Month: August 2021

BOTTOM LINE: “Education is the wellspring from which a nation ascends … or the quagmire into which it sinks.  Education is everything.”  Michael Russell

INTENT:  My intent here is to make two points.  One, what is the magnitude of the problem and secondly how do we fix it? 

HOW BIG IS THE PROBLEM? Huge. Education is perhaps this nation’s greatest disgrace.  Yet every four years we go through the same song-and-dance.  Candidates promise to spend more billions of dollars, resulting in more top-down regulation which then requires a bigger inefficient and ineffective Department of Education bureaucracy.  This is a decades-old formula for failure as we spend more dollars per student and watch our world rating in education continue to decline.

WHERE ARE WE TODAY?  Education has been headline-news over the past 18 months.  The pandemic shut down schools and 60 million kids and 180 million adults with children under age 18 had to learn, or not, to endure remote classrooms.  More recently the national debate has been about including critical race theory as a foundational piece of every school’s curriculum and about masks and vaccinations. But what we do not talk about is the elephant in the room, embarrassing, ridiculous education results.

THE NATION’S REPORT CARD: The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the only assessment that measures what U.S. students know and can do in various subjects across the nation, states, and in some urban districts. Also known as The Nation’s Report Card, NAEP has provided important information about how students are performing academically since 1969.  They grade mathematics, reading, science, writing, technology, arts, civics, geography, economics, and U.S. history for grades 4^th and 8^th every 2 years and 12^th grade every 4 years.

PRE-COVID NAEP REPORT CARD: In 2019 NAEP tested 150,600 grade 4 students, 143,100 grade 8, and 26,700 grade 12 students and reported:  Here is a summary pulled from a large comprehensive report:

Reading:  The assessment measures reading comprehension by asking students to read selected grade-appropriate materials and answer questions based on what they have read. 

                                                Grade 4           Grade 8           Grade 12

NOT proficient:                         59%                 66%                   76%

Mathematics: The assessment measures both mathematics knowledge and the students’ ability to apply their knowledge in problem-solving situations.

                                                Grade 4           Grade 8           Grade 12

NOT proficient:                         65%                   66%              63%

Other subjects were even worse.  For high school seniors 88% NOT proficient in history, 77% NOT proficient in writing ability and 78% NOT proficient in science. 

NAEP defines “proficiency” as follows:  NAEP student achievement levels are performance standards that describe what students should know and be able to do. Results are reported at three achievement levels, Basic, Proficient, and Advanced. What we-the-people want and deserve from our schools are high school graduates who are “proficient”, that is they are ready to go out into the world with the skills to put together a successful and prosperous life.  The above percentages represent the number that cannot score up to the “proficient” level.  Generally speaking, two thirds of our high school graduates are not adequately prepared to do that.  And that says nothing about the 7,000 students who drop out every school day.   

More snapshots that illustrate the problems in government-run public schools:  Providence, RI:  Only 5% of eighth graders are proficient in math.  Newark, NJ: 21% proficiency in math.  North Carolina: 44 % of North Carolina fourth-graders are not proficient in reading.  Wisconsin: Black American eighth graders perform only slightly better than white fourth graders in reading and math.  And so it goes across the country.  A recent survey found that 20% of American adults cannot name even one of the three branches of government.

GOVERNMENT-RUN vs CHARTER:  One cannot adequately analyze education results without getting inside the government-run public schools vs charter schools discussion. Let’s begin by understanding what a charter school is.

Facts shared by nearly all the states: Charter schools are authorized by the State Board of Education. Charter schools are tuition-free schools of choice that are operated mostly by independent non-profit boards of directors. 

The two major teachers’ unions, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) consistently spread false information against charter schools. 

Misinformation # 1: “Charter schools are unaccountable, private schools that take money away from district schools.” Truth: Charter schools are 100% accountable to state authorities. Charter school students are typically funded at $0.73/dollar compared to district school students.

Misinformation # 2: “Charter schools don’t serve a diverse population of students; they get to hand pick their students to populate their schools.” The truth is, if a child is eligible to attend a public government school, parents may apply to any charter school.  If a charter school receives more applications than its capacity, a lottery is conducted. Discrimination based on race, national origin, or religion is prohibited.

