Turning Point? 9/11 and the Dark Side

Netflix released its new series, Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror, just as the United States was withdrawing its remaining forces from Afghanistan after 20 years of occupation. The series makes it clear that the sense of disarray so palpable in those widely televised scenes from Kabul airport this August has been characteristic of the US adventure there since the first American troops arrived in the fall of 2001. President Obama once tried to shift attention away from the catastrophic failure in Iraq and back to the supposedly “good war” in Afghanistan, claiming that “we took our eyes off the ball” and that “it is my intention to finish the job.” But, as the series shows, it was never clear what ball “we” were supposed to have our eyes on, or what America’s self-appointed “job” in Afghanistan actually was. After the loss of a quarter million lives, and with Afghanistan back in exactly the same hands it was in in 2001, it still is not clear.