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US-China relations
OpinionComment
Tom Plate
Tom Plate

Opinion | US-China tensions: an America all too experienced in war must take stock

  • Joe Biden is pulling the plug on the Afghanistan conflict, but unwisely taking a hard line against China
  • The situation around the East and South China seas is making the world nervous, and Beijing, for its part, must not misread Washington

Reading Time:4 minutes
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Illustration: Craig Stephens
Tom Plate

We patriotic Americans usually call it Memorial Day weekend, but sometimes the barbecues and beer throw memory off base, as if the holiday on the last Monday of every May signifies no more than the winding down of a 72-hour party.

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On Saturday, US Vice-President Kamala Harris innocently, if lamely, tweeted, “Enjoy the long weekend” – and that was it. A storm of criticism, not all of it ill-intended or partisan, impelled a clarifying tweet from her on Sunday: “Throughout our history our servicemen and women have risked everything to defend our freedoms and our country. As we prepare to honour them on Memorial Day, we remember their service and their sacrifice.”

Okay, let’s not make a felony out of a slip. But if we don’t ask ourselves certain questions on Memorial Day, we may never understand who we are. Like: why were we ever in Vietnam – 58,220 US soldiers killed, many more wounded; practically an entire generation of Vietnamese decimated?
Like: why did we have to smash Iraq to pieces – and was the awful Saddam Hussein the lesser evil after all? How many examples must be paraded before we take collective stock of our many ways of war? Every son and every daughter lost in one of our military interventions deprived the affected families of a precious part of their lives and their emotional liberty.
Which brings us to America’s drawn-out Afghanistan blunder. This war, scrambled together in the emotional aftermath of the tragic terrorist attack of September 11, now holds the record for the longest ongoing war in US history. But no president had summoned up the political courage to say: enough is enough, it isn’t working – no more. No president until Joe Biden, that is.

02:14

Afghan girls’ school bombing kills at least 68, raises fear of more violence as US withdraws

Afghan girls’ school bombing kills at least 68, raises fear of more violence as US withdraws

By July, it is estimated, US forces there will either have returned home or been redeployed. Perhaps even by July 4. Someone might wish to nominate this career American politician for the Nobel Peace Prize for his gutsy, clear-headed decision. It certainly merits stellar memorialisation.

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