Misinformation # 3: “Charter schools are not academically superior to government-run public schools.”  Truth: In New York City, for example, in a number of minority communities, traditional public school and charter school classes are co-located in a common building.  In one co-mingled building in 28 different classes less than 10% of the government-run public school students tested to a proficient level while 81-100% of charter students were proficient.

Why do charter school students perform better?  Two reasons:  1) Government-run public schools are top-down highly regulated vs charters with their own organization, planning, and programs allowing them the freedom to use innovative school models and customized approaches to curriculum, staffing , budgeting and teaching.

2) Government-run public schools are highly unionized while charters are not. With teacher union support, on average it takes about two years of a Principal’s effort to fire a teacher for poor performance. Unsatisfactory teachers are not being held accountable. By contrast, if charter students do not measure up to standards, the school is subject to being shut down by state law.  Is accountability important in education?  Yes, it is the ultimate arbiter.

CONCLUSION, TEACHERS’ UNIONS ARE NOT A PART OF THE SOLUTION, THEY ARE A BIG PART OF THE PROBLEM.  Two facts lead to this conclusion:

One, generally, across the nation, charter school students score higher on achievement tests than students in government-run public schools.

Two, this is a summary of what the union leaders are telling we-the-people about charter schools: Charter schools are privately-operated, deregulated, segregated, poorly-supervised, de-unionized scandal-ridden contract schools that drain much-needed funds from demonized public schools.  Those statements are all lies.

To illustrate how out-of-control the teachers unions can get, when California was considering sending teachers back in to the classroom, the Los Angeles teachers’ union made the following demands: defund police, a moratorium on new charter schools, new wealth taxes on California millionaires and billionaires and Medicare-for-all at the federal level.  Three questions come to mind: 1) How did they get so far out of their lane?  2) Why are they the final decision maker on when teachers return to the classroom? 3) How did they get that much power and influence?

THE DEMOCRAT PARTY AND EDUCATION: Biden on education during the 2020 campaign: “There are some charter schools that work.”  Wow, what a resounding endorsement!  And, “I will stop all federal funding for for-profit charter schools.” Only about 16 percent of charter schools across the country are operated by for-profit entities.

The Democrat party traditionally supports everything the teachers’ unions are saying and doing which is not necessarily good for education. But it is good for campaigning; in 2016 the two largest teachers’ unions contributed $41 million dollars to candidates with 94% going to Democrats.

The Democrat Governor and legislature in Oregon, July 2021, found a solution to the dismal reporting that the state’s high school graduates had failed to master essential skills. The governor signed into law a suspension of the state requirements that students demonstrate proficiency in reading, writing and math.  That simple piece of legislation just told the teachers, Principals, Superintendents and school boards that they will not be held accountable for passing out high school diplomas to illiterate graduates. 

FIXING EDUCATION begins with an understanding that education without standards is a failed system; education without accountability is a failed system.  We have a failed system.

Since the Federal Government established the Department of Education in 1979, we have seen one failed program after another as each succeeding administration tries to fix education from the top down with hundreds of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of bureaucrats. What to do?  We have to change the way we solve education problems with more decentralized decision making and execution.

Learn from charter schools. As pointed out earlier, charters are turning out better educated graduates because they are allowed to operate with their own organization, planning, and programs allowing them the freedom to use innovative school models and customized approaches to curriculum, staffing, budgeting and teaching.  Big, centralized government bureaucracies stifle all of that.

We need to begin education reform by doing away with the federal Department of Education.  Turn it into a small agency principally dedicated to handling federal grants to education.  This will in turn take education out of national politics and hopefully make it less partisan.

Decentralize education by putting the responsibility for quality education squarely on the states where it can be more directly scrutinized by we-the-people. 

AN ORGANIZATION WITHOUT STANDARDS IS A FAILED ORGANIZATION:  Applying standards to education makes the teaching game-plan simple to define. It begins with the identification of an end state standard for a particular time period.  For example, there must be a standard for the end of first semester fourth grade math.  Given that standard the teacher will then develop a week-by-week lesson plan to achieve that standard with every student.  Teach to a standard, then test.  Teach to the next level, then test again.  And, so it goes week after week for 13 years, K-12.  The concept is simple and there will be no need for hundreds of pages of regulations, frequent recurring reports, no need for legions of bureaucrats providing oversight and requirements for national testing.

HOW DO WE ESTABLISH THE STANDARDS?  It is not difficult; it can be done quickly and does not require any bureaucrats, regulations or tax dollars to do it. Here are the steps to take, for example at the State level, led by the Governor.  The governor is accountable for standards.

