The Foreign Service Journal, October 2021

18 OCTOBER 2021 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Contemporary Quote What is happening is a terrible tragedy, but the blame cannot be laid at any one door. The Biden administration’s short timetable for with- drawal, tied to the 20th anniversary of 9/11, and in the middle of the fighting season, was a mistake. But the situation on the ground is the result of two decades of miscalculations and failed policies pursued by three prior U.S. administrations and of the failure of Afghanistan’s leaders to govern for the good of their people. —Ambassador (ret.) P. Michael McKinley, “We All Lost Afghanistan,” foreignaffairs.com, Aug. 16. a State Department official told The Wall Street Journal . The last military cargo aircraft departed the airport on Aug. 30. Secretary Antony Blinken said State had suspended its diplomatic presence in Kabul and that operations would continue from Qatar. “A new chapter of America’s engage- ment with Afghanistan has begun,” the Secretary said. “It’s one in which we will lead with our diplomacy. The military mission is over.” Afghanistan: Chronicling a Drawn-Out Debacle O n Aug. 17, SIGAR, the Special Inspector General for Afghani- stan Reconstruction, released “What We Need to Learn: Lessons from Twenty Years of Afghanistan Recon- struction.” The latest in its “Lessons Learned” series, this new report is a devastating indictment of the Afghanistan effort. The U.S. Congress established SIGAR in 2008 to provide independent, objective oversight of Afghanistan relief and reconstruction projects, for which approximately $144.98 billion has been appropriated since 2002. (Military spending was another approximately $800 billion.) “If the goal was to rebuild and leave behind a country that could sustain itself and pose little threat to U.S. national security interests, the overall picture in Afghanistan is bleak,” SIGAR states. Despite gains in life expectancy, child mortality, GDP per capita, literacy rates, and more, SIGAR concludes this prog- ress was neither commensurate with the U.S. investment nor sustainable after a U.S. drawdown. The 140-page report delves into the reasons for this harsh judgment in seven chapters on the issues of strategy and its ownership, timelines, sus- tainability, per- sonnel policy, insecurity, and monitoring and evaluation. Among the most striking observations is the extent of U.S. lack of understanding of Afghanistan and its people, including what SIGAR describes as “a willful disre- gard for information that may have been available.” In addition to audits and inspections, SIGAR relied on interviews with relevant personnel at every level, conducted under conditions of anonymity, to assemble the “Lessons Learned” reports, which were launched in 2014. In August 2016, The Washington Post began seeking those interview records under the Freedom of Information Act, ultimately suing for their release. The interviews were featured in a Dec. 9, 2019, exposé by Post reporter Craig Whitlock, “At War with the Truth, ” charg- ing senior U.S. officials with deliberately lying to the American people for 18 years and implying that SIGAR whitewashed the critiques. Whitlock’s book, The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War , based on the SIGAR interviews as well as former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s memos pertaining to Afghanistan, was released by Simon & Schuster on Aug. 31 (see review, p. 76) . State Has No Answers for “Unexplained Health Incidents” D iplomats are becoming increasingly frustrated by the lack of answers for the mysterious health incidents—the so-called “Havana Syndrome”—that have affected hundreds of U.S. officials over- seas and in the Washington, D.C., area, CNN reported on Aug. 2. They’re also concerned by the State Department’s “tepid response,” according to CNN: “Of particular concern is a lack of information from leadership, includ- ing what some say has been a hands-off approach from Secretary of State Tony Blinken.” Media have already reported that a couple of dozen U.S. officials in Vienna, and at least two in Berlin, have been affected by what the State Department calls “Unexplained Health Incidents.”