President Biden upheld one of his fiercest campaign promises on Monday, Aug. 30, when he ordered all U.S. troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan, ending the military’s 20 year occupation of the country. Today’s college students are part of the last generation of young people who were alive at all during the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the main catalyst for U.S. occupation.

Dr. Jeff VanDenBerg, chair of Drury’s political science department as well as the director of Middle East studies, explains the history of the conflict, recaps the current humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan and gives college students lessons to take away from these events.

VanDenBerg said the conflict first began during the Soviet Union’s rule of the country, a time when the United States supported Afghanistan with financial aid and intelligence.

“What also emerged,” VanDenBerg said. “Was a group of people who came to Afghanistan primarily from outside the country, including someone named Osama Bin Laden. They organized what they called at the time Al-Qaeda: “freedom fighters” or “holy warriors” to fight against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.”

“During that war, Al-Qaeda became quite powerful and slowly began to turn the attention of their terrorist activity against the west, in particular against the United States and carried out several attacks throughout the 1970s.”

“Al-Qaeda continued to grow in power and influence throughout the rest of the 20th century,” VanDenBerg said. However, the true turning point in American involvement came when the United States stationed troops in Saudi Arabia to help prevent Iraq from conquering the neighboring country of Kuwait.

“Osama Bin Laden is from Saudi Arabia,” VanDenBerg said. “The United States has a heavy presence fighting the war, and in that context, Osama bin Laden shifts his focus away from the war [with Iran] and against the United States. Throughout the 1990s, Al-Qaeda carried out terrorist attacks, like the bombing of a couple US embassies in east Africa, the bombing of a naval vessel in Yemen. All that culminates in the 9/11 attacks.”

As a result of the national fear that resulted from the attacks, then-President George W. Bush had both public and congressional support to attempt to defeat Al-Qaeda, which took refuge in the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

The mission was two-fold: first, to defeat Al-Qaeda and second, to replace the Taliban with a new government.

“Popular support and Congressional support carried out for a long time,” VanDenBerg said. “Really, it’s only in 2012 or ‘13 or somewhere in there, was there any sense that we’re not getting it done. The Obama administration said ‘we need to get out’ and weren’t able to figure out how to do it effectively. The Trump administration similarly said ‘we need to get out’ and couldn’t. Now the Biden administration has done it.”

The American public supported the war efforts for all these years, although it became financially and morally draining. VanDenBerg claimed this is due to the government’s resistance to relaying accurate coverage of the situation, especially regarding fighting the Taliban.

The truth only began to become clear following a “massive leak of government documents,” according to VanDenBerg.

“To put it bluntly,” said VanDenBerg. “The American public was being misled. All the documents show that the estimates by military and intelligence were that the Taliban wasn’t going to be defeated. All it took was a few weeks, once the withdrawal was happening, for the whole Afghan government and military system to just fold.”

The Biden administration’s actions have come with a fair amount of criticism. According to VanDenBerg, Afghanistan is an especially difficult place to govern, given its rich cultural, religious and linguistic diversity.

The United States left the country on Monday as it marked the end of the deal previously struck with the Taliban. Although propping up a new government was part of the original plan, VanDenBerg said that part of the mission proved more difficult for the military than expected.

“The biggest [question] from a humanitarian point of view,” said VanDenBerg. “Is why the U.S. waited so close to the withdrawal period to begin to get people out: embassy officials, people from Europe and the United States who wanted to leave, but especially all those people in Afghanistan who could be in severe jeopardy from the Taliban’s takeover.” “So why not begin to get everyone out who needs to get out two months earlier, instead of three days? [Biden] said the Afghan government asked them not to do that, because they didn’t want it to appear that collapse was likely and they didn’t want to create panic.”

Despite this initial request, the United States’ departure created widespread anxiety, as the Taliban forces swept in almost immediately. Scenes of Afghans clinging to each other and desperate for a way out still plague the country.

This causes the public to wonder what is next and what Americans can do to help. According to VanDenBerg, the probability of another occupation is unlikely.

“If you can’t do it in 20 years, with 250,000 lives and $2 trillion,” said VanDenBerg. “It’s probably not a great idea to say ‘oh, let’s give it a round two.’”

As inconclusive as the situation seems, there is still hope for change.

“It seems that the general consensus is to isolate that government and to pressure the government to at least moderate its behavior:” said VanDenBerg. “To not be as radical and extremist regarding women’s rights and freedoms and liberty and pressure it to secure territory against terrorist organizations operating there.”

This crisis ends at a pivotal point in the lives of today’s college students, as many are becoming more involved in civic action and their places in the world at large. VanDenBerg offers the following advice:

“As young people, when leaders say ‘we’re going to use military force to fix a problem,’ be very cautious about that. Ask hard questions. If the Afghan war has shown us anything, it’s that it’s really easy to rush to war when there’s a threat. I’m not diminishing the threat, but just be careful.

“If anyone promises you that it will be an easy thing, be very cautious about those arguments. Military force is really effective at fighting wars. It’s not good at building something, and it’s the building something that’s the hard part. If you break it you own it, so be careful what you break.”

Article by Julia Chamberlain