As President Biden ends the U.S. combat role in Afghanistan, Americans and Afghans are questioning whether the war was worth the cost: more than 3,000 American and other NATO lives lost, tens of thousands of Afghans dead and trillions of U.S. debt.
In this Aug. 11, 2021, photo retired Lance Cpl. William Bee poses for a photo with his wife Bobby Jean surrounded by memories of his military service at his home in Jacksonville, N.C.
For Bee, it came down to a night in 2008 in Afghanistan’s Helmand province. By then a sergeant, Bee held the hand of an American sniper who had just been shot in the head, as a medic sliced open the man’s throat for an airway. Lute and some others argue that what the second half of the war bought was time — a grace period for Afghanistan’s government, security forces and civil society to try to build enough strength to survive on their own.Quality of life in some ways did improve, modernizing under the Western occupation, even as the millions of dollars the U.S. poured into Afghanistan fed corruption. Infant mortality rates fell by half. In 2005, fewer than 1 in 4 Afghans had access to electricity.
Biden quickly corrected himself, evoking the victories of the first few years of the war. “The mission was accomplished in that we ... got Osama bin Laden, and terrorism is not emanating from that part of the world,” he added. Bilmes calculates the U.S. will spend more than $2 trillion just caring for and supporting Afghanistan and Iraq veterans as they age, with costs peaking 30 years to 40 years from now.
Kandahar’s airstrip, where Bee was quickly put to work digging a foxhole for himself over Christmas 2001, grew into a post for tens of thousands of NATO troops, complete with Popeyes and Burger Kings and a hockey rink. But one 21-year-old woman, Shogufa, says American troops’ two decades on the ground meant all the difference for her.
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