President Biden, Afghanistan, and All Quiet on the Western Front

Yesterday I watched President Biden’s address justifying his decision to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan. The part of the speech that caught my interest was his brief mention about the consequences of war, where he acknowledged the harm war leaves on those who fight, including the collateral damage to friends and families.

Putting aside the debate over the wisdom of his decision, I appreciated his attempt to bring attention to a huge elephant hanging over our country, our long history of glorifying war as a just solution to solve conflict.

The speech took me back to high school, when I took an English class revolving around classical literature that confronted the harsh contradictions inherent in armed conflict. The book that stood out to me was All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. The book took a no-holds-barred approach to portraying the horrors of war. The German government eventually banned the book, as it revealed how young German soldiers were conned into enlisting, only to die gruesomely for lies their government had fed them.

For millions, the book stripped away the sanitized wrappings that had shielded them from the true cost of wars started by incompetent and dishonest leaders. Nearly one hundred years after this book was published we’ve learned little from its poignant warning. How many young Americans have been sent to fight in foreign conflicts over the past sixty years? What steps have been taken to shield American citizens from the horrors inflicted not only on our soldiers but on innocent civilians caught in the bloody crossfire? From our safe living rooms do we really grasp the full impact of our military engagements on people we will never know?

  If you are surprised by the messiness of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, perhaps you have not been paying attention. The lessons of history and literature have provided us with plenty of warnings about the wisdom of waging war. Maybe someday we will pay attention to what others have learned the hard way. But given the recent reactions I’ve read in news outlets and on social media, I can’t say I’m optimistic.