The governor will set up a summer work session by inviting selected teachers and Principals to establish education standards.

On day-one there will be a meeting of three experienced outstanding kindergarten teachers and three equally outstanding elementary school Principles.  Their task is to define what every Kindergarten student should achieve by school year end; that is, the end state standard. Having done that, they will then outline, in general terms, what to achieve during each of the six-week intervals on the way to the end state. That’s it, they are done.  The kindergarten standards are set.  Every elementary school principal and kindergarten teacher in the state will then work to achieve that standard.

A similar group of 1^st grade teachers, who sat in on the kindergarten session but did not participate, now have a clear understanding of the kindergarten end-state which clearly defines their start point for 1^st grade standards. They then set about to establish end of 1^st grade standards.

And so it would go on day after day during a summer-long session to define standards for every grade and every course K-12. 

AN ORGANIZATION WITHOUT ACCOUNTABILITY IS A FAILED ORGANIZATION.  If the accountable Governor has established viable, understandable standards for all subjects and all grades, accountability immediately moves down to the local level. 

The local Board of Education and the Superintendent are accountable to the local public, we-the-people, for institutionalizing the standards. That begins with their school Principals’ job description, mission statement, goals, focus etc. however they want to phrase it. The Principal will be accountable for quality instruction to standard of every subject in every classroom every day; period. It is the Principal’s number one priority every day and whatever is second priority should rarely see the light of day; period.

How does the principal’s focus get translated into the classroom?  It begins with good old fashioned lesson plans. Every teacher is accountable for preparing lesson plans on a week-by-week basis that lead directly to the standard (for example) established for end of first semester 4^th grade math.

The Principal’s accountability begins at the beginning of the year when he/she goes over every lesson plan with each teacher to insure there is a clear path to the required end-state; that is, what the student must know and understand at the end of each semester. 

The Principle should have all the lesson plans in a 3-ring binder or on an iPad.  Every day he/she will take the lesson plans and visit classrooms. If the teacher is behind schedule, if the instruction is sub-par, if the students are obviously not “getting it” there must then be a one-on-one Principal/teacher “discussion” at the end of that day.  Fix it. Accountability.  

Accountability on the part of the Principal should include creating conditions for success. That is, an open-door/open discussion atmosphere, an environment in which initiative and innovation are encouraged and best practices sharing is the norm and reenforced with a culture of trust and respect.  

Teacher accountability is to teach/test, teach/test so as to know at all times if the kids “get it” and if they do not, re-teach, tutor, whatever it takes to not let a student get behind.  Getting behind in 4^th grade leads to being further behind in 5^th grade etc. until they eventually become one of the 7,000-per-day dropouts. 

SEPARATING THE WHEAT FROM THE CHAFF:  Teachers and leaders.

Teachers:  Just as in any other organization, schools have key individuals (in this case teachers) who can be categorized as great, good, mediocre or poor performers.  How can you tell?  There is a good chance that poor performing students have a mediocre or poor teacher.  These are the teachers who will say in a huff, “Well, I know how to present the material but I can’t make them learn;” blaming their failures on someone else. In contrast is the teacher with students who are doing well and that teacher not only knows how to present the subject matter but also knows how to make the students WANT to learn.

Leaders:  In all large organizations, industry, government, military and in this case education, there are elements (branches, divisions, schools) that are drowning in mediocracy.  One thing that may be common in all of these is what I call consensus-to-fail.  It is an unwritten, unstated but also alive and functioning operational understanding wherein the leader is “saying” without actually saying it out loud, “I will not hold you responsible for being mediocre subordinates if you will not hold me responsible for being a mediocre leader. When one walks into an organization like that there is a feeling, a sense that initiative, innovation, high standards are not the order of the day and they are completely satisfied with mediocracy.

There are some schools that are consistently poor performing organizations.  If it is a charter school their charter will be pulled.  If it is a government-run public school the usual solution is to throw more money at the problem.  Additionally, one reason poor performing schools have a tendency to remain substandard is that when a great or good teacher is hired and they get a sense of the consensus-to-fail culture, they want no part of it and they move on.  

With this emphasis on transforming education at the point of execution there is going to be demand for good-to-great leadership at the local level. The Superintendent is the first level where quality instruction becomes that position’s number one priority.  On a daily basis the Superintendent must lead, mentor and observe the first-line leaders the school Principals. Unrelenting focus on quality instruction.

