Donald Trump's victory in the November election drew praise and congratulations from leaders and governments around the world.
One of the most surprising things is that message Appeared in a post about X from the Afghan Taliban. The country's foreign ministry expressed hope that the president-elect's imminent return to the White House will enable “the two countries to open a new chapter in relations based on mutual engagement.”
The group's overtures reaffirmed the hollow echoes of the longest war in American history. For 20 years, from a month after the 9/11 attacks until the summer of 2021, the U.S. military fought the Taliban but was unable to subdue them. More than 2,400 troops They lost their lives in Afghanistan. Approximately 4,500 Killed in Iraq.
The men and women who survived the “Forever War” brought home the thorny question of whether the deaths of their fallen comrades were in vain. President Trump has selected three of them to serve as high-ranking officials in his next administration.
Vice President-elect J.D. Vance and Tulsi Gabbard, President Trump's nominee for Director of National Intelligence, were sent to Iraq. His pick for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The trio stated that disgust U.S. interventions abroad, including in Ukraine, trace back to their fears of eternal war.
Two years before he was elected to the Senate in 2022, Vance I wrote, “I left for Iraq in 2005, a young idealist committed to spreading democracy and liberalism to the world's underdeveloped countries. I was skeptical of ideology.”
Vance, Gabbard, and Hegseth frame President Trump's “America First” isolationism as a principled corrective to the country's post-9/11 military misfortunes. But their opposition to U.S. aid to Ukraine reveals a worldview without a moral compass.
All three seem oblivious to the dark irony: after years of claiming that America's political and military establishment betrayed their generation. veteransthey will immediately assume the role of traitors and abandon the Ukrainian army to its fate.
I have been reporting from Afghanistan for three years since 2011. covered The war in Ukraine has been going on since just before Russian troops and tanks crossed the border in early 2022. In terms of U.S. involvement, there is a clear difference between forever war and a full-scale Russian invasion, but Trump and his team prefer to omit that point in the conversation. Reduced presence.
U.S. leaders sent hundreds of thousands of troops to overthrow regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq and occupy both countries. They transported only weapons, equipment and ammunition to support Kiev's legitimate self-defense war. There is little comparison between America's role then and now — even though Vance called himself “anti-war.” It was communicated This false equality was asserted on the Senate floor last spring after Congress passed a $61 billion funding package for Ukraine.
So I would like to remind you that there are no U.S. troops fighting (or dying) in Ukraine's struggle against Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is seen as the biggest beneficiary of America's withdrawal from the world. sea bream.
If President Trump withholds aid from Ukraine to force President Volodymyr Zelenskiy into a Russian government-ordered ceasefire, that move would mean that over time the Ukrainian military would lose its ability to defend its homeland. will be proven to be “anti-war” only. Countless more people will die at Putin's hands.
In military parlance, “Got your six” means “I've got your back.” In U.S. military culture, soldiers are taught to protect each other at all times, and they uphold this spirit with soldiers from other countries they patrol with as partners, such as in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Since Trump avoided Vance, Gabbard, and Hegseth, who served in the military during the Vietnam War, were able to use their experiences in uniform to enlighten them on the concept of mutual vigilance. They may try to convince them that the United States has a moral obligation to protect democratic allies invaded by fascist dictators, and that fulfilling that obligation will make Ukraine, the United States, and the West as a whole safer. There is sex.
Rather, they will turn their backs on Kiev and encourage acts of national desertion that will exacerbate rather than rectify the tragedy of eternal war.
Over the past decade, I've interviewed dozens of veterans who have questioned the purpose of serving in these ill-advised and ill-fated conflicts. 2019, currently being interviewed story About the psychological toll, I spoke to a former Army sergeant. Nate Bass was deployed to Afghanistan in 2006. He completed a 16-month combat tour suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and a deep disillusionment with the war he had misguided.
“I feel bitter about everything,” he told me. He also mentioned friends who died overseas and people who died by suicide after returning home. “For what?”
ghost of betrayal shadow Many of the country's 21st century veterans remain, largely because it is unclear why four presidents, including Mr. Trump, sent them to Afghanistan and Iraq. Such strategic or moral ambiguities do not obscure the reasons for supporting Ukraine.
This country's valiant fight to defend its freedom, territory, culture, and national identity embodies the democratic ideals that define the West—honored by Vance, Gabbard, and Hegseth in words, but not in deeds. It's an ideal to despise. Their abandonment of Ukraine will leave even more blood on America's conscience, if not their own.
martin scum An independent journalist covering Ukraine. he writes: Report on Ukraine.
