{"id":3919,"date":"2021-08-20T08:35:29","date_gmt":"2021-08-20T12:35:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tempestmag.org\/v01_2020\/staging\/?p=3919"},"modified":"2021-08-29T09:59:48","modified_gmt":"2021-08-29T13:59:48","slug":"never-forget-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2021\/08\/never-forget-afghanistan\/","title":{"rendered":"Never forget…Afghanistan"},"content":{"rendered":"

T<\/span>he first thing I thought of when I watched the U.S. military’s C-17 flee Bagram air base in Kabul, with hundreds of Afghans desperately trying to leave, as many clung to the planes\u2019 landing gear, was George W. Bush standing on the pile of rubble at Ground Zero in Manhattan on September 14, 2001. Fiddling with a bullhorn, on an overcast day, in his tan-colored windbreaker, he exclaimed, \u201cThe nation stands with the good people of New York City and New Jersey and Connecticut as we mourn the loss of thousands of our citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

A rescue worker interrupted, \u201cI can’t hear you!\u201d<\/p>\n

Bush replied, \u201cI can hear you! I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people\u2014and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!\u201d<\/p>\n

On September 10, 2001, I was a recent college grad. I had a mound of student debt. I didn\u2019t want to work in a cubicle to pay it back. I was volunteering in a nursing home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, working as a waiter in a sushi restaurant, and looking to find my place in the world.<\/p>\n

On the 11th, I watched the planes hit the Twin Towers. I was sitting with a 90-year-old woman named Ellie, who never spoke. Her daughter told me that Ellie\u2019s husband was a White House correspondent for NBC during the Kennedy administration. He was on Air Force One when LBJ was sworn into office with a bloodied Jackie Kennedy by his side. As Ellie and I watched the towers crumble together, she finally mumbled her first words to me. \u201cI am so sad,\u201d she said as she gripped my hand.<\/p>\n

In the days following, I felt confusion and restlessness. Bush gave his little bullhorn speech on the 14th. I watched that at the nursing home, too. The Yankees canceled baseball games and then had a moving ceremony at Yankee Stadium on the 25th that honored those who died on 9\/11. Again, I watched from the nursing home. Every minute during 9\/11 and the weeks following tugged at my heart and stirred my desire to do something real with my life and try to prevent a 9\/11-style attack from ever happening again.<\/p>\n

However, I did not have a coherent worldview at the time. I didn\u2019t understand power structures. I also didn\u2019t know if I was a kid or an adult. I was guided by emotion more than anything, and that made me vulnerable to rallying cries in the wake of tragedy\u2014rallying cries made through bullhorns by babbling idiots like George W. Bush. I thought the United States was the best country in the world and that its leaders truly cared about freedom and democracy.<\/p>\n

I signed up for the military not long after G. W.\u2019s speech. The military felt dangerous but also safe. There was order in the military. It seemed to offer a coherent worldview that revolved around solidarity among fellow soldiers and fighting for freedom. The military represented honor and purpose.<\/p>\n

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U.S. Army Scouts<\/a>, Afghanistan (2006)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Radicalizing<\/h4>\n

I became a socialist a few years after leaving the military as a war resister. The sense of betrayal and disgust by what I saw and did in Afghanistan\u2014where I spent a great deal of time at Bagram airbase\u2014led me to reject the idea that the United States is a force for good in the world. I began reading about other crimes the U.S. government committed throughout history. I met people who also knew about those crimes. There was a sense of solidarity in the collective determination to expose and resist future wrongdoings committed by those in power in the United States and their allies abroad.<\/p>\n

Since the collapse of the U.S.-backed Afghan government, a lot of people have been pointing fingers at their least favorite politicians, trying to hold that person responsible for the 20-year, trillion-dollar, thousands-of-lives-lost war in Afghanistan. Socialists taught me that one person is never solely responsible for such epic crimes. It is the conspiracy in plain sight carried out by the ruling class that causes such chaos and destruction.<\/p>\n

We can break down all of the horrible things that have happened in Afghanistan. I can recount all the horrible things that I saw while I was stationed there. We can look at individual decisions that started and maintained the war in Afghanistan, but one essay could never do the whole 20-year-story justice.<\/p>\n

Beyond asking how we are going to place the millions of Afghan refugees in homes in the United States and elsewhere, the next most relevant topic is: How do we prevent a war like Afghanistan from ever happening again? So I\u2019ll stick to that.<\/p>\n