Many school districts will be faced with the problem of not having enough experienced leaders at the Superintendent/Principal level.  Many individuals in those positions were placed there based on the fact that they were excellent teachers but may in fact have never had a day of leadership training.  There is always an easy fix at the local level and it is free.  Every community has its share of successful civilian and/or military leaders either still employed or retired.  The board of education could easily set up mandatory Saturday morning leader development seminars for the Superintendent and all of the school Principles.  Solicit the local leaders to participate pro bono in the seminars.

This is not rocket science; this is leadership and accountability and unrelenting focus at the point of execution.  Some teachers will probably complain to their union representative. Good, that’s when the Superintendent and/or the local Board of Education steps in and explains to the union how the soup is made in their school district.   

Sometimes large and seemingly insurmountable problems have a simple, common-sense solution.  I believe that education in America can be put back on track.  But it is going to take some draconian action by the President and Congress.  Do away with the Department of Education.  Cut out all the federal bureaucratic regulations and reporting requirements. Get politics out of education, just let it work on its own at the local level.  We-the-people cannot rely on some nameless faceless bureaucrat in Washington to solve our local education problems.  But if the accountable local Board of Education members get off track, we can for sure vote them out of office.  The local Superintendent and school Principals are people we know and can talk to.

RECAP:  EDUCATION NEEDS A NATIONAL TRANSFORMATION WHICH WILL ENTAIL, AS A MINIMUM DOING THE FOLLOWING:

• Do away with the Dept of Education and it rules, regulations, reporting requirements and bureaucrats.
• Expand school choice with more charter schools.
• Decentralize education to the states to establish standards.
• Decentralize education to the school districts for accountability.
• Find a way to curb the power, control and authority of the teachers’ unions.

Achievable standards and clearly articulated accountability is a formula for dramatically raising students’ “proficiency” in all subjects across America. It does not begin in Washington, it begins with state-wide standards and is accomplished at the point of execution, inside the school house one day at a time.   

Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders, a columnist for THE PILOT, a national award-winning local newspaper in Southern Pines, NC and the author of a blog, WeThePeopleSpeaking.com

February 29, 2020, US and Taliban sign an agreement that sets the terms for a US withdrawal from Afghanistan by May 1, 2021.

April 14, 2021, President Biden announced plans to pull all US Military forces from Afghanistan by September 11, 2021.

July 8, Biden says military withdrawal from Afghanistan will conclude August 31^st.

Point:  None of what is currently taking place in Afghanistan was a surprise to the Biden Administration. Here is some of the dialogue that has taken place over the past six weeks:

Biden: “That is not true” he said when asked about the claim that US intelligence has concluded that the Afghan government would likely collapse.

Biden: “It was not inevitable that the Taliban will take over Afghanistan.”

When Biden was asked whether there was any comparison between his withdrawal from Afghanistan and the humiliating retreat from Vietnam, his response was: “None whatsoever. Zero.”  Note: That is perhaps the most accurate statement he has made.  This withdrawal is Vietnam plus Iran 1979 plus Benghazi to the tenth power.  

Biden: “The pace with which the Taliban have gained ground in recent weeks has only solidified the merits of my decisions.”  Would that be the “merits” of withdrawing the military before the civilians?  At a later date, “I don’t think it (the withdrawal) was a failure.” Then why do we have tens of thousands of American citizens unaccounted for?

Biden and General Milley, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, on the Afghan National Army.  Biden 14 July: “I trust the capacity of the 300,000-man Afghan military.”  Milley 21 July: “Afghan forces have the capacity to fight and defend their country.” 

Biden: “We are assured that the Taliban will be cooperating in the effort to get American citizens out of the country over the next few weeks.”  Biden: “There were no reports of people being stopped from reaching the airport by the Taliban.”  Pentagon reveals Taliban beating Americans enroute to airport.  Note: are we to believe that our president thinks the Taliban are trustworthy? 

 General Milley: “I have previously said in sworn testimony before Congress that the intelligence clearly indicated multiple scenarios were possible. One of those was an outright Taliban takeover following a rapid collapse of the Afghan security forces and the government.” Note:  This would lead one to believe the Defense Department had built a plan for that contingency.  However, at General Milley’s press conference after the Taliban complete takeover: “There was nothing that I or anyone else saw that indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days.” Oh yes there was, in July, 23 State Department staff at the Kabul embassy informed Secretary of State Blinken of exactly that…. Kabul will fall quickly to the Taliban.

