue them into Pakistan.

Essentially, the key people who constituted the brain trust of al Qaeda managed to escape to Pakistan. It is arguable that had Osama bin Laden, al-Zawahiri, Atia, Al-Kuwaiti, and Wahashi been killed at Tora Bora, Al Qaeda leadership would have been devastated and effectively destroyed.  

For Al Qaeda, surviving Tora Bora resulted in their dispersal throughout the Middle East. Within a year, the Bali attacks by an Al Qaeda affiliate happened to be followed by attacks in Madrid, Spain, and London, United Kingdom some 2 years after.

Osama bi Laden was finally tracked down and killed in an obscure village in Abbottabad, Pakistan, by US forces on 2 May 2011.  Toro Bora was the closest that the US got to bin Laden for nine and a half years until the Abbottabad raid.

The Afghanistan Mission should have logically ended with Osama’s escape to Pakistan in Dec 2001, or upon his death in 2011. It did not.

911 – Trigger or Pretext?

The policy for the US in Afghanistan was never absolutely crystal-clear or coherent. It was purported said by then Defence Secretary that President George Bush simply wanted revenge for 911.  Bush wanted to remove Afghanistan as a safe haven for al Qaeda, as well as destroyed Al Qaeda as a terrorist entity so as to remove it as a threat to the United States.  Driving Osama bin Laden and his leadership out of Afghanistan from Tora Bora essentially fulfilled part of the goals. The failure to pursue them into Pakistan looked like mission failure from flawed leadership.

In order to remain in Afghanistan, the Mission began to embrace the more strategic American reason to establish a military and geopolitical foothold in Central Asia on the very borders of Russia and China. The new US objective was never articulated but appeared to be clearly understood by all the countries involved in Afghanistan. 

The “nation-building and humanitarian” aspects of the US-led Allied occupation of Afghanistan were largely window dressing to cover US geopolitical ambitions. This also explains the lack of progress in the Afghanistan “nation-building” and “humanitarian” efforts, despite spending nearly US$2 trillion on mostly military hardware instead of infrastructure, housing, education, industry, manufacturing and public health. Official data shows that since 2002, the US has spent only $131.3bn on reconstruction activities in Afghanistan.

The continual US focus on Afghanistan after 2001 has very little to do with establishing a better and more equal society in Afghanistan. Especially since the US was unable to build one in its own homeland.  In December 2001, the then righteous motivation from 911 was to destroy the Al-Qaeda organisation led by Osama bin Laden who planned and executed the 911 World Trade Twin Towers bombings and the attack on the Pentagon. 

A major delusion of the Afghanistan war has been that the missions are undertaken for the reasons given: to hold the line against communism, to build democracy and arrest poverty in places like Iraq or Afghanistan, or eliminate security havens for antagonists like Al Qaeda.  While the US presence began with seemingly noble objectives, it quickly degenerated into a huge bureaucracy a life of its own, tempted by the huge amount of public funds amounting to more than US$2 Trillion over 20 years.  The Afghanistan War became a 20-year money laundry project benefiting contractors and the power elites of Washington, including several Congress leaders.  

The Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) some years ago reviewed and concluded that about “30% of the amount reviewed was lost to waste, fraud, and abuse.” The total monetary cost of the Afghanistan War has been studied by Brown University in the US and summarized in the infographic below:

The human costs (2001-April 2021) are as follows:

·        US soldiers killed in Afghanistan through April: 2,448.

·        U.S. contractors: 3,846.

·        Afghan national military and police: 66,000.

·        Other allied service members, including from other NATO members: 1,144.

·        Afghan civilians: 47,245.

·        Taliban and other opposition fighters: 51,191.

·        Aid workers: 444.

·        Journalists: 72.

The 20-year Afghanistan War should have been concluded by 2002. It did not. The chief reason being the absence of clear mission objectives and a consensual understanding among US and Allied NATO forces of what is truly important.  The Afghanistan War began with a reason but lacked key articulated objectives as well as a coherent exit plan. As the reason for going into Afghanistan fizzled off, the War perpetuated itself, fed by the corruption driven by endless US money approved by vested interests Congress leaders and the military-industrial complex.  It is plain and simply the failure of democratic leadership.

20 years on, one is mindful of General Clausewitz’s wisdom:

"No one starts a war, or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it. The former is its political purpose; the latter is its operational objective. This is the governing principle which will set its course, prescribe the scale of means and effort which is required, and make its influence felt throughout down to the smallest operational detail."

Never in the field of human conflicts have so many lives been sacrificed by so many soldiers and civilians in an unnecessary war fought by politicians and military commanders from flawed decisions and motivated by deep-seated national and self-interests. On this 20th anniversary of America’s longest and unnecessary war, it is worth remembering the victims of 911, the heroism of the 1st responders, and the continual suffering of surviving 1st responders from cancer and related health hazards from the toxic fumes, and their families.

Their demise, sacrifice, and sufferings should not have been used by their political leaders and military commanders to kill more than 2,400 US soldiers and wounded thousands of other veterans so unnecessary.    

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