Ross: Kabul airport bombing a reminder of the ruthless mathematics of war
Aug 27, 2021, 6:58 AM | Updated: 10:29 am
A medical officer speaks with an Afghan woman and helps her with her child during ongoing non-combatant evacuation of U.S. civilian personnel. (Sgt. Jillian G. Hix/U.S. Army via AP)
(Sgt. Jillian G. Hix/U.S. Army via AP)
Thursday’s suicide bombing in Kabul was not only shocking – it was reminder to any American who still wants our soldiers to stay in Afghanistan what that would mean.
It was also a reminder to Afghans of the ruthless mathematics of this war, which dictate that in this incident – just as in the rest of the war – the Afghan casualties are many times larger than ours.
I heard an interview with American University of Afghanistan lecturer Obaidullah Baheer, an Afghan who has decided not to leave. He told CSPAN that this is why the Afghan Army disintegrated: The price of accepting U.S. help to keep the Taliban at bay was just more dead Afghans. He’s come to believe they made the right choice to disappear.
“Maybe this is a blessing in disguise,” he opined. “They chose to surrender, which meant that a lot of Afghan lives that could have been lost was avoided.”
“I personally think that it is better that a few [Afghan lives] were saved,” he continued. “I had friends who were commandos who died for this war, and their brothers are now asking the ex-president who fled the country why their brothers had to die when he was going to flee the country and give it up to the Taliban anyways. So maybe the commandos that didn’t die are worth accepting the harm that military disintegration caused.”
And as for Obaidullah himself – he is going to take his chances with the Taliban, which for a westernized English-speaking Afghan, sounds like a pretty big risk to me.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I am trying to make the best of the tools available to me, hoping that this transition goes well for Afghanistan’s sake, for the international community’s sake.”
He’s actually scheduled to teach classes at George Washington University next year in Washington, D.C. I hope he makes it, because I think the next generation of American diplomats needs to hear from him. Maybe he can show them how to stop their country from making the same mistake yet again.
Full interview on CSPAN here.
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