Biden, 16 August address to the nation: “We are moving quickly to execute the plans we had put in place to respond to every contingency including the rapid collapse we’re seeing now.”  Note: Plans in place for every contingency? I don’t think so; what about the evacuation of tens of thousands of Americans now under the complete control of Taliban fighters? 

Biden, 16 August address to the nation: “Our only vital national interest in Afghanistan remains today what it has always been: preventing a terrorist attack on American homeland.” Question:  The safety of tens of thousands of American citizens controlled by the Taliban is not a vital national interest right now?

Biden and Sec Def Austin: Biden 16 August, “Over the coming days, we intend to transport out thousands of American citizens who have been living and working in Afghanistan.” Sec Def Austin 18 August (When asked whether the U.S. has the capability to do that) “We do not have the capability to go out and gather large amounts of people.” What the Sec Def or Chairman should have said is, we have the greatest capability in the world to ensure safe passage for all Americans in Afghanistan to a departure airfield.  We are awaiting approval from the president to execute. And both should have been prepared to resign over the issue. 

Biden 16 August: “As we carry out this departure, we have made it clear to the Taliban: If they attack our personnel or disrupt our operation, the US presence will be swift and the response will be swift and forceful.”  We will defend our people with devastating force if necessary.”

Sec Def Austin 18 August: “The US has roughly 4,500 troops on the ground at Hamid Karzai International Airport.  But those forces will not be sent beyond the airfield perimeter to quell the chaos or help people pass Taliban checkpoints.” Question, which one is telling us the truth?     

How many times have we heard the president tell us, “We are in discussions with the Taliban”?  Is Biden so naïve that he actually believes the Taliban command and control is sufficient for their leaders to be communicating rules of engagement to the mostly-illiterate thugs who are manning the checkpoints throughout the country?  

Biden apparently did not talk with key NATO allies before the Taliban took complete control of Afghanistan.  While the president told us,” I have seen no question of our credibility from our allies around the world,” the world was sounding off loud and clear.  For example, German soon-to-be Chancellor Armin Laschet said, “This is the greatest debacle that NATO has seen since its foundation, and it is an epochal change that we are facing.”  Also the U.K. has roundly condemned Joe Biden’s poor and unilateral decision-making, even going so far as both parties in British Parliament holding Biden “in contempt.” 

The president’s mis-statement about our allies and NATO begs the questions.  a) Is he just making this up as he goes along? Or b) is he deliberately lying to us believing we are too dumb to understand the truth? Or c) Biden simply doesn’t pay enough attention to the world around him to see it? Or d) His handlers are sabotaging him with false information on his teleprompter?  Whichever answer is correct it is disappointing, alarming and the American people deserve better.  What is equally alarming is some of the US media keeps pretending the emperor is not naked.

How many Americans must be evacuated from Afghanistan?  State and Defense Department spokespersons, Price and Kirby: “I don’t know.”  One might then ask, what size force do we need to safely evacuate I-don’t-know-thousand people? 

How incredible is this?  Is this 1821 or 2021?  From personal experience with the State Department, this I-don’t-know response does not surprise me.  But I do know the Defense Department does know how to plan for crisis-related evacuations, or at least did.  It was 1978, the Cold War was in full swing and I was commanding a nuclear-capable artillery battalion as part of the US 3^rd Infantry Division near the Czechoslovakia border, where we were staring down four Soviet tank divisions. Under that scenario, how were we going to evacuate tens of thousands of military dependents if necessary?  It’s not rocket science.  Part of the overall plan was that my wife had a car, she could evacuate our two small daughters, she knew the route to take to her rally location which happened to be the Frankfurt airport.  My family was briefed on our evac responsibilities the day we arrived in country and were kept current for three years. 

No one, not one single person during the past ten days of this crisis has ever mentioned the civilians’ evac plan.  Obviously, there isn’t one.  Nice going State Department. 

Comment on Biden’s address to the nation Sunday the 22^nd.  Nice numbers about how many individuals have been flown out of Kabul, but, Mr. President, how many are still out there unaccounted for and literally under the gun of Taliban radical jihadists? And how are they going to get to the Kabul airport?  That is what we-the-people tuned in to hear, not about what a great job the president believes he is doing.

