Afghanistan, the war that doesn't exist

American soldiers in Afghanistan have nowhere to drop dead. Arlington Cemetery, where the U.S. buries its war heroes, is running out of space. Every week between 27 and 30 families mourn their loved ones, although on Saturdays there are more burials, up to eight. The white marble tombs stretch to the horizon. At first sight one can distinguish by their size the graves of lieutenants, captains and admirals. There are always classes. Even in death.

The cemetery is separated from Washington only by a river, and from the top of a hill one can see the White House and Congress. They decide who goes to Afghanistan and why. At the bottom, cornered, is "Section 60," where those who lost their lives in the "war on terror" that George W. Bush started after the September 11 attacks rest. Eighteen years later, the dead are still arriving at the cemetery.

Before, burials were public, the press could photograph the farewell of a woman too young to be a widow, the coffin wrapped in a U.S. flag, and the horse-drawn carriage that rocked it. Now the ceremonies are private, the mourning is secret.

At 9:10 a.m., not a soul walks through the less touristy area of Arlington Cemetery. After a twenty minute walk one knows that one has reached "Section 60" because the grass is yellow where a coffin was recently placed.

"You go to the funeral, you meet the family of your friend who died and you have to tell them it was worth it. And you lie, because it wasn't worth it." Matthew Hoh is 46 years old and has spent two years in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
 

Matthew is almost six feet tall and has a pinkish face. He says he's gained weight since he started taking post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) pills a few months ago. The first symptoms appeared when he first returned from Iraq in 2005. Suddenly he couldn't look his girlfriend in the eye, was frightened by any noise, and couldn't sit with his back to any door because he thought a terrorist with an explosive vest would break in at any moment.

"When I came back, that's when the guilt started to pour out. When you're there you suppress everything. Someone gets killed and you keep doing what you were doing, you have a little funeral and that's it. There's never time to grieve. You never think about enemy or civilian casualties. We did terrible things. One of the things that bothers me now is that when we killed a member of the insurgency, we didn't allow their families to pick them up off the street. We let the dogs eat them.

"Then you come home and find out. Jesus Christ! He was somebody's son and we let the dogs eat him," for a few seconds, Matthew stops and bites his lower lip.
 

It took this veteran a while to admit he didn't want to be part of the war. Upon returning from Iraq, he returned to his post at the Pentagon and tried to routinely numb the pain. He would wake up at dawn to go to work, then spend hours at the gym, and once home, drink and drink until he lost consciousness and fell asleep. He would wake up and repeat the same circle. "Drinking became a medicine, the idea of suicide appeared and alcohol became a way of dying very slowly. You live like a zombie."

In 2009, he returned to Afghanistan. His idea was that, if he was going to die, he would prefer it to be on the ground doing what he was "good at", rather than hitting the bottle. He became the highest ranking US representative in the Afghan province of Zabul, a Taliban stronghold. He tried to regain his hope, to convince himself that the US presence in the Asian country would help to ensure the security, stability and peace that the Afghans dreamed of, but it became increasingly clear to him that the deployment only served to fuel a spiral of violence.

"After five months, I couldn't take it anymore. I was broken inside and I quit," he recalls as he looks away.

His name - Matthew Hoh - shook the political foundations of the United States and made the front page of The Washington Post. He was the first American official to resign in protest of the war in Afghanistan. The reason: he had lost faith, he didn't understand why Washington was wasting money and blood so far from home. And he was not alone. Skepticism had progressively blossomed among Americans. In 2001, when the US intervention began, only 10% considered it a mistake, while in 2009, when Matthew resigned, 30% rejected the war. Today, the figure is over 40%, according to the Gallup consulting firm.
 

Aversion to war is mixed with indifference, one of the factors that have contributed to its longevity. Soon American soldiers will be sent into a contest that began before they were born. With no public opposition, no protest songs and no banners on university campuses, Afghanistan is now 18 years old and has made history as the longest war in the US, surpassing even that of Vietnam.

"One is never wrong to underestimate how little Americans care about the rest of the world," laments Professor Trevor Thrall, who specializes in conflict and public opinion. "We are a vast, narcissistic nation surrounded by two very large bodies of water and two very weak, friendly neighbours (Mexico and Canada). We simply don't need to worry about the rest of the world every day. Our security does not depend on what happens in Afghanistan," he reflects as he scowls.

Although indifference is widespread, each generation of Americans feels the war differently. The baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, are much more likely to favor military intervention than the millennials. In fact, this social group, composed of some 87 million Americans born between 1980 and 1997, professes scepticism and apathy towards Afghanistan. Unlike their elders, the Millennials prefer cooperation to military intervention and believe that the world is not as dangerous as they portray it.

According to Thrall, this is because the millennials are the generation born at the end of the Cold War. At school, they didn't have to hide under a desk to rehearse what their response to a nuclear holocaust would be like. It is true that their childhood was marked by the attacks of September 11, but what most affected the 'millennials' was the consequence of those attacks. That is, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the drone attacks and the controversial anti-terrorism law "Patriot Act", which curtailed their freedoms and extended to an unprecedented level the espionage of the National Security Agency (NSA).
 

The blame for the forgetfulness also lies with the George W. Bush Administration and its decision to launch the Iraq war in 2003. The reason: the false argument of weapons of mass destruction. From that moment on, media attention and government resources were scattered in Iraq and Afghanistan was almost without a budget. In return, it became known as the "good war" because, in the eyes of some Americans, it was the only legitimate conflict, the one that had begun in 2001 to hunt down Osama Bin Laden, the "mastermind" of the September 11 attacks, and to punish the Taliban who had given him refuge.

Dave Lapan was one of the architects of the Pentagon's information strategy in both wars. Years later, after retiring from public service, he acknowledges that mistakes were made.

"There are people who think we should have focused on Afghanistan and not diverted our attention and resources to Iraq. Because of the division of resources, money, soldiers, media attention and leadership, the US was distracted and gave the Taliban a chance to regain strength and ground. In 2001, the insurgents ruled over three-quarters of Afghanistan and with the invasion, they lost everything; but, in recent years, they have been increasing their control, and now dominate 12% of the country, according to official U.S. data.

"We lost focus, we lost the moment. Some people think that today we are still in the war in Afghanistan because we diverted our resources and attention to Iraq, instead of finishing what we started.
 

But how do you end 18 years of war with 147,000 dead among civilians, soldiers and insurgents? A month ago, the Donald Trump government signed an agreement with the Taliban to get U.S. troops out of Afghanistan. However, violence threatens that pact and peace is still a utopia.

Those who fought there know that the withdrawal will not mean the end of the fighting, but they hope that an agreement will help heal the wounds. "I think, for us who were in the wars, the idea of it ending will help us to feel some relief because, when it's unfinished, when it continues, how do you move on, how do you start again, when it's still going on," Matthew Hoh asks.

The soldier quotes Spanish-born writer Georges Santanyana: "Only the dead have seen the end of the war. In the case of Afghanistan, he may be right.