The Crisis in Afghanistan
A Result of US Recklessness
The third anniversary of the end of the two decades of US war and occupation in Afghanistan coincides with a particularly contentious presidential election year in the US. Both the Democrats and Republicans are busy blaming each other for the fiasco. It is clear that Afghanistan has become yet another embarrassing episode in the long history of US imperial adventures which no one wants to take responsibility for.
Two of the top generals in the US army, Mark Miley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Kenneth McKenzie, former chief of US Central Command, who led the withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, testified in front of Congress earlier this year. They blamed both the Trump and Biden administrations for the disaster of US withdrawal.
Miley and McKenzie blame the Donald Trump administration for negotiating with the Taliban and signing the Doha agreement in February of 2020. Not only did the agreement exempt the Taliban from participating in any Afghan led peace process, it also forced the US-backed Afghan government to release 5,000 Taliban members from prison, strengthening the fundamentalist movement’s campaign against the government.
The Biden administration, the generals claim, failed to make timely decisions about the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, which created the chaos in which hundreds of Afghan citizens and 13 US servicemen were killed.
The death of 13 US servicemen during an attack at the Kabul airport at the time of the withdrawal on 26 August 2021 has become a key issue for the Trump campaign.
While both Trump and Biden agree Afghanistan was an “endless war” from which both wanted to withdraw, it seems that owning the outcome may have electoral repercussions. That is why, though Kamala Harris calls the decision to withdraw forces from Afghanistan, “the courageous and right decision to end America’s longest war” she blames Trump for the Taliban taking power in Afghanistan. At the same time, Trump calls the withdrawal the “most embarrassing moment” in American history, blaming Biden for his “incompetence.”
In this electioneering, the overall criminality of the occupation itself has become lost. As journalist Eugene Puryear of BreakThrough News told Peoples Dispatch, “the US never should have been in Afghanistan, and the end of the occupation was yet another reminder of the criminal imperial policies that callously took the lives of millions and destabilized multiple countries.”
The “Afghan people are sadly suffering the bitter consequences of the reckless policies of the Bush-Obama-Trump-Biden administrations,” Puryear said.
Humanitarian disaster
Neither of the US presidential hopefuls from the two dominant parties seem concerned about the Afghans who are forced to live under Taliban rule, especially after a two-decades-long war apparently waged to avoid that specific situation. This war cost the lives of nearly 200,000 people, including thousands of US soldiers, over USD 2 trillion of American taxpayers’ money, and prolonged the plight of millions of Afghans forced to live as refugees.
Last year, the Biden administration released a document on the withdrawal from Afghanistan. This document admits that the US had decided to withdraw from the country even after knowing that the Taliban would take power. The Taliban took over power in Kabul in the middle of August 2021, even when a large number of US forces were still present.
The document denies that the objective of the US invasion in Afghanistan was ever to “build a nation” after shaping and backing various governments since 2001. It claims the only objective behind the occupation was to tackle threats to the US, completely discrediting the participation of dozens of other countries and forces there.
The Biden administration pats itself in the back for carrying out the “largest airlift ever conducted in US history” between 14 and 31 August, and credits itself for releasing “critical assets” by withdrawing from Afghanistan. Because of those “critical assets” the US is able to “lead the world” today and focus on dealing with wars in Ukraine and alleged threats from China, it claims.
“It is hard to imagine the United States would have been able to lead the response to these challenges as successfully, especially in the resource intensive way that it has, if US forces remained in Afghanistan today,” the document reads.
Now that the occupation is over, the US has ignored the plight of millions of Afghans, particularly women, which was one of the key justifications of the initial invasion and occupation. It claims how Afghanistan became a burden at a time when “critical assets” were needed to sustain new wars.
The document claims terrorism was dealt a fatal blow in Afghanistan as they are incapable now to launch attacks against US interests. However, even this claim rings hollow when its own top military officials now talk about their lack of knowledge regarding the actual presence and capabilities of terrorist groups in Afghanistan today.
Meanwhile, over 44,000 Afghans remain stuck in Pakistan who worked with the international forces, mostly the US, in Afghanistan for the period of the occupation. They cannot go back home due to the fear of Taliban persecution. Despite repeated reminders, the Biden administration has failed to fulfill its promise to repatriate these refugees. These are a fraction of Afghan refugees all over the world which are facing increased pressure from their hosts to return.
The difference between the Biden administration’s boasting about the objectives of its occupation and the actual plight of Afghans, both inside Afghanistan and refugees, is what Puryear calls West’s belief that “the lives of those in the Global South are totally expendable, of use only insofar as it helps further the agendas of the empire.”
The indifference towards Afghan refugees “also represents a clear capitulation to racist anti-immigrant sentiment that codes all Afghans as terrorists. Ultimately, it speaks to the injustices imposed on so much of the globe by countries like the US, who invade, occupy, and plunder for their own benefit,” Puryear claims.