Biden 22 August: “Evacuation will be hard and painful.”  Note: Of course it will be painful but it didn’t have to be.  Without a plan, everything is chaos.

Sunday, 22 August address to the nation the president told us everything is going well and I’m doing a great job. Note:  Americans have always been great at accomplishing the nearly impossible in times of crisis, especially the military because every day they train to innovate and persevere at the point of execution.

CONCLUSIONS:

No doubt the next generation of terrorists will be superbly armed with the 600,000 small arms we could have/should have evacuated under a pre-planned deliberate process.

Administration-wide incompetence. Don’t blame the soldiers, don’t blame their junior leaders, don’t blame the Division Commanders; this is all about the Washington arrogance, stupidity and centralized control.

The US has, in just a few days’ time, become the laughing stock of the world and every time our Commander in Chief opens his mouth or reaches for another 3×5 cad, it gets worse.   

The White House “handlers” have figured out that the president occasionally needs to take a few, but not many, questions from the media.  It is not lost on America and the rest of the world that everything is pre-scripted on cards; who to call on, what their question will be and what the president should say.  Its pathetic, its embarrassing and it should not be happening.  We need to hear our Commander in Chief speak from the heart, demonstrate depth and breadth of knowledge and understanding of the problem. But no, everything we hear is from the pen of a White House handler.  Who is in charge?

Some thoughts about planning; I wrote a book about it.  After putting together an overall concept of what an operation will be about (a first draft dealing with the questions, who, what, when, where, why and how) there needs to be a moment when the boss gathers his planners together and asks the question, what are the keys to success?  Or, stated another way, what can cause this to fail?  It is not a long list, maybe two or three inviolable issues.  In this circumstance a hand would have gone up and a bright guy or gal would have said; the last person on the last aircraft out of Afghanistan must be departing from Bagram Air Base.  We own it, we have secured it since we got there, it has two long runways and we can safely handle thousands of evacuees.  Everyone agreed.

Second hand goes up; every US civilian in country needs to have a preplanned evac plan that includes, means of transport, route and destination.  Then we preplan to secure those routes. The boss says; absolutely, coordinate with the State Department and make it happen.

And so it goes; it is not rocket science, but it is the one commodity seemingly missing in Washington today, common sense.

A second comment on planning.  The military lives by this thought, “no plan survives contact with the enemy.”  The military mindset is that no plan is perfect and we need to think, way ahead of time, the answers to the questions, “what if….?”  It is called contingency planning.  Contingency planning is a parallel process that takes place before we execute.

Some example what-ifs: Since the president directed the withdrawal to commence during the Taliban fighting season, we would ask, what if they roll up control of the country faster than expected?  What if the Taliban make a move to control all the major routes of egress?  What if we have to prematurely evac the US embassy and lose their in-country knowledge and support? What if the Afghanistan National Army is unable or unwilling to stand against the Taliban offensive? What if the Afghan government folds up early?

Of course, many of you are saying right now, well that’s easy Monday-morning-quarterbacking.  Reality is that our military leaders are trained to think worse-case-scenario and put it into a contingency plan because their lives may depend on it.  With a proper planning process, they would have thought of these obvious what-ifs and probably a lot more. 

There is zero indication that any of our leaders in Washington did anything like this.  Instead, what we are getting is finger pointing at the intel community, and statement like, “no one expected the country to fall in 11 days.” 

Was there sufficient time to do proper planning?  Of course, there was a ridiculous amount of time available.  Planning should have begun 18 months ago on 29 February, 2020, when the US and Taliban signed an agreement that set the terms for a US withdrawal from Afghanistan by May 1, 2021.  Then, on 14 April, 2021 when President Biden announced plans to pull all US Military forces from Afghanistan by 9/11, 2021, all the fine-tuning and rehearsals should have begun.  Words that come to mind:  Dereliction of duty.  High crimes and misdemeanors. Relief for cause.

The United States in two short weeks just forfeited its global leadership role and the consequences will, in all probability, be catastrophic.  We could experience global open season on cyberattacks against the US; oil embargo; emboldened Putin moves on the Ukraine, Belarus, the Middle East; Russia supports Iranian hegemony in the Middle East; Russia no longer fears NATO retaliation; China invades Taiwan; China controls shipping in the South China Sea; Russia and China collusion to insure the US is cut out of initiatives in the Artic; Afghanistan terrorism, supported by Iran, regains pre-9/11 terrorist training/planning; terrorist flooding into the US across the southern border.  For all practical purposes NATO becomes a paper tiger; North Korea ramps up missile testing; Iran fields a nuclear weapon; etc. etc. etc. 

