Nothing about what Donald Trump says or does surprises me. The surprise effect wore off long ago, or I thought it did. Sitting with another tanner version of a populist like himself, Trump said that if he wanted to win the war in Afghanistan, he could do so in 10 days by wiping Afghanistan off the face of the earth.
Let me bring the actual quote: "I think Pakistan is going to help us out to extricate ourselves. We're like policemen. We're not fighting the war. If we wanted to fight a war in Afghanistan and win it, I could win that war in a week. I just don't want to kill 10 million people. Does that make sense to you? I don't want to kill 10 million people. I have plans on Afghanistan that, if I wanted to win that war, Afghanistan would be wiped off the face of the Earth. It would be gone. It would be over in--literally, in 10 days. And I don't want to do--I don't want to go that route."
Trump announced that to the world from the Oval Office. As an Afghan American, I am offended to the core. I am offended because this is not the America I know and now live in. The descent from Reagan's "shining city on the hill" to the demagoguery of Donald Trump is appalling. You have heard of Ahmadinejad or the ayatollahs, haven't you? They've flirted with "wiping Israel from the face of the earth" and the outcry from the "civilized" world is nonstop; today the entire country of Iran is branded as an axis of evil. Trump essentially said the same thing. Despicable.
Please do not translate or paraphrase Trump's English to me. There is no justification for his buffoonery and reckless comment, pushing aside the moral qualms and killing of innocent people as part of his "winning strategy."
From where I am sitting, I see Trump's life as sequence of transactional deals. It's about scoring/winning at whatever cost. From where I am sitting, I also think that transactional lives are meaningless, lifeless and lonely, and he is one miserable soul with enormous power and yet no moral compass--I find it a sad and pathetic life.
A while back, after I gave a short talk, someone came to me and said, "I'm happy that America didn't nuke Afghanistan. ... After 9/11, I said go and nuke them all. Now that I met you, I'm glad we didn't."
I corrected her assumption and said, "I'm glad you didn't." I told myself, what does she know? It was dictated to her by her worldview and she had a rather small window to the outside world. Trump, on the other hand, is the leader of a beautiful country and I naïvely expected him to know better.
Last but not least, if you truly believe in American exceptionalism, find an Afghan and give him a word of encouragement. What Trump said last week from the Oval Office was hateful and Mussolini-like.
And a word to Trump: Afghanistan is not a pawn that you can sacrifice because you are a president! Afghanistan will remain a broken and shattered yet proud country way past the time when you are dead and remembered as an embarrassment in history books. Also, what was said is disrespectful to soldiers, Marines, and humanitarians who have died, fought and worked courageously alongside their Afghan soldiers and colleagues for the last 18 years.
I'm out.
------------v------------
Khalid Ahmadzai is an Afghan American Master's of Public Service graduate of the Clinton School of Public Service. He obtained his B.A. in International Relations and Middle East Studies from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
Editorial on 07/29/2019