Afghanistan Vet: Don't Celebrate Dropping The 'MOAB' In Afghanistan - It's Just More Of The Same

Jason Dempsey retired from the Army in 2015, last serving as special assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He served in Afghanistan with the 101st Airborne Division as an adviser to the Afghan Border Police.

Last week's utilization of a 21,000 pound bomb to destroy an ISIS cave complex in Afghanistan was oddly met with jubilation. But as the dust settles, both literally and metaphorically, it is worth asking what we are celebrating.

While large explosions are interesting in and of themselves, the act of dropping the ‘Mother of All Bombs’ was given greater importance than the impact of the ordnance itself. Many saw it as a ‘turning point’ in the war and a ‘gloves off’ moment in the fight against ISIS. Unfortunately, neither interpretation holds, and the utilization of this bomb is only indicative of our continuing failures in Afghanistan.

For one, we’ve been dropping large bombs on Afghanistan for nearly sixteen years, including similar yet smaller bombs on Taliban and Al Qaeda strongholds. Indeed, the overall tonnage of ordnance dropped makes the MOAB an exceptionally small rounding error in the overall total. In the process the United States has killed thousands of members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and now regularly adds members of ISIS to that total. Yet despite all this bombing, transnational terrorist groups are still operating in Afghanistan.

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