Afghanistan’s Fall Is 9/11’s Latest Unlearned Lesson
America remains the “indispensable nation,” but its future effectiveness depends on seeing other parts of the world as they really are and recognizing the limits of the possible.
Precious cargo: 20 years of painful lessons.
Photographer: Aamir Qureshi/AFP via Getty Images
There have been many dark moments in the two decades since 9/11, some of them in Kabul last month. I remain especially haunted by a snapshot from 2007 Iraq. British political adviser Emma Sky was riding a Blackhawk with U.S. commander Gen. Raymond Odierno. She mentioned to her boss over the intercom a glimpsed graffiti on a building wall in Baghdad: “THE HERO, THE MARTYR SADDAM HUSSEIN.”
Odierno responded tersely that the hanged dictator was a mass murderer. Sky, who liked to live dangerously, said: “We still don’t know who killed more Iraqis, you or Saddam, sir.” There was a deadly silence in the helicopter, and even the diplomat wondered if she had gone too far. “General O,” as she called him, then shouted, “Open the doors, pilots. Throw her out!”