Why could some or all of this become a reality?  Plain and simple failure by the US to lead. We have been disgraced, humiliated and placed in mortal danger by this leaderless administration.  Our friends no longer respect us and our enemies no longer fear retaliation.   

Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders, a columnist for THE PILOT, a national award-winning local newspaper in Southern Pines, NC and the author of a blog, WeThePeopleSpeaking.com.

As I write this the US has become diplomatically and militarily disengaged from Afghanistan. The pundits are already saying, “we lost another war.”  Did we? 

The 9/11 attack was a wake-up call for America.  Up to that point no one wanted to say the words, “global war on terrorism”.  But there it was, an enemy we could not defeat at our borders; we needed to take the fight overseas.

We had to go after their leaders and planners. We had to interdict their training areas. We had to restrict their movements and cut off their finances.  

Many of the tentacles of the 9/11 attack lead back to Afghanistan to Osama bin-Laden, al Qaeda, and the training and planning areas supported by the Taliban. Enter the US military with a specific mission; reduce the likelihood that terrorists could/would attack the US again killing thousands more.

 Has the military accomplished that mission?  Yes, they have and in the process of fighting that “war” many service members came home in a flag-draped coffin or with life-changing mental and physical damages.  The question will always be asked, was it worth it?  That is a rhetorical question because we will never know the answer to the question, what would the terrorists have done to us if we had not gone on the offensive? 

So, if we accomplished the mission, why are we leaving such a mess in Afghanistan? Fair question.  

First, when we arrived in Afghanistan there was no standing military force to be defeated; we could have accomplished that in days.  The enemy was the men tending to their livestock or working in the fields during the day and at night they were building bombs and mining roads and trails. There was no clear picture as to what to blow up and who to kill.

Secondly, when we arrived, we found a country little changed over perhaps hundreds of years. We found a culture of religious fanatics who treated all females like pieces of property. We found a Muslim nation with a deep-seated belief that it was their sacred duty to be part of a world-wide holy war; the Jihad.

Given that set of circumstances the US did what it has historically done; morphed the mission into nation-building. We set out to build schools, medical facilities, a free democratic government, freedom of expression and a military sufficient to challenge the Taliban.

Has it worked?  Not very well.  Why?  We have for years battled against a deep-seated culture. For example, government outreach and central control is an anathema to a people that are a multiethnic and mostly tribal society.   Their first allegiance is to their tribal leaders.

We took it upon ourselves to challenge their culture, their way of life. Women there will still be subjected to Sharia law and its gruesome consequences with thousands of cases where women are physically tortured, beaten, mutilated, burned alive, forced to marry at a very early age, raped or sold into prostitution.

Afghanistan is a corrupt nation at every level and in all their dealings to the point that corruption is culturally acceptable.   Could we change all that in 20 years?

Change of subject, how could the US withdrawal have been handled differently and perhaps more successfully?  First, why announce it to the world with an end date of 9/11 as if it will be a celebratory event?  Given the announcement the Taliban quite naturally dusted off their nation-wide take-over plan.

The summer is the fighting season for the Taliban, when their ability to conduct operations is at its highest level.  The drawdown should have been done in the winter without an announcement.

A different scenario might have looked like this: When men and equipment began to be moved out of an area, the Taliban would immediately take notice and put together a quick operation to retake the area.  When the Taliban showed up, we could have initiated a pre-planned counter offensive and slammed the invaders with everything we have and ensured the Afghan military was a big part of the operation.  Create a morale-boosting win for the Afghanistan troops.  Create confidence in the minds of locals that they can be protected. Create a belief in the minds of the Taliban that retaking the country will be difficult and costly. 

Did we lose the war?  We accomplished the military mission.  Were we there too long?  Maybe not long enough if Afghanistan again becomes an Iran-financed exporter of terrorist activities targeting the US.  Did we leave them an adequate military force to counter the Taliban?  We know how to do a superior job of training but we can’t make them want to fight.

Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders and the author of a blog, WeThePeopleSpeaking.com