It’s been an electrifying two weeks for those of us who get our adrenaline rush out of the news cycle. A US-trained army in Afghanistan, equipped with state-of-the-art weapons and a modern air force, was rounded up and soundly beaten by bearded jihadists in open-toe shoes, Kalashnikovs on their backs.
The Afghan army meltdown was faster than that of hapless South African Olympians at empty sports arenas in Tokyo. Who else watched our women’s handball team conceding something like 20 goals in the first half of a match? The Olympics were two weeks of pure torture; on every channel you switched to a South African was getting a hiding or being left behind ... rugby, football, hockey, athletics. Man, we were eating dust even in recreational events. Our 46-year-old skateboarder was kicked in the teeth by 12-year-olds from Japan and Brazil.
But I digress.
The fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban and the ensuing humanitarian crisis at Kabul airport are no laughing matter. How desperate were those Afghanis on the first day of evacuations that they attempted to cling onto the landing gear of the US Air Force’s gigantic C-17 Globemaster 111 cargo aircraft as it took off? We watched in disbelief circulating video clips of bodies inevitably falling off as the plane gained momentum and got airborne.
When Osama bin Laden masterminded the attacks on the US’s World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001, it naturally elicited a strong response from the US. Its first target became Afghanistan, where intelligence indicated he was hiding, and the US swiftly occupied the country in search of their man. Though I wonder if Bin Laden was ever in those caves given the US found him 10 years later at a compound in neighbouring Pakistan, right under the eyes of Pakistani intelligence and military. The jury is still out on whether they weren’t always aware the world’s most wanted jihadist was shacking up with his harem smack in the middle of Pakistani suburbia.
But I digress once more.
The US and its allies invaded Afghanistan in search of terrorists. Why did they expand their mission to include regime change and, latterly, “nation-building”? Which nation were they trying to build for 20 years? Their misguided imperialistic adventure is unravelling badly. Also, if they were serious about building a nation, why didn’t they stay the course? Why give Afghan women hope that they have finally been liberated from the deranged religious fundamentalist ideology of the Taliban, only to let them down so badly with a miscalculated, hasty retreat? The US has provided the military buffer between North and South Korea for 60 years without any hint of a withdrawal. Why couldn’t they do the same in Afghanistan?
Can you believe that President Ashraf Ghani even discouraged the Americans from conducting mass evacuations at the last minute, when it became apparent the capital would fall, supposedly 'to avoid triggering a crisis of confidence'? Guess who was the first one confidently out of Kabul when the barbarians reached the gate?
US President Joe Biden was visibly upset at a press conference two weeks after having to cut short his retreat at Camp David to defend the decision to “drawdown” so hastily, and the embarrassing miscalculation of the Taliban advance. He stood firm in the assentation that he would not let American troops fight a war that Afghan troops had abandoned so meekly.
“So I’m left again to ask of those who argue that we should stay: how many more generations of America’s daughters and sons would you have me send to fight Afghans — Afghanistan’s civil war — when Afghan troops will not? How many more lives — American lives — is it worth? How many endless rows of headstones at Arlington National Cemetery?
“I’m clear on my answer: I will not repeat the mistakes we’ve made in the past — the mistake of staying and fighting indefinitely in a conflict that is not in the national interest of the United States, of doubling down on a civil war in a foreign country, of attempting to remake a country through the endless military deployments of US forces.”
Fair enough. President Ashraf Ghani fled like a thief in the night as the Taliban stalked Kabul, emerging safely in the United Arab Emirates. His countrymen and women don’t know what fate holds for them now that the fundamentalists are back.
Can you believe that Ghani even discouraged the Americans from conducting mass evacuations at the last minute, when it became apparent the capital would fall, supposedly “to avoid triggering a crisis of confidence”? Guess who was the first one confidently out of Kabul when the barbarians reached the gate?
The Americans had no business staying in Afghanistan this long, raising hope of a better future and more secure society, and then abandoning those poor people so cowardly. Despite their assurances to the contrary, we all know the Taliban will reverse the impressive gains made by especially the women of Afghanistan over the past two decades and eventually send them back to the Stone Age.
America abandoned them in a cruel manner and even in the face of his protestations, Biden will always be the president who betrayed the people of Afghanistan.
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